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You’re probably aware of Square Enix’s lengthy and somewhat lavish efforts to remake the 1997 game Final Fantasy VII. The second instalment of this ambitious remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, was released just recently, and we’re still likely to be years away from any sort of conclusion. But you might not be aware of an earlier attempt to remake Final Fantasy VII – or more specifically, to demake it.
In 2005, a company called Shenzhen Nanjing Technology released a 2D version of Final Fantasy VII for the Subor line of bootleg Famicom consoles (AKA Famiclones). Although necessarily cut down to fit within the capabilities of 8-bit technology, this demake nevertheless managed to pack in most of the plot points from the 32-bit PlayStation game, and it was just one of many ambitious demakes from the time.
“A lot of bootleg developers were taking popular games in the West and then making Famicom versions of them, because the Famiclones were more prevalent in China,” explains Ian Larson, a graduate student instructor at the University of California Irvine, who has just completed a PhD on bootleg consoles and their cultural impact around the world.
Famiclones and other bootleg consoles were rife in China at the time, and are still being produced in great numbers today. The country’s lax intellectual property laws aided their proliferation, and the high tariffs attached to importing electronic goods meant it was costly or even impossible to access legitimate machines. In fact, the Chinese government banned the import and sale of consoles in 2000, a ban that was only lifted in 2013.
A few consoles escaped the ban: for example, Nintendo created the Chinese subsidiary company iQue to release the iQue Player in 2003, a version of the Nintendo 64 where the console and controller were combined into one unit. But it sold poorly, no doubt partly because it was far more expensive than the incredibly cheap bootleg consoles that were widely available through the black market. Indeed, by the end of the 1990s, manufacturers had squeezed all of the functions of a Famicom onto a single chip, making Famiclones even easier and cheaper to produce. “Once the NES-on-a-chip came on the scene,” says Larson, “all you really needed was a case.”
The Subor line of Famiclones produced by Xiaobawang Company were some of the most popular, although many of them were rebranded as educational devices to appease wary parents and the staunchly anti-video-game Chinese government. Hence we have models like the SB-486D, known as the ‘Chinese English Learning Machine’, which comes with a keyboard. But there was still huge demand for games, and Chinese gamers were no doubt aware of big releases from Japan and the US, like Final Fantasy VII. “There's an audience that wants to at least experience them in some way,” says Larson, and a Famiclone demake “is an interesting way to do it.”
Shenzhen Nanjing Technology produced a number of Famiclone demakes of popular titles. “They did a version of Pokémon Yellow on the NES,” says Larson, which was essentially a colour version of the Game Boy original. “They also did a Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap demake on the NES, which has the same areas, but it's actually a turn-based RPG.”
However, one of the company’s most popular and infamous releases was Final Fantasy VII, which appears to be a reworked version of the early Final Fantasy NES games, where the story and characters have been changed to match the plot of Final Fantasy VII. “It is maybe somewhat ROM hacking, but there's additional labour that's being put in that I would say goes beyond a ROM hack.”
Larson has played some of the original, Chinese language-only version of the Final Fantasy VII demake from 2005, but he has also played through the entirety of a patched version from 2013 that was created over four years by members of the Romhacking.net community, led by a programmer called Lugia2009. This version was based on an earlier 2008 English translation of the original Chinese game, but it fixes many of the gameplay issues, and updates the graphics to more closely resemble the PlayStation game, as well as adding in things like more music tracks and optional bosses.
“It's a very interesting game,” says Larson. “It's notoriously difficult – there are random spikes of difficulty. But if you push through it, it's an interesting little game that represents how fans see Final Fantasy VII.” Despite balancing issues and technical problems, he thinks that if it had been released officially on the NES, it would have been seen in a positive light. “It’s a faithful recreation of the game, just in 2D,” he says. “Lugia2009 did some really interesting stuff converting the iconic look of Midgar or the Golden Saucer into 2D."
Not everything from the 1997 PlayStation version of Final Fantasy VII made it in, which is to be expected given the constraints of the Famicom technology. The game essentially misses out most of the content from discs 2 and 3, instead skipping from the end of disc 1 to the final confrontation with Sephiroth, and the elaborate cut scenes have been replaced with sprite animations or simple text. But Larson was nevertheless surprised by how many of the side quests and subplots were included, such as the segment with RedXIII and his father, and the storyline where Barret confronts his former best friend Dyne, "which is not a thing that I would have necessarily thought that they would put in, but good on them for putting it in there.”
We should be celebrating people coming to games rather than denying their experiences as being the 'incorrect' path.
Although necessarily cut down, Larson argues that this Famicom demake warrants attention. “It feels like a different version of Final Fantasy VII that can only be experienced in that form,” he says, something that should be considered as another take on a game that has already been reworked several times, including for mobile phones. Indeed, he has written an essay arguing that bootleg games such as these should be regarded as legitimate in their own right.
“The demake is another artist’s interpretation of that game, in the same way that the 2020 remake is an interpretation of the original,” he says. “In that article, I argue for the legitimacy of these as more than just pirate versions. I argue that it adds texture to the history of Final Fantasy VII, and we can question whether or not the version that we received in the English-speaking world was even the original version of Final Fantasy VII. So why do we deny this other version that is an interpretation? As Foucault would say, it's never great to look for the origins of things. Once you start holding the origin up as a thing that is important to us, you lose the value of anything that comes after it.”
One thing that the Final Fantasy VII demake brings home is that the history of video games is wildly different across different countries. It’s something I highlight in my book, Curious Video Game Machines: gamers in Korea, for example, are more likely to have played on the Daewoo Zemmix than the Super Nintendo, and Polish players of a certain age will have fond memories of the Pegasus. And Famiclones like this were still being widely played in many countries well into the 21st century, often because ‘official’ consoles like the PlayStation 2 or GameCube were either too expensive for the majority of the population or simply weren’t distributed in some regions.
“Some markets are just a few generations behind because of that lack of support, and because of the distribution networks that they get,” says Larson. “But I don't think that makes them any less meaningful, or makes those experiences of coming to games any less legitimate. We should be celebrating people coming to games rather than denying their experiences as being the 'incorrect' path. As long as they’re playing, I think that's good.”
Comments 55
Long time ago, I had ever played FF VII PS1 by pirated disc but I don't want to play it anymore as I felt the franchise got over milking and I felt repulsed to see ultra realistic graphics and terrible story branches.
It made me don't like FF 7 and never care about them anymore.
Even I didn't touch FF VII Switch version from FF 7 + 8 Deluxe, I only played FF 8 as it was my really teenhood.
@Serpenterror Yes most people seemed to like it. Both critics, newcomers and old fans alike.
You can say you didn't like the remakes and it's perfect, but saying that they are garbage is nothing more than bait. "I know which one is garbage" Yes, everyone else is bad you are right....
@Serpenterror I'll second you on that. I have played both Remake and Rebirth and they are pretty bad imo. The best parts I found was when they stayed away from the terrible combat mechanics. The 'open world' of rebirth just gave them an excuse to fill it with boring repetitive busywork that ruins most open world games.
Honestly don't think modern SE has it in them to do justice to any of the older classics.
This demake looks cute though and really interesting to see if SE did stick to sprite based over the 3D hurdle.
@Anti-Matter I really don't understand why SE and people continue to want more Final Fantasy 7 games, it is definitely overdone.
As a fellow lover of FF8, I am glad that hasn't had it's udders ruined
@XenoShaun Probably because of it's historical place in SE history. And one that probably stands out as the most recognizable in the franchise.
I didn't play the original growing up, and FF7 remake isn't so bad. I think by trying to split a single game into 3 separate ones, did harm to the pacing.
The opening chapters of the remake are awesome, but to pad out the game it's filled with some very dull moments.
I don’t know what the deleted comments said precisely but I gather it was critical of the FF7 Remakes. I didn’t really like it either. I didn’t finish the first one and haven’t played Rebirth. In general, over the last few years, I have felt more and more alienated from modern gaming and the FF7 Remake is a perfect example of why. Darn near everything they did to modernize the game, except for graphical upgrades, made the game worse IMO. Yet people praised it all day long, despite it being so clearly inferior to the original game. How is this possible??? Truly, as they say, it’s just all subjective…
This is really cool, but I personally would have preferred that they went with a SNES version using FF6's visual style instead.
It’s always interesting hearing about fan demakes, I feel like there was a cool Kirby and the Forgotten Land one for gameboy or something.Personally I’m not all that interested in Final Fantasy.
Square Enix has been making many questionable moves and trying to chase what they think is going to be a big trend, which I don’t exactly appreciate. Most trends don’t end up being actual trends and then Square Enix pretends it never happened.
I feel like when you make a remake, it’s fine to change things, but most of the time I prefer if remakes are more faithful to the original (Like Link’s Awakening and TTYD), which sadly it seems Final Fantasy does the opposite.
Great article, as someone who grew up in the tumultuous early 2000s in Romania, I remember when people were either gaming on PC and Internet Cafes, or had some Famiclone. I had a Terminator when I was very young at my grandma’s house for a brief period of time, and I underline brief because they were of really crappy build quality and broke easy. Rich kids had relatives who bought older consoles like PS1 from the West and brought them as gifts, or smuggled them from Yugoslavia as they were more widely available there.
When they started selling legitimate consoles here, they were pretty expensive and they became more mainstream after 2005-2006 I believe. A PS2 for example would have cost a bit over 200 dollars in 2003 (when the monthly wage here was around 100).
While those clones’ existence seems “disgusting” nowadays (they still are numerous in certain parts of the world), they served as an introduction to the world of gaming for many people
@Bratwurst35 I remember when I was younger I did get quite excited to see Final Fantasy 7 get a movie, even though I didn't think it was overall a great movie but did have some fantastic spectacle. But I generally find - especially nowadays - that everything good tends to get ruined by greed of being overdone. I played FF7 when it came out in UK and did enjoy it for what it was, then it seems every subsequent attempt to get money out of it has declined in quality and weakens the 'FF7 IP'. I still believe all the problems in the 7 universe would be solved if Cloud and Sephiroth just got a room together though!!
I checked this out on an emulator once a few years ago it seemed decent but i never really got very far into it. Is it worth playing through?
@PikminMarioKirby I believe it was a fan-game done in the Kirby's Adventure style, not the Game Boy style.
@N0SEGaming Oh okay, thanks for the clarification!
That Minish Cap one actually sounds pretty interesting. Is there any footage I can watch?
I was able to get this demake from someone in Russia who had flashed the patch to the original Chinese cart about 10 years ago. One of my never-gonna-give-you-up items. The cart is extra heavy for some reason.
I wish the translation/hacking team were able to get the enemies properly zoned so it wasn't completely randomized what you would encounter, but this whole project is a great achievement. I'd love to have an FFVII demake FFVI style, and play that on my GBA.
@Kirbyo I don't remember if I have Minish or ALTTP for NES, but there should be videos on YouTube. Beware of your volume though, as these bootlegs usually have really awful, terrible, grating, make-you-want-to-rip-your-ears-off music. The great thing about the FFVII demake translation is that they fixed all of the terrible music with actual renditions of the FFVII music. I could only hope the Resident Evil demake would get better music. Of Aliens Vs Predator. Or any of them.
@LewisPackwood The original Chinese version of the Famicom bootleg was a pretty lazy and terrible port. Nanjing was turning out those "ports" very quickly and it is hard to imagine they took very much time on each one. They just took assets from wherever and often had bugs or balancing issues, from what I've heard. "Chrono Trigger" with Pokemon sprites. "Final Fantasy V" with GB Zelda tiles and Dragon Quest sprites.
The fan translation author port put a lot of love and care into changing the graphics, maps and even the music into something much more fitting.
@Truegamer79 Probably the most surprising thing is that the bootleg added a weapon upgrading mechanic that didn't exist in the original game. You could buy new weapons OR you could pay to upgrade your old ones. However, given the general poor quality of the untranslated Chinese version, I can't imagine it was well-balanced. (the fan translation author took a lot of time to vastly improve the quality and faithfulness of the demake)
@MSaturn I've watched just a bit of one streamer playing the remake when it first launched, and it seemed it'd be best to just consider it a different game that reuses the story and characters.
Like how I've watched a stream of Stranger of Paradise and it is basically a new game recycling the FF1 plot.
I can't imagine China having lax copyright LAWS. What I can imagine is lax ENFORCEMENT. Small technical argument.
The Brazilian Master System fanbase probably also describes the last category of the article.
@Anti-Matter
I'm sorry, I can't get past this:
"ultra realistic graphics" ?? FFVII?? 😵💫
(EDIT - I misunderstood Anti's comment, here: he was referring to the REMAKE as ultra realistic, and lamenting that. totally understandable, and i resonate with that personally. 👍)
I've often thought how great it would be to see FFVII in the style of FFVI, but this 8 bit one does nothing for me as I have no love for the 8 bit entries, personally. it makes very little sense to me anyway compared to a 16 bit version as FFVII could well have been 16 bit, had the timing been a bit different.
EDIT - OK, I've swung back around to actually RTFA 😂 my comment still mostly applies but obv I didnt really "get" the nature of this release the first time around. 😅✌️
Why not just play the originals of things? Most of these "remakes" and "demakes" don't really get past being mildly interesting. Hardly justifies all the effort.
@mercilessrobot Sales numbers disagree with you. Whatever personal feelings you have, the games have sold enough to say the effort was worth it.
(head down, hand on forehead)
I had bought FFVII for PS1 on release day of 9/7/97. Bradygames paperback guide as well.
Got just about up to the final boss Sephiroth and didn’t want to play anymore because could never want to see myself ending the epic game.
After a year or two, was going to play again. But had fell on hard times and needed to sell my almost gaming everything.
Did however keep the PS1 memory card with the priceless save data. Though that eventually got lost or discarded somehow after so many years.
(head still down, hand still on forehead)
I'd so much rather play the demake. Remake was the biggest monkey paw wish game I've ever played. Finally getting a gorgeous FFVII, looking like we could play Advent Children, and it was saddled with a horrendously boring battle system and a unneeded ridiculous meta story to muck up a story which was just barely in the acceptable range of ridiculous jrpg stories to begin with. Not to mention completely blowing all the mystique Sephiroth had brought by having him show up like a Saturday morning cartoon villain taunting Cloud every 5 minutes. When it comes to Rebirth I scanned through some gameplay to see what the big set pieces and scenes looked like and that's all I need.
Going to the local mom and pop trade in shop and coming home with FF7 is a day I'll always remember. Riding home and looking through that glorious fat manual all games had before they got too cheap to give us paper.
Can't say I'd bother playing a demake or the remake though. Ps1 version emulated at 8x resolution with all the QoL bells and whistles is where it's at.
@XenoShaun FF7 gets all the attention, rightly, because it is comfortably the best. People argue its subjective, and people claim the real number 1 is FF6 but when you break it down...
A better setting than Midgar?
A better roster of characters than Aerith, Tifa, Barrett?
Better secrets/extra content than Vincent, Yuffie and Knights of the Round?
Better soundtrack themes than the Shinra Theme, the Main Theme, Aeriths theme, One Winged Angel.
A better villain than Sephiroth?
Better locations than Midgar's slums, Cosmo Canyon, Wutai, the Gold Saucer?
Better minigame content than bikes, snowboards, submarines?
People can call it subjective all they want... it's objectively the best game and that's why it gets all the remake/spin off attention!
@-wc-
I'm very irritated to see ultra realistic FF VII Rebirth and the other side stories.
The more realistic of the graphics, the more I dislike them.
@Anti-Matter
OH okay my friend nevermind, i thought you meant the original ffvii 😅 yes I feel you, the look of the remake turns me off greatly as well ✌️ and the gameplay haha. it's "not for me" even though I got the game at launch and loved it dearly. 👍
@sd7232
I also got the game at (or very near in my case) launch, and while I was HEAVY into it,
my disc 3 somehow got damaged, and I wasn't able to play to the end!
and.... I still havent 😬😬😬
I feel your pain, friend 😅
@-wc-
Oh, even I didn't play original FF VII anymore as I felt FF VII franchise get over milked and it becomes BLAH in my opinion.
I don't want to touch FF VII franchise anymore since then.
I still prefer FF 8 way much better than FF 7.
Pegasus featured in a Nintendo Life article, Polska Gurom!
I’m good with Final Fantasy VII. It had everything i needed back when i played it, and i don’t need anything else from it.
@Anti-Matter
i loved ffvii when it came out but ive definitely learned that i love ff4 and 6 the best in that particular series.
I never gave 8 a chance tbh because I am generally not that into anatomically realistic human looking characters in games. different strokes! ☺️✌️
The sound effects and music hurt my ears. >.<
@nocdaes I think I'll just leave this here as to why FF6 is better
https://youtu.be/CpI8xMfaOIk?si=TqoW8eqYZ3tccAaN
SE milks FFVII because it still sells. I'm not interested in any of the spinoff series but this looks fun. Just for the novelty of it, and I do like old school NES graphics.
@XenoShaun I would not mind FF9 got some love. Such an interesting game.
K I'm a little late to the party but I've never played a single final fantasy game. My wife had played like fourteen or fifteen before we got married and said she enjoyed them but said the stories were odd.
From my fellow Nintendo friends. Any recommendations for a 1st one? I'm more keen to play a 2D rather than a 3D, just cuz I like me pixels over polygons.
@nocdaes
I prefer FF6 and I believe it to be the best, objectively. 👍
Haven't played a final fantasy. But 7 has to be the most milked game of the series. An observation not a complaint. I mean the original PS1 version, to the compilation, Advent Children, ever crisis, the remake soon to be trilogy. Now this even though fan made.
The only other game that comes close to having as much itterations of the same game is Links Awakening.
@nocdaes I could counter most of these with FFVI examples (maybe not setting, but most others), but I am seriously lazy.
Terra's theme for soundtrack though. You cannot beat it.
@-wc- I know, I know - I'm just doing the usual FF wind up.! I adore both 6 and 7 (and 9 and 10!).
Although, it is interesting how FF7 dominates in the remake/spin off department. I often wonder why 6 hasn't been revisited in any way. Maybe it just was perfect?!
As a post-Soviet kid, I came across a fair share of crazy romhacks. Super Contra resprited into "Darkwing Duck 2" and Heavy Barrel into "Chip 'n' Dale 3", Jungle Book's Mowgli made furry which apparently sufficed to slap "Lion King" on... not to mention a whole separate "Lion King 6" (numbers may vary) I had back in the day, its game over screens alone having to be seen to be believed (every time a fan bellyaches about an underwhelming reboot "ruining" their childhood, I recall my childhood surviving THIS😏)... Then there was stuff I only read about, like the proverbial Somari which could probably give a BSoD to many a Console Wars combatant in the west. What I did once get at least a glimpse of at a local game shop, however, was "Super Mario 16" which turned out to be a resprited Joe & Mac (the NES version, despite what the number might have you assume). If someone had namedropped me a "Super Mario 64" back in the day, chances are I would have dismissed it as something similar!😂
This "Final Fantasy VII", on the other hand, missed Belarusian bootleg shelves just like the original FFI and pretty much any other RPG/actventure of the day did (with the exception of Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy I was lucky to have but, at the time, not remotely competent enough to beat). It was not until the emulation years that I discovered it and other Asian "demakes" like Chrono Trigger.
@nocdaes
☺️ cheers
"I often wonder why 6 hasn't been revisited in any way. Maybe it just was perfect?!"
yes, and...
i think in some ways it would be exceedingly difficult to do some of the scenes justice, ironically. certain scenes have a dozen or so distinct characters talking at once (does ffvii ever have this? serious question,) and of course for example the waterfall sequence would be extremely weird with more realistic graphics, etc. it's an oddly ambitious game, made possible by the medium and the imagination of the beholder. if that makes sense.
it's kind of like King of the Hill, to me. I've often thought of KotH as kind of "hyper realistic" because it sticks to reality enough to almost transcend its medium, yet extends into surreality and cartoonishness on occasion in a way that wouldnt work in live action, or be very difficult to pull off in as believable a fashion. hope that makes sense 😅
I attempted to make a demake verison myself a few years ago. I'll post the linked below. It was more of a SNES style. It was from 2013:
https://youtu.be/p_6nks90IKw?si=LdAlzWS1gu7QrScb
“this demake nevertheless managed to pack in most of the plot points from the 32-bit PlayStation game”.
“The game essentially misses out most of the content from discs 2 and 3”.
Erm, not sure these statements really go together 🤣
I haven’t played Rebirth yet (I’m waiting for it to come out on PC in January, but the talk of endless padding isn’t encouraging) but Remake was pretty disappointing for me. They got the characters spot-on but the story changes were unnecessary and they made it look too modern, most of the time it doesn’t look steam punk at all.
My personal favourite way to play FFVII is the PC version with the SYW patch which upscales everything, runs at 60fps (including FMV) and replaces all the chibi characters with more detailed models that match the look of battle mode. It’s closer to the remake I wanted than the actual thing. 😅
I didn't play the original so I can't compare it but I thought ReBirth was an exceptional game and deserves its 92 metacritic rating. One of the best and most ambitious JRPG's I've ever played and a step above the Remakes first game.
@MSaturn Its scores across the board from media and fans are much lower than the original, so there isn't really any argument to be had there. I don't think anyone that has played both would prefer the remake. Not that it's worthless, but it just doesn't hold a candle to the original.
Anyway, this "demake" seems very interesting. I would probably give it a shot, if it was official.
Almost nobody has ever heard about it. But this remind me that there is a chinese bootleg of Golden Sun as well.
Anyway playing these one day would be interesting for sure.
@XenoShaun I'm assuming you have very sub-par taste in games. Terrrible combat mechanics? Rebirth has the best action RPG battle system bar none. It's literally incredible, and I'm saying that as a KH2FM enthusiast. The game has more work put into it than most games released the past decade. The cutscenes are phenomenal, the soundtrack is phenomenal. The open world has actual area design to it rather than just "move here", e.g., Gongaga.. The mini games were actually really good and weren't just thrown in and do a great job at breaking up the normal gameplay in this long game. I feel really bad for people who look passed this game. It is one of the best games I ever played; straight up improvement over Remake in every way. Remake was a good action RPG as well. But Rebirth is insane.
Not really a fan of this article, sadly. There are some decent points being made, but they ultimately get undercut as Ian Larson constantly refers to the releases as NES releases, essentially viewing the games from a USA-centric viewpoint therefore paying lip service to his claim of the importance of legitimizing gaming from marginalized groups or non-dominant gaming regions.
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