Final Fantasy VII Remake is the hot topic this weekend, what with a new gameplay trailer among some of the best surprises shown off at this year’s PlayStation Experience. Following today’s keynote, Sony ran a series of developer “conversation” videos – one of which focused on FF7R producer Yoshinori Kitase.

In the video, Kitase speaks on the team’s approach to modernizing the game – without neglecting systems – including gameplay – from the original Final Fantasy VII. We’ve included a partial transcript following the video below.

“The hardware itself has evolved since the release of Final Fantasy VII, and the games are more real, and real-time based,” said Kitase. “The previous Final Fantasy VII was a command-based RPG that utilized active-time-battle. Real-time and GMC are the trends these days.

“I can’t say the new game is completely action-based, but it has more of that element and real-time than the previous game.

“However, what makes Final Fantasy and RPG different from other games is that the players have the ability to choose weapons, capabilities and magic to be strategic minded, so while the new game has more real-time element, it will also maintain that strategy building element, balancing these two factors perfectly to enhance the gaming experience.

“The game is still in development, and we have not fully grasped all the abilities of and upgrades made to PlayStation 4. The graphics are superb on PlayStation 4, and more polygon volume is available to make it better.

“The way we harnessed the power of the PlayStation 4 was to maintain the graphic quality of characters like Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith in the movie called Advent Children in our game, and this was the starting point. So, what we’re aiming for with the Final Fantasy VII Remake is to have the same quality of these characters in real-time while playing the game, and this is only achievable with PlayStation 4.”