Last month, Square Enix released Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade on Nintendo Switch 2. The port of the 2020 RPG was well-received, with many praising the game’s clarity and performance. But there was one aspect of FF7 Remake that annoyed some players: Cloud’s famous luxurious hair could look fuzzy or pixelated at times. Well, in a new interview, the game’s director has explained thoroughly why this is the case, and said that it might be a problem in future FF7 remake trilogy ports on Switch 2 as well.
In an interview posted on February 23, Automaton talked to Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade director Naoki Hamaguchi about the Switch 2 port of the RPG. Specifically, they asked him about Cloud’s pixelated hair. Instead of just saying, “Hey, guys, the Switch 2 isn’t as beefy as a high-end PC or PS5, so we had to make some compromises,” the director behind the remake provided a very detailed response. Here’s some of it via Google Translate:
“In Final Fantasy VII Remake, we use a process called TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing) to prevent the outlines of characters from appearing jagged. TAA is a system that creates smoother images that are closer to high resolution by referencing and overlaying information from past frames in addition to the currently drawn frame. Hair is a very thin component, so if you draw it as is, it’s easy for each dot to appear or disappear. That’s why in this game, we use a special process that switches between drawing and not drawing hair on a dot-by-dot basis for each frame. By combining this process with TAA, we make it so that the fine hair lines appear to connect smoothly across frames.”
Got all that? Hamaguchi then explained that when the Switch 2 is in portable mode, there are “additional restrictions.” This forces the game to lower its internal resolution to ensure solid performance. But doing this makes it harder for TAA to create a stable image, leading to the “graininess and jaggedness” of Cloud’s hair. But because FF7 Remake on Switch 2 uses a dynamic resolution system, his hair can look worse or better depending on the scene.
Cloud’s fuzzy, pixelated hair is likely to return in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on Switch 2
So hopefully, that explains why Cloud’s hair is a bit pixelated in the Switch 2 port. As for the upcoming Switch 2 port of 2024’s Rebirth, which is set to arrive in June, and the third and final entry in the project releasing sometime in the future, Hamaguchi made it clear that you’ll probably see some fuzzy Cloud hair in those releases, too.
“Yes, on the Nintendo Switch 2, in order to stabilize the frame rate, the internal resolution is lowered in scenes with a high load, and DLSS compensates for that,” the director told the outlet. “This is a basic mechanism that is not compatible with current hair rendering technology.”
But Hamaguchi says that being able to play FF7 Remake on the go is worth the trade-off of some elements, like Cloud’s hair, being a bit fuzzy, adding, “There are limitations unique to portable devices, but we will continue to do our best to continue optimizing it so that we can improve it even if only a little.”
I genuinely love that the director didn’t offer up some boring PR quote about the hair, but dug into how it works and why it looks that way. Making games is, like playing games, a series of decisions and trade-offs. Considering how great FF7 Remake runs and plays on Switch 2, I think some fuzzy hair is a fine compromise, even if Cloud might disagree.
