With talk amongst gaming circles that the playstation 3 is a fallacy because of its complicated cell processor, making coding for it more tricky than the pc based xbox its not surprising that sony want to get some big titles out on their latest games console. Killzone2 and other similar games do have a fantastic level of quality, graphical construct and processing behind them but none have really 100% caught the ps3 market by storm. Its been foreseen that final fantasy 13 will be the big main game for the ps3 in the coming 12 months. We would probably agree but we are slightly biased (at ffxiii.co.uk) being huge finalfantasy fans.
No doubt historically final fantasy gaming titles have been very well received, with most of them selling more than any other game around their launch time, but will ffxiii bring more ps3s to peoples homes? Certainly with some of the ff13 series exclusively available on the ps3 its likely to have that effect. Lets just hope that square enix get final fantasy 13 out in time to kickstart the ps3 to bigger things.
With the recent release of the demo of last years working copy of final fantasy 13, there is a lot of buzz around it and the fact it was reasonably well recieved despite being a work in progress demo copy. With this in mind we cant see why some websites are so keen to find problems with it – its proof that we are going to get one hell of a good final fantasy 13 when it arrives.
Based on interviews with square enix, feedback from magazines etc this list has been put together detailing the changes that are likely to be made (or imo probably already have been made) between the demo copy of ffxiii and the relased version which we should get in winter09/early 2010. The following list is an a ffxiii.co.uk version of things – a version of this list that should get most of the credit.
Game difficulty – Said to be “greatly increased”. In fact, Toriyama expects XIII to be “the most difficult Final Fantasy Game ever”.
In the demo, party members are CPU controlled. In the final, you’ll be able to issue them directives.
Chain Combo’s will be a huge part of the release version of final fantasy 13 – it wasn’t so big in the demo.
The classic Final fantasy victory fanfare isn’t present in the demo, but you can bet it will be in the final.
Bug whereby regardless of if the first strike critically damages the enemy the combo continues should be fixed.
Weapons for Snow (We cant wait!)
Random Encounters will be from all directions in Final Fantasy XIII.
Much more streamlined targeting mechanism will make it easier to select a target to hit (demo targeting wasn’t great.)
The final will have an “item” command in battle.
NPC dialogue will be subtitled in the final. In the demo, there is only voice.
Sazh’s rather bizarre battle animation will be altered to be less strange, and more “jolly”.
The Time Gauge maxes out at 3 in the demo, but you’ll be able to add more segments in the final through a new character growth system.
Summons will be present in the final. The mysterious “TP Bonus” that appears after battles in the demo relates to them.
Finally, the occasional frame rate drops in the demo will be fixed, according to Toriyama.
All in all we cant wait for the release version of ffxiii, even if they don’t fix all of these (but this is square enix, we know they will – the game will be flawless no doubt.) Its also great from our point of view that they have made the game more difficult to beat, this should keep the final fantasy fans gaming at it for a lot longer!
You can see some gameplay footage from the final fantasy 13 demo that was included for japanese purchases of the blu ray version of advent children last week. The game looks excellent, but it is worth remembering that Square Enix have formally said that this demo is running on the old version of the ffxiii game engine, so chances are it will run slightly differently by the time it hits consoles later on this year.
Some interesting points include a new “Rank” award after a battle, much like roundups in previous final fantasy’s but these appear simplified with a “Rank” given a number out of 5 stars. The gameplay also looks a lot more fluid than you may remember in older final fantasy’s with the charectors jumping and doing mid air gymanastics in order to get through different scenarios – this makes it appear more like a platformer than an RPG. Battle scenes look as good as ever and in Full HD on the PS3 they look to be some of the best looking final fantasy game play scenes ever seen.
This video shows Final Fantasy XIII PS3 Demo Gameplay (Running Around)
Dilogent gamers have recorded their whole experience and posted it to video sites like youtube – supposedly a full hour’s gameplay is available which makes this demo substancially larger than most game demo’s you get. Check out these video’s of the final fantasy 13 demo in action.
It has been reported that the blu ray release of final fantasy advent children last week sold upwards of 100 thousand copies within the first day. This is exceptionally high for any anime and surprised everyone. This high sale rate of a blu ray film represents completely the huge fan base behind final fantasy titles, especially final fantasy 7. Advent children is also a phenomenal blu ray to own, so no doubt a lot of these buyers brought it for its own value.
Further to that though was the inclusion of the first final fantasy 13 demo, something which potentially lifted the sales tremendously. It could be an indicator that the reception for ff13 when it does hit shops later this year will be epic. Its great news for Square Enix, as not only do they in the short term earn a nice reward for the fantastic final fantasy advent children but it also supports the coming release of ff13, and even in fact supports the media blu ray/the ps3 as sony have even more reason to keep producing them.
Look forward to a complete ffxiii demo review coming soon!
Click to view full final fantasy 11 email promotion image
Square enix have just sent out a reintroduction email, promoting their new campaign – Return Home to Vana’diel?. This campaign allows you to carry on playing the epicly big final fantasy 11 online from where you left off – restoring your ff charector as they were when you quit finalfantasy11. There is added bonus’s to swing you into wanting to rejoin the ffonline world – including an “anniversary ring” giving you crazy xp for a short period, no doubt this will interest people back into playing the game.
This blog is primarly about final fantasy 13 but we thought as we recieved news about our old haunt ff11 we would share it with you final fantasy fans. Final fantasy 11 was good and for a long time it was the only game we played, but ultimately until they make a game with ffxiii’s build up/quality and ff11’s scale it won’t ever hold you forever. Still would recommend giving final fantasy 11 a try – its a nice clean final fantasy spin on the WOW world, excpet it came before wow.
This new campaign (Return Home to Vana’diel?) should help the game sustain itself, it would be interesting to get some “now playing” numbers for it, what did you all think of ff11?
Yesterday final fantasy 13’s first playable demo was released in Japan, its probably been one of the most awaited game demo’s of this year so far and was brought on mass.
Not due for release until winter 2009, the japanese version of the game, as with all final fantasy titles since the early ones is hotly anticipated. This demo version was included with the blu ray release of final fantasy seven the movie – advent children, which went on sale last thursday (yesterday) and was brought in huge quantities, for both viewing and the much awaited ffxiii demo. Sony had made a big push to fully instate a big launch for this demo, huge posters where put on the outside of the Sony Building, the sony show room’s in Tokyo (Ginza district) also had huge final fantasy promotional posters.
Restricted to work only on Japanese versions of the ps3 this early ffxiii demo represents an old build of the game (as in our previous post about this 1 hour long ff13 demo) – this does mean western audiences will likely not get their hands on it for a long time, which is very much a shame, but it does also hint that by the Tokyo game show coming up in september Square Enix will probably be showing final fantasy 13 Big style. Something we will have to watch, even if we won’t get the game in the near future
Oh yes!! – at least that’s what we thought when we got news of the latest final fantasy 13 demo. The demo was put onto the blu ray version of Final Fantasy VII Advent children, so you would think this should be pretty monumental in terms of final fantasy releases. Now not to be a square basher or anything but firstly it had turned out the final fantasy13 demo was only to be released to the japanese market – ok so we understand you dont want to waste time converting the language model to be european and thats fair enough, but still surely you can give us a teaser, something little to gnaw on until we get a finished release of ffxiii?
Anyway regardless of this there are further nick’s in the armour. It turns out the 1 hour long game demo featured on the back end of this blu ray is actually representative of the game’s development at early 2008! so since then they have re-written/changed the game engine in final fantasy 13? Making this demo pretty much not a demo at all, more a play thing – a teaser of a teaser. Still we will endeavour to get a copy of it or at least a few videos up soon (anyone going to japan anytime soon?)
*note here is a recent Video released of ffxiii in 1080p hd quality – April 09 game Trailer
Now as if this wasn’t teasing enough, a non uk release of a non representative demo of a non completed final fantasy XIII, we also find out that the game is now supposedly to be launched in japan in Winter 2009! Thats originall when the game was expected in the uk (in fact I think first up they aimed for this summer.) This is unfortunate because there are a lot of gamers awaiting this launch, and they may just get their teeth stuck into something else by the time the newest final fantasy title comes along. Very unlikely as that may be its still a shame that the game won’t make it to the ps3 till probably at least 2010 for us uk/european consumers.
Oh FFXIII how long will you take? It is somewhat traditional to stick ff titles back a while, and we would rather have the full FFXIII shabang with no holds barred, but we just cant wait for 2010!!!!! Check back for up to date progress on the state of final fantasy 13 in the uk/europe.
…yes we want it, we want it now!! Can’t wait till the demo gets out into the european main stream – you can bet as soon as that ffxiii demo comes out – in any form – all be it dvd demo or via internet download – BRING ON THE FF13 DEMO!!!.. ok so with the game being a mile away its probably not realistic to expect the english demo-version anytime soon.
The japanese version of the final fantasy 13 demo has been featured in the japanese gaming mags so it isnt impossible to imagine it coming soon. If anyone hears any news or tracks down a final fantasy 13 demo copy let us know – we would happily review it, take screenshots on any system and play it till the disk overheats!
Often these things are unanounced stuck on the front of ps3 magazine or such, Keep your eyes peeled!
