It's been a long wait but at last Final Fantasy XIII is set to come to our shores. Square Enix released the game in Japan in December last year and have been tweaking elements such as the lip-sync in cut scenes since then to optimise the game for an English release. FFXIII is now only a little over a month away and the excitement around this new instalment is palpable.
First revealed in 2006, FFXIII has been in development for quite some time and makes up the most significant entry in the Fabula Nova Crystallis Project. The project, which is similar in nature to the FFVII compilation, is made up of three games: Final Fantasy Agito XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII and of course FFXIII itself. The games are all set in the same universe but feature independent narratives.
But forget the supporting titles, the big one is on the horizon and it's looking to be a fantastic game. Yoshinori Kitase, the legendary director of Chrono Trigger and FFVII has returned to produce the game and the development team is strewn with names known for their work on previous Final Fantasy instalments.
The quality of the development team only makes the one key absence stand out more; Nobuo Uematsu, the man responsible for the music throughout the main Final Fantasy series, hasn't been involved in this latest game. Square made the decision to use Uematsu for FFXIV, the upcoming online game, and so he hasn't contributed to XIII. While this is a shame it isn't all bad news as Masashi Hamauzu, the co-composer of FFX and Dirge of Cerberus, has been brought on-board to take the reigns into his capable hands.
The story of FFXIII takes place on a world called Pulse and the floating city above it named Cocoon. The protagonist is a woman called Lightning, a character very much based on the iconic Cloud Strife of FFVII only now in female form (designer Tetsuya Nomura was specifically asked for this). The narrative itself features a resistance against the theocratic government of Cocoon and its elite military force, PSICOM.
Comments
