Although it's hardly the thrilling news we expected, Nomura has confirmed that there will be new footage of both Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII at this years Tokyo Game Show next month.

Instead of independent trailers, the footage will be combined into a joint Versus and Agito trailer "under the FNC banner". Nomura also confirmed that the trailer will only be a minute long. Even more disappointing is that the trailer won't receive a public release. It will instead appear on monitors in the demo area of the Square Enix booth.

For those of you lucky enough to see the trailer, Nomura has stated it includes footage of the Versus screenshots revealed in June's Dengeki which means there will be actual gameplay footage at last! For some reason though, it will be devoid of any command menus or HUD elements that will appear in the final game. The Agito footage will be brand new and apparently more like what they expect the finish product to look like.

Hajime Tabata, the director of Final Fantasy Agito XIII, has found time to Tweet about something other than the protagonist from his other project, The 3rd Birthday, having showers. Yesterday, he discussed the graphics of both games. He said that the quality of the realtime graphics in both games is astounding, beyond that which was achieved in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. He attributes this to the team now being skilled in working with the hardware.

It seems that, from a technical side, the game is in good hands. And if nothing else, it will at least look good.

Thanks to forum member mokaloka for bringing it to our attention.

Source: The 3rd Birthday Twitter

With Nomura still focused on other projects, Final Fantasy Versus XIII's progress has been slow. Well slow is an understatement. However, he recently posted a few updates concerning the development of both Versus and Agito on the official 3rd Birthday Twitter.

In his post, he says that both games are being produced in different styles and are at different stages of development. However, he does confirm that both Versus and Agito are finally undergoing voice casting. As The 3rd Birthday's voice recording is almost over, Nomura says Agito will be next. With all of these projects being worked on simultaneously, it comes as no surprise that he also confirms that he's working on a number of unannounced titles which will be released before Agito and Versus. It seems like these games have been inevitably delayed even further.

Source: Andriasang

Episode Zero, Final Fantasy XIII's prologue story, had it's final chapter released last December and successfully filled in the blanks of the games storyline. Today Square Enix has announced that the story will be turned into a Drama CD.

Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero Promise Fabula Nova Dramatica Alpha as it's unfortunately called, will retell the story of the prologue featuring the full original voice cast from the game. The first pressing will also include a script booklet and a limited edition sleeve case. The CD will be available on September 15th in Japan priced at ¥3,000.

Source: Andriasang

Dengeki has had the chance to talk to Final Fantasy Agito XIII director Hajime Tabata and producer Yoshinori Kitase about how the third installment in the Fabula Nova Crystallis compilation is progressing.

At the moment Tabata is focusing on his other project, The 3rd Birthday but he says the development of Agito is progressing steadily. "I believe it will be an FF that differs from the image fans have." When Dengeki asked what he meant he answered "We're making it into a game where you can feel the true pain and weight as a war story. Because it has some harsh portrayals, Kitase is frequently making checks."

Kitase continues "There are parts where you see a soldier burned and falling over after being struck by fire. Initially, I warned them to not go too far in their expressions, but now I'm telling them to do whatever they want." To justify the long wait, Tabata adds "It's a full spec Final Fantasy that's multiplayer and can be played on the PSP. Please anticipate it greatly."

Source: Andriasang

Thankfully we don't have to rely on those awful quality photos of yesterdays Versus gameplay anymore! Now we have a not so awful quality scan of the entire Famitsu article including the fully translated Nomura interview. Read it in it's entirety below.



Is this a real-time screenshot we’re looking? The image quality is very good.
Yes it’s an image in real-time using the real hardware.We aim to improve the quality you’re seeing now even further. As of now we can’t share more details in full scale right now, so we removed the menus and subscreens where it shows Noctis expression (image projected on the subscreen).

Were the party members also there originally?
Yes, we removed because we haven’t formally announced their weapons and clothes yet.

The exquisiteness and shades are like a photograph taken from real life.
Indeed, we’re using physical calculations to determine the movement of the clouds. By this time it allow us to filter sunlight and others on Versus XIII.

Is the cliff to the wilderness & the Gas Station set in the same location?
Yes in the back of the Store is the cliff to the extended wilderness. You can walk all the way, to everything you see but the mountains.

What’s this giant Enemy on the other screen?
It’s a Military Behemoth and he actually bears a huge sword in his back. As for this pictures, the battle screen were on the screen but we omitted it.

Q: The street of Shinjuku is real.
Yes, it’s our model for this, even the bicycle lanes and crosswalks are decipted. But the sense of distance has been changed a bit since the last time. Right out of the city you encounter the wilderness with electric wires every as it’s this kind of territory for this country.

This region, It is only the Prologue, the early stages, nature is so even there.
Movement around this area is easy because you can use a car. Getting on and off the car can be done anytime, but only not possible to go all the way through it because it leads to a region underwater that has been shown on promotional trailers before.

Monsters appear on the field?
(Laughter)…Yes, there are monsters that appear on the field; Some staff were doing the tests and were surprised by how good looking some are in the evening sun.

Are the battles seamless, what about the world?
It’s basically seamless and we aim to make it even more seamless, but there are loadings between big areas.

Information disclosure, is very restrict as of now.
Development is very advanced along and according to expectations we’re taking steady steps; wait at ease please, information on Versus XIII will come. Moreover, we’re making preparations for a Big announcement.

You can actually see a signboard and things written inside in the screenshot?
The signboard is still temporary even though the inside of the Gas Station is modeled after the Stations in the US in detail. It’s possible to go up there using the stairs.

Do you play in this perspective the whole game?
Yes. The camera basically sits in this position. We decided to priority to the character’s presence and the world; that said we decided to scrap the over the shoulder perspective of the world.

Source: Playstation Informer

It's taken over 4 years but gameplay screenshots of Final Fantasy Versus XIII have finally been released! The screenshots come from the earlier posted Famitsu article which confirms they're running on Playstation 3 hardware.

In the gameplay you can see Noctis in both urban and desert environments showing off the scale of the world Nomura is building as well as the enemies you'll be facing. You can see the images below.

The upcoming issue of Weekly Famitsu has some new details on Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Next to Nomura waxing lyrical about the game's graphics, we now know that:
-The world is an open field, and you can go everywhere except for the mountains
-You can destroy objects that you find on the road.
-You'll be able to use a car as promised. You can exit it and move on foot at any time as well.
- Enemies will be visible on the field, and while some enemies are wandering around, others will suddenly appear and surprise you. (This clarifies what the random and visible comment meant, and it also confirms that game will be similar to FFXII in that sense.)

Screenshots in the magazine (yet to surface) are, according to Nomura, running on PS3 hardware, yet they conveniently lack any icons and menus because the game is a monstrous secret.

Meanwhile, GameInformer ran a tidbit about the game going multiplat. We'll see how that develops.

Sources:andriasang.com
Another post on andriasang.com
duckroll from NeoGAF

Square Enix announced their line-up of games attending this years E3 earlier today. Many of them are no-brainers including the large amount of Eidos titles at the convention for the first time under the Square Enix banner but the main title we care about is Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear in their line-up.

There's possibly still hope though. Versus could appear as a surprise title like FFXIII has in the past. Let's just hope that if it does, the infamous Closed Mega Theatre doesn't accompany it.

Source: Square Enix E3 2010

Back in March, rumours of Playstation 3's freezing while playing Final Fantasy XIII circulated the internet. Now it's been revealed that some customers are claiming that the game actually caused their systems to break and become unusable.

Daniel Wolf has filed a class action lawsuit against Square Enix and Sony Computer Entertainment for the damage caused to his system and their neglect to fix the issue. When Wolf contacted Sony and Square Enix they admitted the issue existed but blamed it on each other. This failure for each company to take responsibility lead to the lawsuit being filed on June 2nd.

Let's see where this case goes.

Source: IGN.com