At a management press conference in early 2001, Square announced that Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX would be remade to take advantage of the PS2's technology. However, with the production of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and other investments consuming most of the company's resources, the remakes were quickly shelved and are now merely a fanboy's dream almost three years after they were announced.

During an interview with certain Square Enix folk working on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, it was mentioned that the reason for dropping the projects (specifically the newly relevant FFVII) was because the games are all still playable on current technology thanks to the PS2's backwards compatibility, rendering remakes "unnecessary" in the corporate eye. Knowing now that the PS3 will also be backwards compatible with its predecessors, a remake of FFVII seems as remote as ever.

But don't let that stop you from gawking at the coquettish Aerith wannabe to your upper left (actually a Photoshopped Yuna)!. This fake ad for a FFVII remake is the result of that special mix of zealotry and pranksterism, seeded in the mind of one Japanese fan and spread around the net like wildfire. We can still pretend, right?