Final Fantasy VII Remake Revisited Chapter 4: Mad Dash
We’re taking a deep dive into the fourth chapter of Final Fantasy VII Remake with the wonderful development team who brought the game to life!This year is Final Fantasy VII’s 25th Anniversary - and the celebrations have begun!
As part of the ongoing festivities, the development team behind Final Fantasy VII Remake have graciously agreed to dive deeper into the game than ever before.
Over the coming months we’ll be revisiting their thoughts, memories, and anecdotes from the creation of the game. Check out previous chapters here:
- Final Fantasy VII Remake Revisited Chapter 1
- Final Fantasy VII Remake Revisited Chapter 2
- Final Fantasy VII Remake Revisited Chapter 3
If you've yet to play Final Fantasy VII Remake, go and play it now, and if you read on...
...please beware of spoilers.
With that warning out of the way, let’s push it past the redline…
This chapter doesn't appear in the original FFVII at all, what was the process the team went through to decide this new section should be added, and why it should be added during this part of FFVII Remake?
One thing we placed emphasis on when fleshing out the story in Midgar was adding depth to the relationship between Cloud and Avalanche. By having Cloud work together with Jesse and the others on the night before heading to Reactor 5, we could show their private relationships, how they became closer and how the friendship between them deepened, thus making it possible to empathise with them more.
The Rector 5 bombing mission follows directly on from Reactor 1, so we only had the night before the mission to insert any private episodes.
We also set the objective of showing more of the relations between Barret's offshoot Avalanche group and the main organisation, which was not really depicted much in the original game.
Motomu Toriyama (Co-Director (Scenario Design))
In addition to Avalanche, Roche is one of the other big features of Chapter 4, but he wasn’t actually included in Mr. Nojima's script from the beginning.
He was originally planned to simply be a SOLDIER operative who was a skilled rider, to be the boss for the G-Bike section, but we felt that it would be fun for the player and only be proper to have the boss of G-Bike also appear as the boss for the battle in the 7-6 Annex.
After that, Mr. Toriyama and Mr. Nojima gave him a unique personality and incorporated him into the story.
Naoki Hamaguchi (Co-Director (Game Design / Programming)
In the scene where the team are making a parachute drop, if you look closely, you can see Wedge's cheeks wobbling from the wind pressure!
You can get a sense of the development team's attention to detail in this scene, but did the scenario team specifically ask for this detail or was it something added by the facial team?
The facial animation team proposed doing this immediately after seeing the scenario. Our reasons were very simple, as we felt it would look funny to have Wedge's cheeks flapping around, and we had never done anything like that before, so we wanted to give it a go.
The character team and the programmers collaborated along the way too and tested lots of simulations on the skin movement, resulting in a much higher quality wobble effect than I had initially imagined. I was amazed when I saw it in the cut scene for the first time and re-watched that scene over and over.
Akira Iwasawa (Facial Director)
Roche was introduced in this chapter for the very first time, not having appeared in the original FFVII, and very little about him is shared with the player. What can you tell us about his backstory or motivations?
He is an eccentric SOLDIER 3rd class operative who fervently loves his bike and his mates who he has bike races with. He is basically a speed freak.
Roche was also a special case in that he is the first ever Shinra bike soldier to advance to join SOLDIER.. He is skilled enough to rise to 1st class but stubbornly sticks to bike-based operations, so hasn't even been recommended for 2nd class yet. Roche himself seems fine with this arrangement though.
That is the background we thought up for this character.
Motomu Toriyama (Co-Director (Scenario Design))
We love Jessie's Theme! What can you tell us about its composition? What themes were you trying to evoke and how pleased are you with the track overall? Was it ever going to sound drastically different?
Co-director Toriyama had requested that Mr. Hamauzu create Jessie's theme. He makes very technical and complex music but has also created numerous tracks with really haunting and impactful melodies, so that was factored into asking Mr. Hamauzu to do it.
There are two arrangements of Jesse's theme used in the game, one with an acoustic guitar and the other using an orchestra, but if you have a good melody then the beauty of the piece will not change regardless of the actual arrangement. You can really hear that in this track.
Keiji Kawamori (Music Supervisor)
The game must have had lots of new sound effects recorded. Were sounds like the bike engines etc. recorded from scratch?
We did record all the sound assets for the bike engines. We had a professional stunt rider perform all kinds of different manoeuvres and captured the sounds of those. It was not just riding around normally but we also had him doing things like maintaining various engine rotation speeds, performing wheelies and sliding too. This allowed us to capture assets with a good range of modulation.
We then used the raw sounds we recorded and manipulated them for FF7R to produce a final set of effects that are used both in-game and in the cut scenes.
Makoto Ise (Sound Director)
During this chapter we receive a tutorial on Summoning Materia. FFVII Remake features Ifrit, Chocobo & Moogle, Shiva, Fat Chocobo, Leviathan, Bahamut, Carbuncle, Cactuar and Chocobo Chick, as well as Ramuh in Episode Intermission, were any other Summons planned during development?
At an early stage of development, we looked over the line-up of summons in the original FFVII and decided to go with Ifrit, Chocobo and Moogle, Shiva, Fat Chocobo, Leviathan and Bahamut, for a roster of 6.
The reason Leviathan was included is because he was featured in the original FFVII demo, so I personally wanted him in the first Remake too. We then also added Carbuncle, Cactuar and Chocobo Chick as pre-order bonuses.
It costs a lot of development resources to create a summon, so there weren't any that we planned for but discarded. We strived to be as accurate as possible in the planning and then stuck to that plan until the final version.
Naoki Hamaguchi (Co-Director (Game Design / Programming)
Roche was a tricky foe to defeat the first time around, is this the part of FFVII Remake the team were hoping players would start to take advantage of Cloud's counter while in Punisher Mode, if they weren't doing so already?
This fight was positioned to get the player to use punisher mode and all the other abilities they have to gain a deeper understanding of the battle system.
Of course, it is fine if there are some moves that you don't use, but we wanted to get across that the more nuances of the system that you understand, the easier combat will be.
Teruki Endo (Battle Director)
The adorable cats are a common theme throughout FFVII Remake, is someone on the team a huge cat fan?
I don't know if you could call it a "common theme" or not, but the team do all love cats (and dogs too of course)!
One story is how our co-director Mr. Hamaguchi, who is himself a cat lover, lent us a photograph of his American short hair when we were looking for models for the cats in-game. It played a big role in implementing the cats.
Yuma Watanabe (Senior Assistant Producer)
I felt that the bike race mini-game paid great respect to the original version, but also added something new. What did you take particular care on when creating the bike battles and were there any difficulties when it came to balancing it with the original game?
It is not the kind of mini-game that you play and complete over and over, so we aimed to keep the core gameplay as simple and intuitive as possible.
If we created a traditional bike game where you needed to develop good technique to drive well, it would take time for the player to get used to the controls, so we made the cornering on the track automatic. This lets the player concentrate on moving left and right to aim at their target and makes it easy to control the bike itself.
Naoki Hamaguchi (Co-Director (Game Design / Programming)
It appears that the Whispers intentionally appear here to cause Jessie's ankle injury, leading to Cloud being forced to take on the next mission with Avalanche, just like in the original FFVII… What can you tell us about this sequence of events?
In Remake, Cloud's mercenary contract with Avalanche is discontinued before the Reactor 5 mission and he was not intending to accompany the others, but the Whispers interfere to keep the destined timeline unchanged, and he ends up going with them after all.
Motomu Toriyama (Co-Director (Scenario Design))
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this third chapter of Final Fantasy VII Remake Revisited and are looking forward to learning more from behind the scenes of the game over the coming months.
Make sure you share this article with your friends on social media and we hope you’re looking forward to Chapter 5 next week!
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is available on PS5, Steam and Epic Games Store while Final Fantasy VII Remake is available on PS4.
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