Final Fantasy Versus XIII

[Lenny]

I'm setting up this thread as a discussion for everything related to Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Please keep non-related discussion in other threads.

Discussion of the trailers can be found in Commonmind's thread.

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Videos - Final Fantasy Versus XIII Extended Cloud Trailer :: PlayStation Universe (PSU)

First, I'll make a few observations about the trailer, and then I'll relate to you all what is known already about the game.

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The trailer begins with a convoy of beautifully created cars driving along a road, light playing off their curved, metallic bodies. We're shown the interior of the car, and the protagonist of the game. Here you can see the White Engine at work, unlike how it's been seen in FFXIII. Everything's dark, with bright lights flashing over it all. The reflection of the car in the metal wall at the start, the lights playing over the car, the interior of black leather, and the protagonist, the texture of his glove in the close-up, the flickering variation of shadows and lights that one is subject to when driving in the dark. All stunningly rendered in real-time by the White Engine. You next watch the cars drive by, their suspension bobbing them up and down as they speed into the distance, complete with a shot of a large city (reminds me somewhat of the city at the very start of FFX, where Auron gives you a little tutorial).

You're then taken to a massive building, complete with statues, and a shot of the main fella walking out of the building and to the top of a long flight of steps, around which are scattered a number of bodies in black. At the bottom of the steps is an army of soldiers, in armour, carrying guns (bearing a resemblance to those in the FFXIII trailer). The protagonist begins to walk down the steps, and the army opens fire, bullets ricocheting of the stone, and leaving great chips in it... but he's untouched. He reaches the next landing, and a ring of swords surrounding and protecting him becomes visible. He takes one, which gives the growl of an engine, his eyes flash red, and he leaps into battle, striking and killing with the same sound effects as the Keyblade [in Kingdom Hearts trailers], whilst his ring of protection, erm, protects him, with similar sounds. Eventually he grows tired of his play, and begins to walk, nay, teleport up the steps, which is followed by more teleportation and play up the sides of the building. One interesting thing to point out is a quick scene in which he skewers someone on a sword – none of the usual sword going through, with no sound nor blood. The sword goes through with a sickening "squish", and blood spurts from the wound. He teleports back to the top landing of the steps, some soldiers fire rockets at him, and his ring of protection once again protects him.

The last scene is the protagonist sat on an ornate throne, in a room that looks extremely expensive. A close up of his face (and amazing textures of his leather glove), show him appearing to be sleeping.

Unlike the FFXIII trailer, this one shows no game play at all. It is 100% CGI film, and ends by telling us that the game is also a PS3 exclusive.

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Very little is known about Final Fantasy Versus XIII. We don't even know the name of the protagonist. There are things we do know, however, that are certaintly interesting.
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The game is set in the Final Fantasy XIII universe, but it is unknown how it relates to FFXIII. To quote directly from Wikipedia:

The main character's country appears to be very advanced and modern, as one example, while neighboring countries appear to have remained in an era similar to the Middle Ages. The main power in the world are the Crystals. All the countries (aside from the protagonist's) have had them at one time, only to lose them in continual warfare. They had pooled their resources into weapons, granting them advanced rifles rather than swords and magic. Now, only the main character's country has a Crystal, triggering debate over its use as it is beneficial to the military. Recently, a peace treaty was discussed (Mentioned in the radio in the Jump Festa trailer). However, marauders with guns invade the city as the main character battles them, disrupting the peace.

Tetsuya Nomura has said "Versus XIII is supposed to resemble the modern-day world. I wanted to make this world resemble our world we live in today. This is integrated to the story as well but the reason I chose to use a Shakespeare quote at the beginning of the trailer is to make the tie with the real world we live today".

Crystals. It all boils down to the Crystals. The underlying theme of the Fabula Nova Crystallis trilogy, is the continued presence of Crystals. However, unlike the living beings in FFXIII, the Crystals in FF Versus XIII are implied to be objects of great power.

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I'm getting tired, so to quote again from Wikipedia, on the subject of characters:

The protagonist is a mysterious young man with dark blue-ish gray hair with crimson colored eyes. He is the last heir to a dynasty, ruling the only remaining city in the world which controls crystals. He protects his home from marauders that plan to conquer the city and take the crystals as their own. He wields a number of different weapons, including swords, spears, and lances, and can even induce them (telekinetically or otherwise) to independently move in the air to form a whirling barrier around himself. He has
also demonstrated the power of instantaneous teleportation. His physical features seem to change depending on his actions, as his eye color turns red when holding his sword and his hair flashes white when teleporting. Nomura has said that his eye color will change to more colors, some scans have shown him with bright yellow eyes when holding a different sword, and other colors like green. As hinted by Nomura, it has been shown he can use magic and do other unrevealed/unknown things.

Nomura has also confirmed that a heroine, parallel to the protagonist, will be present in the game.

Other revealed characters are the mysterious soldiers. These unknown warriors wear medieval-styled armor, but also carry assault rifles resembling modern automatic weapons. It is known that they are some of marauders trying to take the crystals as their own. Another character revealed is a new character wearing all white (a possibly symbolic contrast from the protagonist's darker clothing) introduced in the new trailer. The character is seen in protagonist's building near the castle as they both cast spells at each other, implying that they are enemies.

As of September 2007, two more characters have been revealed during the Tokyo Game Show. One character is a young woman who apparently wields a rapier while the other, according to Gamespy.com, is a young man who appears to be an acquaintance of the protagonist.

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To finish with, I have a very interesting picture. It shows the protagonist of FF Versus XIII sat on his thrown, and next to it, is a picture of the FFXIII protagonist, sat in a comfy chair. Black next to White. You can look into it with as much depth as you want, it's a very interesting picture illustrating the differences and similarities between the two games:



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Sources:

Final Fantasy Versus XIII - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Lenny]

Wow!! Just over 500 views and not a single reply. Must be a new record!!

I'm surprised that this one has just over three times the number of views that the FFXIII thread has... must be because it has more of the Wikipedia spirit in it.

[Overread]

also because its more of an unknown factor - another FF game and we know roughly what will be in the formula - this is something different and new, thus we want to know more;; and when the Emu posts up all the info what more is there left to say?

[Lenny]

Haven't a clue. Maybe some sort of discussion. I would say give your own views on the trailer, but Commonmind quite rudely got a thread started simply for the trailers before I was finished typing my two up.

Come on! You're the replier. It's up to you to discuss something. I've done my work!

EDIT: A new Versus character was seen in the Jump Festa trailer, bringing the total up to four, I think it is.

No, make that six:

Versus XIII Characters

Five of the characters are sketches drawn from memory by someone who has seen the Behind-Closed-Doors trailers.

And here's a nice description of the Jump Festa trailer:

Jump Festa Trailer Description

[Overread]

Originally Posted by Lenny

Come on! You're the replier. It's up to you to discuss something.

Fine - what do you think about the current economic status of the Euro in light of the ever growing oil crisis - and the threat of Russian gas interuptions......
Well you said something - nothing specific:

At the moment I think the trailers are showing us a lot of action and great images, but not much depth - we get hints and that is all. More info is needed before we can really start

[Lenny]

Which seems to be the only problem with the Versus 'trailers' - it's all CGI film. Each video has been based on the original that was shown at E3 '06, I think it was. Or '05. But each time it's been shown, it's had more video added to it... whereas the FFXIII trailer is already showing game play.

Sadly, hints is what Nomura does best - the wait KH2 was three of four years of hints before rock solid information.

I can see us waiting a long time before the solid details come... in fact, I reckon something FFXIII, or maybe a hidden video at the end of it will be the main resource for giving solid details.

[Lith]

They have yet to release anything about FFvs13 that interests me. FF13 looks a little interesting, but we've basically nothing to go on, even a year after the first trailers. And being rather A LOT spoiled by FF12, I'm skeptical about Nomura's upcoming projects. They're interesting, but thus far can be sometimes ludicrous.

[Lenny]

How do you mean? Ludicrous?

[Overread]

I think FF12 was an experiment for them into the new - there were problems and there were advantages. If they stick with the new ideas, then I think they should iron out more in 13 and verses - - FF is one of the few game groups where whilst graphics are always at the head of their game, quality is still very dependable and important

[Lith]

Well I thought FF12 was darned near perfect (I know plenty of people disagree, but I just can't see anything wrong with it!). By comparison the previous FFs seem a little childish.

There are some aspects of character design, world design, monster design, and storyline that just don't work! Seymour's hair being the worst offender for character design, followed closely by all of Tidus. And the ending of FF10 kind of devolved beyond all sense. (I can't be more specific, unfortunately, as it's been a while since I replayed the end of that game and I'm starting to forget details, now it's mostly impressions.) And the Blitzball, and a monster named SIN, and, uh, a school whose students are named SEEDS...

On the other hand, there are weird elements that do work, as in FF7 (what?! I'm fighting a WALL? A house that shoots rockets?!!). Don't get the impression that I don't love the other FFs! I do, but there's just those odd flaws in the otherwise impressive whole. FF12 was so self-consistent and beautiful that I'm skeptical of future projects. And I would LOVE to be wrong about my low expectations.

[Overread]

the older FF - ending with 10 - were like anime, but not all as silly.
12 starts a more serious line in animation and worldbuilding.
For me its greatest annoyance and blessing is the battle system; I like what they have done, but at the same time, you don;t need many auto commands for lower level battles to need no input at all - then if a difficult fight comes along, you tend to get hammered early on before you notice, then you can get beat. This happens because the other fights have put you to sleep a bit - but it is better than random encounters that can drive you mad.
The licence system, whilst more understandable, customisable and easier to use than in 10 is hampered as it is the same for each character -thus they have no original identity - any one can be the black mage, any one the gunner - it detracts from the characters identity in the film.

[Lenny]

Some Versus XIII scans from the latest issue of Famitsu (in which there was an interview with Nomura - the main points of which are in the FFXIII thread):

http://www.jay-t.com/public/gaf/xiii...13/FF13-03.jpg
http://www.jay-t.com/public/gaf/xiii...13/FF13-08.jpg
http://www.jay-t.com/public/gaf/xiii...13/FF13-09.jpg
http://www.jay-t.com/public/gaf/xiii...13/FF13-10.jpg
http://www.jay-t.com/public/gaf/xiii...13/FF13-11.jpg
http://www.jay-t.com/public/gaf/xiii...13/FF13-12.jpg
http://www.jay-t.com/public/gaf/xiii...13/FF13-13.jpg

[Sephiroth]

I disagree with Lith on this one. As I have said elsewhere, I do not rate the story of XII, I feel it lacks both length and any real personal depth...the characters are still strangers to me, and I also think that some of the magical feel of the 'fantasy' element was missing (or at least, poorly realised and pitifully shoehorned into a story where it did not really fit). It's not that I don't appreciate the more mature approach to storytelling, but I feel like it didn't amount to much, and I didn't really find the worldbuilding any more consistent than in many of the earlier titles. There were the same kind of incongruities.

I do agree with you on certain things, Lith, like the end of X being a complete let-down (but I liked the Blitzball, in the end), and some things being a bit silly at times. I felt there was less of that in VII (and in VI, although it has very camp moments), than in the intervening titles.

As you know already, I do not rate XII nearly so highly, overall it has been my least favourite experience of the ones I've played, although I still had a lot of fun with it.


Regarding the sphere grid versus the license system, I thought the former was far superior. The license grid was too small, for one thing. I liked materia, too. But perhaps something like the job system mixed with the sphere grid would be good.......

In XII, I only used Gambits when I was grinding, and I didn't start using them until I was sure I knew what was around.


Anyway, the point of the thread is Versus XIII, and although there's not much to go on, I am actually more excited about this than the other one.

The little hint of plot setup sounds intriguing, and for some reason I just get the feeling that it will be my cup of tea. I hope I'm right.....

It looks fantastic, of course; absolutely stunning.

[Lenny]

Talking about the sphere grid system (which I absolutely love... then again, the only other FF I played used a terrible dress-sphere system. *shudders*), it'll be interesting to see how you personalise your characters' levelling in both XIII and Versus. I reckon that, this being a Nomura title, it will bear a faint resemblance to Kingdom Hearts.

Talking about there being less of VII in the intervening titles... well, I've just said it really - this is a Nomura title. VII looked rather dark, KH is slightly dark, and Versus looks extremely dark. Can anyone see a pattern emerging?

The characters look interesting - a gang of four, all young males... to me they look like Computer Geeks, in all honesty. And then there's the woman with the sword... possibly someone the main character clashes with?

My thoughts from looking at the four in this scan:

http://www.jay-t.com/public/gaf/xiii...13/FF13-10.jpg

The blond-haired fella looks like the one who's going to be the clown.
The guy with the specs and quiff... a Cid of sorts?
And the third guy looks like the really tough-talker, who will most probably have a thing with the blond-haired guy - you know, needling each other, friendly insults going back and forth.

[Sephiroth]

Ah, the dress spheres. Yeah, I didn't play X-2. I don't think I'll ever be able to.

I think I see your pattern though. Is it something to do with, uh....darkness?

Fine by me, I'm a dark sort of chap.



The blond guy is the clown, yeah. I'll wager the guy next in from him is the troublemaker, and the one striding in front is the 'troubled hero'. There's the snappy dressing wise-guy on the right.


Oh, I'm not toally familiar with the personalisation of levelling in KH. I've watched my friend play a whole lot of the game, but I can really remember the details, it's not the same as playing it yourself.....