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Revision as of 18:20, 23 July 2007 by Kariteh (talk | contribs) (→Development: copyedit)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Video game| Final Fantasy XIII | |
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| Final Fantasy XIII Logo | |
| Developer(s) | Square Enix |
| Publisher(s) | Square Enix |
| Designer(s) | Yoshinori Kitase (game producer) Motomu Toriyama (game director) Kazushige Nojima (scenario writer) Tetsuya Nomura (character designer) Yoshitaka Amano (title logo designer) Nobuo Uematsu (theme song composer) Masashi Hamauzu (music composer) |
| Series | Final Fantasy series Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII |
| Engine | White Engine |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 3 |
| Release | TBA |
| Genre(s) | Console role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Final Fantasy XIII (ファイナルファンタジーXIII, Fainaru Fantajī Sātīn) is an upcoming console role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix exclusively for the Sony PlayStation 3 video game console as a part of the Final Fantasy video game series. Unveiled at E³ 2006, the game features a futuristic, high-tech world. Only two characters have been revealed thus far: a woman, with the code name Lightning, who wields a weapon which functions as a sword and a firearm; and an unnamed, giant man who is her ally.
Final Fantasy X-2 director Motomu Toriyama returns as the director of the game. According to Square Enix President Yoichi Wada, the storyline will focus on "those who resist the world.". Final Fantasy XIII and the other games of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII collection take place in the same universe, but are not directly related to each other.
Gameplay
From the footage shown at E³, battles in the game appear to be in real-time, similar to Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XII, but without the coloured target arcs linking player to target, as confirmed by Square Enix.
In a developer interview, Toriyama stated that the E3 Trailer shows what is known as the 'Gravity Bomb', known as the spell 'Gravity' in previous games. Presumably, it refers to the electrical energy field that surrounds the young woman shown in the trailer. She can use it to defy gravity or to attack enemies.
In the upper right-hand corner of the battle screen, a circle-shaped gauge is visible. Once the number inside this circle and other conditions have been met, the protagonist can enter a so-called Overclock status. This status has a slow-motion effect, slowing down everyone but the player. It has been suggested that this Overclock system would replace the traditional limit break system found in previous Final Fantasy games. Overclock seems to resemble the Trance mode in Final Fantasy IX. Once Overclock is activated a number appears inside the meter and decreases, probably signifying the duration of the Overclock mode.
Summons were also revealed in Jump Festa, shown as part Mecha and are featured not only for battle support, as Toriyama states, "The treatment of summons beasts has changed quite a bit," he said, "The fact that the players can summon will not change, but what happens after that will be something totally different." The example he pointed to was Shiva and her transformation into a motorcycle. Toriyama hinted that Lightning may ride Shiva in battle.
Although the main focus of Final Fantasy XIII will be offline, producer Yoshinori Kitase has stated in the developer interview that players will also be able to take advantage of special online features.
Battle system
Toriyama comments on Final Fantasy XIII's battle system, "Final Fantasy XIII took on the challenge of seeing how much of the battles in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children can be recreated in a game. The battles that were impossible to be presented in current Final Fantasy games were shown in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. In reverse, Final Fantasy XIII will show how much of that can be represented in the game." Toshiro Tsuchida, creator of the Front Mission franchise and, previously, the battle director of Final Fantasy X, will return as the battle system director for the game. He has reaffirmed that random encounters will not return, whilst suggesting individual enemies may be given personalities and background stories. The battle system is somewhat of a timed-button input style. This system was made as a sequence for Final Fantasy X's overdrives where a series of buttons were displayed on the screen. When input in the right order, the amount of damage is at its fullest. It will also use Active Time Battle as seen in the screenshots in the Official PlayStation Magazine's issue 107 of August 2006.
Plot
Setting
Jump Festa 2007 revealed that the world of Final Fantasy XIII is based in a government-controlled floating fortress called Cocoon defended by advanced technology. Those cast out of Cocoon are placed into the world below, called Pulse. It is heavily implied that the world of Pulse is Earth and where the crystals that have "chosen" Lightning are found. These crystals are said to give men the power to change their destinies and shape the world as they see fit. In fact, the crystals were previously used to control the citizens of Pulse to work against their own will. The citizens of Pulse rebelled against the government, asking for a fair treatment of the law.
Characters
The first confirmed main character is a young woman featured in the E³ trailer. Jump Festa 2007 confirmed her name as "Lightning", though Famitsu magazine states that this is a codename that she will probably use for parts of the game. She has also been confirmed to be the main character of the game. In a recent interview with Toriyama, he said the character only calls herself Lightning to keep her true name a secret. He went on to say that the reason will be revealed in the plot. Character designer Tetsuya Nomura describes her as "not very feminine", and says that he was asked to create a "female version of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII" when designing her. Very little information is known out about her yet but Square Enix has revealed that the two yellow stripes on Lightning's left shoulder symbolize her rank and social status.
In Geemaga, it is confirmed by Toriyama that the story is not about a group of people banding together to save the world, but there will be party battles.
Jump Festa 2007 also confirmed the presence of a second character, a blond, bandanna-wearing male who rides a motorcycle and uses a gun to come to Lightning's aid when she is outnumbered by soldiers. This character has been dubbed "Mr. 33 cm" for the moment as it is noted to be his shoe size and thus suggesting that he is a very big man as recently released by Square Enix. Toriyama also confirmed that the blond male and Lightning are supposed to have a unique relationship. He has also been described by the staff as cowboy-like.
Through Geemaga, it confirmed that he is wild and heroic but there isn't really a sense of him being an ally or enemy of Lightning. He has also been confirmed to have an unusual way of fighting.
Development
Along with Final Fantasy Versus XIII and the mobile phone game Final Fantasy Agito XIII, Final Fantasy XIII is part of the project known as Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII, although it is neither a prequel nor a sequel to any of the two other installment. Square Enix explained that although all three games take place in the same universe, they are not directly related storywise.
The game runs on the White Engine, an all-new exclusive seventh generation game engine built by Square Enix for their future games. Both the engine and the game were originally slated to be used with the PlayStation 2 but were later moved to the PlayStation 3. The engine handles advanced audio processing, cinematic cut-scene transition, physics effects calculations and special effects rendering. The White Engine reportedly uses four of the six developer-available synergistic processing elements (SPEs) of the Cell microprocessor to achieve near-pre-rendered CGI quality in realtime.
Square Enix recently announced they had licensed Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 to use on a number of particular next generation titles, but will still use the White Engine for Final Fantasy XIII.. In February 2007, an interview with Square Enix President Yōichi Wada in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun misstated that the game would no longer use the White Engine, and use the Unreal Engine 3 instead to reduce development costs. This statement was recognized as an error by the editor. While the use of Unreal Engine 3 is true for other upcoming Square Enix games, the White Engine is still being used for Final Fantasy XIII.
Toriyama stated that Final Fantasy XIII will be released "as soon as possible". However, in an interview with Nomura, he revealed that he does not believe the game will be released in 2007. In an interview with Square-Enix's European and North American CEO, John Yamamoto at E3 2007, the possibility of a worldwide simultaneous release for Final Fantasy XIII was mentioned.
Some of the developers in Final Fantasy XIII are veterans. Kazushige Nojima, known for his work on many titles including Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts, will return as the scenario writer. Eiji Fujii, previously the movie director of Final Fantasy XII, will return as the movie director. Isamu Kamikokuryō, previously the co-art director of Final Fantasy XII, will return as the art director. The main programmer will be Kazumi Kobayashi. Tetsu Tsukamoto will design the weapons.
On June 5, 2007 Square Enix's Shinji Hashimoto disclosed information to Japanese company Nikkei BP that they are not currently planning on releasing any Final Fantasy titles on the Xbox 360, which was the likely destination of Final Fantasy XIII had it been a multiplatform title. Hashimoto stated that while Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers is currently in production for the Wii, plans to develop a Final Fantasy title for the 360 are currently "a blank page".
References
- Brad Shoemaker & Dan Tochen (2006). "E3 06: Square Enix announces trio of Final Fantasy XIII games". Gamespot. Retrieved 8 May.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Matt Sloderbeck (2006). "Square Enix Pre-E3 Event Features New Games, New Details". RPGamer. Retrieved 10 May.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ Erik Brudvig (2006). "E3 2006: Final Fantasy XIII Showcased". IGN. Retrieved 11 May.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Square Enix (2006). Enix.com/e306/titles/fabula/ff13/ "E3 2006 - SQUARE ENIX ~ FINAL FANTASY XII". Enix.com/na SQUARE ENIX. Retrieved 10 May.
{{cite web}}: Check|url=value (help); Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ Duckroll (2006). "Final Fantasy XIII Developer Interview". Gamebrink. Retrieved 8 June.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - KingdomHearts77 (2006). "Final Fantasy XIII Famitsu Scan Translations". Final Fantasy-13.Net. Retrieved 19 May.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ IGN Staff (2007). "Final Fantasy XIII Update". PS3 IGN. Retrieved 13 June.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Chris Winkler (2006). "Square Enix Talks FFXIII, Crisis Core". RPGfan. Retrieved 11 June.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Alex Donaldson (2007). "Final Fantasy XIII Battle System Director Announced". Retrieved 26 February.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ tiduS (2007). "New Final Fantasy XIII Details". Forever Fantasy. Retrieved 30 January.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "Forever Fantasy" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - Shane Bettenhausen, Luke Smith (2006). ""FFXIII Interview: Nomura, Kitase, Hashimoto and Toriyama"". 1up.com. Retrieved 30 March.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|name=ignored (help) - Chris Roper (2006). "E3 2006: Final Fantasy XIII Official". IGN. Retrieved 8 May.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - IGN (2006). "IGN: Final Fantasy XIII Update". IGN. Retrieved 10 November.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Play UK (2006). "New Play UK and OPM UK Scans". FinalFantasy-XIII.net. Retrieved 17 November.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Hilary Goldstein (2007). "Final Fantasy Meets Gears of War". IGN.com. Retrieved 9 April.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - nikkei.co.jp (2007). "Yoichi Wada Interview". Nikkei Arena. Retrieved 18 February.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - GameIndustry.biz (2007). "Simultaneous Worldwide Launch of FFXIII Possible?". FinalFantasy-XIII.net. Retrieved 12 July.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Anoop Gantayat (2007). "No Final Fantasy For Xbox 360: Square Enix has nothing in the works.". Retrieved 5 June.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help)
External links
- Final Fantasy XIII E3 2006 page at the Square Enix North American website
- Final Fantasy XIII E3 2006 trailer at the Square Enix Japanese website Template:Ja icon
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