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Square-Enix explains why now's the time for Final Fantasy VIII Remastered, and looks back on the Gunblade prop they used for motion capture

I need to see this prop
by rawmeatcowboy
14 July 2019
GN Version 5.0

Final Fantasy VIII Remastered was one of the surprise titles announced at E3 2019, and fans were extremely happy to see the game getting a second chance on today's platforms. In an interview with Famitsu (translated by NintendoEverything), Square Enix’s Yoshinori Kitase explained why now was the right time to return to the title.

Even if the current hardware keeps moving forward, we still want fans of the series to be able to play the original games. The plan to port FFVII, FFVIII and FFIX started from that wish. But while FFVII and FFIX were able to move along pretty smoothly to being available for purchase, with those improved capabilities of recent hardware, we decided to give FFVIII a large graphical improvement. We had to keep retesting to maintain the quality of the character models and character motions, and I think we will be providing with the highest quality product we can.

Kitase himself was involved with the creation of the original Final Fantasy VIII. When asked about memories from the game's development, he looked back on a particular interesting tidbit from the game's motion capture session.

This was the first time we used motion capture for the characters, and also the first experience any of the staff had with motion capture. Even though it would have made more sense to use something wooden and light to capture the movements of Squall’s Gunblade, we ended up making something really heavy out of metal. And it really did look like a deadly weapon! I still get cold sweats thinking about what might have happened if someone ended up being hit by it…

[Link]