Final Fantasy XII Could See HD Remaster (If You Buy FFX HD)
HD remasters of Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 are due out on the PS3 and PS Vita this fall. In typical fashion, Square Enix is taking forever to finish them — an HD remaster of two Kingdom Hearts games was announced and will release before these two — but the results look promising. Since they look so good, what are the chances of the PS2’s other single-player FF game, Final Fantasy XII, getting an HD remaster? Actually, it could happen.
Yoshinori Kitase warned, “We’ll have to wait and see if these remasters are going to be successful, first… If they do well, I think this will pave the way for more of the previous games to [be] remade in an HD sort of quality.” But with multiple FF games to choose from, what does he think of FFXII? “I mean, if we had to single out one of the vast number of Final Fantasy titles which we could make in HD, it would have to be Final Fantasy XII.” He continued: “What I can say though is that I hope the remastering of X and X-2 will trigger similar projects for more of the past games.”
It makes sense technologically too. FFXI is an MMORPG, which isn’t a good candidate for HD remastering — they likely want you to switch over to FFXIV too! Meanwhile, earlier games like FFI–FFVI would need full remakes because they are sprite-based. And while many clamor for HD versions of FFVII–FFIX, those games made extensive use of prerendered backgrounds, which barely look serviceable in the recent uprezzed PC versions; an HD remaster of those games would require both new models and redone backgrounds.
On the other hand, FFXII is in 3D, with art assets and textures that respond well to higher resolutions (as seen on PS2 emulators). It just makes sense to do FFXII, even if some fans didn’t enjoy the radical changes it made. And like FFX and FFX-2, it would be a good opportunity to implement the bonus content of the Japan-only “international edition,” including the fully revamped job system.
Personally, I only just completed an extensive playthrough of FFXII on PS2 (including defeating superbosses like Yiazmat), so I’m in no rush to play it again. But many people might, and it’s certainly a game that deserves to be seen at higher resolutions to fully take in some of the delicate environmental designs. Would this be something for PS3? Or something that works better on PS4?
Source: Crunchyroll