Supposedly, that long-rumoured Final Fantasy 9 Remakeis in trouble. If true, that’s a real shame. I love FF9,and I’m hardly alone. ButFinal Fantasyfans are nothing if not multifaceted, and for as long as I’ve pined for more from Zidane, I’ve had it lodged in my head that a Final Fantasy 8 remake would be just as rad.
Evidently, I’m far from alone. Thanks to the PC version of last year’s phenomenalFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirth, fans are modding the ever-loving heck out of it, and now, a Redditor with unyielding loyalty to a certain gunblade-toting, card-playing, hero is bringing Balamb Garden’s best and brightest all the way to Nibelheim and Kalm.
Squall, Rinoa, and… Yuna, Welcome To The Mako-Poisoned World Of Queen’s Blood
UserReforgedStudiois, er, reforging a couple of Final Fantasy 8 characters with a more realistic flair. While Final Fantasy 9 has always been known for a far more whimsical aesthetic, its direct predecessor was praised at launch for being one of the most stunningly realistic-looking JRPGs ever made. Which makes its art style a solid fit for the relative realism of Final Fantasy 7’s three-part reimagining.
First spotted byKotaku, this work-in-progress mod aims to show the remake-starved FF8 fandom what a hypothetical full-fledged remake might be like. When their work is finished, Squall Leonhart and his heroine love interest Rinoa Heartilly can be added to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth files everywhere, alongside… Yuna?
Yeah, chatter of a pie-in-the-sky FF8 remake will always make for great headlines, but curiously, ReforgedStudio is putting the excellent Final Fantasy 10’s own heroine into the mix, as well. While Squall’s model will replace Cloud’s, and Rinoa’s will stand in for Aerith’s, progress is being made on a Yuna mod that willl sidestep Tifa instead.
You can peruse all the SeeDy goodness via a pair of Reddit posts. Highlights from thefirstinclude Squall in action and Rinoa offering a friendly ear to her canonical best friend, Yuna. Thesecondpost is more of a general “here’s the trio” overview. And yes, Rinoa’s eyes are presently terrifying; ReforgedStudio is expressly aware, and working on a fix.
Then again, not to vaguely spoil plot points from a game that came out before the turn of the millennium, but Rinoa does sport some pretty scary powers. Maybe it’s just foreshadowing, innit? All I know is that I now want Triple Triad with the sleek HD presentation of Queen’s Blood. It’s not much to ask, Square Enix.
Elsewhere in the land of moogles and chocobos,Final Fantasy 14ishitting a rough slump, and the ever-tumultuous “bring back turn-based” debate has sparked some Ifrit-sized flames yet again now thatNaoki Yoshida has briefly weighed in on it.
