Final Fantasy 8’s director shares what he would change in a remake as the game hits its 25th anniversary

Final Fantasy 8 is now 25 years old, and in a recent interview, the game’s director spoke about quite a big change he would make if the game received a remake.

While Final Fantasy 7 Remake has proven to be pretty popular, overall, the idea of other games in the series getting the same treatment feels a bit unlikely – and in the case of some games, if one were to happen, it would probably take decades. There are no plans for a Final Fantasy 8 remake, but speaking to IGN, director of the game and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth producer Yoshinori Kitase spoke about the junction system, and the changes he would make to it in a hypothetical remake for the game’s 25th anniversary.

“I think you may remember we had the junction system in Final Fantasy 8,” Kitase said. “And the thing about that system was the enemies levelled up in line with what the player’s level was. And obviously you had to then use the Junction system and how you customise that to overcome the challenge there. And I think it was a very difficult system for some people to get into. Depending on player skills, sometimes they just didn’t work out the best way of doing it.

“So I think I’d want to return to that and really rework the battle system on [Final Fantasy 8] and make it something where that level of difficulty and approachability for some fans was a lot better balanced. So I think that’s the thing I’d look at most if I was going to look at remaking it.”

Much like what Kitase has said of attempting to remake Final Fantasy 6, Kitase also noted the length of time it would take to remake something like Final Fantasy 7, saying, “I’ve worked out that trying to recreate that kind of volume of content you had in the RPGs back then in the modern day really is not something you can take up lightly. It’s such a massive investment of time and effort that we really have to think very hard about taking on any kind of project like that.”

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi also jokingly said that if Kitase were to say they should remake another numbered Final Fantasy game, and Kitase was on the project, he’ll “just turn around and go, ‘No!'”

If you were thinking about revisiting Final Fantasy 8, our own Dom thinks that it’s a great game to check out for Valentine’s Day. Or if you’re more just excited about Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, you could also check out Alex’s final hands-on preview of the game ahead of its February 29th release date.