Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII (s an upcoming installment in the Final Fantasy video game series, and is the first of the series to be released on the PlayStation 3. Unveiled at E³ 2006, the game features a high-tech futuristic world, and a heroine who wields a gunblade-type weapon. Motomu Toriyama is the director of the game. According to Square Enix President Yoichi Wada, the storyline will focus on "those who resist the world."

Final Fantasy XIII will run on the "White Engine", a proprietary engine built for Square Enix's next-gen games. The game was originally planned for the PlayStation 2 but was later moved to the PlayStation 3 after the development team discovered the power of the platform.

Fabula Nova Crystallis

Along with Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Agito XIII for the mobile phone and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, an action game for the PlayStation 3 made by the Kingdom Hearts team, make up three facets of the overall project known as Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy XIII.

According to Square Enix, Final Fantasy XIII is neither a prequel or a sequel to Final Fantasy Agito XIII or Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Square Enix has explained that although all three games take place in the same universe, they are not directly related. Square also announced that there will be still other titles in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, though they have not indicated how many. A diagram was shown with three empty circles around the Fabula Nova Crystallis logo, so it is possible there will be another three titles in the serie.

Combat

From the footage shown at E³ battles in the game appear to be in real-time similar to Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XII, but without the colored target arcs linking player to enemy. Square Enix has also confirmed that the game will feature real-time battles.

Each action the player makes (for example casting a spell) seems to cost points, which adds up on an "ATB cost" numerical value on the lower part of the screen. In the 5 action slots (on the bottom of the screen) it seems that a player can queue up to five commands at a time to execute in battle; so long as the sum cost of all actions are not greater than the character's total "ATB cost" points . All of the currently known commands shown from the trailer and scans thus far are "Escape", "Cure", "Shoot", "Aerial", "V Strike", "Attack", "Fire", "Blizzrad" [sic], "Thunder", "Defend", and "Firaga", each with an allotted amount of ATB cost. It may be that the player fills up the queue, and then the character performs these actions in successive order making it an interesting combination of real-time and turn-based battle systems.

Characters

Not many details have been revealed about the characters of the game. It has been said that there is no 'main character', and that the game will center around multiple characters. From the trailer shown at E³ the character shown was a young woman wielding a gunblade-type weapon which can transform into a sword or gun, but does not function as both at the same time -- instead it can transition from one to the other with a switch-blade or butterfly knife like motion, as shown in a brief scene in the trailer.

Online

While players will still be able to experience Final Fantasy XIII as an offline game, Yoshinori Kitase has stated in the developer interview that players will also be able to play Final Fantasy XIII online as well.

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