As well as the FFXIII-2 details, Famitsu has also interviewed Tetsuya Nomura in their latest issue. He mostly discussed Kingdom Hearts 3D but he did give a few development details on Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
Nomura told Famitsu how he performed a walkthrough of the entire world map recently, checking out the towns and dungeons on the way. He said he was amazed at how wide and impressive everything was. A slightly subjective opinion which isn’t much use to us but he does confirm the use of a new lighting engine. Previously, he stated that the games lighting was being improved and that he was aiming for Versus to be photo realistic. Today he confirmed that an entirely new engine was being used just for it.
The Luminous Engine which was announced back in August is Square Enix’s next generation tool kit and parts of it are being implemented into Versus. The engine does have a small tech demo showing what it can really do (not constrained by specific hardware however). Below is a photo and a screenshot from the tech demo. The left is the photo and the right is the render from the engine. A slightly unfair comparison but it still looks impressive. The 15 second walkthrough video of the scene is available here but only works on some browsers (IE). Youtube however, doesn’t do it justice.
Nomura also says another engine (seperate to Crystal tools) is being utilized for action. The fact that the games engines are still a major talking factor does douse any expectations of an upcoming release. With in-engine trailers already released though, there may have been a lot of work done to what we’ve already seen.
Two months ago inside a Famitsu interview with Nomura, he confirmed that after 6 years, they were finally preparing to go into full production of Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Yesterday it was confirmed that this has begun.
During yesterdays Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fan meeting, Kitase was questioned about the development of Type-0 and Versus. His answer, “for Type-0 and Versus XIII we are giving 100% to development”. With just over a month to go until Type-0 is out, that’s unsurprising but the fact that Versus is now in full production should give a lot of people hope. Just for reference, it was also confirmed that XIII-2 is 90% complete with a development period of 1 and a half years.
Source: Nova Crystallis
Tokyo Game Show. One of the world’s major gaming events and Japan’s biggest. Every September, gamers and their representative media swarm to get a dose of upcoming gaming awesome. Unfortunately for some, Final Fantasy Versus XIII won’t be a part of the sweet gaming formula pumped directly into the veins of the gaming world this year.
Speaking to Dengeki and doing them a little art favour as part of their 500th issue, Tetsuya Nomura said that Versus wouldn’t be appearing, but the next showing of the game has been set. When? He didn’t say, but they know and they will hopefully stick to it.
May this year marked five years since the game’s announcement.
Source: andriasang.com
As promised last week, Tetsuya Nomura has released new details on Final Fantasy Versus XIII in the form of a short interview with Famitsu in their latest issue. Unfortunately, a lot of the new information given is difficult to understand without actually seeing what Nomura is talking about or the screenshots he showed the editors but that didn’t stop him.
Cutscenes were a major topic in the interview. Final Fantasy has always had cutscenes in 3 flavours. CG, pre-rendered and real-time. Historically, they’ve never been controllable but Nomura wants to end that. He says that all real-time cutscenes in Versus will be controllable in order to keep the game from stopping. How it’s been implemented it is unclear but we can assume it could possibly involve NPCs talking while the character you’re controlling is still able to explore. If that’s the case, it doesn’t sound incredibly revolutionary but we’ll have to wait and see.
Nomura goes into more depth about cutscenes, this time concerning facial expressions which he claims will be much more natural, unlike the “game-like” expressions of past games. Although what he means is unclear, he also mentions a new system in that area which he thinks hasn’t been done before. We’ll have to wait to see what he means.
Three screenshots were shown to the editors, all in real-time, and all apparently stunning. They include shots of an Italian like city, an afternoon shot of a highway, and the same but at night. Nomura says the real-time looks so good because the low quality and high quality models are almost identical, apart from the hair which is slightly better looking on the pre-rendered models. Takeshi Nozue is responsible for the near pre-rendered look of the real-time shots thanks to his knowledge on lighting and other pre-rendered tricks. While the editors noted that the screenshots looked like photos, Nomura also said that you can take photos in-game with Noctis’ cellphone. The screenshots won’t be available to the public yet but when they are, he says they’ll look even better thanks to an improvement in the lighting technology.
Concerning development itself, Nomura says that they’re preparing to enter full production. Voice acting is being slowly recorded now so hopefully our next trailer could be fully voiced.
Source: Andriasang
Nomura has apparently claimed that there will be a “little followup” to this weeks issue of Famitsu which will include new information on Final Fantasy Versus XIII and will all be featured in next weeks issue.
This weeks edition already contains over 70 pages of Square Enix content which is all, just about, making it’s way online. It isn’t clear why Versus will be featured in next weeks issue but apparently, Nomura has also hinted at a new title being announced.
Source: FF-Reunion
Famitsu has released it’s interview with Final Fantasy Versus XIII director, Tetsuya Nomura, and it turns out to be rather lengthy. Andriasang have once again taken on the mammoth task of translating and summarising the interview and they’ve done a great job.
Along with the interview also comes the artwork of Noctis featured in both the magazines released so far but unfortunately in a rather small size. See it and the interview below.STORY AND CHARACTERS
The 1st Production Department Premier event trailer, which offered us our first true look at Versus XIII gameplay (ignoring the few seconds from the game’s brief Tokyo Game Show trailer) was almost all in-game. The opening section, which showed Noctis and his driver driving down a freeway was CG (not live action footage, Famitsu confirmed),
but everything from the conversation scene between Noctis and Stella was real time running on the PlayStation 3. This includes the flyby scene with the masses of buildings that precedes the combat part of the clip. (Nomura didn’t say this, but the end of the clip does appear to have a short CG sequence.)
The trailer, Famitsu noted, allows us to better get a grasp of the characters, as we get to first hear Noctis, and his allies. Furthermore, the ally clothing has been redone.
These areas appear to be final designs, although Nomura said that he’s playing around with the hair a bit. Even the voices that you hear for the allies during the combat scenes is from final voice actors, chosen via auditions…
Read the rest of the interview at Andriasang
Source: Famitsu
Famitsu has finished up their coverage on the 1st Production Premier with the release of new Final Fantasy Versus XIII screenshots on their website. These screenshots were previously featured in scans in very poor quality. There isn’t an interview included with this release like there was with XIII-2 and Type-0 but that may be released at a later date. See the screenshots below.
UPDATE: Several more images released on Famitsu’s site. The images below are clearer since nearest neighbor interpolation wasn’t used for cropping.
Source: Famitsu (January 31st, 2011)
Update Source: Famitsu (February 1st, 2011)
The latest Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailer shown at Square Enix’s 1st Production Premier has been released officially online in High Definition like promised. There isn’t much more to say but enjoy the much better quality video below.
The Dengeki Final Fantasy Versus XIII scans have leaked their way onto the internet and with them comes new gameplay screenshots. These scans don’t include the interview but it’s most likely there won’t be any new details as all the information was leaked prior to their release.
The new screenshots include Noctis wealding a new lance type weapon which some have described as a “Pile Bunker”, a common weapon in other Square Enix titles. See the scans below. We’ll upload higher quality versions once they become available.
Alongside Dengeki leaks from yesterday, leaks from Famitsu magazine have surfaced:
• Your characters in Versus will not have jobs. However, your enemies will include dragon knights (or dragoons if you prefer) and summoners
• There is a summoning element to the game.
• Your weapon selection will include: swords, axes, spheres, hand guns, machine guns, rifles, bazookas, and shot guns. This is just a partial list, though.
• The Ignis character (the guy with the glasses) is good with assist-style attacks. He can toss knives at enemies. (Note: I’m not sure if Nomura actually uses the Ignis name, or if it’s just the person who wrote the summary.)
• The character with the scar on his face uses a fighting style. He can make use of a pile bunker and broad sword.
• The blonde character is a gunner.
• The game will have positional damage elements for attacking enemies.
• Larger enemies will have weak points.
• The game does not have team attacks for your party members. Repeat: does not.
• You can combo your attacks across character changes — that is, you can keep your combo going when you switch the character you’re currently controlling. As an example, you can make the scarfaced character do positional damage with his hammer, then switch to Ignis, or you can make the enemy shrink away in fear from Ignis’s magic then call in another character to attack.
• You can bring party members back to life if they die. The exception is Noctis. If he dies, the game ends.
• The difficulty is being set towards the high end.
Translation provided by Andriasang. Thanks again!
Watch this space for additional updates regarding Famitsu leaks.
Source: Andriasang
Final Fantasy XIII Japanese Commercial 1 HD
Final Final Fantasy XIII Trailer (Translated)Final Final Fantasy XIII Japanese TrailerFinal Fantasy XIII Release Date Announcement Video
Japan: December 17th 2009
NA: March 9th 2010
Europe: March 9th 2010 Japan: December 15th 2011 NA: January 31st 2012 Europe: February 3rd 2012 Japan: TBA NA: TBA Europe: TBA Japan: October 13th 2011 NA: TBA Europe: TBA
