People are really pissed at Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster's ugly fonts

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The curse of the Final Fantasy remakes lives on.

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Square Enix cannot seem to get it right when it comes to rereleases of its old Final Fantasy RPGs. For years players have been pissed that the PC versions were shoddy mobile ports that replaced the original pixel art with plastic, cheap-looking sprites that robbed the early games of their original aesthetic (in addition to just being extremely ugly). It was a cardinal sin.

If you wanted to play Final Fantasy 6 in its original form, your best bet was to emulate the original SNES or Game Boy Advance versions rather than play the ugly mobile ports. And though the bitterness has softened over the years, these crappy remakes always felt like a bit of a stain on Final Fantasy's reputation.

That's why it was such a pleasant surprise when, during Square Enix's E3 2021 press conference, it was announced that the first six Final Fantasy games were being remastered. Again. This time as the "Pixel Remaster," which implied Square Enix had finally listened to the complaints about the ugly art and was restoring the original pixel art (or improving on it in some way).

Today, we got a good look at the new art style and it's very much improved and looks suitably pixelated. But my god, just look at how awful the font is!

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Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Aside from the fact that it clashes entirely with the new pixel art look, it's also just ugly and does nothing to evoke the high fantasy drama this series is beloved for. It looks especially hideous in dialogue boxes, where words are bafflingly squished together, leaving enormous chunks of empty space.

Naturally, it didn't take long for players to point this out on Twitter, where people began cracking jokes and expressing their confusion over the choice.

It's a tiny detail, but it's honestly dried up my enthusiasm for these remasters. After all, these are RPGs with a lot of text in them—and despite being decades old Square Enix is charging between $12 and $18 for each one ($80 for the whole bundle). That's a lot of money to spend on ugly fonts. It's also just frustrating that Square Enix seems to bungle modernizing these games by screwing with the style in some way. 

The first three Final Fantasy games of the Pixel Remaster are launching on July 28. Here's hoping Square Enix decides to change the font before then (or some divine modders intervene shortly after release).

Steven Messner
Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.