According to a recent rumor, Square Enix will be releasing the Final Fantasy VII remake in two parts. The rumor comes from a Reddit post by user SquareElSegundo, who claims to work in the localization branch of Square Enix in El Segundo, California.
Two of the points made in the post stand out among others. First, the leaked post claims that the game will be broken into two episodes, which are considered “full games” and will be $59.99 each. The ending of the first episode would be one of the most iconic scenes in the game, which, for the sake of spoilers, will not be discussed here.
Second, the post claims that Yuffie and Vincent will no longer be optional characters. Up to a certain point in the story, players may “miss” them, but afterwards, they will become mandatory and join through a scripted event. If true, this is a nice inclusion for Vincent, who is integral to the events before the main story. In the original game, it was easy for players to miss him, as the clues leading to him were rather cryptic and could easily be missed.
Some of the other points made in the leak are as follows:
- Materia will be visible is most weapons, but not in accessories. Accessories won't appear on your character model. Weapons will be placed on the model while equipped and exploring out of combat.
- Casting spells will consume ATB along with MP, with more bars granted as the game progresses.
- There will be a demo provided on the game floor of E3, with a PSN demo available shortly after for players who have PlayStation Plus.
- Shin-Ra Headquarters will have only a few floors, but there will be more to do on each. This may be due to the fact that the original game had a long series of stairs that the player needed to manually navigate when exiting the building.
- Red XIII will have other clones named Cobalt XIV and Indigo XV that must be dealt with before joining the party.
- Cid will not appear smoking in the game, but there will be evidence that he does. He will also be less aggressive to Shera.
Some points from the Reddit post were omitted, as they did not provide new or interesting information. For example, one point discusses how Tifa will be dressed similar to how she was in both the original game and movie Advent Children.
With E3 around the corner, we will hopefully have more information in the near future. For now, these points should be taken with a large grain of salt.