Square-Enix continues to update the official Final Fantasy XIII website as we countdown to the western release, this time with a few messages from field planning co-director Hiroaki Hishinuma, battle planner Daisuke Inoue, and battle director Yuge Abe.

HIROAKI HISHINUMA

It has taken an awfully long time, but we have finally completed the latest entry in the Final Fantasy series! I’m pleased to be able to report that the years we have devoted to constructing and setting up the field sections of the game were well spent, and that we believe we have achieved a level of quality that has never been seen before. I am personally very happy to have been involved in bringing this game to life, and hope that as many people as possible get to visit its incredible world.

The game itself is made up of 13 chapters, and I can proudly say that each of the field areas that I have had a hand in creating presents a completely new and different vista to the player.

You will be catapulted from modern high-rise buildings to an ancient world where vast waves stand frozen in time… One moment, you’ll be riding a hi-tech fighter craft, and the next, you’ll find yourself abandoned on a mountain of debris… You’ll travel from a futuristic metropolis, raised into the sky with miraculous technology, to the gates of another dimension! I strongly believe that there have not been many other works – not just in games, but across all genres of entertainment – which deliver such breathtaking changes in setting with such style.

I should add that we did not go all out to throw as many eccentric juxtapositions at the player as possible, but always took great care to maintain the coherence and integrity of design within the game’s two vastly different worlds – the glittering, manufactured world of Cocoon that floats in the heavens, and the untamed natural wilderness of Gran Pulse below it. From the architectural styles to the appearance of the monsters, all factors were tailored to emphasise the character of the respective worlds.
At every stage in the planning and fashioning of the game world, we gave consideration to the battle-orientated gameplay which forms the core of the experience, as well as to the story development which provides the player’s motivation to continue onwards with the game.
This will be a lot clearer when you actually play the game, but there are numerous subtle touches in the game’s design which reinforce the story, such as the way many of the monsters which roam around Cocoon deliberately look as though they were taken from Gran Pulse and remoulded to fit the environment.

In order to realise our vision for this project, we spent a great deal of time and effort getting things just right. Although it may have been more efficient and cost-effective to have used the same designs and structures in multiple places, we knew that the world simply had to look and feel a certain way if it was to truly live up to the expectations of the series, and be considered worthy of the Final Fantasy name. For this reason, we focused exclusively on the actualisation of the world, and decided not to worry about the methods used to achieve the desired results. In short, we individually crafted each and every object in the game, however small, intricately working all the fine details separately.

Furthermore, in order to provide the sort of experience that only videogames can offer, we paid particular attention to the tempo at which the story and gameplay progresses, and carefully removed elements that would slow down or interrupt the flow. The first half of the game sets a continuous pace for the story and is designed so the player can make progress without any pauses in the action. In contrast, the second half has areas that spread out laterally and allow the player to get the very best out of the battle system that they have now had time to master. When the time came to think about enemy placement, we collaborated closely with other teams and collected numerous ideas, but even with our combined knowledge we continued to tweak and perfect well into the middle phase of the design schedule. There were even occasions when we changed the composition of maps to balance the gaps separating important conversations between characters.

We continuously assessed and evaluated all of the game’s component elements, and while the resultant refinements are far too numerous to mention here, it is clear that the final product benefits from all of these detailed design decisions – its content doing justice to its phenomenal graphical quality. The attention to detail is evident in little things like the way a character lets slip an important piece of information in an innocuous comment; the fact that different types of soldier supervise the various areas of Cocoon; or the presence of different groups of enemies fighting between themselves in certain backgrounds.

It was certainly worth the effort spent making sure that each of these individual factors gave rise to a balanced whole, and sincerely believe that we have created a product that offers genuine entertainment and no shortage of fun.

I believe that Final Fantasy XIII is a work that will speak to any player who takes the time to experience it personally, and that its appeal goes beyond narrow categorisations like genre and nationality.
Whether you are pressing on with the frenetic story, or taking time out to marvel at the gorgeously realised environments, the world of Final Fantasy XIII is one that will draw you in more deeply with every passing minute.

As you interact using your controller, you will really begin to feel the progress you are making, and understand the integral part you have to play in the story. I urge you to make this game of ours truly complete by experiencing every last one of its wonders.

DAISUKE INOUE

Comments regarding the missions:

For this instalment of the series, I stuck to the following rules when assigning the mission monsters their capabilities:

1.  They should never force the player characters to equip any specific accessories.

2.  They should never require the player to use TP abilities to defeat them.

3.  They should never require the player to use healing items to defeat them.

4.  They should never require the player to use shrouds to defeat them.

In short, I made it so that you should be able to defeat any of the mission monsters in FFXIII without equipping specific accessories or using any TP abilities, items or shrouds. Moreover, it is theoretically possible to earn a five star ranking in the battle results, even in the absence of any of those aids. Once players have become confident in their abilities with the battle system, I recommend that they try completing the missions unaided for a real test of skill!

In case this makes the game sound too easy, I can assure you that the mission monsters were designed first and foremost to present players with a real challenge. So much so, in fact, that our producer Mr Kitase even came to us complaining that he could not beat some of them and had no idea what to do, despite fighting with none of the handicaps mentioned above. I sincerely hope that you will have fun pitting your wits against these truly formidable opponents.

YUGE ABE

Dear gamers of the world,

The day of FINAL FANTASY XIII’s international release is drawing near, and I look forward to it reaching all of the series’ eager fans, wherever they may be.

I must say that I am confident that the excitement of the battle system, which I was privileged to oversee, will stimulate the minds and fingertips of gamers across the globe!

It’s my hope that everyone who plays FINAL FANTASY XIII will at some point experience the maddening yet compelling sense of frustration you get when you come so close to victory but fall at the last hurdle!
The fiendish obstacles awaiting the player can only be overcome with awareness and ingenuity, but the incomparable feeling of achievement once you crack it will be well worth the effort.