So while I say that I want us to be authentic, I would improve in areas where you can without destroying the authenticity. A lot of people are turned off by the battles – they’re probably the slowest in the franchise. “ Final Fantasy IX is a slow game, and people know that. “I think battles are one thing that I would really like to reimagine, but not in the way that you might expect,” Eder says. Once the Alexandria portion of the game is done, the next milestone is to implement a battle system. The team plans to implement mechanics into it, but only to showcase how things would look in a modern game – never with the intention of anyone playing. That’s not to say Memoria Project will just be a scene in a game engine, though. If Square did decide to move forward with this in an official capacity, it would have to be a much larger team and with the financial backup to support that.” We’re using nothing from the original game. A lot of fans send in messages saying, ‘I hope you release the whole game.’ That’s kind of a misunderstanding of what we’re trying to do. “I would love to do that, but we’re so far away from that reality right now that it’s not even remotely possible with the size of a team, especially considering this is all volunteer work. “We just want one to provide a sort of what-if scenario, but actually making the whole game like that? That’s an entirely different situation,” Eder says. The Alexandria portion of the game – which the Memoria Project has been focusing on – accounts for less than one percent of Final Fantasy IX. Rendering all of that at today’s graphical fidelity is a Herculean effort. There’s a reason the Final Fantasy VII Remake didn’t even cover the entire first disc of the three-disc PlayStation original – these worlds are huge and filled with towns, cities and characters. If that hypothetical scenario were to arise, however, the team would have to increase in size dramatically. As long as we get their consent, then we can start planning out how do we make this an actual playable game.” In a hypothetical situation that I get an email from Square Enix now and they say, ‘Let’s see if we can make this an actual product,’ then we can work towards that. “We would be able to do locally, but not publicly. “Even if we did want to publish it, it’s not optimized to be run publicly,” Eder says. In mid-2022, Memoria Project will release another trailer showing off more characters in a longer, “more exciting” sequence than the first trailer. In other words, we’ll just have to make do with trailers and screenshots. The team is experienced enough that it could create something playable, but the goal here is to not get the project shut down. Going into this project, one of my main things was, I am going to make sure that I don’t step on Square Enix’s toes or put myself in jeopardy, legally. “We’re not intending to make it playable. “Even calling it a ‘game’ is tricky,” Eder explains. To avoid getting lawyered out of existence, Memoria Project will never be downloadable or playable in any way to anyone outside of the core development team. Fan games get shut down all the time because big corporations need to protect their IP. Memoria Project isn’t a game – it’s an art piece. There are currently around 30 people working on it in their spare time, alongside full-time jobs at major studios.īut don’t get too excited if the original game means the same to you. More experienced game developers who were fond of Final Fantasy IX wanted to lend their talents to Memoria Project. So we started working together on remaking that whole tavern area of Alexandria.”Īs soon as the pair posted screenshots of their initial work, applications started rolling in. So I reached out to him and he instantly liked the idea. That game has gorgeous environments, and I saw some Final Fantasy fan art on his portfolio. “So I reached out to Colin Valek, who works at Sucker Punch on Ghost of Tsushima. “But then I was like, ‘You know what, let’s try to take this a step further, let’s try to put this in an environment and have a mock-up of a Final Fantasy IX remake,’” Eder says. And it’s done in such a subtle way – a way that really honors the player.”Īfter studying the concept art for Vivi, Eder wanted to create a model of how the character would look with modern graphics. That turns everything upside down and then he starts questioning the meaning of life. And then he’s faced with the reality of his own demise. He starts off happy and kind of light-hearted. “If you’ve played the game, it’s quite a story with Vivi,” Eder says.
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