During our interview with Final Fantasy 13 producer Yoshinori Kitase at Gamescom he provided an update on the development of the different versions of the game. They are well into working on the game for other markets. This includes the planned Xbox 360 version for America which he estimates is now 70 percent done. He said that the game is up and running well on Microsoft's hardware but they have not started the debugging process yet.
Work on the english version of the game is also moving along well. Kitase confirmed that all the voice work has now been recorded. While it was not yet in the new demo level we saw he said that addition was right around the corner. With the detailing in the facial models he said that they are making sure to have the lip syncing correct.
For the Japanese market the PS3 version of the game now stands at 90% finished Kitase said. As they have moved into wrapping it up that has allowed them to start working simultaneously on the overseas versions.
Final Fantasy XIII’s story will last over 50 hours, not including side-quests, producer Yoshinori Kitase said at GamesCom today.
There was also two new characters announced during a presentation of the game earlier. The first one doesn’t have a name for now, just that she wears a sort of summer dress, white top, pink mini-skirt and a pink braid, but more info will be coming at Tokyo Game Show next month.
The second character announced is the son of the already announced Sazh, but there was no more info then that.
Finally, Kitase announced that the English dubbing for the game is finished and that the game will have English and Japanese sound dubs only, but will have subtitles in your native language.
Kitase confirmed to VG247 earlier this afternoon that the game will be out in the US and Europe in spring 2010, although a specfic date is to be confirmed. He also told us that they are trying to make sure the Xbox 360 version of the game will only hold three discs.
Badaboom. FFXIII’s PS3 and 360 versions will release simultaneously next spring in Europe, producer Yoshinori Kitase told VG247 at GamesCom today, calling the info the “new announcement”.
“We don’t have the actual month down yet, but in Japan it’s scheduled for a winter release, and in Europe and North American territoriers it’s spring 2010,” said the developer.
He added: “For Europe and North America, the PS3 and 360 versions are going to be released simultaneously.”
Kitase said that the team had made significant headway in cutting down waits for Europe and the US.
“For previous titles it took usually about a year to localise each version and bring it over to Europe, but for this title there should be a considerably shorter gap and [we'll] bring it to European territories as close to the North American release as possible,” he said.
The 360 version of FFXIII will ship on multiple DVDs, producer Yoshinori Kitase confirmed to VG247 at GamesCom today.
“This is not the final count as we’re still working on it, but we’re aiming for about three discs for the Xbox 360 version,” said the developer.
Kitase went on to assure that the two versions will be practically identical, although he did concede that there are likely to be “subtle differences” between the two.
“The 360 version and the PS3 version should be pretty much equal, both in terms of content and the visuals as well,” he added.
“Since the hardware is different, there might be some subtle differences if you compare screenshots side by side, but the team’s being very careful about the compression of the data and the visuals, so that it’s exactly the same on both.”
FFXIII releases this winter in Japan and next year in the US and Europe.
Can you talk about the personalities of the two protagonists, Snow and Lightning, in Final Fantasy XIII?
Motomu Toriyama: Lightning has a very cool personality. Snow, meanwhile is a little on the hot side, he’s very passionate about things and outspoken, so a lot of the exchanges between these characters has them not meeting eye-to-eye. A lot of the time, Lightning becomes annoyed because Snow is too passionate about certain things, so the way these two characters interact is going to be very entertaining for the players.
Were they designed to be opposites to increase the level of drama on-display?
MT: That was the original concept.
A lot of people on the Internet assume that Lighting is almost a female version of Cloud, from Final Fantasy VII – how true is this, really?
MT: The only two basic similarities are that they’re cool characters and have an ex-military [background]. Other than that, there’s no real connection between the two characters. Lightning really is her own person.
How do you think Final Fantasy XIII will affect the Japanese mentality towards RPG design?
Yoshinori Kitase: Japanese RPGs have traditionally always been command-based, and it’s all about really taking your time to strategise and work your way through the battles. That’s really what Final Fantasy has been as a series, but in XIII [there’s] more action. It’s still a command-based RPG at its core, but there’s a lot more speed, a lot more action – this might be the first step for the Final Fantasy series or Japanese RPGs as a whole to move out of the tradition solely command-based system into a more action-based system.
Final Fantasy games have always taken about a year to be translated for Europe – have you improved the process, this time?
YK: The development for the Japanese and European versions of the game are moving along, side-by-side, as the voice acting and subtitles are complete. Usually, we’d release the Japanese version and then begin localisation, meaning there was a big gap between the two releases, but we’ve announced Winter for the Japanese release and for North America and Europe, we’re targeting Spring, so it could be anything from a six-month gap to as small as a three-month gap. We’ll be bringing it to worldwide audiences much quicker than previous titles.
Is accelerating the localisation process key to making XIII a success, then?
YK: We definitely consider it important to decrease that gap. For Final Fantasy X, for example, players were scolding us for making it late. It’s definitely something we were looking into. We wanted to get the game out to overseas audiences as soon as possible.
The summon creatures are often based on religious figures – Shiva, for example – yet they appear very different to their recognised forms. What research goes into the summons? YK: It’s been a while since these summons were created, so we don’t go back to the original mythology and consider that, it’s become more about – because these summons reappear in Final Fantasy titles – how to design them so it’s a fresh experience for the player. Shiva, for example, is mentioned in the original mythology as a male, but now, beyond gender, she turns into a bike in Final Fantasy XIII.
What impact do you think the game will have on Xbox 360?
YK: Our whole point was to reach out to as many fans as possible. Knowing that the 360 has a large worldwide audience, our goal was to reach out to them, as well. We hope the users will enjoy Final Fantasy.
How will Final Fantasy XIII let you customise characters and weapons in the game?
MT: Just like there was the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X and the Licence Board in Final Fantasy XII, XIII has its own unique levelling-up system for the character. That information we haven’t really revealed in Japan, yet, but we will be revealing it in the Fall. And weapons, there’ll be some big customisation options available.
How is the pacing in Final Fantasy XIII? Were you ever conscious of Western RPGs in this regard?
MT: We weren’t necessarily affected directly by Western games. The aim of the Final Fantasy team was to make it as seamless as possible, to provide good pacing for the game, so I think we’ve been able to achieve that with XIII.
Is there any particular template you use for creating villains in Final Fantasy?
YK: For the enemy characters, we’re always careful to just create bad guys that aren’t all evil, that have their own motivations and beliefs over what their actions are. There’s no complete sense of evil, but everyone has their own way of thinking. That’s something that’s really important to designing the enemy characters.
What’s the size of the game world in XIII?
MT: The scale is similar to Final Fantasy X, in terms of world size, but in terms of the environments – we’ve only been showing a lot of the cityscapes and futuristic backgrounds, but that’s just in Cocoon. Within Cocoon, there’s also a lot of wilderness and natural forests. Outside of Coon, there’s the whole wilderness of Pulse, that’s all natural environments. There’s a lot of variety.
What lessons have you learned from recent Final Fantasy games like XII and FFVII spin-off Crisis Core?
YK: We did look to past Final Fantasy titles, like XII, not so much taking in ideas from past titles and putting them into XIII, but more looking at them and seeing what we could do differently. In the case of FFXII and XIII, you see a paradigm shift, actually changing the player’s role in the battle. In XII you do all of the role assigning before the battle, and being able to change everything during the battle is more exciting in our eyes.
MT: In Final Fantasy XII, it was seamless and realistic where you go into battle and it’s not so different from the field scenes. For me, whenever I work on a Final Fantasy title, I really want to have eye-catching visual effects and [make] the action really big. The field and battle [transition] is a little different.
Do you see DLC playing any role in the game?
YK: There are no firm plans for DLC, at the moment, but we’re looking at it and considering it. We’d like to provide additional maps and boss characters, but nothing is set in stone, yet.
Given Final Fantasy VII’s success after the PSN re-release, does this make you confident about the success of XIII?
YK: It’d definitely been a while since the last Final Fantasy was released, so with the success, as you mention, we were able to see that there were people out there waiting for the next Final Fantasy to come out and make us work extra hard for when [XIII] comes out.
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She lookin at my phone book like..... AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, yo, you gotta whole lotta, names and im lookin at her phone book like AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, yo, you gotta whole lotta, Lames.
The Lifestyle
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"For just about 0.2 seconds, you were watching a dream. In a real fight, 0.1 seconds is the difference between success and defeat. Which means you were already killed twice by me."
Only 50 hours? I want a 70 hour multi disc extravaganza with side quests and hidden summons!
I think I had 50 Hours on disc ONE of Xenogears
50 hour story line without side missions is damn good. Ur buggin. hes not saying that there wont be side quests, hes sayin that the campaign is long as fukk.
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She lookin at my phone book like..... AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, yo, you gotta whole lotta, names and im lookin at her phone book like AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, yo, you gotta whole lotta, Lames.
The Lifestyle
xenogears was just bland. i have a suspicion that most of its fans are more in love with the concept behind it than the execution
pretty much it was like a playable novel, so I stopped playing and hit the ever useful wiki. Sh1t was just boring playing it, but the story was pretty good.
Xenogears was doing the whole challenge religion thing back when it wasn't even cool to do so. outside of Breath of Fire II i can't remember that many games that made it over here with that sort of content. it was far from bland but it was however long winded i guess you could say.
Final Fantasy XIII (May Contain Spoilers)
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