With only a short couple weeks until the western release of Final Fantasy XIII, Square-Enix has once again updated their official website with a new message from background planning director Yoichi Kubo.

Welcome to the world of Final Fantasy, reborn for a new age!

Take a step within and what awaits you is a seamless, high-speed, high-tension, adrenaline-fuelled world of unprecedented experience, like a super-blockbuster action movie, smashing aside existing concepts of what an RPG is!

In order to render the backdrop to this world in real time we have constantly been carrying out cautious testing and then making bold and fearless decisions and implementations based on that.

With the overarching goal of maintaining the levels of tension throughout the game, we started with a data setup that completely removed the need for further reading from the disc after entering a location. From there we repeated and perfected an endless process of trial and error for the graphical composition and game structure using rough models, until we were almost ready to feint from exhaustion! We thoroughly bashed the data into shape until every element on screen, from the backdrop’s colour and contrast to the atmospherics exuded dynamism.

When all the masses of data; the story, battles, events and the backdrops that set the stage for the adventure were tied together and merged, it is safe to say that the finished product exceeded the expectations of us, the creators by a long way and the definitive Final Fantasy for a new generation was born.

The feeling of claustrophobia in amongst a grimy, oil caked morass of machinery, a lush green forest and the tranquility of wild flowers, the warmth of the stars spreading far and wide into the night sky, the feeling of overwhelming freedom in the soaring azure heavens and rolling earthly landscape and the majestic beauty of the setting sun as it illuminates a metropolis of the far future. The colours, atmosphere and change in all of these locations, the rolling movement of their clouds and water and the vast differences in history and culture. We hope that you can feel all these and more when stopping to take in a moment in time in a world of eternally shifting myth and fantasy.

I am overflowing with happiness from the core of my being in knowing that the day is drawing close when the entirety of our vision is delivered, a Final Fantasy world the likes of which has never been seen before!

May all of you eagerly waiting smile with joy when you get your hands on the game.

Please just hold on a little longer! (＾▽＾)/

Thanking everyone from the bottom of my heart.

Yoichi Kubo