Entertainment Electronics Blog

With a name like Final Fantasy Versus XIII, you might expect the second game in the Fabula Nova Crystallis trilogy to release near FFXIII. But after long waits between any new information and reports of “difficulties,” it seemed unlikely.

Now producer Yoshinori Kitase has made comments that seem to confirm a long wait for Versus XIII, or at least cast doubt on a concrete timeline. Speaking to GamingUnion, Kitase said, “We have no release date information to update. Unfortunately, we can’t say anything about that. We can’t commit ourselves to 2011 either.”

To be clear, this doesn’t mean Versus XIII won’t release in 2011, but it does mean that the game isn’t yet close enough to finished to call a 2011 release a certainty. Most likely, if we see the game in 2011 at all, it will be near the end of the year.

The recent news of a delay for the PlayStation 3 version of Final Fantasy XIV may have disappointed eager fans. Producer Hiromichi Tanaka has stepped forward with word on why the delay is happening, and how Square Enix is aiming to fix the problem.

In an interview with VG247, Tanaka said the delay was due to PS3 RAM restrictions. “The main reason was the memory,” he said through his translator. “On the PC, they have enormous memory. For PS3, there’s a restriction. They are adjusting the memory size and customizing it; it took longer than we were expecting. But we’re really working hard to bring it out as soon as possible.”

The explanation probably doesn’t soften the blow for PS3 owners who have to wait an extra several months, but at least we know the cause. Besides, it could be worse — the 360 version is delayed indefinitely due to Microsoft’s Live policy.

Despite persistent rumors the contrary, Final Fantasy XIV won’t be appearing on the Xbox 360.

In a recent interview with Eurogamer, creator Hiromichi Tanaka said that the problem lies with the “closed” nature of Xbox Live.

“[Live is] different to the normal internet environment, so when we wanted to introduce this game in the same environment as Windows PC it had to be PS3, so that was our choice,” he said.

“Microsoft has a different point of view: they want to have a closed environment for Xbox Live. We’re still talking to… We couldn’t come to an agreement on Xbox Live.”

Interestingly, Final Fantasy XI is one of the few MMOs currently available on the Xbox 360. Tanaka didn’t elaborate on the differences between the two.

Final Fantasy XIV will be available on the PS3 and PC later this year.

Final Fantasy XIII has been a long time coming, and no doubt part of that is because it’s the first big PlayStation 3 game for Square Enix. But as it turns out, there’s another reason for the long wait: It started its development life on the PlayStation 2.

“Final Fantasy XIII was originally meant to be a PS2 title, but we had to switch systems due to the arrival of the PS3,” said producer Yoshinori Kitase to the Dutch version of Official PlayStation Magazine (as translated by FinalFantasy-XIII.net, via VG247). “That cost us about one and a half years and was constantly a case of trial and error.”

So what did this ill-fated PS2 version of Final Fantasy XIII look like? Thanks to a book covering all things FFXIII recently released in Japan called “Scenario and Battle Ultimania,” we can see for ourselves — it provided screenshots from what were apparently two different builds with wildly different graphical styles, and FinalFantasy-XIII.net again comes through with a few (very blurry) scans. Check out two shots below of the versions of FFXIII that were not to be.

We live in an age in which all the biggest game releases get their own Collector’s Editions or Limited Editions or Limited Collector’s Editions. So it should come as no surprise that Final Fantasy XIII will be receiving one. The “Limited Collector’s Edition” was announced today for European territories, and a look at its features may give us an idea of what will be coming to the U.S. Bonuses include an exclusive soundtrack CD, a hardback art book featuring character and environment art, three art prints of summoned characters, and a “Brand of the I’Cie” decal.

Keep in mind this is the list of bonuses for Europe, and Square Enix hasn’t announced a similar package for the U.S. yet. We expect they will in the near future, and wouldn’t be surprised if the list of bonuses were similar, or even exactly the same. The press release doesn’t mention a price, but this kind of set would traditionally go for $69.99 in the States. Whenever Square gives word of a U.S. Collector’s Edition, if the features remain the same, that’s where we’d expect the price to land.

Fans expecting to learn more about Final Fantasy Versus XIII at the Tokyo Game Show last month were likely a bit disappointed to see a tiny trailer that we called “abysmal” in our coverage.
“That wasn’t development stuff, but a technical demo reel of sorts,” director Tetsuya Nomura explained in this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine. “The Venetian cityscape won’t be in the game. We hurriedly put together a video because we wanted people be assured that Versus is also still under development.”

Makes sense, we suppose. So can we expect anything from that trailer — the forest, for example — to show up in the final Versus? “There will be more natural scenery than FFXIII, I think,” Nomura replied, “but the field map, as the video itself said, was made in only two weeks, so it won’t be like that in the final game. The monsters in the video don’t even have textures applied to them.”

Hmm. Well, what about gameplay? Will the action be an extension on Kingdom Hearts’ play system, as has been suggested elsewhere? “It will fall close to that category, but we’re aiming for a fusion of new features with the classic FF style. We see level design as the most important part of development here, but it’ll be a while before we can show any of that.”

All right. When will we get to see more, then? “We’ll gradually unveil it starting next year, at E3 if we’re quick enough,” Nomura closed.

By now, mandatory installs are a pretty accepted part of PlayStation 3 games, but one of the highest-profile upcoming titles will be install-free: Final Fantasy XIII. IGN reports that the game won’t include a hard disk installation. Despite this, however, the game is said to be low on load times. Game director Motomu Toriyama claimed that the developer has concentrated from the start on keeping loading times low, and the only time a player will see a load is going between a town and a field. Besides that, the game is said to flow smoothly.

This is all related to the PS3 version, of course. Since the Xbox 360 allows optional installations for all games, it would stand to reason that FFXIII would allow it. But seeing as the game is likely to take up multiple discs on the system, players might have to install one disc at a time when swapping. We’ll have to wait for more details on how that will work, but for now the Japanese PS3-exclusive is probably more on the minds at Square.