Pictures of Final Fantasy XIII

Author: visionFez		Author: visionFez
Author: visionFez	Author: visionFez

Information about Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII​ (ファイナルファンタジーXIII, Fainaru Fantajī Sātīn) is a console role-playing game being developed by Square Enix. It is slated to be released for PlayStation 3 in Japan, and on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in Europe and North America. First appearing at the 2006 (4 years ago) E3, the game features futuristic elements and is set in a high-tech world. It is set to be released in Japan on Dec. 17, 2009 (last year).

Final Fantasy XIII is the flagship title of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII collection.

Gameplay

The concept for Final Fantasy XIII's battle system is to maintain the strategic nature of command-based battles. The system stemmed from a desire to create battles similar to those found in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Like those in Final Fantasy XII (5 walls), enemies are integrated into the world environment. Yet unlike Final Fantasy XII (5 walls) battles do not take place in the same "dimension", but rather a short flash transports players to a new battle screen, separate from the main playing world. The Active Time Battle (ATB) system will return, but it works differently from its predecessors. Users will be able to chain large numbers of commands together in order to achieve attack bonuses.

The first battle system was shown during the E3 2006 (4 years ago), but it was only a prototype. A new interface was shown recently by Square Enix in various Japanese magazines and trailers (depicted in the image (wallpaper) adjacent). In battle, the player can only control one character at a time out of a party of up to three.

Multiple commands can be stacked into slots per turn and released at the same time to form a combo. The number of command slots increases as the characters grow in strength. These commands include series staples such as Attack, Fire, Blizzard and Cure, as well as new ones such as Ruin, Ruinaga, and Radial Strike. The difference between XIII's battle system and the ATB gauge is that these commands can still be placed in the slots even though the bar has run out, and the actions will be executed once the required slots are filled up. This, however, affects the chain combo hits as the combo has been interrupted. The game does not make use of MP but introduces "cost points" for each command, which determine how many times the commands can be used per turn. Because magic cannot be used outside of battle, the HP of the party is completely restored after each battle.

A "break state" is one of the new features of the Final Fantasy XIII battle system. The breaks refer to the times an enemy enters a state of non-retaliation. This occurs when a chain combo has been maintained for a certain period of time on an enemy. When a high level combo has been achieved, the enemy will glow red and enter this state, during which the player will be able to inflict high amounts of damage. The chain bar will gradually deplete during this period; when it becomes empty, the break state ends.

A new option in battle was revealed during Gamescom 2009 (last year) called "Paradigm Shift" (called "Optima Change" in Japan). Using this option, player can switch party members' roles during battle. For example, a character can be switched to use defensive or offensive tactics as the battle dictates.

The classic summoned creatures called Eidolons (as they were in Final Fantasy IV DS and Final Fantasy IX (5 walls)) will return in Final Fantasy XIII. Shiva, Carbuncle, Ifrit, Siren, and Odin appeared in shown footage. Producer Yoshinori Kitase has confirmed that Bahamut will also appear in the game. When summoned, the Eidolon stay in battle while the characters accompanying the summoner leaves the party. There is also a new feature called "Gestalt Mode", which when activated joins the summoned and its summoner somehow; for example, the character Snow can ride and steer the combined Shiva Nix and Shiva Styria in a "Driving Mode". This changes the pace of the combat significantly. But not all summons turn into mechanical vehicles; Odin's Gestalt Mode changes him into a horse for Lightning to ride. Each character will possess only one Eidolon that is summoned from a crystal that sprouts from the character's mark of l'Cie. Sazh's summon is an original fire-elemental knight, that will turn into a red race car with mounted guns. It has been recently revealed that the summons will play a major role in the game's storyline as well, much like Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy IX (5 walls) and Final Fantasy X.

The player is able to view the HP and name of the enemy before engaging it in battle. When engaging an enemy, the camera moves to another position and the battle menu appears, making the battle transitions nearly seamless. The after-battle victory screen in XIII holds information such as the time it took to finish the battle, the highest number of combos executed, the number of break attacks and the quality of battle which is determined by a ranking of one to five stars.

Characters

• Lightning (ライトニング, Raitoningu)
• Snow Villiers (スノウ・ヴィリアース, Sunou Viriāsu)
• Oerba Dia Vanille (ヲルバ＝ダイア・ヴァニラ, Woruba-Daia Vanira)
• Sazh Katzroy (サッズ・カッツロイ, Sazzu Kattsuroi)
• Hope Estheim (ホープ・エストハイム, Hōpu Esutohaimu)
• Oerba Yun Fang (ヲルバ＝ユン・ファング, Woruba-Yun Fangu)
• Serah Farron (セラ・ファロン, Sera Faron)
• Jihl Nabaat (ジル・ナバート, Jiru Nabāto)
• Yaag Rosch (ヤーグ ロッシュ, Yāgu Rosshu)

Plot

The plot of Final Fantasy XIII revolves around the fal'Cie (pronounced /ˈf�lsiː/), beings created from crystals residing inside them. People who are marked by the fal'Cie for greater purposes are called l'Cie. Each l'Cie has a Focus, a goal the fal'Cie wants him or her to fulfill within a certain amount of time; however, the fal'Cie do not explicitly say what the goal is. l'Cie gain the ability to summon Eidolons (monsters who fight with the l'Cie), but this ability comes with a price: if an l'Cie runs out of time or dies before completing his or her Focus, he or she becomes a monster known as a "Cie Corpse."

Some thirteen centuries ago, a fal'Cie constructed a paradise for humanity: the shell-like city of Cocoon, which floats high above the surface of the world known as Pulse. Both Pulse and Cocoon are maintained by their own fal'Cie. Cocoon's fal'Cie created life forms and machines for its inhabitants to use, and humanity flourished. Over time, the people of Cocoon began to fear for the safety of their world, and they worried that it would be cast down from the sky into the hell that they saw Pulse to be.

In the present day, the wilderness of Pulse has strange effects on people, and the theocratic government of Cocoon, known as Sanctum, quarantines and exiles anyone who has been influenced by Pulse from Cocoon with the help of its mighty army, PSICOM. However, as Snow leads Team Nora in a vain attempt to stop the purging of civilians, the mysterious Lightning fights her way past PSICOM soldiers to find Pulse's fal'Cie with the aid of Sazh. Through a chain of events, these three, along with two exiles, Vanille and Hope, are chosen by the fal'Cie of Pulse against their will to become l'Cie, and with that become enemies of humanity who are tasked with bringing about the downfall of Cocoon.

Development

Final Fantasy XIII was first shown at the 2006 (4 years ago) E3 convention. Along with Final Fantasy Versus XIII and the PlayStation Portable game Final Fantasy Agito XIII, Final Fantasy XIII is part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII project, but none is a prequel or sequel to any of the other installments. Square Enix explained that although all three games take place in the same universe, they are not directly related in terms of story. The game runs on the Crystal Tools engine, a seventh generation multiplatform game engine built by Square Enix for its future games. The engine and the game were originally slated to be used with the PlayStation 2 but were later moved to the PlayStation 3.

Since the announcement of the Xbox 360 version, there as been worries that the PlayStation 3 version of the game was going to be somehow affected due to hardware limitations. SquareEnix denied this, explaining that the game will continue to be designed with the PlayStation 3.

Final Fantasy XIII is made by Square Enix Production Team 1 (led by Yoshinori Kitase), meaning that the development team will look more like it did when Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 (8 walls) were made, rather than Final Fantasy XII. Several of the game's developers have worked on previous installments of the series. Yoshinori Kitase, director of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII and producer of Final Fantasy X and Dissidia: Final Fantasy (2 walls) among others, will once again return as producer for the game. Motomu Toriyama, director of Final Fantasy X-2 (8 walls) and director and scenario writer of Final Fantasy XII (5 walls): Revenant Wings, will direct the game and write the story. Eiji Fujii, previously the movie director of Final Fantasy XII (5 walls), will return in this position. Isamu Kamikokuryō, previously the co-art director of Final Fantasy XII (5 walls), will return as well, with Tetsu Tsukamoto designing the weapons. The main programmers will be Kazumi Kobayashi and Yoshiki Kashitani. Occasionally, developers from Final Fantasy Versus XIII assisted with the development of Final Fantasy XIII. Final Fantasy X's battle director Toshiro Tsuchida will return as the battle system director for the game. He intends on giving individual enemies their own personalities and background stories. He chose not to comment when asked whether players will input commands for individual party members or control will be limited to the current party leader.

Release

Due to the frequency of rumored release dates appearing on the Internet, Square Enix's official website issued a statement reminding consumers that any "confirmed release dates" reported by sources other than Square Enix are "erroneous and should be disregarded". During Microsoft's media briefing at the 2008 (2 years ago) E3, Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be released first in Japan on PlayStation 3 in 2009 (last year), then released in North America and Europe on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The latter would start development only after the Japanese PlayStation 3 version is completed, and the 360 version will come on multiple discs. A Japanese release of the Xbox 360 version of the game is not planned. NVIDIA has also announced a PC version is in the works.

At the DKΣ3713 Private Party event in Aug. 2008 (2 years ago), Square Enix announced that a playable demo of Final Fantasy XIII will be included in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children (6 walls) Complete (released on Apr. 16 in Japan and Jun. 2 for North America) on Blu-ray Disc for PlayStation 3, along with new trailers of Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII. The demo will see a limited release, subject to the initial shipments of the Advent Children package. The demo, however, is not reflective of the final product as it was created using an old build of the game.

The official Japanese website has recently (as of late Apr. 2009 (last year)) been updated to include mention of a broad "Winter 2009" release window for Japan. However, when speaking to Japanese press, Square Enix claimed the game might not even come out in this fiscal year. Speaking at a Dissidia: Final Fantasy-related press event in London, producer Yoshinori Kitase stated that the team was aiming to cut down the time it takes for localization. Suggesting a European release "before winter 2010", he mentioned that localization was underway with some translation and voicework already completed. At the same time, it was denied there were any current plans for a Western release of the trial version.

Giant advertisements of Final Fantasy XIII appeared on the cross-street of Olympic Blvd. and Figueroa Street in the city of Los Angeles on May 23, 2009 (last year). These consisted of three huge billboards, showing the three lead characters of the game: Vanille, Snow, and Lightning, confirming the release date of the North American version of Final Fantasy XIII to be in 2010 (this year) on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

During Microsoft's E3 2009 (last year) conference, it was announced that Final Fantasy XIII was to be released "Spring 2010" worldwide and for both consoles (except Japan) and that a concrete date has not been determined yet.

Square Enix confirmed at a Japanese press event that Final Fantasy XIII will be out on Dec. 17, 2009 (last year) in Japan, with a Mar. 2010 (this year) target period for NA and EU.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

External links to Final Fantasy XIII

Searching, searching, and searching... no links found, click below to get the first link!

Add a new link

Linked to Final Fantasy XIII

• Games / Dissidia: Final Fantasy