Square Enix explained to fans why they weren’t able to make Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles a faithful remaster of the original 1997 title. The developer revealed that FFT Remake had to be built from the ground up entirely.
Square Enix Lost the Original Source Code for ‘Final Fantasy Tactics’
In a July 23 PlayStation Blog post, Final Fantasy Tactics Remake Director Kazutoyo Maehiro opened up about the game’s development. However, during the interview, the developer explained that Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles had to be completely remade from scratch, as the studio had actually lost the game’s original code.
“The process wasn’t without its challenges. Purists have the option to choose the Classic version. The mode recreates the original as faithfully as possible. But crafting both it and the Enhanced version came with its challenges given the original master data and source code no longer exist.”
According to Maehiro, this was common practice in the 90s. Specifically, Square Enix didn’t save source codes for every project due to memory storage limitations.
“This was simply the norm at the time,” explains Maehiro. We didn’t have the kinds of effective resource management tools available today. As a result, we developed games by essentially overwriting the previous code each time we fixed a bug or added a new language.”
So yeah, the source code for the 1997 PlayStation classic appears actually to be gone forever. This is pretty tragic news for game conservationists!
‘FFT’ Remake Won’t Use An Emulator
Although the source code for Final Fantasy Tactics is lost, Square Enix also rejected the idea of using an emulator. In the interview, Kazutoyo Maehiro clarifies that an emulator wouldn’t have allowed them to make the bigger changes they wanted to make in FFT Remake. This was largely a problem with the game’s new “Enhanced Mode”.
“Since the classic version was intended to recreate the original game, we did have the option of using an emulator. However, this method wouldn’t have allowed us to make granular refinements even if the objective was to recreate the original game. After our analysis, we felt the best way to ensure the game met modern playability standards while staying true to the original was to rebuild it.”
To be clear, Final Fantasy Tactics Remake is as close as you can get to a faithful reimagining. The team behind it went to painstaking lengths to offer players a “Classic Option.” The mode doesn’t change the game’s main campaign at all.
Still, it’s interesting that FFT Remake itself is entirely built from the ground up, since the source code is now forever lost to the sands of time.
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