Final Fantasy VII Remake - UX/UI Review and Redesign
Why:
As a fan of the series, and a player of the original Final Fantasy 7 game, I’ve invested some of my quarantine time into exploring UI designs in games that I have been playing. While playing the new FF7 Remake, I quickly identified quite a few UX concerns that I feel could be addressed. My own experience, driving by my knowledge of UX, and witnessing of other gamers experiencing similar frustrations (through Twitch streams and Youtube playthroughs), I documented the most important issues.
What:
After identifying positive and negative UX elements, I created redesign concepts that could massively improve the efficiency and usability of the menu in question. Examples can be found below.
A major problem with sorting was found on this screen, where users are required to scroll 1-by-1 through a list of acquired materia (an in-game item). This becomes increasingly tedious as the inventory increases (I had over 60 in my inventory)
My recommendation was to include a sorting feature that sorts materia by type (5) using the trigger buttons. I included a concept design of the new feature
Original Design
Concept with sorting feature
Original Design
Concept with row selection modifier
Another problem identified was limited options in equipping and swapping materia, where players must do all actions individually. While this doesn’t seem like a major issue at face value, materia are expected to be swapped regularly, and typically in groups. Even in the original FF7, editing entire sets of materia was an option, commonly used by veteran players. As there are expected to by more episodes, and the number of materia to manage is expected to grow exponentially, I believe a a system for swapping sets quickly will contribute greatly to user satisfaction, and promote experimentation.
To address this, I created a concept of a simple modifier, using an unused button (L1) commonly used on PS4 for similar tasks in user interfaces.
Also addressed was a concern with the weapon upgrades menu. The “Materia & Equipment” menu and “Upgrade Weapons” menus look highly similar, yet upgrading from the first is not possible, even though the game lists upgrade points in the same way
My suggestion is to eliminate the “Upgrade Weapons” menu completely by including a shortcut within the equipment menu. A quick concept was made using an unused input (triangle). This would allow users to complete upgrades from a logical place, quicker, with no loss in functionality or information.
