Final Fantasy VIIprobably holds the honour of being the most conspicuously un-remade game in history. Between the consistently rabid-fan love for the game, that PS3 demo, the PC re-release and Square-Enix's increasing reliance on back-catelogue rehashes, the fact that FFVII hasn't made a bigger repeat splash is the Meteo-wielding elephant in the room.
Fans could have been forgiven for expecting a new portable version to be on the cards soon though. Square-Enix is set to have the first six games in the series available on iOS and Android by the end of the year, leaving a seemingly obvious next step. But apparently is it not to be. Once more numero seven is being spurned for a do-over, and once more that spurning seems to be an indefinite state of affairs.
Speaking to ShackNews, S-E Producer Takashi Tokita has claimed that current hardware limitations will make a mobile version of the 16 year-old game impossible for a good long time to come.
"Unfortunately, it's not that it's not impossible for us to develop Final Fantasy VII for mobile. It's that currently, space will be an issue. Phones won't be able to contain the space it takes. It's over a gigabyte. People are probably going to have to wait a few years"
Apple's current size limit for iOS games is 2Gb. The recent PC re-release of FFVII game in at around 3Gb. Given that that version was an enhanced release with full, high-res diasplay support, it's perhaps surprising that the game can't be further compressed for a shrunk-down mobile version, but then again, that games does have a lot of cutscenes.
