Final Fantasy Versus XIII

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Final Fantasy Versus XIII.png
Developer(s) Square Enix 1st Production Department[1]
Publisher(s) Square Enix
Director(s) Tetsuya Nomura
Producer(s) Shinji Hashimoto
Yoshinori Kitase
Designer(s) Yuichi Kanemori
Takayoshi Nakazato
Programmer(s) Hiroshi Harata
Kentarou Yasui
Artist(s) Tomohiro Hasegawa
Takayuki Ohdachi
Writer(s) Kazushige Nojima
Composer(s) Yoko Shimomura
Series Fabula Nova Crystallis
Final Fantasy
Engine Crystal Tools[2]
(real-time graphics)
Game-specific engine[3]
(gameplay mechanics)
Luminous Studio[3]
(real-time lighting)
Platform(s) PlayStation 3
Genre(s) Action role-playing, third-person shooter
Mode(s) Single-player

Final Fantasy Versus XIII (ファイナルファンタジー ヴェルサスXIII Fainaru Fantajī Verusasu Sātīn?) is an upcoming action role-playing video game that will be published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3.[4] Its concept is a heavy departure from other installments in the Final Fantasy series, providing a darker and more realistic atmosphere that focuses on human emotions and believable characters. The game features expansive environments and a seamless and customizable battle system, which gives players great freedom regarding their preferred play method.

The story is based on the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythology, but has no direct relation to the other games in this series as it features a unique world, visual design and different characters.[5] Its main protagonist Noctis Lucis Caelum is the prince of a Mafia-like royal family which protects the last remaining crystals in the world and rules over a technologically advanced city-state. The plot centers on the invasion of a Medieval war nation that tries to conquer the crystals. During the course of the game, Noctis meets the aristocratic and kind Stella Nox Fleuret who shares his ability of seeing a mysterious "light" connected to a goddess of the dead.

Unveiled in May 2006 alongside Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Type-0, Final Fantasy Versus XIII started production shortly before its announcement. It is being developed by a team within Square Enix's 1st Production Department and directed by Tetsuya Nomura, who also designed the characters and conceived the concept and base story. The game's long development time and absence from the public eye gave rise to several rumors concerning its possible cancellation or shift to another platform.

Contents

Gameplay

Concept and presentation

Final Fantasy Versus XIII is an action role-playing game with third-person shooter elements.[6][7] The player character is seen from a third-person perspective that will be adjusted depending on the weapon currently equipped.[8][7][9] The game's environments among others include kingdoms and villages and allow for much freedom and interactivity: for example, objects can be destroyed and different ways may be chosen to reach a destination.[10] The world map is a wide, open field that the player can traverse on foot or by using a car, an airship or a chocobo.[8][11] A day-and-night time system affects the appearance of monsters on the world map.[10] Final Fantasy Versus XIII uses interactive cutscenes in the form of real-time events. The player keeps control during them as the gameplay is not interrupted, which will result in natural progressions and storytelling that is similar to that of first-person shooters.[12] However, the game also features uncontrollable pre-rendered full motion videos (FMVs) for scenes in which player control would have little effect.[12][13] The ratio of real-time event scenes and pre-rendered FMVs is 7:3.[13]

Battle system

The main protagonist, Noctis, with eleven floating weapons surrounding him.

The game's party-based battle system is a realistic version of the one seen in the Kingdom Hearts series: the player selects a command such as "Magic", "Item", "Summon" or "Ex-Arts" and the characters will then perform the desired move.[7][10][9] There are also other actions such as double-jumping.[10] The party comprises a maximum of three members and control over them may be switched during battle. The team is initially assembled by the game, but players can choose their preferred party members later on.[9] However, the main protagonist Noctis is permanently present and the only character that can equip any weapon, while others are specialized in one type of combat.[10][9] Weapons include swords, axes, lances and guns, offer various attacks and may be customized or used as shields.[10][14] Magic takes on different forms depending on the party member that casts it; for example, Noctis' magic emanates from his weapons.[9][10] Attacks may change into chain combos by switching weapons or having several characters charge at opponents at once.[10] In addition to the regular offensive tactics, mechas and tanks can be stolen from enemies and used against them.[9] The battle scenes are seamlessly integrated into the environments with no load screens or transitions.[8] Animated portraits in the bottom-right corner of the screen indicate the characters' movements and emotions even if they are separated from the party leader.[9][10] Enemies have specific jobs such as dragon knight or summoner assigned to them.[10]

Plot

Setting

Final Fantasy Versus XIII is based on the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythology that revolves around a struggle between divine beings and the l'Cie, servants chosen by these gods and granted magic powers to fulfill a predetermined task.[10][15] However, the precise impact of these concepts on the story is not known.[10] The game is set in modern times, but the city-like home country of protagonist Noctis is the only technologically advanced location, otherwise surrounded by Medieval nations. The reason for this divide is a cold war waged over crystals that only the modern country holds. The other nations used to have their own crystals, but lost them due to ongoing conflicts. They have since focused their efforts on the development of weapons rather than on the progress of their culture, which left them in their regressive state.[7] Just as the cold war ends and a treaty on the peaceful use of crystals is declared, the nation Niflheim unexpectedly invades the modern city-like country, forcing Noctis and his friends to escape.[14][7][10]

Characters

From left to right: Prompto, Gladiolus, Noctis, and Ignis.

Noctis Lucis Caelum (ノクティス・ルシス・チェラム Nokutisu Rushisu Cheramu?) is the main protagonist of Final Fantasy Versus XIII.[16] He is a prince and son to the king of a Mafia-like royal family that has protected the crystals for generations.[9][7] Noctis possesses a special power; unleashing it changes his eye color from blue to red and enables him to control several swords at once via spontaneous teleportation.[9] Not an outspoken person, Noctis' body language is more expressive than his words although he just tries to conceal his shyness with this taciturn manner.[17] Three friends are at Noctis' side: the military tactician Ignis who wears glasses and wields a katana in battle, the scarfaced melee fighter Gladiolus and the blonde-haired gunner Prompto.[10][18] Early into the game, Noctis meets Stella Nox Fleuret (ステラ・ノックス・フルーレ Sutera Nokkusu Furūre?), the daughter of a prestigious family from the kingdom of Tenebrae.[10][16] Her upbringing has made her a polite and well-behaved young lady, but she is not cold or stiff in any way.[16][17] She is described as a sincere person who faces her problems rather than running from them. Noctis and Stella can both see a mysterious "light", which legends describe to appear when the goddess Etro opens the gate to the realm of the dead.[16] As this ability has both positive and negative effects on said persons, the protagonists handle it differently: Stella readily accepts it while Noctis seems troubled by it.[17]

Development

"The stories from the past entries in the Final Fantasy series are not exactly as I would have done, but that's as it should be because I didn't direct them. My only concern in terms of Versus XIII is that FF always talks about human emotion and psychologies in a broad way, and I want to go deeper in terms of offering some crude reality in terms of human emotion or human [behavior]. The goal, when a player holds a controller and plays an RPG, is to make them believe in another world – to experience a dream in a fictional world. It will be different in Versus XIII because of the intrusion of the real world, and things that are really happening. There will be less fiction and more reality."

Tetsuya Nomura on the story of Final Fantasy Versus XIII[15]

The production of Final Fantasy Versus XIII started shortly before its unveiling at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) trade fair in May 2006.[19] Director Tetsuya Nomura conceived the game's concept and base story and designed its characters.[20] Shinji Hashimoto and Yoshinori Kitase are producing, Kazushige Nojima is writing the scenario and Yoko Shimomura is composing the soundtrack.[20] The game is currently being developed by Square Enix's 1st Production Department,[1] with the Kingdom Hearts II team in charge of the in-game action and the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children crew handling the pre-rendered movies directed by Takeshi Nozue.[21][22] In February 2008, Final Fantasy Versus XIII was stated to use the Crystal Tools engine specifically designed by Square Enix for developing their seventh-generation console and PC games.[2] Three and a half years later, however, this was contradicted when the game was explained to be built on a proprietary, action-oriented engine and to use the lighting technology of the company's new Luminous Studio engine.[3]

Nomura intended Final Fantasy Versus XIII to be a heavy departure from his lighthearted Kingdom Hearts series.[23] He attributed this move to his "love for extremes" and explained the direction he took as closer to his personal taste and completely different from what producers had requested him to do in the past.[23][15] Nomura said that the concept and thinking behind Final Fantasy Versus XIII was unfitting for a regular numbered Final Fantasy installment.[19] He wanted to make the game "about man in the real world" and thus included less fantasy elements, resulting in what he described as the darkest entry in the series.[23] He acknowledged that a story focus on human emotions may narrow the target audience, but considered the time right to take such a risk and conceived the characters as believable humans one could meet in real life.[23]

Shinjuku, Tokyo is the primary inspiration for Noctis' city-like home country.

Nomura had wanted to use a present-day setting for a Final Fantasy game ever since this idea had been considered but abandoned during the development Final Fantasy VII.[24] As such, some of the designs in Final Fantasy Versus XIII are based on real-world locations such as the districts of Tokyo or the Piazza San Marco and St Mark's Basilica in Venice.[25] The city Noctis hails from is specifically influenced by the lively Shinjuku, Tokyo area which houses the headquarters of Square Enix and which Nomura passes through every day. The highway and tunnel seen in the game are almost exact replicas of the Shuto Expressway and a tunnel in the Ginza district, respectively. The team created these by driving down the real-world locations repeatedly during their research.[7]

Another factor in development was the design of vast and seamless environments. They were meant to enable e.g. levels in which the player character was shot at from a great distance, or in which a battle would change scenes between the outside and inside of a building. This corroborated Nomura's intended action-oriented system with more intuitive game controls. He instructed his team to study third-person shooters for reference, "not in simplistic terms, like controls or mechanics, but in the way they create tension and mood and incorporate the action within that".[15] The implementation of interactive real-time event scenes had two reasons: Nomura felt that regular storytelling cutscenes in other games interrupt the gameplay and that many players skip them for this reason; furthermore, the development frame of Final Fantasy Versus XIII could be shortened as there was no need to create high-polygon character models from scratch to use only in cutscenes.[12] However, seamless transitions of these events into the gameplay were hard to achieve and instead increased the time that had to be invested by the team.[9]

Reception

Because of the game's long absence from the public eye, specifically following its trailer in January 2011, industry commentators labelled Final Fantasy Versus XIII as vaporware.[26][27] A rumor reported by Kotaku in July 2012 suggested that it had been quietly cancelled by Square Enix, and that an official announcement would not be made.[28] However, Wada denied this a few days after the article had been published.[29] A separate rumor proposed that the game had been redesigned and moved to the PlayStation 4 in 2011, now co-developed by Sony and re-branded as Final Fantasy XV.[30] This was compounded by Square Enix's announcement to have a PlayStation 4 game in development. The Japanese fashion designer Roen, who had been contracted to design clothing for Noctis and Stella, listed Versus XIII as "Final Fantasy XV (planned)" on its website. This was later reverted to the Versus title, with Roen issuing a statement that the labeling was a mistake.[31]

References

  1. ^ a b "「Final Fantasy XIII-2」が2011年発売予定，「Agito」は「Final Fantasy 零式」と名称変更して2011年夏発売。「Square Enix 1st Production Department Premiere」をTwitterで実況". 4Gamer.net. 2011-01-18. Archived from the original on 2011-01-19. Retrieved 2011-01-19. 
  2. ^ a b "［GDC2008＃33］ファイナルファンタジーのために作られたスクエニオリジナルエンジン「Crystal Tools」とは". 4Gamer.net. 2008-02-23. Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  3. ^ a b c Gantayat, Anoop (2011-09-21). "Why is Final Fantasy Versus XIII Using the Luminous Engine?". Andriasang. Archived from the original on 2012-07-13. 
  4. ^ McWhertor, Michael (2008-07-14). "No Changes On Final Fantasy Versus XIII Being PS3 "Exclusive"". Kotaku. Retrieved 2009-04-01. 
  5. ^ Brudvig, Erik (2006-05-08). "E3 2006: Eyes-on Final Fantasy XIII Trailer". IGN.com. Retrieved 2009-04-01. 
  6. ^ Gantayat, Anoop (2010-10-18). "Square Enix Seeking Final Fantasy Versus XIII Staff". IGN.com. Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Gantayat, Anoop (2007-03-02). "Tetsuya Nomura on FF Versus XIII". IGN.com. Retrieved 2013-01-11. 
  8. ^ a b c Gantayat, Anoop (2010-06-23). "Tetsuya Nomura on Final Fantasy Versus XIII". Andriasang. Archived from the original on 2010-06-29. Retrieved 2010-06-23. 
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Gantayat, Anoop (2011-01-25). "Final Fantasy Versus XIII Update". Andriasang. Retrieved 2011-01-25. 
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Gantayat, Anoop (2011-02-01). "Tetsuya Nomura Talks Up Final Fantasy Versus XIII". Andriasang. Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  11. ^ Gantayat, Anoop (2010-03-18). "Tetsuya Nomura Interviewed at Twitter". Andriasang. Retrieved 2010-03-18. 
  12. ^ a b c Gifford, Kevin (2011-07-13). "Final Fantasy Versus XIII Still Chugging Along". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27. 
  13. ^ a b Gantayat, Anoop (2012-01-18). "Tetsuya Nomura on Versus XIII, Final Fantasy X HD and Kingdom Hearts 3D's Secret Ending". Andriasang. Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  14. ^ a b "Final Fantasy XIII Update". IGN.com. 2007-01-10. Retrieved 2009-04-01. 
  15. ^ a b c d "Interview: Tetsuya Nomura". Edge Online. 2007-06-25. Retrieved 2011-08-27. 
  16. ^ a b c d "『ファイナルファンタジー ヴェルサスXIII』主人公とヒロインの関係は？". Famitsu. 2008-10-25. Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  17. ^ a b c Gifford, Kevin (2008-10-22). "Tetsuya Nomura Discusses FF Versus XIII Characters". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2010-02-10. 
  18. ^ "Final Fantasy Versus XIII Trailer 2011". Square Enix. 2011-01-26. Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  19. ^ a b Gantayat, Anoop (2006-05-31). "Gaimaga Blows Out Final Fantasy XIII". IGN.com. Retrieved 2010-02-10. 
  20. ^ a b "Final Fantasy Versus XIII Video - DKS3713 Trailer". GameTrailers. 2008-12-12. Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  21. ^ Haynes, Jeff (2006-05-08). "E3 2006: FF Versus XIII Teaser Impressions". IGN.com. Retrieved 2009-04-01. 
  22. ^ "Square Enix Unveils the Next Generation of Final Fantasy". Square Enix. 2006-05-08. Retrieved 2009-04-01. 
  23. ^ a b c d "Level May 2007 Interview Transcript". Final Fantasy-XIII.net. May 2007. Archived from the original on 2009-03-28. Retrieved 2009-03-08. 
  24. ^ "インタビュー"ファイナルファンタジーXIII"". Dengeki. 2006-06-02. Archived from the original on 2006-06-13. Retrieved 2013-05-11. 
  25. ^ "特集 ファブラ ノヴァ クリスタリス". Famitsu (Enterbrain) (999): 35. 2008-02-08. 
  26. ^ Cullen, Johnny (2012-05-08). "FF Versus Release: VXIII E3 announce hits six year anniversary, still nothing". VG247. Retrieved 2012-05-10. 
  27. ^ Schreier, Jason (2012-12-17). "Happy 25th Birthday, Final Fantasy. It's Time To Get Your Act Together.". Kotaku. Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  28. ^ Ashcraft, Brian (2012-07-20). "Rumor: Final Fantasy Versus XIII Is Dead". Kotaku. Retrieved 2012-07-21. 
  29. ^ Gantayat, Anoop (2012-07-24). "Square Enix CEO Denies Final Fantasy Versus XIII Cancelation Reports". Retrieved 2013-05-09. 
  30. ^ Ivan, Tom (2013-03-20). "Final Fantasy Versus XIII reportedly renamed FFXV, is PS4 exclusive". Computer and Video Games. Retrieved 2013-04-01. 
  31. ^ Brian Ashcraft (2013-03-18). "Final Fantasy Versus XIII Turned into FFXV by a Fashion Label's Mistake". Kotaku. Retrieved 2013-03-13. 

External links

Book icon
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Lightning Saga
Other games
Main games
Related games
Related series
Films and animation
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Final_Fantasy_Versus_XIII&oldid=554652515"