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| Liz Maas |
And talks.. and talks.
07.13.11 - 4:38 PM
Now here's a game that we haven't heard about for awhile. This week's Famitsu featured an interview with Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura, covering a range of topics. One topic that he got into detail about was the long-awaited Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
From the sounds of it, the staff is taking a lot of measures to make the game feel more realistic. You retain control of your character during event scenes, which, Nomura explains, is so that you don't necessarily need to stop playing the game. These scenes are actually rendered in real-time, despite looking much like pre-rendered movies, and players shouldn't notice much of a difference between low and high-quality models other than the detail in characters' hair. Character expressions are even more 'natural' than in past games - for this, they had to use a new system which he didn't expand upon.
Nomura also says that Final Fantasy Versus XIII's events will have a natural flow to them. The flow of coversation will be different than in past games as well. Recording of the voices has already begun, and for scenes with a number of characters talking for example, all the actors recorded the scene together in the same session.
Famitsu was also shown a few screenshots which won't be seen by the public quite yet. One screenshot was reminiscent of Italy, with Noctis looking up at a behemoth. Another showed a scene with Noctis standing on a highway in daylight. A third showed that same highway, but with a street sign reading 'Meguro.' Nonetheless, they were rather impressed with what they saw, noting how realistic they looked. As it turns out, Noctis owns a cellphone, enabling the player to take pictures anytime in the game. What purpose does this serve? Nomura didn't elaborate, but it's an interesting feature.
As for the development in general, Nomura says the staff is trying some new things, but the game should enter mass production very soon. Though he has another update on the game planned, he didn't say when we would be hearing more about the game.
Final Fantasy Versus XIII for the PlayStation 3 does not yet have a date.
