[Multiplatform] Official Final Fantasy XIII Thread

Ruliweb has some great HD caps of the demo on their site, as well as SD and mp4 options. Heh, watching the HD capture on my PS3 as I'm writing this, it's almost like I got a copy of the demo in the drive =)

'파이널 판타지 13', 체험판 플레이 동영상 루리웹 비디오 게임 뉴스

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Dunno if anyone mentioned this... but this is so retarded.... ahmmm english translation for one part of the demo

YouTube - Final Fantasy XIII DEMO in English!!!!!!!


Was kinda amusing... but bleh

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Jesus, look at this guy



ATTENTION, DUELISTS

MY HAIR IS ASSAULTING YOU

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Isn't that just Wakka with a spray-on tan?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I was thinking early 90's rapper Wakka considering those buzzed designs. I'll bet he's got a gil sign on the back of his head.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Tsunade

Dunno if anyone mentioned this... but this is so retarded.... ahmmm english translation for one part of the demo

YouTube - Final Fantasy XIII DEMO in English!!!!!!!


Was kinda amusing... but bleh

That vid was indeed retarded, but not as retarded as the guy in the comments trying to convince everyone that it's not an official dub. Gee, you think?

Still I laughed a bit while watching it. "Maybe if you spent less time unzipping all your shirts..." Old, nameless, fan-dubbed guy FTW!

Anyway, having played through the demo several times now, here are my thoughts:

1) Loved the opening sequence with the scorpion boss. Even though the CG opening has plenty of action, it's still good to start gameplay off with a bang.

2) I like Sazh and his baby chocobo (so cute), and I'm interested to see how his character develops. His battle stance, however, needs to be changed. I don't care if he's supposed to come off as the comic relief character, his battle stance is ridiculous. Also, his guns are remarkably weak, so much so that I'm hoping it was an intentional move to make the player, as Lightning, do most of the work since we have no choice but to control her.

3) I have mixed feelings about the battle system. I like that the system is fast paced and easy to pick up, but on the flip side I'm concerned about battles getting too hectic because of the lack of a wait mode or something similar. I'll admit that I've probably been spoiled by previous entries in the series giving the option to pause time while going through menus, and it's not like FFXIII will be unbearably harder without a similar offering. It'll just be more challenging, which could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. Also, I like how characters can move around in battle ala FFXII, but I really hope that we can control that movement in the final build. The demo shows that it's possible to avoid close range attacks and enemies can avoid area magic attacks as long as they're not the target, so it would add a nice strategic element if you could control your lead character's movement.

4) Despite his cliched lines and stealing Seifer's trenchcoat (jk ), I still love Snow. Given his personality, it will be really interesting to see how he interacts with Lightning when they eventually meet up.

5) I really hope the Behemoth boss isn't such a cheap bastard in the final build of the game. Either that, or I hope I can level enough to soften the blow of his horn uppercut move. Ouch!

6) I'm loving the music so far. The boss theme is one of my favorites in the series, the battle theme is great too (love the violin), and I love the piece that plays when we're introduced to Snow. I'm looking forward to hearing more of what Hamauzu has composed for this game. Speaking of which, I've made a rip of the demo if anyone is interested. Grab it here.

All in all, it's going to be a long wait for even the Japanese release. I'm probably going to import it, seeing as I didn't have too much trouble getting through the demo even though I'm about two years out of practice when it comes to Japanese.

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Do you get to actually go into the menu during the demo? From what you're saying about positioning being relevant in battles, I would guess that there'll be some form of formation option available, either something meaty like Last Remnant where different formations have different bonuses and weaknesses or something simpler like the old front/back row mechanic they've pretty much always had. Either that or perhaps a command that makes them move around to where you want, I'd be amazed if they allow free movement of any of the characters.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Shin

Do you get to actually go into the menu during the demo? From what you're saying about positioning being relevant in battles, I would guess that there'll be some form of formation option available, either something meaty like Last Remnant where different formations have different bonuses and weaknesses or something simpler like the old front/back row mechanic they've pretty much always had. Either that or perhaps a command that makes them move around to where you want, I'd be amazed if they allow free movement of any of the characters.

You can't access the menu in the demo, so no idea what kind of formation options (if any) we'll have. As for movement in battle, I agree that it's probably a long shot that we'll be able to control it, but it just feels kind of unnatural to see the characters walking around every now and then with no input from the player, particularly when it could affect whether or not they get hit with an enemy attack. If area white magic works the same way area black magic does, imagine the frustration of trying to cast Curaga or Hastega on your entire party, only to hit one or two characters out of three because you have no control over their positioning.

Still, it remains to be seen how the battle system will turn out in the end. They did specifically say that the demo only included the basics of the battle system, so the final build should hopefully see a more complex and customizable setup.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

isn't it great that they've spent about ten years 30% finishing something?

We went to the square enix showcase in Shinjuku and very apologetic Japanese bowing woman made sure that we didn't take photos of their 30% finished game that may or may not have been FFXIII (because it's going to be so different from the SUPER EXCLUSIVE) footage they were showing.

Let's hear more about your 300 new kingdom hearts titles for our washing machine and get back to us in another 5 years when you've got something from the actual game to show.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Wow, completely valid criticism for a company and yet you fuck it up by whining like a bitch.

Did you lose total faith in Squeenix? Are you going to boycott their products and encourage your friends to do the same? Is it time to put your foot down?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

Isn't that just Wakka with a spray-on tan?

It is.



These generic Square Enix characters are starting to get annoying. I'm sure it can't be that hard to create more original looking characters for each game.

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Originally Posted by a lurker

Wow, completely valid criticism for a company and yet you fuck it up by whining like a bitch.

Did you lose total faith in Squeenix? Are you going to boycott their products and encourage your friends to do the same? Is it time to put your foot down?

No, I just saw an opportunity to be sarcastic and went for it.

see also: the pokemon thread

square enix isn't my personal jesus and I'm not going to burn my chocobo plushies in a crying angry fit.

so to conlcude my dear lurker: lurk more ;(

p.s. On a more serious note, if the tedium of FFXII couldn't turn me off then I don't think another inevitable delay would make it happen. It was just hilarious because the half hour video presentation was nothing but cell phone adaptations of old titles designed to grift greater profits 100 yen at a time, another 4 new kingdom hearts trailers that all seemed to involve late 90s early attempts at emo hair in place of actual plot, and then about 12 seconds of lightning bouncing around in SHIN-MIDGAR whilst frowning intensely.

p.p.s I missed you touchy sons of bitches <3

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Dagobert

I'm sure it can't be that hard to create more original looking characters for each game.

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Decoy way to be an emotional backbiter. Whine about the practices of a company you can't stop buying from. I'm sure it'll make a difference this time, compared to all those other times!

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Emotional backbiter? Do you think that John Edwards feels your power as you use your unique skill of channelling oprah.com catchphrases from the ether?

As a courtesy I have prepared a small chart in order to help you understand my original post:



This is going to require a leap of faith, but I want you to stick with me. What you see above are what we 'humans' call "shades of grey". I don't know what level of the spectrum disorder that you belong to, but sometimes it's possible for somebody to like certain things about something without liking all of things about it!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Oh yes, the very nuanced position of "fuck this game, buy it anyway". Kairi Li and SOLDIER introduced me to the Zen of the Fanboy, you don't need to go in-depth about it here.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I guess I'm impress that they already have some dub for FFXIII, but I wonder if this was made only for that video or if they really are working on the dub.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Just saw the trailer from the PS3 conference. I'm rather surprised that they've already started on the english dub, that's so unlike SE. Also, do my eyes deceive me or have they re-animated the mouth movements to match the english dialogue? If so, then I'm impressed. Though, that will probably lead to the Japanese VA track being omitted for the NA release (the limited space of DVDs will probably be the number one reason for its omission).

Voice cast sounds pretty good, so far. Is Oerba sporting an english accent? I'm assuming she's the one that's narrating at the beginning of the trailer (since she's done the same for the other trailers). The new kid/boy they showed in trailer is probably the the hooded fella, who's mother died in the assault lead by Snow, from the demo.

Would've been nice if they could have released a demo with the NA release of FF7ACC Blu-ray.

Final Fantasy XIII Video Game, E3 09: Conference Trailer | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Although the Japanese voice over will probably be omitted, the blu-ray has a SIGNIFICANT amount of space that is far greater than the DVD. Do you think the JP voice acting is a possibility for the PS3 release? They don't even have to do anything except add an option...

How ya doing, buddy?

well Lost odyssey did it on the 360 so it could be possible, but I remember reading an interview that they said it wasn't possible for the 360 version because of space (maybe FFXIII take more space than lost odyssey)

but on the ps3 it's still possible but will SE do it on the ps3 and leave it out of the 360? I don't think so...

I don't think they re-animated the lips sync for the English dub, they probably just adjusted the dialog to match lips movement.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Some stuff from Dengeki:

Quote:

Final Fantasy XIII 60% Complete
Yoshinori Kitase and Motomu Toriyama discuss changes from the demo, localization efforts and more.
Posted Jun 03, 2009 at 00:50, by Anoop Gantayat

Final Fantasy XIII's development is currently at the 60% complete mark, Yoshinori Kitase revealed yesterday to Dengeki Online during an interview following Microsoft's E3 press conference.

Kitase, producer of the game, appeared along side director Motomu Toriyama at the conference to debut first gameplay footage from the Xbox 360 version of the game. The chosen scene looked somewhat like it was taken directly from the recent PlayStation 3 demo (bundled with Final Fantasy VII Advent Children). However, it had English voices, English text and Xbox 360 button logos. It also marked the unveiling point of the game's first summon spell, Odin.

In a post-conference interview session, Dengeki asked the two about progress on the game in general. "The basic areas of the game are quite far along," said Kitase. "Looking at the game as a whole, we're at 60%. From here on out, we have to brush up a variety of areas as we approach completion."

Toriyama spoke specifically about the 360 version. "Even the Xbox 360 version, whose development was decided upon afterwards, has progressed smoothly enough that we were able to to play on the machine," he said. "Looking at completion level, there's still a difference, but we can see the end point and believe we can achieve the same level of performance."

The different platform aside, we were apparently shown a more advanced version of the battle system than what was featured in the PS3 demo. "The biggest change from the demo version is the battle system," explained Toriyama. "The command menus and other areas may at a glance appear to be unchanged, but they have the systems that are set to be included in the retail version, so the control has changed greatly."

Unfortunately, Toriyama wouldn't share specifics on those differences. As a hint, he said, "In the demo, the point was to finish with the 'uchiage' (launch) command. But the strategy does not end there. The specifics are still a secret, though (laughs)."



Kitase touched upon a separate area of change from the demo version. "The party members in the demo version had the role of following the main character from behind in a support role. However, this has expanded, and evolved. Throughout the last entry [in the series], the image was of a character moving only after the visual effects of magic cast by the previous character had cleared. But for this title, the next character will begin moving while the previous character is in mid move."

Aside from the debut of Xbox 360 gameplay footage, one major point of note for the press conference demo session was the Odin summon spell. Prior to the press conference, Square Enix had not provided a glimpse at the game's summon system -- not even through the usual Japanese publications like Famitsu and Jump.

Toriyama explained the summon system a bit. "Each character has his own crystal, which he uses as a key for summoning. The image is of Odin appearing behind Lightning as a knight who protects her."

Kitase made mention of a "driving mode," where the summon beasts will transform into a vehicle. His comments appeared to suggest that you'll be able to actually ride the summons. However, he also said that you'll also frequently rely on the summons to fight along side the characters in their standard form.



The two also commented on the upcoming E3 trailer for the game. Asked about points of note for the trailer, Toriyama joked "It's in English."

Perhaps a bit more seriously, however, he noted, "It's a first for the Final Fantasy series to have footage in English at this point. I believe it's a big evolution development-wise for the overseas version development to follow the Japanese version development to this level. It's because we want to deliver it as soon as possible to fans throughout the world."

Kitase revealed that the game's English voice recording is being handled by the same director ho worked on the Final Fantasy X series and other past titles.

(NOTE: I originally noticed this interview through Namae no Nai Heya, one of my favorite link amalgamation sites. The link to the original Dengeki Online story as provided by the site was dead -- or perhaps removed. However, I was able to find a version of the story at Yahoo)

FELIPE NO

Shame that the voice acting is being handled by the same person who did X because that was pretty horrible...and this too sounds pretty horrible. Find some actors who can achieve more range than monotone please. Here's to hoping they can fit the Japanese voice track on the PS3 release...

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Timberwolf8889

Shame that the voice acting is being handled by the same person who did X because that was pretty horrible...and this too sounds pretty horrible.

It's gonna be alright as long as they don't pick Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus, trust me.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Inhert

I don't think they re-animated the lips sync for the English dub, they probably just adjusted the dialog to match lips movement.

Yea, you're right. I checked out the Japanese version of the E3 trailer (which available on the Japanese PSN Store), and it looks like they just did a really good job of lip-syncing the dialogue. Most obvious with last line in the trailer from Snow.

In the english dub Snow says "Lightning", and for the japanese he says "Onee-san". I think that's what threw me off, and had me thinking that they re-animated the mouth movements for the dialogue. Cause if the japanese VA had said "Lightning", the lips would have worded it out as such "lai nin gu", with the "gu" part making it stand out (just think of FF7AC and everytime someone said Cloud's name, and you'll notice the mouth's shape for the "do" in kurado).

And I agree that they'll most likely omit the Japanese voice track from the PS3 version for the NA release, if they're unable to include it for the 360 version. Hence, why I'll probably import a copy if it ends up releasing around November (get to play, likely, 6 month's before NA version's release, if not longer).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

G4TV has new footage of the PS3 E3 demo:

Hands-On Final Fantasy XIII Preview Videos - G4tv.com

IGN: Final Fantasy XIII Preview

Quote:

E3 2009: Final Fantasy XIII Continues to Impress
Snow shows up at E3 and summons an old friend.

by Ryan Clements

June 2, 2009 - If there's one game I was excited about seeing at this year's E3, it was Final Fantasy XIII. The game was being demoed in a tucked away nook, deep inside the heavily-guarded, labyrinthine corridors of the Square Enix booth at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

I had the absolute pleasure of meeting with Director Motomu Toriyama and Producer Yoshinori Kitase (along with a few other journalists) in order to see a recent build of Final Fantasy XIII running on a PlayStation 3. As excited as I was to see it, the demo was unfortunately very short. As in, we were probably watching for less than five minutes before the Q & A session began. Alas.

The demo began with Snow, the blonde-haired, bandana-wearing brawler, as he ran through a crumbling "ruins" environment complete with forsaken pillars and stony paths. Several humanoid enemies appeared in the distance and charged forward and Toriyama noted that all enemies will be visible on the field before battles begin. We already knew this based on our impressions from the Japanese demo, but it's nice to hear that it hasn't changed.

The enemies clashed against Snow and the single battle of the demo began. Yes, we only got to see one big battle, but the contents of that battle made up for the short length. Snow was joined in combat by both main character Lightning and the perky Vanille. This was the first time I personally have seen Vanille in combat, so that was nice. During the fight, Vanille used a large staff weapon that seemed quite conducive to the electricity magic she was wielding.

The highlight of the demo was definitely when Snow executed a summon spell. Holding a blue crystal in his hand, Snow summoned the iconic Shiva into action in a flurry of bright, pulsating glyphs and neat sound effects. It was a surprisingly sweet sequence and I have to say that the visuals themselves were stunning. If you haven't spied Shiva in Final Fantasy XIII trailers yet, you might be surprised to find out that she is now two "sisters" that join together to form an ice motorcycle. Clearly some interesting interpretations have been made with your favorite Final Fantasy summons, but I'm rather pleased with them.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Shiva sisters replace your party members in the battle and they move around the field like any other normal character. The sisters are extremely stylish when they're separated, as one of them uses a floating ice wheel as a weapon. Badass. However, your character will have the ability to activate the Gestalt mode, which maximizes the potential of the summon and -- from what I've seen -- combines the summon and your character together. In this case, Snow mounts the icy, highly-ornate motorcycle in what is sure to be an innuendo-filled combination.

Once this Gestalt mode is activated, the battle becomes somewhat more "action-oriented," as a list of button queues appears on screen enabling Snow to perform such awesome maneuvers like wheelies and rushes. These techniques only require a directional input and a push of the X button, but it's nice to see that the pacing of the battle will change a bit during summons. I was also impressed with the overall visual effects of this Gestalt mode, as Snow would skid across the battlefield and leave deadly icicles in his wake.

After the very brief eyes-on demo, the Q & A section began and I learned a few things that I personally have been curious about since playing the Japanese demo. First and foremost: you'll only control one character in battle at a time and the story will often dictate which character that is (at least towards the beginning of the game). An AI system will be in place for your other two party members, though you'll be able to somehow alter their actions during battle. We weren't told the specifics of this system, so I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

I was also a little disappointed to learn that each character will only have one summon. As we've only heard about approximately four main characters, I'm a little sad if the small character roster limits the game's summon spell potential.

The Q & A session ended with Toriyama and Kitase explaining that the overall project development and localization is about 60 percent complete and English voice recording has just begun (as indicated by the English voices in the recent trailers). Unfortunately, there will not be multiple language tracks this time around. Oh well.

As always, I remain a Final Fantasy fan and this entry in the franchise seems very promising. My time with the demo was totally positive, but only a serious, extended play session could possibly illuminate the game's true value.

Japanese Extended Trailer:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...-fantasy/50923

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.