The rumoredFinal Fantasy 9remake may be crushed under the weight of its own expectations. Although nothing has ever been officially confirmed, anFF9remake has been rumored for years now, beginning with the NVIDIA leaks that have otherwise since come completely true. Evidence has only mounted since then, withadditionalFinal Fantasyremakessuggesting that, at this point, some sort ofFF9revival is inevitable. We don’t know whether it’ll get the fullFF7 Remaketreatment or be a simpler remake, but at this point, Square is leaving money on the table by failing to adapt it.
As much as I’d be curious to see how Square approaches a modernFF9remake, I have my concerns. For one thing, I wouldn’t want to see it subject toRebirth-style bloat; the originalFF9has a much simpler story, and would work better as a single piece of media. I also worry about how its simple-yet-satisfying turn-based combat would hold up, or whether Square would elect to replace it with more basic action combat. But the biggest problem revolves aroundhow Square might treatFF9’s characters, which are its beating heart - if it messes them up, we’re doomed.
Voice Acting Will Make Or Break FF9 Remake
A Delicate Balance
Voice acting will be an integral part of any attempt to remakeFF9, and could have an unexpectedly massive effect on how well it captures the magic of the original game. Voice acting is standard in games today - pretty much every majorFinal Fantasyrelease in the past decade has been fully voice acted. It’s in all the remakes, too: naturally, theFF7 Remaketrilogy has a great voice cast, and even the upcoming, much smaller-scaleFF Tacticsremake will have voiced lines.
Butthe originalFF9wasn’t voice acted at all. It’s mainly a technical limitation: few PS1 games were voice-acted, even fewer were fully voice-acted, andFF9has a staggering amount of text that would make fitting all those voice lines on a disc prohibitive, to say the least.
Now, if you’re anything like me, when you played the originalFF9,you came up with internal voices for all the characters: Zidane earnest, with a bit of an edge; Dagger clear and self-assured; Steiner haughty and operatic; Quina baritone and bellowing.
Your voices may sound different from mine, but that’s a discrepancy that anFF9remake would have to deal with.Its voice acting will never make every player happy, as it’ll have to commit to one interpretation or another of each of its characters.
Vivi’s Voice In Kingdom Hearts 2 Wasn’t Great
FF9 Remake Must Do Better
It’s a little-known fact that Square Enix tried to do voice acting for at least oneFF9character before - the black mageVivi appears briefly inKingdom Hearts 2as a member of Seifer’s disciplinary committee. Of course, he’s portrayed as relatively harmless and friendly, but he’s still an enemy to Roxas (though he wields a decidedly non-lethal weapon). Vivi’s portrayal inKingdom Heartsisn’t unredeemable; it wouldn’t be the first time the series got aFinal Fantasycharacter’s personality wrong. And then he opens his mouth.
Vivi’s voice acting inKingdom Hearts 2is lacking- not because of the acting itself, mind, but because of the casting. For whatever reason,Kingdom Hearts 2decided to go with a generic baby voice for Vivi, which doesn’t fit his character at all.
Sure, he begins the game as a bit of a scaredy-cat, but he’s always competent, if not always confident, in his black magic abilities. Especially ifKingdom Hearts 2takes place after the events ofFF9- which, by nature, it basically has to -Vivi should sound at least a little more mature.
InKingdom Hearts 2, Vivi is voiced by prolific voice actor Melissa Disney, who also plays the titular role in the Nickelodeon seriesAs Told By Ginger.
I’ll admit thatVivi is a difficult character to cast for, and to portray. Although canonically listed as a nine-year-old, Vivi was likely born just six months before the start of the events ofFF9, making him, at least in age, an infant.
That said, he very quickly realizes, in a pivotal and gut-wrenching story moment, that he’s only got a year to live, at which point he’s forced to grow up quickly. By the end of the game,he becomes one of the most mature and insightful members of the party.
To change a character’s voice so drastically over the course of a game would make it hard to relate to that character.
I don’t know if I would recommend a rapidly-changing voice for Vivi, going from child to adult over the course of the game; I think that’d be jarring and weird. It’s not unlikewhatFF7 Rebirthdid with its big Red XIII reveal, but even that moment is pretty awkward, and threw a lot of players off until they realized what was going on.
But to change a character’s voice so drastically over the course of a game, instead of every now and then, would make it hard to relate to that character, difficult to know when they’re talking in scenes - not to mention difficult and expensive to record.
That said, for Vivi to start the game with a more childish, anxious voice, and get a little more confident and self-assured shortly after his big realization, might be interesting. Even so, it’ll never match what every player imagined for Vivi, soone way or another,the FF9remake is bound to disappoint.
FF9 Remake Will Need To Find The Right Voices For Its Characters
Not Just Vivi
And it’s not just Vivi that poses a challenge.The tone ofFF9will make for a difficult game to voice act in general, and Square will need to ensure not only that its actors' voices match the characters, but also that they’re able to pull off the wide range of emotions and ideas expressed in the game.
FF9begins with a silly, almost cartoonish tone as Vivi traipses around the city, learning how to play a trading card game from a humanoid rat, while a theatre troupe prepares to kidnap a princess.In short order, though, things get very serious: we learn about Queen Brahne’s true intentions, her treatment of Dagger, and Vivi’s impending mortality.
FF9’s voice actors might struggle to make these moments sound earnest, genuinely emotional, a counterpoint to the humor the game introduces itself with. It’s not an impossible feat, but any potentialFinal Fantasy 9remake would need a talented voice cast, and a director who understands the source material well, to make it all work.
