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PS3 | RPG | Final Fantasy XIII

Boxart for Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII 27 screen shots
  • AVG USER SCORE 3.6
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE n/a

Preview: Final Fantasy XIII

Preview by The Gamepros | 07/20/2007 | 09:54:09 AM PST

Final Fantasy XIII is still a long way off, so can it really be the killer app the Playstation 3 has been waiting for?

By Brent Kampe

In the mythical land of North America, where Final Fantasy sells far better than Dragon Quest, fans of Square Enix's flagship series have been foaming at the mouth for more details on the elusive Final Fantasy XIII, which was originally announced in a teaser trailer at E3 2006. Since then, Squeenix has spoon-fed the masses with merely minuscule morsels of information, which its ravenous fan base has been more than willing to pounce upon, devour, and scour the net in hopes of even more. But, will the game be able to live up to the excellence of its antecedents and deliver on years of media hype by the time of its release? Well, from what's been made known so far, it certainly seems to be following the series' pattern, making just enough changes to be fresh but keeping just enough tradition to be Final Fantasy.

One World, multiple platforms

Final Fantasy XIII is the centerpiece of a triumvirate featuring another PS3 game, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and a cell phone game, Final Fantasy Agito XIII. All three of these games are set in the same universe with a common mythos, and are collectively titled Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy, or "new crystal fable". It is not known at this time whether these three games will be the end of the set, as more games under the Fabula label have been rumored to appear, such as the trademarked Square Enix title Final Fantasy Haeresis XIII.

This sales model of releases clustered around a single intellectual property is fairly similar to the company's Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and Ivalice Alliance game groups, which both included related games (and in the case of Final Fantasy VII, even a full-length movie) that stretched across multiple platforms. The key difference here is that Square Enix has announced these satellite games for FF XIII years before it has had a chance to prove its popularity. While this shows a great deal of possibly premature confidence in the title, it is also indicative of the company's new development philosophy of "polymorphic content", which grants gamers perspective of the same game world, only on different gaming platforms.

The setting of FF XIII specifically will take place in a dichotomous world, with an art style that will reflect its Romanesque nomenclature while still allowing the futuristic designs seen in the trailer. Above exists the sealed-off, shelled world named Cocoon, whose inhabitants fear the outsiders of Pulse, the world that exists beneath them. Therein, crystals are used to create powerful machines and an advanced society, but all is not well as a group of mysterious creatures suddenly awaken and begin to threaten the world.

The story then proceeds in epic Final Fantasy fashion, and Square Enix has vaguely hinted at an overall theme, claiming that the game's focus will tell the story of "those who resist the world". Not exactly an alien concept to the series, we think.


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