FF V & FF VI for the DS?

[Zargabaath]

As a select few may know that a producer from Square Enix has been tweeting a lot on what's going on. Shinji Hashimoto in his last tweet spoke about two remakes that haven't been announced - Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI for the DS. Hashimoto says currently there are technical issues as well, so these are also undecided. This part of his answer came in response to a question regarding Seiken Densetsu III releasing for the Virtual Console which S-E is undecided as well.


While I would like a remake for FFV and FFVI, I think I would prefer if they tried to put it on the PSP; I would like if they tried to make the characters have a realistic look, similiar to FFVIII. At least S-E have been discussing the future of those two titles.


Source: Technical Issues Holding Back Final Fantasy V and VI for DS on VGChartz.com

[loaf]

I doubt they will go to PSP, look at FFIII and IV, old NES game, got remade for DS. Only FF games I would see getting a good remake would be VII, VIII and IX. But VI and V being on the PSP remade would be way better, I honestly don't see that happening. Like I said, if they remade III and IV for the DS, I'm sure V and VI will be too, get rid of their pre Play Station remade.

[Xanatos]

While I welcome any news regarding the Final Fantasy V and VI remakes I'm not in particularly glad to see a DS console mentioned in the same line. Though it's not a bad console DS is still very limited in my opinion, and these two games deserve more than DS can offer. Remakes of Final Fantasy III and IV were nice to say the least, but imagine if they were made for PSP. They were certainly look better if nothing else and that's why I would love to see one of my favorite games (FF VI) being remade on PSP, but as Loaf said it's highly doubtful.

[T.G. Oskar]

I would agree at least with FF VI being remade for the PSP in grounds of one particular thing. That, of course, does not hinge on original cart size.

Reasonably, you could fit the entire Final Fantasy VI game and the graphical alterations using Matrix software on a DS Flash cart, but it would push the storage capability reasonably well (although maximum flash card size is yet undetermined); the largest storage size for a flash card thus far is 4 gigabits/512 MB, and both FF games done earlier on fit on a 1 gigabit flash card. FFVI for the DS would push that to 2 gigabits at most (given the size of characters, Espers, weapon designs, map and dungeons), and depending on how much they wish to push the limits of Matrix software, they could easily reach 3 gigabits (although most of that memory would be technically wasted; I'd give it 2.5 gigabit maximum with Matrix depending on the attention to detail). In comparison, the largest RP games for the SNES (Chrono Trigger with around 32 Mbits, Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean with 48 Mbits) were either re-released with the same graphics (case in point Chrono Trigger DS) or released for the PSP out of sheer size (Star Ocean, which was remade as First Departure).

One of the reasons I would be against a DS release would be just how well the Matrix software would be capable of handling the designs of the game. Not to say that FFIII or FFIV were badly designed, but the base designs for the game were pretty simple. Straight from the beginning, there would be a reasonable challenge in forming a city such as Narshe, and keep it as visually appealing as the original game presented it (even though, in reality, the cities were quite small). There are two main ways to go, and that is either keeping it simple and attempt to deal with less details, or push the software to the limits and work with all the detail of the game (which is quite a difficult task).

Now, given the new crew that just joined (Taito, for example), there's a pretty strong counter-argument for the viability of said releases on a DS cart, using graphics close to the quality of Estpolis: the Land Cursed by the Gods. While it uses a simplified menu system and the graphics of monsters are not bad (but not detailed either), the graphical detail is pretty surprising. I cannot vouch for the amount of memory it took to create the game (and consider that the combat is pretty much in real time), and I wouldn't have any trouble in having Final Fantasy VI be a DS release with such details. Main problem is that Estpolis turned a bit more action-adventure than traditional cJRPG given the real-time combat and 3-D platformer exploration.

Having said that (hopefully to encourage discussion), the main reason why I would want it to be a PSP release is mostly because of the lack of support for the system, in terms of RPG releases. The DS has turned into the definite RPG system (in terms of portability), and the PSP only has some of the PlayStation Store support (which requires a really big memory stick and some luck having the game you want; not to mention I'm not a fan of the presentation). FFV and FFVI are pretty traditional RPGs, and they wouldn't make much use of the dual screen; in fact, it would be pretty bothersome. On the PSP, they could make a better use of the widescreen. Those two factors make a PSP release a tad more viable than a DS release and I don't have anything against a remake of the game in any version, so as long as it's good; it doesn't have to be Estpolis quality or Romancing SaGa: MS quality or even Lost Odyssey/Final Fantasy XIII quality.

[Jonathanx221]

Putting them on the PSP would be smart, but I see them going to DS. Either way, I own both systems so it's a win win, but I really prefer the classics, but I hate 5. So seeing it remade... maybe I'd actually wanna play it and finish it. I really can't stand it..... I don't know why, I'm at the end of it. Ahahaha.