I Bring Nothing to the Table

Yoshinori Kitase has huge shoes to fill. As the producer of Final Fantasy XIII he’s looking at doing a job last held by Horonobu Sakaguchi in Final Fantasy X. Ok, Sakachuchi was technically the executive producer of that game, but with no other producers announced for XIII, I’m gonna come out and call him the EP.

Kitase had this to say (in this IGN article) about the new game and directions they’re taking:

Kitase spoke about carrying the Final Fantasy torch and commented on how this game will be unique, yet familiar. “In the grand scheme of things, Final Fantasy XIII is probably very different and new from anything you’ve seen in the series before. But, everybody on the team has played XII and the previous titles and there is an unseen connection there among the series.” He then went on to tell a story about a conversation with Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series. In it he asked Sakaguchi about what makes a Final Fantasy game a Final Fantasy game. Jokingly, Sakaguchi told him that as long as you have white text on a blue background, you should be fine. Final Fantasy XIII doesn’t have that, but Kitase says it’s still a continuation.

As funny as it is to mention the blue background thing, I think that a new direction is not a bad idea. FF games have, quite frankly, been getting a little stale for me of late. I worry a bit about XIII since its director is the same one from X-2 (Motomu Toriyama), but I’d like to see them stray.

One of the other cool things about the game was the mention of a different cast take with the character code-named Lightning. She supposedly is going to resist forming a party and try to be a loner. Hopefully she’s not a female version of one of those emo Squeenix protagonists, but it’s good to see that they won’t be partying from the get-go.

It’s one of the most anticipated trailers of the year, the Japanese trailer of FF XIII. Note that the blog category is Sony and doesn’t include M$, but this is because this is the Japanese trailer, a region where FF XIII will not see a 360 release.

Behold the trailer of the game Square Enix is calling flashier than than the Final Fantasy games that preceded it. It starts out in typical Final Fantasy fashion, but definitely flashes it up when the combat starts to show up. I’m definitely excited about the new direction and new protagonist.

Enjoy the trailer!

Many a developer has come out saying that console exclusives just don’t make any sense in this new, expensive game development environment. That being said, I’m pretty sure no one on earth outside of Square Enix could possibly have predicted that Final Fantasy XIII will be simultaneously launching on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 in North America and Europe (whenever the game launches).

To help give this mind-blowing announcement some perspective, the last main series Final Fantasy game (that wasn’t a remake or port) to be released on a non-Sony platform was Final Fantasy VI for the SNES back in 1994.

It should also be noted that FF XIII will NOT be multi-platform in Japan. It’s only coming out on the 360 in the states because of the substantial US install base compared to the eastern market.

Remember, stay tuned to this blog for more E3 updates that I deem interesting or important as they become available.