Although there were speculations about how Final Fantasy VIII’s source code got lost, it seems Square Enix somehow managed to find a copy of it…

„Coming in 2019, Final Fantasy VIII Remastered marks the 20th Anniversary of its original release with a new visual refresh and brings the game’s beloved story to modern platforms: Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. With overhauled visuals, see your favourite characters come to life like never before!”, Square Enix’ overview says.

The remaster will include renewed character models, as well as the following new system features (these sound more like cheats):

• Battle Reinforcement: Keeps HP and ATB at maximum, allowing special skills to be activated at any time.
• No Encounters: Turn on / off battle encounters.
• Triple Speed: All scenes advance at three times the speed (excluding movies).

On top of these, the PC version will include even more (how lucky…), such as:

• Obtain All Items: Obtain all items, excluding some items.
• Obtain All Abilities: Learn all obtainable G.F. abilities.
• G.F. Level MAX: Max out obtainable G.F. Level.
• Gil MAX: Max out Gil.
• Magic MAX: Max out obtainable magic stock.
• Obtain All Special Skills: Learn all special skills.
• Obtain All Cards: Obtain the maximum amount of cards, excluding rare cards.

Final Fantasy VIII came out in February 1999 in Japan on PS1 – the localization needed five and a half months (!), and Europe had to wait more than half a year after Japan to get FF8, which also got a PC port in early 2000. As a PSOne Classic, it later got a PlayStation 3, a PlayStation Portable, and a PlayStation Vita version, too – basically, Squall Leonhart’s story was Sony-exclusive for two decades, aside from a PC version.

Final Fantasy VIII Remastered will launch sometime this year on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Source: Gematsu