Mere weeks after May's E3 Expo, two of the biggest gaming magazines in Japan, Hyper PlayStation and Gaimaga, have published a considerable amount of new information regarding Square Enix's series of Final Fantasy XIII titles.
The director of Final Fantasy XIII, Motomu Toriyama, revealed in an interview with Gaimaga that the scenario work for his project was 80% complete and the visual engine, also nearing completion, was running on real PS3 hardware. Toriyama stated that "Now is the time for the true start of FFXIII."
While director and character designer Testuya Nomura has had the plot of Final Fantasy Versus XIII developed for some time, real work on the game's scenario has not yet begun in earnest.
The leaders of the Final Fantasy XIII project, which was moved from the Playstation 2 hardware to that of the PS3, are striving to reach a level of visual expression they did not believe was possible with the capacity of one DVD. The project began 2-3 years ago, but once the team decided to move to the Playstation 3, all their original work was scrapped; in other words, the "White Engine" the new Final Fantasy titles utilize was built completely from scratch.
When asked about the reasoning behind making Versus a part of Fabula Nova Crystallis, Nomura stated that the game would not fit as a normal, standalone member of the series. Series producer Yoshinori Kitase said that "with Versus, we are trying out a type of adventure that we couldn't do in the numbered series," but assured HyperPlaystation that the game would still have some of what makes a numbered Final Fantasy title so great.
While it was clear from the announcement of the Final Fantasy XIII titles that differences existed in the titles, Square Enix revealed just how radically different the games really will end up. The only thing each entry in Fabula Nova Crystallis must have in common is a deep, planned-out mythology that was painstakingly created in the pre-development process, which lasted longer than that of any previous Final Fantasy title to date. Each game director has absolute freedom in the devlopment of a separate world, new characters, unique visuals, and original gameplay.
Nomura hinted at the use of vehicles in Final Fantasy XIII, with the possibility of utilizing the new motion sensitive Playstation 3 controller, and also stated that weapons will be far more detailed in the game, as the PS3 offers the ability to display far more polygons than its predecessor.
Kitase hopes to move the whole genre forward, marking the next stop in evolution after Final Fantasy X. FFXIII will make changes to actions as basic as speaking to NPCs in towns and moving on to battle, which Kitase believes will lead people to think: "Is this really FF?"
Last, but possibly most impressive, was the comparison of Final Fantasy XIII's CG scenes to its in-game graphics. While the CG data cannot be used in-game, the White engine does an impressive job of virtually matching the jaw-dropping graphics seen in the cutscenes.
With work on these games really just beginning to heat up, expect more information from Square Enix on Final Fantasy XIII: Fabula Nova Crystallis soon.
[Source: IGN]
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