A few hours before the game went on sale, I spoke to producer Kitase and director Toriyama about battle systems, western RPGs and the possibility of a Final Fantasy XIII-2.
Scorched Angel Writes: Final Fantasy. When most people think of it they think of spiky haired protagonists, airships, characters named Cid, evil villains trying to take over the world, and a brand new world to explore. Well, not much has changed since the original. Final Fantasy XIII is the latest entry in one of the longest running series in gaming. Square Enix has taken some bold new directions with this particular entry and in my opinion, it is for the best. They have really made a quality, streamlined game that shines in almost every way, but with just a few bumps along the way.
From Examiner: review scores for Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, Yakuza 3 and more from the #213 issue of EDGE.
Critical Gamer writes: Final Fantasy XIII has been the source of much sniping between Sony and Microsoft fanboys, long before the English language release. Those in the Sony camp may have recently thought that they had ‘won’, now that it is generally accepted that the Xbox 360 version is inferior on a technical level. This includes the fact that the PS3 version runs at a higher resolution; but this seems to have turned out to be a poisoned chalice.
FinalFantasyUnion.com writes, "Inline with Final Fantasy XIII’s release, we have some exclusive content lined up for everyone who’s dug into the game, or maybe hasn’t dug in yet. We’ve previously done interviews with voice actors and actresses from the Kingdom Hearts series on our KH podcast (Kingdom Hearts Union), so we figured it was about time we make a few phone calls and try at some Final Fantasy XIII voice actor and actress interviews; so today we’re happy to announce that we will be interviewing Ali Hillis, the voice of Lightning in Final Fantasy XIII, in the coming week!
Best part, we want fan questions for the interview. The interview will be a special episode of our dedicated Final Fantasy podcast (aptly named Final Fantasy Union on the iTunes Store), so you will indeed hear Ali Hillis’ voice yourself, and possibly hear her answer your own question for her. "
Final Fantasy XIII is out and doing extremely well, over 5 million units have shipped between Japan, the US and EU. But some have complained about the latest installment in the venerable series, and how it lacked some of what made the franchise great, like instead of cutting out towns, why not improve them?
DualShockers writes, "Microsoft has told CVG recently that digital distribution will be the future of home entertainment. They remain vigilant in their position, even after developers like Lost Planet 2 producer Jun Takeuchi have made the point that storage space is becoming more and more of an issue for the Xbox 360. Portions of many popular games are being removed, then there’s the whole graphics compression debacle going on with blockbusters like Final Fantasy XIII and the upcoming RAGE. So with all this going on, what’s Microsoft’s thoughts as to what the future will be like for Xbox 360 storage?…"
A very strong start for the latest Final Fantasy title with two thirds of sales on PS3
Final Fantasy XIII isn’t the first Final Fantasy game for the Xbox platform. Final Fantasy XI was. However, this is the first core Final Fantasy game to go multi-platform at launch. So, why did Square Enix decide to develop an Xbox 360 version?
European and North American first run shipment crosses the three million mark.