Square Enix has already shown off some big improvements coming in Final Fantasy 7's remake, such as a brand-new graphics engine and real-time combat. There are a lot of other things they can do to enhance the original game, though.
Let's face it: there are some parts of FF7 that are now really outdated or didn't even work back in 1997. Here's hoping that Square Enix makes some major revisions to these sections:
Fort Condor
One section of Final Fantasy 7 that really didn't age well is the battle at Fort Condor. The player commands a small group of soldiers trying to fend off an assault by Shinra troops. It's the most basic real-time tactics game you'll ever play. You point your soldiers toward the Shinra forces and then watch them trade blows. As long as you're not dumb with the positioning and pay attention to the rock-paper-scissors balance of the different troop types, you'll easily cream it. I'd love to see Square Enix flesh out this minigame more. It should feel more like an intense mountain battle between armies and less like two groups of action figures running into each other.
Chocobo Breeding
In order to get the powerful Knights of the Round Table materia, players need to breed a gold chocobo capable of reaching its location. Unfortunately, breeding is a tedious activity that only someone who's done everything else in the game would bother enduring. The process requires buying nuts from vendors, racing at Golden Saucer way too much, and a lot of waiting. I don't doubt that the developers of FF7's remake could think of ways to make breeding a more active and fun process for players.
Dating
FF7 presents players with dialogue options that can lower or raise companions' opinion of them. The player can then take the companion with the highest affection score on a date at Golden Saucer. This was pretty innovative at the time but is really bare-bones compared to the relationships system in role-playing games released since FF7. Square Enix should definitely expand on this feature and make Cloud's possible relationships extend beyond just one date toward the beginning of the game. It would make the story more personalized and give players a reason to do a second (or third) play-through.
Great Glacier
Square Enix included a few mazes throughout Final Fantasy 7. They're all pretty annoying but Great Glacier was arguably the worst. Players would eventually pass out and wake up outside the Glacier after wandering around too long. Unfortunately, they needed to keep going back into the dumb maze in order to find all the valuable secrets hidden throughout it. The whole sequence really slows the game down and Square Enix could make it much more exciting in the remake. I wouldn't be sad if they just cut it altogether, though.
Submarines
Another Final Fantasy 7 minigame that looks really out-of-date now is the submarine segment. Players commandeer a submarine and must take out an enemy while avoiding mines. Once this simple battle is over, though, the submarine just becomes a way to taxi to a couple key underwater locations. There are a lot of ways that the remake's developers could improve on the submarine. They could include more underwater battles in the game and make them more complex. Furthermore, they could seed the ocean floor with more secrets for players to find.
