[Multiplatform] Official Final Fantasy XIII Thread

Agito looks kind of nifty, but I've yet to see anything impressive about XIII and Versus. That zipper-buckle glove is truly a marvel of terrible design, and that guy already looked like nothing more than a younger version of the spear guy in Laguna's party in VIII.

I'm liking the modern clothing design in FFXIII Versus. They picked some pretty pimp suits out of what could have been a horrible line-up.

Quote:

Noctis Lucis Caelum

Stella Nox Fleuret

Okay, Square Enix needs to lay off the Random Latin Name generator, because who's parents in their right minds would name their kid Noctis? Sounds like a venereal disease.

At least Stella is a real name.

Some dude in Hollywood named his kid Kal-El. Assume the same point of intelligence for this guy's parents and you'll be just fine.

Originally Posted by INDIGO-1

Okay, Square Enix needs to lay off the Random Latin Name generator, because who's parents in their right minds would name their kid Noctis? Sounds like a venereal disease.

At least Stella is a real name.

Same could be said of Terra, Cloud, Squall and tons of other RPG names. It's not like we don't have weird names in real life anyway, and hey it's better than EDGE MAVERICK and FATE LINEGOD.

As far as the Zipperglove is concerned, I'm just not seeing the big deal about it I guess. Ever Artist generally has some odd fashion design (Yoshida's Ass pants, Amano's beads and pale skin and black lipstick anyone?). We are talking games where can blast people with fireball from thin air, and jump like 50ft here, they aren't going to be entirely realstic.

Well, anyway some really nice HQ scans just poped up recently:


FFXIII
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu1.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu2.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu3.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu4.jpg

Scan info:
FFXIII: Snow Villiers, Man of Action

FFvXIII
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu5.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu6.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu7.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu8.jpg

Scan info:
Tetsuya Nomura Discusses FF Versus XIII Characters

FF Agito XIII
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu9.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu10.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitsu11.jpg
http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/scans/310cfamitusu12.jpg

Scan info:
Look Out World, FF Agito XIII Has Summons

Enjoy!

Some more screens. Oh and, just so you know, you're not supposed to hotlink.

Final Fantasy XIII

Spoiler:

Snow Villiers


Lighting & Snow




Sera


Lightning


Conversation Screen

---

Final Fantasy Versus XIII

Spoiler:

New Scan, showing off a new character and the Battle System:

Gamekyo : Final Fantasy XIII new screenshots

By new character, do you mean the FF XII Judge there? He just looks like an average boss to me. At least he's not an FF X-2 reject like Nature Girl there, but it's still a really unoriginal design.

I'm refering to girl who's named either Olva, Wolva, or Volva Dia Vanilla according to some translations. That armored guy seems to be just a minor/generic baddie looking at his dialogue.

Anyway some awesome concept art:

Prospective Previews: Even More Final Fantasy Madness Blame The Lag

hmmm this character is known for some time now....

I honestly thought the younger looking girl and lightining were one in the same when I saw the new trailer. I thought maybe that was her with a different hair style and then the game would jump years later and she'd become a badass but now, it just seems that girl will the annoying companion :/

Also saw the FFvsXIII trailer, I like the darker tone of that a lot better. I'd always prefer a dark story so hopefully it will deliver just that.

Originally Posted by Shenlon

Also saw the FFvsXIII trailer, I like the darker tone of that a lot better. I'd always prefer a dark story so hopefully it will deliver just that.

It's emo, maybe, not dark. Final Fantasy is rather far removed from anything dark, not that it's a necessarily a problem.

The art direction of XIII is still looking like an HD version of VIII, which is pretty hot. Looking forward to playing it in 2012.

Originally Posted by Jagged

I'm refering to girl who's named either Olva, Wolva, or Volva Dia Vanilla according to some translations.

Volva would be an unfortunate transliteration.

Originally Posted by a lurker

Volva would be an unfortunate transliteration.

lol, yeah.

New stuff has surfaced now, source is NeoGAF.

Quote:

Apparently this trailer stars a new male character who has a "shota" like nature. We'll be expecting another feminine character as per usual.
There is supposed to have been new never seen before battle footage with Snow fighting. They're defending Vanilla.
They summon Shiva during the battle shown. She freezes them using Ice magic and then runs them over in her motorcycle form.

Quote:

Battles are seamless.

Some new girl, has a bob cut style haircut? oriental style appearance. Seems to take a bit from Rikku in 10-2, that's the feeling she gives off anyway.

A lot of other characters are on screen too.

Lightning working on planning a prison break from where they're being kept; a restraint holding them from entering the main area of the Cocoon?. Lightning is planning it and Snow is taking leadership of the operation

Lightning is in a straight jacket or something. I think this is where it breaks into the original footage when they're on the train and she takes out some of the Cocoon soldiers.

Snow is talking about his ambition to protect Sera and the people of the world but apparently, according to Lightning, Sera has already been captured by the Fal'Cie.

Because of this Lightning belts Snow
Lightning: You didn't protect her! did you! < or something like that

Snow: therefore I came to help!

Lightning puts down her fists.

They show the battle here.
The battle is as flashy as it has been previously mentioned in small amounts in interviews etc.
The quickness and motion in the battle is the most furious and heated FF has ever seen. They were thinking along the lines of FF7AC style it seems.

Shows a bit of the command, jumping is in the game as said previously but the writer of the blog says he was unable to tell how it happened.

In the Cocoon there is a warning voice being projected. It was hard to hear what was being said over the noise of the music etc.

Event scene:

Snow and Lightning help someone being taken away by a solider? Snow takes a Bazooka like weapon from a downed Soldier and delivers a counter attack.

By the way, Snow gives a machine gun to someone, the suspect being taken by the soldiers? She introduces herself as Vanilla.

Another battle, snow summons shiva and freezes stuff then completely destroys them all.

By the way, all voices are in the trailer now, for each character.

People in theater went nuts when the trailer was over clapping, shouting etc.

V-Jump Scan with "pig tailed girl" official name, more battle and real-time cutscene shots:
http://finalfantasy-xiii.net/2008/12...reenshots.html


Jump festa is a two day event, so we might get even mord detailed info FFXIII soon.

EDIT:

Here much more detailed description of trailer, looks like we get our first Black man since FFVIII:

Quote:

As for the new characters..

I would not call the big new male character's hairstyle an afro, but his hair does look like somebody put a tube over his head and then his scalp exploded, permanently frying his hair up in fine DBZ fashion. It's not long and ridiculously spiky, though. Just... exploded. His hair is VERY orange, and he either has it shaved into thin zig zag shave patterns on the sides of his head or he has a lot of tiny zig zagging braids there. He appears to be wearing a frayed or fur trimmed blue vest and is pretty clearly black. He is wearing off-white to khaki colored long shorts with simple gold patterns on them. He also has a silver necklace with a rectangular, flat silver pendant, wide sides horizontal. He's present mostly in the prison break scenes, helping Snow and the other new male and female characters, although he is the only character I was able to identify for sure on the train with Lightning before she broke out.

As for the younger new male, the first thing that came to my mind upon seeing him was Gippal, probably because of his blond hair and main colors pink and black outfit. He wears goggle-like headgear on his forehead. He does not look 'shota' to me, but he does look young compared to Lightning, Snow and big black new dude. He is blond. He looks to be older than pigtails girl by a couple years. He does talk with an affect. For people who know some Japanese, he tacks 'sska' onto the end of 'ja nai ka' questions to make 'ja nai sska' and 'ja nai ssu'. I don't know exactly the real life implications of the affect, whether its regional, age or culture, but it does exist in real Japanese speech. He seems to often have complaints about situations and courses of action, but help out regardless.

New female character reminds me of Yuffie a little, but her hair is at least shoulder length and appears to be tied back. She does not appear to be very patient. She has a purplish butterfly tattoo visible on her shoulder from the back. I think it's her right shoulder. Her outfit's colors are yellow, white and purple. She is wearing a very short, ruffled layered yellow skirt. She shows considerable amounts of skin compared to Lightning and Vanille. She's also wearing something like knee high fishnet socks. I believe she is shown using a gun.

As for what's happening in the actual trailer, there seems to be two separate parts being told at the same time.

First, there is Lightning rescuing Oerba Dia Vanille on a train with the three new characters and Snow. This scene takes place in the very green colored area with all the train tracks suspended in the air, visible in this image.

I'm not sure about the trailers' order of shown events, as both covered similar events while including different scenes, but the story follows this way..

Lightning and the new black character are on the prisoners' train, dressed in the same white outfits we have seen Oerba Dia Vanille wear when she is captured. They are sitting with several other prisoners. All of them are restrained by some kind of force from the wrist areas of the clothes they are wearing. They talk quietly and briefly to each other, and suddenly the train hits what appears to be some kind of force field barricade set up on its tracks, and begins to run out of control. Lightning jumps out to attack and crushes a remote control-like device with her foot, releasing all the prisoners from their hand bindings. Lightning waves her hand past her hip and begins to generate what looks like an electrical field around herself but appears to be connected to her gravity based abilities.

The large dragon-like flying beasts we have seen before attack the out of control train, seemingly in an attempt to stop Lightning from hijacking it. She shoots at them from the train with a large bazooka-like gun. Eventually they knock the train off its tracks.

The fighting ends up outside, where all the other new characters plus Snow join in. They have a lot of help in the form of what appears to be a small rebel force, armed with what appear to be standard, bullet-firing guns of fair power. Some of the train rails have been destroyed by the fighting, and the rebels assisting Lightning and company are entrenched in the rubble.

The people who escaped the train when Lightning broke out want to help them fight, and eventually Snow consents to letting them figh to. Among the escapees is Oerba Dia Vanille, who Snow gives a gun to. She takes it, pretends to aim it at an enemy, and says "Bang!"

The fighting seems to get worse, and a heavily armored enemy airship arrives. It blows away a good portion of the resisting fighters with one cannon blast, and Snow is knocked off the train rail while attempting to rescue another fighter and falls from view.

The scene changes to Lightning on a platform with a character who does not appear to be a main playable character by lack of remarkable clothing (His name is possibly Sazzu by the menus). The other character is a male in very plain clothing, although he appears to follow her around for some time as she moves and fights, possibly a guide character.

Lots of fight scenes are strung together, seemingly more for the purpose of showing off the battle menues than carrying the story forward, as eventually it breaks off to the second main storyline focus area: Lightning, Snow and Vanille in the frozen-looking lake area.

There are scenes of them fighting both monsters and soldiers there, and at one point Snow summons Shiva and uses her in battle to attack. Among his menus when using Shiva are attacks called "Diamond Dust" and "Engine". The attack he performs causes damage in many separate increments. In a scene we've seen in magazine scans, Vanille mentions she has seen "that" before, she thinks, although what "it" is is unclear.

Depending on which trailer you're watching, a dialogue about someone named Sera plays either over a scene near the battle at the train tracks area or in lip synch between Lightning and Snow in the frozen lake area, where Snow mentions Sera and Lightning becomes angry at him for not saving Sera, claiming it was his fault that whatever happened to her happened. Snow seems to believe that he can still save her, but Lightning thinks nothing can be done about it anymore. She hits him twice, and both appear to be near tears. He stops her with something he says about what he thinks he can do. (I believe she asks "What is it you think you can do, huh?" in regards to how to save Sera and he replies "Anything!")The blue golem-like creatures are present during some of the voice over conversation. It seems they are somehow connected to what happened to Sera. (Sorry, I'm fairly unsure about the goings on outside the train fighting scenes).

Throughout the train section of the trailers, many, many charactes are shown, most of whom appear to be rebel fighters and escapees from the train, but I've only described in detail the ones who have been seen in gameplay combat or who have unique clothing.

At some point in time (it's shown at the beginning of a trailer, but I can't pin it down chronologically), Vanille is shown standing outside in her white hooded ohtfit in the green-lit train area, and she mentions the "beginning of the end of the world."

The large green creature/statue like object in the first linked image also features quite prominently in the trailer, but I'm not sure what it is or what it means. In the version where talk of Sera is dubbed over the train scenes, it appears quite often while the conversation plays.

Skecth of the new female character from 2ch:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...postcount=2057

Square Enix also updated the main XIII site. You can also catch it

here

There's some new screens on the site, as well as two songs that play. The trigger seems to be random.

Wow the music pieces on the site is pretty good. I really like the second track (the one after the piano piece) which sounds like a final/remixed version of the theme they used in the very first trailer. Who's composing for 13? If I remembered correctly, Uemastsu has no involvement so it can't be him.

Oh and there's an article on Kotaku that explain's 13's battle system. It doesn't sound too complicated, which is always a good thing. The enchanced ATB seems to be based on time allotted for the character's actions during their turn. Now I wonder how character/enemy turns are determined, eg. by ATB like FF7 and FF8, or by CTB like FF10.

Quote:

• Command Stock: Players selection which action they'd like to from a cluster of five "Action" slots.
• Cost: Each of these five actions has a number attached to it and denote the number of slots a particular action requires.
• Enhanced ATB (Active Time Battle): This refers to the bar under Lightning's name (the one with "444"). Players can perform various actions before it is empty. Commands with higher "Cost" drain the ATB bar faster.
• Symbol Encounter: Enemies appear on the game's map. There is no battle screen transition.
• Chain & Bonus: Found at the screen's top right. "Chain" refers to the number of consecutive hits inflicted. It's not clear what "Bonus" refers to, but Famitsu thinks it's related to Final Fantasy VII's Limit Break.
• Enemy HP: The HP and names of your foes are displayed — unlike previous games.

Square Enix: Final Fantasy XIII's Battle System Detailed

Originally Posted by Hantei

Wow the music pieces on the site is pretty good. I really like the second track (the one after the piano piece) which sounds like a final/remixed version of the theme they used in the very first trailer. Who's composing for 13? If I remembered correctly, Uemastsu has no involvement so it can't be him.

Not entirely. Looks like Uematsu will compose one song for the game (Like how he did with XII), and Masashi Hamauzu is going to be doing main composing duties, or at least that's what it says on the Wikipedia entry.

The battle system sounds a little complicated written down, but it'll probably make more sense when you see it in action.

it look a little like Eternal sonata gameplay, where when it's your turn, you have a limited time to perform various action and some action drain more time than the others. (at least that's what I think I understand)

Wow I love the new in game battle screens. Honestly this could be the best of all FF's for me. It has that potential.

I'm so excited for this damn game.

Anyone hoping that the FFXIII demo, planned to be included with the Blu-ray release of Advent Children, would be making it's way west, well, don't bet on it. Squenix has said that they have no plans to do a demo in the west. Oh well.

However, given the region free nature of PS3 games this won't stop you from importing the Blu-ray and demo I guess.

They'll probably release a system-specific demo later on for Xbox Live / PSN, I bet the demo that's included in Advent Children is an older build.

Well I am sold for this game:

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image.../01/vjump2.jpg

Ultima getting a starring part in anything is kinda frightening.

Seriously. This game just keeps looking worse and worse.