In a recent interview with Famitsu members of the development teams working on the three Final Fantasy XIII games shared some more information on their projects. The Final Fantasy XIII demo which will ship with Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete early next year, will allow fans to play through the early parts of the game beginning right after the opening sequence. Apparently, it will take more time to complete the demo than watching Advent Children Complete. Characters other than Lighting will be playable as well. Instead of having one single lead character, Final Fantasy XIII's story will turn all important characters into main characters. Instead of focusing on one character in particular, the story will be told through the eyes of multiple characters.

Final Fantasy XIII will be available on PlayStation 3 in Japan sometime next year.

The Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailer shown at the DK Sigma 3713 event in Tokyo earlier this month was real-time footage running on actual PlayStation 3 hardware. The development team is aiming for in-game visuals rivaling the quality of the game's CG sequences.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII has yet to receive an official release date.

As for Final Fantasy Agito XIII, the game had been scheduled to appear on mobile phones and PlayStation Portable from the very beginning. The original plan was to proceed with the development on PlayStation Portable and then port the game to the mobile phone platform. Since then the Japanese mobile network carrier has altered the original hardware specs, resulting in Square Enix to give priority to the development of Agito XIII's PlayStation Portable version. The same counts for the new Parasite Eve installment, The 3rd Birthday.

Agito XIII will apparently employ an advanced, faster version of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII's high-speed Active Time Battle system. The game's current build already supports cooperative online play for up to three players via infrastructure mode. However, because of various issues, no decision has been made as to whether this feature will make it into the final product. The development team wants to ship the game with infrastructure mode, though. Summons have been confirmed to appear in Agito XIII, too. Players will be able to directly control the powerful creatures. Summons are also set to receive some sort of growth feature.

Final Fantasy Agito XIIIhas yet to receive an official release date.

• Geemu Jouhou! Geemu no Hanashi