well the in-game voices cut-scene work like that I think, where they can just switch audio but when it come to their CG cut-scene, I think the audio is "embedded" with the video.

> implying I don't find tit-jiggling deeply embarrassing

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...hingelfman.jpg

The others I didn't watch. I'm pretty sure they're all far more embarrassing than old He-Man episodes, though.

Some new info on the game, folks.


That's pretty much all that's been revealed in this scan. Thoughts?

I'd say release the damn game already. And I don't mean Japanese one, release North America / European version. But we all know that won't happen.

Heh, we wish it went like that. Though from what I've heard, a retail price for FFXIII in Japan is equivalent to $100. Which is insane, though it'd probably make more of them want to get that FFXIII bundle that comes with a white PS3 Slim with Lightning on it.

Edit: BTW, that box art is probably just a placeholder. We already know what they'll get in Japan.
http://i34.tinypic.com/11m3r12.jpg

It's sad that this is how I had to determine the gender. :(

And jesus, I'm surprised. I would have figured any FF related Slims would have been a tad bit more gaudy, but this is at least more subdued than I was expecting.

When you say 100 bucks, it better include that PS3 as well. :gonk:

Do want, do do do want. That white slim looks yummy. Even if it the graphics on the body is done with pink, it still looks good.
Except for me that doesn't justify to drop another 300-400 dollars.
Hopefully someone will buy it and give it away to me for free.

Unfortunately, it doesn't. FFXIII is launching at 8800 yen, which going by the converters I plugged that into, winds up being $98.51. Here's the coverage where the price was revealed. It's definitely super pricy for those who might want to import it.

Do I think it'll retail to anywhere near that here? No.

Heh, I'd love for someone to do that for me. It's a Slim with a 250GB HDD, and that spiffy paintjob.

Maybe there will be multiple discs or some included strategy guide or something like that. But yeah, still pretty pricey

On top of that they will probably release typical "collector's edition" gimmick... can't wait to see the prices for those. It will probably be whooping 150++++++ bucks, here I am thinking that CoD MW2 prestige edition was overpriced.

Are people still complaining about the price of a game in a flagship series?

Yeah they're gonna charge what they like and the japanese are gonna buy 5. The price you have listed there is before tax as well I think so you need to add another 5% for most retailers. Some convenience stores are taking pre-orders and have lowered the price by around a 1000 yen to compete. Strangely enough making it around $100US pretty much puts the game on par with the typical cost of higher-profile games in Australia, so I'm pretty used to that nonsense already.

Holy shit the ordering system for the special lightning edition ps3 is awful though. They opened it up on square-enix.co.jp for gold members (basically people who had already spent hundreds of dollars pre-ordering from them before) for two days, which rapidly sold out. Then they opened their silver membership for a day and a half, then their bronze, which is anybody with an account for about 20 minutes until it sold out, all without really advertising any of the periods. Basically you needed to have a bot running 24/7 to get it if you weren't already part of their in-crowd. Regular enthusiasts were out of the running to start with.

I have read conflicting accounts about whether or not it's going to be sold in stores on release day without a pre-order system in limited quantities. Incidentally all of the english articles about it are a copy paste or slight rewording of the same source, and the japanese articles are typically non-sequiteur about GLORIOUS SONY and franchise fuckery with "oh yeah its out on december 17 we decided" as an afterthought and no mention of how one may actually go about getting one.

There's gonna be 50,000 of them in second-hand stores on December 17 at midday with a $500 + markup. I'm betting on it right now.

Wow, what a mess. I can see why folks who really want one would be livid right now, especially with that last line being oh so true. That said, V Jump has some scans showing Bahamut's vehicle form. Apparently it turns into a flying platform that Yun Fang rides. In one you can see it firing some sort of laser.

Also, in another one of the screenshots, her spear seems to have broken in two. What immediately comes to mind is Gabranth's spear that was actually two swords combined.

Well now, being that the game isn't the Wii, I'd say the chance of getting the game when it is released here in the States will be slightly higher, but since its Final Fantasy... well its still going to be hard to find at first I bet.

On a different note, can someone clear up something quick for me? As I understand it, the 360 version is going to be released later on AFTER the PS3 version in North America / Europe, correct? ...or is it both systems at once?

In Japan there's only the ps3 version being release this Christmas. The US and PAL version are suppose to come out almost at the same time (probably 2-3 days apart) spring 2010 on both console.

They already working on the port at the same time as the ps3 version.

Oh okay cool, I thought the porting process would make the 360 version come out later (making the US PS3 edition sort of a 'timed exclusive') but if its only a couple days apart well that's not much of a wait.

I'm gonna have to be careful about avoiding spoilers come December though.

Original OST info is out.

Original Sound Version Blog Archive 5-Disc Final Fantasy XIII Limited Edition Soundtrack Announced

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3.../ffxiii_le.jpg

Almost all stories about games being hard to get hold of on launch day are fabricated by marketing departments to boost pre-orders. You might not be able to walk into a specialised game shop without a pre-order and pick it up on launch day but I'm willing to bet a supermarket with a games section will have a ton of copies sitting waiting to get bought.

As for the price, the actual day one selling price will be lower than the RRP, it always is. Every website will knock about a tenner off to make it look cheaper and the stores will quickly follow suit. The RRP for most new Xbox games here is fifty quid, sometimes more but none of them ever cost more than forty on the release day, and that's the really big franchises. Also, don't forget when you're doing price conversions that the dollar isn't worth particularly much internationally at the moment so foreign goods will cost you more. It might be worth changing the money to yen now though as the dollar is only going to drop by Christmas as more and more Arab countries decide to stop using it to trade oil.

As for avoiding spoilers, has anything actually surprising ever happened in a Final Fantasy game? They're not exactly famed for their deep and intricate stories are they?

This was hard to parse first thing in the morning.

For want of a comma, the complete structure of the sentence was lost. There's a kid's rhyme in there somewhere I'm sure.

New songs on the site, Included Oerba in Characters, as well as Bahamut and Brynhildr in summons. <33

FINAL FANTASY XIII

Mp3 Rips of the new tracks found on the Official JP site

Ripped by a user from ffxiii.net forums.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nrnmyz3atzh

I did it.

take that you mysterious and inscrutable asians with your bizarro pre-order systems! >: The winner was one of the convenience stores across the street from my apartment. It's going to be delivered on release date.

After all of that online trouble a tiny comment on amazon led me to find this system. We were there at 10am today when the orders opened and waiting for it to say that it was instantly sold out, but it worked.

gonna get hit by a bus

Why does the Chocobo theme get worse every year?

I wish I knew why....it seems like every composer who takes on the chocobo theme goes out of their way to distort it into something shitty. What's wrong with just playing the chocobo theme as it is?

The battle theme sounds pretty good though and it has a few other songs that are decent. Hopefully the rest of the soundtrack holds up. As long as it's not as bad as FFXII's. Just not a fan of anything in that game, I am :p

I think this is one of the few games I wont just buy as a fan of the series. I'm not too impressed by the story premise so far, and from what I've seen of the trailers the characters look pretty flat so far. But it also might just be it's been in development for ages and I just don't know what to make of it anymore, who knows!