In a new interview with Masaaki Kazeno, Dai Suzuki, and Hiroyuki Nakamura of the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Development Team, CDWORLD.jp shared new development assets that were previously unreleased. The article focuses on the power of the PlayStation 5 and how the team was able to improve upon the assets found in FFVII Remake. Close-ups of Cloud and Aerith’s hair were showcased, and we even saw a comparison of Tifa’s skirt and Aerith’s eyes.
The team was able to improve upon assets like hair without completely retooling their designs. This involved creating a natural, thinner look overall to each of the character’s hair, especially when in motion. Take a look at a few of the comparisons of development assets in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth below:
In addition, the interview shared that Cid Highwind’s design was heavily consulted on with Tetsuya Nomura to make the character look “less old.” As the oldest member of the party at 32, the team likely aimed to show a bit of age compared to the characters in their younger twenties.
Additionally, it was shared that Yuffie’s model was not remade like the other characters but simply reused from Final Fantasy VII Remake Episode INTERmission. However, Nomura made changes to the design to the point that 70% of her Rebirth model is new.
CDWORLD.jp also revealed that the model for Odin’s Sleipnir originally had six legs to match the original Final Fantasy VII, but this was later changed to eight legs upon consulting with Tetsuya Nomura. As Hiroyuki Nakamura shared, Nomura wanted the horse to have eight legs to match the mythology behind it.
In Part 1 of this interview series with CDWORLD.jp, Naoki Hamaguchi shared that the team needs to assess the pros and cons of UE5, but they will consider it. He states that he believes the thing players want the most is getting the final game as soon as possible. If the team believes switching to Unreal Engine 5 will accelerate the timeline for the final Final Fantasy VII Remake title, they’ll switch over, but if not, they may decide to continue on Unreal Engine 4.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is available now for PlayStation 5, with future platforms possible now that the exclusivity period over. Be sure to check out our 5/5 review of the game, where we stated, “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a generational RPG that exemplifies everything there is to love about the medium.”
