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FFXIII Not Due Until Next Year
IGN translated an article discussing a financials meeting recently held by Final Fantasy creator Square/Enix. According to company president Yoichi Wada, don't expect FFXIII until next year. At least. "'It will still take a bit more time. At the very least, [a release] this fiscal year is definitely out of the question.' Japanese is known for being a pretty vague language, but Wada's words were pretty clear. No FFXIII in Japan until some time after March 2008. Let's hope Square Enix starts the translation before development finishes up." The implication there, of course, is that if we follow the trend from FFXII the U.S. may not see the game until Winter 08, or even early 09.
Maybe by then I can afford a PS3 to play it on.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
And we waited how long for FFVII? I would rather they spend years on a project making it good than just rush it and push out an FMV-centric piece of crap. Bring back the world map!
In my opinion, none of the final fantasy's since FF6 have really been worth the time invested anyway...
(and yes, I have played them all)
Living With a Nerd
Did anyone really expect it to be released this year?
I'd be shocked if it did get a release next year. FFXII too forever it seems. Square likes to polish their games, and why not. Once they release it, I'm sure it will be quite good.
begin the death of the ps3. i was going to buy a ps3 if it came out this year, i think i'll pass now. thanks, sony.
I enjoyed 4,6,7,9, and 10, for varying reasons, with fault to be found here and there.
FF4 to me was the first with a bit of depth to the story and characters.
FF5 I found to revert to a more straightforward story with more flat characters.
FF6 was quite epic with a deeper world and characters, but I found Kefka to be a weaker concept in terms of a villain. Also while the story was deeper, it still seemed too straightforward.
FF7 I feel is different and I loved it. They took some living planet philosophy to integrate some classical fantasy elements, but brought in some more dystopian sci-fi elements into it. I found Sephiroth to be a conceptually strong villain, as well as having more than two sides (Shin-Ra and Sephiroth/Jenova both 'bad guys', but bad guys that didn't work together). The general set of circumstances were to me refreshingly complex, allowing for more interesting in depth exploration of a story as well as a world. Most other games I could give a one-minute plot summary to someone who never played and feel I covered the important aspects, I could not with this game.
FF8 I thought reverted to a weak villain and overly straightforward... everything. It was much prettier and the world was still nicely designed, but the story and characters were lacking depth and too straightforward.
I won't claim 9 is deep or anything, but it was simple fun. It's a game I can't logically explain how, but I just liked it.
10 was just very fantastically designed. The visuals were strong and not afraid to be surreal as appropriate. The story was deeper than 8 and 9, with some surprises along the way. The world was very restrictive though, and most of the game holds you to a defined path to suit the story. Even when you get an airship and freedom, you never get to look at the world in a grander scale, instead having a point and click map to drop you down. That disappointed me.
11 I skipped, I've played MMORPGS and they are not my thing.
12 I played through, but didn't like. They were trying to copy MMORPGs too much for me, in terms of combat system. All the characters lack any semblance of depth, and the story is similarly straightforward. Visual design in general aimed too much for realism. Also, for the first time, the scope of everything seemed so limited. The entire story is set in a small part of a world, with constant reminders of bigger forces/places that you'll never see. It feels like a teaser for games that would cover that. I've liked that Square historically for each game set up a unique world and let gamers go at the whole of it and explore every facet as they pleased. Then toss out that world and move on to a new setting. Reusing the same world gets tiresome and artificially holding the world back to prevent that from happening is frustrating.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Their biggest developmental hurdle will be choosing how many spikes the main character's hair has, his bust size, and the source of his isolation from society and inexplicable feelings of angst.
Will his fashion sense be a hodge podge of articles from the pirate era, or the dark ages? Will his plucky love interest be a young queen society won't accept marrying him, or a rags to riches disadvantaged girl?
Will the airship be powered by magical beads, or fire? These are all important questions the developers must answer before they can even begin work on Final Fantasy 6, no 7, no 8, no 9, no 10, wait. What?
Will it be able to play it?
Unlike FF12 (not to be confused with X-II) which currently doesn't work on the European PS3
i would like to see a full 3D "..of mana" (slash FF Adventure) title. i know that it would take away from the design of the Mana series thus far, but those games aren't hugely budgeted like FFs. it would be interesting for square to take the hack and slash genre a little further.. a full 3D reproduction of secret of mana would be amazing, and take a retardedly long time (if you wanted full mastery of the spells and weapons anyway) to play. i have faith that square could make it interesting, unlike untold legends/god of war/baldur's gate dark alliance which were all fun for about 10 minutes (which is about how long it took to beat each of those titles) square would be able to find a cool niche instead of beating more cash out of Aerith's dead corpse.
oh marmalade.
So I'll have at least two years to play and finish Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, IX, Revenant Wings, and Tactics A2. :D Then other than Crystal Chronicles, Mystic Quest, X2 and Chocobo Fudgepackers, I can claim to have played through and beaten every US released FF title :D
Gaming for over 25 years
I always thought that FF13 was going to be a 2008 release, my biggest surprise is that this is news at all.
In any case, Final Fantasy, while not dead to me, ha really lost its charm as of late. I mean, I liked FF12 well enough, but then I went on to play Tales of the Abyss, and realized that I was enjoying myself a whole lot more, and found that title to be much more engrossing. FF12 came in a distant fourth this year after Twilight Princess, Okami, and Tales of the Abyss. That's not bad, since all those games were absolutely stunning, but unlike FF6-9, which I believe to be the pinnical of the series, they just don't have that wonderous charm that they once did. FFX was pure crap, as far as I'm concerned. At this point, I'm going to put more faith in Bandai-Namco, Mistwalker, and Gust to make the best jRPGs... I'm also really looking forward to Trusty Bell/Eternal Sonata, even that's Tri-Crescendo, a company I usually dispise.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.