An interview with Motomu Toriyama has recently been scanned in by FF13vids. According to them, the page is from a PS3 Pamphlet released at last years TGS with Toriyama expressing why the PS3 is the perfect platform for FFXIII to be developed on. Nothing really new we can pick out without a translation but it does make the likelyhood of the game being ported to the Xbox 360 aswell even less likely, not that the rumor has any real proof to support it. I'll get ready to eat my words.

PS3 Pamphlet Scan

Thanks to Ragnarok for finding the news.
Source: Forever Fantasy

Today a photo of a Japanese newspaper containing a full page advertisement of the Square-Enix Party taking place on May 12th - 13th has been released to us via FF7AC Reunion.

FF 20th Anniversary Newspaper Page
FF 20th Anniversary Newspaper Cutout

The page is based on the 20th anniversary of the series taking place this year and contains each Final Fantasy title that is yet to be released. What makes the page relevant to us is the writing at the bottom of the page which says:

The evolution will never stop, the series continues [... ] and the Final Fantasy that nobody knows will enter in scene.

It's an online translation from Jeux-France but what it says is pretty clear. A new game could be announced at this years party which Square-Enix has told us will contain a lot of surprises for us. It could be another title in the Fabula Nova Crystallis compilation, a completly new FF game or yet another spinoff but it looks like we'll just have to wait until May to find out.

Source: QuickJump

IGN have made their own summaries of the Gemaga articles from a few days ago with some more details about FFXIII and Agito.

Final Fantasy XIII

The XIII article is mostly about the battle system being implemented in the game by it's recently announced battle director Tosirou Tsuchida, previously the FFX battle director. For FFXIII we'll be getting a "flash, speedy battle system that while as fast as an action game, still allows for players to input commands. Attacks in the game can be charged to make them more powerful and magic can be combined with standard attacks causing more damage or a status alignment to be given.

The system has been described as a party battle system by Toriyama but it's unsure whether commands are input to control your allies or if they automaticlly attack like the FFXII Gambit system. Tsuchida just replied with "no comment"

The enemies in the game have an actual background story instead of being random grunts. The soldier battalions will have thoughts and feelings and react to the habitat they're fighting in. This could mean with have enemies with morals or cowards fleeing battles.

IGN: Final Fantasy XIII Battle System Detailed

Final Fantasy Agito XIII

Nomura has given more specifics on how Agito will be distributed. The game is too much for current 3G phones to handle so the game will most likely be developed on next generation 4G phones which haven't been released yet. This means they won't nessecarilly be limited to releasing the game in chapters like Before Crisis but in one full game. The reason he doesn't want it to be developed on 3G is because Nomura wants it to be considered a fully fledged Final Fantasy title. He'll also be using his current mobile projected, Monotone, to test some elements for Agito.

IGN: Final Fantasy Agito XII Goes Next Gen

Source: IGN

Maiki, the Live Journal member who brought us the fanart of the Blonde Haired guy before the image was released has translated the interview in the Gemaga scan we posted today. This translation should be much more reliable and gives us a lot more information I couldn't pick out beforehand. It also should correct a few small mistakes. Everyone worship her. I've added the translated FFXIII interview to the interview section.

Gemaga Translated Interview (bottom of the page)

This time, the game isn't centred around a party of people joining together to save the world.

Blonde Haired guy hasn't been defined as an enemy or an ally yet to Lightning. He also is supposed to have a funny way of fighting .

There may be a job system in FFXIII but it hasn't been confirmed. They do say they're finding ways to make the game more enjoyable though.

Summons in FFXIII will have a strong partnership with the characters in the game and won't necessarily be used in pairs like Shiva is.

Unlike FFXII, it's possible to get the upperhand on enemies in the field before attacking. Enemies will also have other traits outside of battle other than attacking.

The White Engine is also a great platform to be working on according to Kitase and it will be used for future titles as well.

Here's some extra information for Versus:

The gameplay will be a more realistic version of Kingdom Hearts with third person shooter elements similar to Dirge of Cerberus. This works by changing the players point of view depending on what weapon they have equipped.

Nomura was questioned whether there would be an Air Ship in this installment and he confirmed there definitely will be.

The Kingdom Hearts main programmer looked at the Versus concept and asked "Is this Kingdom Hearts 3?"

Source: Maiki - Live Journal

Finally we have some new news thanks to a scan from Gemaga magazine. No new images but the scan did contained an interview with Toriyama and Nomura which the people over at FF13 Vids have summarised for us. Remember it's a poor translation so some information isn't completly confirmed.

Gemaga Magazine Scan

Final Fantasy XIII

The FFXIII battle system is a completly new type of system designed to be fast paced. The new system is being developed by Toshiro Tsuchida, the battle director of FFX. There are no random encounters in the game but a field full of enemies similar to FFXII. The monsters also change according to the situation or environment. According to Tsuchida the FFXII License board had too much freedom and in FFXIII he sets out to design a system giving characters abilities based on their personalities. The summons are also supposed to work as partners (like the two Shiva sisters) so we could see more summons with brothers or sisters.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII

Nomura said that he doesn't want to begin work on Kingdom Hearts 3 until he has finished Versus so he can concentrate on one at a time. This also may be the last FF spin off game Nomura makes so he can work on other titles. The game itself is supposed to play like a more realistic version of Kingdom hearts with some elements of a Third Person Shooter similar to Dirge of Cerberus.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII

Currently the script for Agito is being written which is supposed to be an amazing story. The game will be released in a similar way to Before Crisis in an episodic format with one episode being released a month. It has to be released like this because of the huge scale of the game.

Source: FF13 Vids

A new screenshot of Lightning has been released in all it's HD goodness. The image has previously appeared in both Dengeki and Famitsu scans from after Jump Festa. The interview that the image came from is about Square-Enix's recent adoption of the Unreal 3 Engine for use in other games and it's mentioned that it will in turn "advance the development of FFXIII". Thanks to GHenrik for finding it.

FFXIII Lightning Screenshot

EDIT: Any mention of FFXIII has been removed from the original interview. The Unreal Engine was apparently going to help "advance the development of FFXIII" (assuming it would take pressure off people on the team working on other games) but some sites have said it was going to replace the White Engine and be used for FFXIII. This is untrue and the White Engine is still being used to develop FFXIII and Versus.

Source: FF&KH Blog

The new issue of Play UK is based around the future of the PS3. It contains a small extract on Final Fantasy XIII about the game most likely launching in Japan in 2008. It also mentions that the game is only 2% complete. If that's true look forward to a very distant English release.

Play UK Scan

One of our forum members (Pulse) has taken the time to make a fan magazine which summarises all our knowledge on the Fabula Nova Crystallis compilation. It's impressive enough to deserve its own page on our site so everyone take a look! This issue focuses on FFXIII and he already has plans to make further issues.

Fabula Nova Crystallis Issue One

I've added the magazine to a gallery to make it easier to navigate through the pages. Note that the gallery does take a little while to load in Internet Explorer because all the images load at once.

Toriyama said a few days ago we would be recieveing FFXIII "as soon as possible" but it seems "soon" has a different meaning to him. In an interview with Nomura, he speaks about his current projects including KH2: Final Mix, Advent Children: Complete and his other works. They're all to be released this year (hopefully so he can get working on Versus) but according to him FFXIII isn't going to be released in 2007.

Source: FF7AC Reunion