Final Fantasy Versus XIII update

This week’s Famitsu has its promised Final Fantasy Versus XIII update, which comes in the form of an interview with director Tetsuya Nomura. The update marks the first bit of Versus XIII news since the Square Enix 1st Production Department Premiere in early January.

Like Final Fantasy XIII-2, the camera in Final Fantasy Versus XIII can be altered during cutscenes. According to Nomura, the camera manipulation takes a page from the first-person shooter genre, adding that event scenes do not disturb the gameplay flow.

Previous Final Fantasy titles saw the use of different character models, often with higher polygon count, for event scenes. With Versus XIII, a “unified” model is being used for both event scenes and gameplay, Nomura revealed.

A small update on combat, Nomura said that battle sequences are dynamic, meaning, there aren’t any loading screens or shifting screens between battle and world sequences. They’re one in the same.

Three new images were shown to the Famitsu journalist interviewing Nomura. He couldn’t believe that one of the screenshots was a real-time capture. The visuals were excellent, according to the journalist, and a lot of work went into the graphics and lighting. The screenshots show off different areas of the city. The first image showed an arcade in a rough-looking part of a town (this is the shot that amazed the Famitsu journo); another showed how the lighting effects are reflected in the day or night.

Voice recording is currently in progress. The voice acting is being done as the game is developed, meaning the actors have to come in during different points to record.

Also, a Noctis phone will be released at some point (like the Cloud phone [Panasonic P900iV] that released with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children).

Final Fantasy Versus XIII isn’t in full production, quite yet. Nomura revealed the game is currently only being worked on by the development team’s core staff. They’re right now experimenting with a lot of “challenges,” and are preparing to enter full production.

Nomura doesn’t know when he’ll be able to share more details surrounding Versus XIII, though he apologizes for the incredibly long wait. Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced at Sony’s E3 2006 press conference for PlayStation 3.

Thanks, FinalFantasy.net.