Or in fact Final Fantasy VIII, come to think of it.

The last two trailers have been pretty interesting. March is a long way off though!

For those of you in the US or Canada with a 360, you can click on the aforementioned links to sign up for a free chocobo avatar item. The code is supposed to be sent out sometime in December.

I am just glad they didn't fuck up the voice acting this time. The trailers look extremely promising, the battle system seems to be pretty good, too.

Does anyone know if FFXIII will have Japanese voice acting with English subtitles when released in the US/Europe?

Probably not, but it feasibly could be implemented on the PS3 version considering all the space they have to work with.

Its been confirmed that they wont include it.


Also does anyone know what track this is in this FFXIII commercial?

YouTube - FF13 FINAL FANTASY XIII ???????CM??

UK/US coverart for the game has been announced:

http://www.opimage.co.uk/u/OmagnusPr...boxart_580.jpg

That's uh... well on the one hand I want to say the cover looks bland and 'empty', but on the other-side of things, I like its simplicity: Main character & title of game (FFX did the same thing but at least it had some sort of a background). I feel conflicted about this more then I should actually.

Yeah, it looks way too bland with no effort put in at all. I was going to make a joke about that, but then I got to thinking and remembered that a lot of the FF boxes have been that way. It just usually looks better because they'll use artwork rather than an CG model, or at least a color other than white for the background.

So I take it that from now on we're getting disastrously awful American-style boxart. Fabulous!

http://imgur.com/5OBSH.jpg http://imgur.com/HaxAC.jpg

Left: Shit. Right: Classy. I guess today's game-buyers need LOTS OF THINGS GOING ON no matter where in the world they are. Also, Lightning sure looks disapproving of the tiny logo being shoehorned in there. And her crotch is rated 16+.

I am all in favor of classy but I am not sure we need to draw the line at "putting anything on the box other than the logo".

Additional Spam:
although really when I think about it why would you put anything other than the title of the game on a Final Fantasy box, the pedigree is basically the game's only selling point

I really don't mind this boxart. It's nothing amazing, but even the supposedly 'classy' simple art of previous FF games over here (the white background + logo) wasn't ever anything to get overly excited about. Could be better, could be a hell of a lot worse, looks nice enough to me.

The whole logo+text+white background is generally pretty uninteresting, but at the very least, it's not a total affront to the eyes unlike most of the American boxart for the series. FFXII's US cover got it right, though:

http://imgur.com/7hTbT.jpg

FFXIII's is just a character sitting on a gradient doing not much. It doesn't really offer any hints as to what the hell kind of game it is. Maybe fewer people are aware of the franchise these days, so they have to make the art more interesting (but not to the point where they have to cover the box in tits and explosions).

/sperg

The title looks awfully small next to GIANT Lightning, it ends up looking really hastily photoshopped stuff.

What other American FF boxart offends your delicate British senses? I took a quick look through past game covers earlier and FFX-2 was the only one that really sucked, but the game sucked too so that's fair. The others all look pretty simple with a few characters, a background, and a logo.

I'm all for going classy like that PAL FFX cover, but this one just looks like a last minute Photoshop job like Qwarky said. It's the gray gradient in the background that really messes it up, I think.

The PS1 games had horrible 90s CG art, but considering IX was the only one that wasn't diabolical, I don't really have much to complain about.

The American boxart for the DS games goes the simple route, though, which is nice.

Oh my god GFF are you fucking serious

it's just Krelian being dumb, nothing new to see here

I have opinions about boxart please argue some more.

Honestly, the only thing that I really dislike about the cover is the miniscule logo floating around in the corner. Shit's fine otherwise.

I think I'd have liked the one where she's sitting on the sofa more than that picture.

Dunno if this was posted -- The "complete" battle system looks cool. I sure hope the slow-motion will be a part of the game as well. Reminded me of Kingdom Hearts for some reason.

YouTube - Final Fantasy XIII Final Trailer HD (English Subtitled)

I don't think the choice of picture for the boxart is terrible or anything, I just think the layout is fucking awful.

I think I'm getting to the point where I'll refrain looking into the game too much at this point and hope for the best.

I'd be surprised if they didn't change the PAL boxart to just the logo, given that every single FF game officially released over here has followed that same formula.

Not that it matters in the slightest, given that I'm guessing that everyone, likes me, stores their games on a shelf end-on, only seeing the cover for five seconds tops when they take the game out of it's case and put it away. I get more annoyed by games that don't have standard end panels (Bloody PS2 Platinum releases).

This is exactly the reason why I frankly don't understand what all this cover fuss is about. As long as they don't forget to put a Blu-ray in the box, we're pretty much okay here.

I have to say I officially HATE the cover art. I think we've all come to expect better than this from SE, especially after the work on Final Fantasy XII's special edition, which I loved. I mean, seriously, the series is not about minimalism, why should the cover be? Also, speaking of special editions, I haven't heard a thing as to whether FF XIII will have a special edition. I would think they'd have announced it by this time if they were, but I'll be dissapointed if they don't. And no pre-order incentives that I've heard of, either...