It’s the news people! Square-Enix is ready for Jump Festa with a shiny new page for Fabula Nova Crystallis.

It keeps bearing the story whose repeatedly thing strange feeling is new
As for color ── which is not Ishiki
As for that, though it is the shining of the crystal

It develops with the protagonist, the world view which differs, and differs the stories which differ, the magnificent project Fabula Nova Crystallis where several Final Fantasy XIII exist.
Each one keeps developing individually on the basis of the myth with the meaning, “the New Tale of the Crystal”.

Because at the specially installed theatre up-to-date image can view in the Jump Festa meeting place, please come back another time.

I don’t like the sound of a new theatre like the closed mega theatre we “saw” in TGS. And finally, we now have a digital image of the Blond Haired Kid from Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

Please see Jump Festa 07: Fabula Nova Crystallis

I've scanned in some articles from the new issues of Official Playstation Magazine and Play UK featuring FFXIII. Once again, just another analysis of TGS this year a few months late (everythings late for us).

Official Playstation Magazine UK Scan 1
Official Playstation Magazine UK Scan 2

Play UK Scan 1

They feature the new screenshots from TGS and a few details we've already reported. Very little on Versus and Agito but they mention the registration of the name Final Fantasy Haeresis XIII by Square-Enix on 1st May which we hope we hear something about at Jump Festa but it doesnt appear on the list featured below. Lets hope they surprise us.

This is an update of the last line up list for Jump Festa.

Square now mention (aka, confirms) that Versus and Agito will be at Jump Festa. In the previous summary, only Final Fantasy XIII was confirmed.

• FFXIII
• Versus XIII
• Agito XIII
  

No details on what Square-Enix will come up with, except new images before the end of 2006. Jump Festa takes place 16-17 Desember.

Source: FF&KH Blog

Chief visual and technical officer Glenn Entis mentions how important motion graphics are in a game for the player to feel a realistic game.

In his eyes, a game character can have many polygons to be detailed and photorealistic, but without good animations, they will feel dead and inhuman. He then takes the next generation of Final Fantasy as an example for this.

In Final Fantasy, the modelling fidelity was really better than the motion fidelity. In other words, when you looked at the models, they signalled an expectation to the audience that the motion couldn't deliver upon.

Now, we can all hate him and EA games for this, but if you recheck the trailer we have frame by frame, you can see that he’s right. Our heroine has a very sharp and frozen face, almost unaffected by her actions and surroundings. There are scenes where she will look directly at her target and show anger, but in some short fast scenes, she has an unfocused and weird look on her face.

Frame 1
Frame 2
Frame 3

On Playstation 2, during the cut-scenes, characters have a much higher polygon rate on their faces to express motions in a better way. Are we satisfied with that on the next generation of Final Fantasy? As we know, the white engine is still in its first round of development. Will we see more expressions not only in cut-scenes, but also in battle, when they walk or when they stand point blank on the ground? Admit it, most characters on PS2 don’t care about their environment and look straight into some fascinating dot in the air. We want more this time!

Source: ps3.qj.net

The Playstation 3 launched in Japan today and a new commercial aired with it. FFXIII has been featured in one of the TV spots for the launch.

Click here to download it
Click here to watch it on Youtube

A little too early for it to be advertised with launch titles I think but still cool to see it being mentioned.

Source: FF-XIII.net

We have some more information on the interview with Toriyama and Nomura in Dengeki PS3. Further parts of the interview have been posted on FF7AC Reunion revealing a few new details on Versus.

It seems the man featured in the screenshots and trailer (which is yet to be released to the public) is the protagonist. According to Nomura his eyes glow red when he has sword in hand which is hard to notice because we're yet to see him without a sword. The actual battles are going to very similar to Advent Children which is what we can expect from the Director who made it.

There has also been rumour of a trailer being announced for one of the games within the next month in an RPGFan news post translating the FF7AC Reunion article but we only see the already announced new screenshots coming out soon. If anyone can tell us anymore about this please contact us.

Source: FF7AC Reunion

Well at least we're starting to get a little more information from the producers now. Toriyama and Nomura have been taken away from their work and interviewed by Dengeki PS3 (a spin-off magazine from Dengeki for the PS3 launch in Japan). We aren't sure whether or not this is the same interview we have in the scans in the post below but we're sure glad its English.

Toriyama talks about the transition from FFXIII on the PS2 to moving development onto the PS3. Apparently there are few similarities in the game as it has been completely overhauled for the Next-Gen system with a new battle system and gameplay style. He says working on a new system will mean a lot more work similar to the change from the Playstation to the PS2.

"We're probably at the point where we could make a PS3 title. However, we're currently researching how to fully tap the specs."

Could this mean the 3% completion rumour is true? Whatever the percentage is it looks like we have a long time to wait.

On the Versus side of things it seems like real time footage is a long way off. The White Engine is still being finished off and apparently its going to be used with a lot more games than we thought. Nomura says that there will be different versions of the White Engine, "tuned" to their specifications for each game which could mean games coming out quicker in the future.

Click here for the full article

Thanks to our forum member Desi for finding this information for us.

Source: IGN

We got the interview scans of Mr. Nomura and Mr. Toriyama.
As expected, its all in japanese (d'oh),  so we hope that some good soul out there can translate it.

Electric Shock Interview FFXIII
Electric Shock Interview Versus

Mr. Toriyama (FFXIII) will give us new image(s) before the end of 2006. Perhaps during the Jump Festa. (16-17 December.)

Source: FF&KH Blog

Good News:
Some (recent?) images tell us new numbers on progress of FFXIII and Versus.
Bad News:
They are lower then the last numbers.
FFXIII progress goes from 13% to 3% and Versus goes from 1.3% to 1%.

If we find the name on the magazine it comes from, we will update this article. It could be false numbers. (heck, everything could be false)

Progress Scan Extract

Source: FF-xiii.net, FFinsider.net

The last article was about the Final Fantasy 13 interview, but now we have an update on Final Fantasy Versus XIII. And again we try to extract the important and good stuff out of the Japanese article. Please treat the following text as unconfirmed.

Mr. Nomura talks about the white engine so you can expect the same high level of graphic in Versus. They talk about White engine version 2 and 3. They are working on version 1 at the moment and keep on doing adjustments. So we could expect even better graphic then the sequences in FFXIII trailer.

They talk about the battle system and see a image of gauge similar to the one in FFXIII. (Unknown if they where shown it or if it’s in the magazine)
He hints the use of multiple weapons in battle.

The scenario of the game is not complete and will not continue before further development of white engine is done.

They mention “Online”, and then use the word "Online" with portable telephone.

Source: FF&KH Blog