Final Fantasy XIII

The Final Fantasy XIII trailer opened with a sweeping shot of a lush canyon filled with dense vegetation stretching beyond the horizon. The camera then slowly descended into the canyon to follow a speeding futuristic train that seemed to be propelled forward by passing through successive portals of some sort. Just as the train entered a dark cave it struck a barrier on the track and exploded.

The trailer then cut to the interior of the train, where a lithe woman with long grayish-reddish hair and two pistols was engaged in a battle with yellow-clad, futuristic soldiers. The stylish, fast-paced battle sequence showed the woman performing all sorts of acrobatic stunts while deftly dispatching of wave after wave of soldiers. Every so often, a faint blue light would come from her body, which appeared to be some magic discharge or perhaps a shield of some sort.

The scene cut to another train that sped along a winding track suspended high off the ground in a dark, possibly underground area. At this point a massive monster that looked somewhat like a weapon or summon from the previous Final Fantasy games appeared next to the track and began to attack the train.

The video then cut to a shot of hovering cars driving through a tunnel toward the camera before they were destroyed by an explosion. The next shot showed some massive airships flying around a floating cluster of tall, dark spires that appeared to be a city.

At this point we got a glimpse of the combat in the game, which appears to be very action-oriented. The dual-pistol woman once again was fighting wave after wave of soldiers, without breaking a sweat. The camera was pulled out slightly to show about 15 or more enemies surrounding the woman as she performed an inhumanly fast spin move and shot all of the enemies on the screen. As she did, icons popped up above each enemy denoting the number of hits and the word "chain," so it appears that the game will utilize some sort of combo system. In fact, if not for the pulled-back camera angle and numbers and words on screen, it would have been difficult to tell the difference between the cutscenes and the gameplay footage.

After the fight, the camera zoomed in close on the woman as she flicked her wrist and transformed her pistol into a large dagger or small sword, similar to a gunblade from Final Fantasy VIII. The next scene showed her walking through a very dense, green forest with crystalline structures throughout. She walked into the forest as if looking for something, then paused and looked around.

Then it was back to the floating cities as another train sped between buildings. A large flying manta ray type of creature flew down from above, landed on the train, and hijacked it. The creature looked mechanical but moved very fluidly and naturally. The trailer then ended with a line of text that simply stated, "PlayStation 3 Exclusive."


After the trailer Yoshinori Kitase, Final Fantasy XIII producer, took the stage to explain a bit of the history of the development of the game. A year ago, the Final Fantasy X team was working on a version of Final Fantasy XIII for the PlayStation 2. That team was pulled off of the project to create the PlayStation 3 Final Fantasy VII tech demo that was shown at E3 2005. Instead of going back to the unfinished XIII project, the team scrapped the game and began work on XIII for the PlayStation 3.

The XIII team was assembled with specialized developers who focused on building a brand-new game engine, called the White Engine. This engine was developed to integrate graphics rendering, physics, cinematics, sound, and special effects. Square Enix promises that the White Engine will allow Final Fantasy XIII to take full advantage of the PlayStation 3 hardware.

Of course, in any serious battle--and there are a lot of challenging fights in this game--you'll get wiped out if you just sit back and watch. During combat, you can step in to manually issue orders to any party member whenever you wish and may also swap in defeated party members with your alternates (only three of your main characters can fight at a time). In the end, the combat feels highly strategic, because poorly planned gambits will bring disaster. But you can easily change your gambits on the fly or toggle them off for any character if you'd prefer to. You can also adjust the speed at which battles unfold, though the default speed seems ideal. And even if you do find yourself at an impasse with a particular battle, it's usually possible to go off someplace else and come back to it later, after having replenished your supplies, grown stronger, and adjusted your strategy. In the first hours of play, the rather passive combat sequences are somewhat disappointing, since there's really not much to do. But once you've assembled the entire party and the gambit system starts opening up, the combat becomes quite interesting and involved. In short, rather than task you with controlling the specific actions of your different characters, Final Fantasy XII puts you in a more strategic, commanding role.
Ironically, the nature of the underlying combat is the same as ever, which means you'll constantly be trading hits with foes whose own attacks will frequently bring your characters to death's door, just in time for a healing spell to restore them. Many foes will also use status-changing effects in different combinations, like poison or sleep spells, and Final Fantasy players will need to contend with these in familiar ways. You'll also learn special abilities unique to each character and get to summon creatures called espers to temporarily fight for you, elements that will also be familiar to Final Fantasy players. What helps make all the fighting feel meaningful and interesting is Final Fantasy XII's licenses system, another fairly convoluted but ultimately good addition to the game. Your characters all earn license points with each enemy you defeat, and these points are then used to unlock new upgrades and innate abilities for your characters. Much like the combat, the license board gives an odd first impression, because you need a license for literally each and every equipment piece, magic spell, and special ability in the game before you can use them. So you can't equip that crossbow as soon as you find it, and you won't just magically learn the cure spell once you hit a certain level. You need to spend license points on the license.

The license board works kind of like Scrabble. You can only acquire licenses next to other licenses you've already acquired, and the licenses along the edges of the board (farthest from your starting points toward the middle) are often tied to the strongest items, spells, and upgrades. Each character starts off with some basic equipment and ability licenses, and the board is roughly split up so that weapon, armor, accessory, magic, combat, and special ability licenses are all grouped together. Licenses for more-valuable abilities tend to cost more points, and the license board also lets you unlock additional gambit slots for adapting your characters' behavior in combat toward increasingly complex battles.

Much like the combat, the license system introduces some trade-offs. The good news is that the intricacies of this system are far more interesting than annoying, and it gives you an incentive to fight just about everything you encounter, even the weakest creatures that are barely worth any experience points anymore. The bad news is you might find yourself getting hung up on trying to figure out the "best" way to unlock licenses for each character, and since the license board is the same for each character, that means each character is also the same, and it's entirely up to you to define their differences and specializations. This may come as no surprise to those who've been keeping up with Final Fantasy for a while, since recent installments in the series have all done this. But it still seems strange that Basch, the captain of the Dalmascan guard, is inherently no better in a sword fight than pig-tailed Penelo. In fact, you could turn Basch into a pure healer / magic user while developing Penelo as your single toughest fighter. This open-ended system adds sophistication and replay value to Final Fantasy XII, but some sort of "autolevel" system probably would have been a good option.

Source : Gamespot