Here's How FINAL FANTASY PIXEL REMASTER Differs From the Current Mobile Ports


During the Square Enix E3 Showcase, the legendary publisher announced plans to release the first six Final Fantasy games on both mobile and PC. Keen mobile players will be aware, however, that virtually every mainline single-digit Final Fantasy title is available on mobile already. So what's the difference with these new releases?

FINAL FANTASY PIXEL REMASTER will not release as an FF1-6 collection as the name suggests, but as six individual titles across a single brand. The trailer didn't really shine a spotlight on the changes of each game, instead just spending the short 33-second trailer duration flipping between each title too fast to reliably spot the major differences.


But with the trailer now available for people to skim through at their own pace, the staff over at RPGSite have managed to break down the changes into a reasonably easy-to-digest post here.

Essentially, Final Fantasy 1-6 Anthology will see each of the six original titles remastered in a way that unifies their art style. As a bonus, that means the original 2D version of Final Fantasy III will be localized and released in English for the very first time. In the past, the 2008 3D remake was the only way for non-Japanese speakers to experience the story.

Previous Final Fantasy 1-6 re-releases across mobile, PC and other platforms have reworked certain in-game sprites like playable characters in the past, but these HD versions often clashed against the rest of the pixel-based art in the lengthy RPGs, causing the titles to be deemed drastically inferior to their originals and tonally inconsistent.

This time around, RPGSite believes almost every pixel-based piece of art in each game has been completely remastered, with the re-imagined character sprites from a 2018 art book used as inspiration.

After collecting and comparing sprites both new and old, RPGSite owner Alex Donaldson tweeted his understanding that the sprites across each game now appear to share many style similarities, leading him to believe the artistic decision was made to unify the individual game's 8/16-bit graphics.

The collection's announcement wasn't entirely unexpected in the end. Earlier in the week, we reported that TouchArcade's Shaun Musgrave spotted changes made to the current iOS/Android Final Fantasy games, suggesting another revisit to the historical titles was just around the corner.

With no solid release date listed just yet, we have plenty of time to learn the intricate details. Until then, all we can do is watch the same 33-second long clip over and over. Keep up with any added details with our FINAL FANTASY PIXEL REMASTER hub page.

For more articles like this, take a look at our Final Fantasy, E3 2021, and Only Mobile Gaming pages.