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The last stretch: Final Fantasy XIII improvements for final version detailed

Posted Apr 23, 2009 at 7:00AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: PS3, Xbox 360 Tags: Dengeki, Famitsu, Motomu Toriyama, Square Enix

Final Fantasy XIII PS3 Xbox 360 Square Enix - Image 1
"Dude, we gotta practice our victory pose! aaaand... NOW!"

With the demo finally released to the public (videos here!), Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, Xbox 360) is now in its last stretch. Square Enix is on the move to make last-minute improvements to their build, and if you remember from previous reports, game director Motomu Toriyama and the rest of the team are already in the process of tying loose ends now.

But what exactly are those refinements to be made? What differences will there be between the demo and the retail version of FFXIII to be released in winter 2009? Take a deep breath, let's take 'em one bit at a time.

The following outline is from 2ch, summarizing details from interviews on Famitsu, Famitsu PS3, and Dengeki PlayStation (translation from 1Up):

Battle difficulty will be greatly increased. In fact, Toriyama expects XIII to be "the most difficult FF ever".
In the demo, party members are CPU controlled. In the final, you'll be able to issue them directives.
Continuing your "Chain" in the demo isn't very important in the demo, but will vital in the final.
The classic FF victory fanfare isn't present in the demo, but will be in the final.
Victory poses may be incorporated into the final; the matter is currently under consideration.
If the first hit of a chain kills an enemy in the demo, your character continues attacking air for the duration of the combo. This will be remedied in the final.
Snow is barehanded in the demo, but will have weapons available to him in the final.
Encounters occur solely from the front in the demo, but various encounter styles will be present in the final.
The final will have a level system.
The demo only allows you to control one character, but the final will have a new system for managing other party members in battle.
The final will have command shortcuts.
Selecting your target in the demo can be a bit of a chore; the final will have a more streamlined targeting mechanism.
The final will have an "item" command in battle.
NPC dialogue will be subtitled in the final. In the demo, there is only voice.
Sazh's rather bizarre battle animation will be altered to be less strange, and more "jolly".
The Time Gauge maxes out at 3 in the demo, but you'll be able to add more segments in the final through a new character growth system.
Summons will be present in the final. The mysterious "TP Bonus" that appears after battles in the demo relates to them.
Finally, the occasional frame rate drops in the demo will be fixed, according to Toriyama.

[cue Victory Fanfare, twirl gunblade in air]

Via 2ch

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You must not have played a lot of RPGs then, if u truly believe that. The FF games are easy to just overlevel your character and overpower bosses. But that's not he case in other RPGs. Namely SO3, Valkyrie Profile, Unlimited Saga, to name a few. You can insult those games if you want but they pose better challenges through different battle systems. The first Kingdom Hearts was great to play on hard difficulty.

# ... — papajag 2009-04-23 13:27

SO3 was easy. Valkery Profile was annoying because of time limit. I never played Unlimited Saga because it got bad reviews. KH is not considered a turn based RPG.

But I do take my words back. I forgot how hard it was to beat the Weapons in FFVII without spamming Knights of the Round, Mime and Hades. But other than that I haven't played a real RPG(turn based) that's "hard" ever since.

# No enemy leveling plz. — Freya 2009-04-23 14:43

That's like FFVIII. And the worst FF for me imo.

# Well. — *****bandit 2009-04-23 16:23

The main story part of SO3 is easy, it's collecting all the battle trophies (Which require you to do insane things like beat Freya using a metal pipe). I understand why people didn't try Unlimited Saga, but the Saga series is underrated IMO. However I love them, regardless of what critics in NA say (Japan actually likes the games). But I certainly think turn-based RPGs could learn from the Saga battle systems. I only brought KH up because I assumed you meant all RPGs. I personally didn't find the weapons in FF7 that hard, but the Ruby took me a few tries. That said, I loved the materia system, simple to understand but deep too!

It's too bad you found VP's system annoying, but I think most players have a bad first impression of it. I know I wasn't fond of it at first.

# ... — TouchDaSkeleton 2009-04-23 17:46

i hope they have butt control

# if you want... — Dark_Skai 2009-04-24 05:33

a really hard turn based RPG Lost Odyssey is a good one you can over power your characters no problem in that game, and you'll die more than you think, plus the ultimate boss is insane and the DLC boss is damn hard too so I recommend that if you want hard bosses to fight.

# That's 360 though. — *****bandit 2009-04-24 05:44

Ah I skipped that game because I assumed their use of the space theme was a cheap way to grab halo users attention lol. Besides, I sold my 360 after NG2 kind of let me down. Thanks though, next time I get a 360, I'll def check that game out. It's Squaresoft isn't it?

# yeah it is but if you do... — Dark_Skai 2009-04-24 06:07

I recommend it, its not made by square but its made by the father of Final Fantasy Hironobu Sakaguchi so you know its good, very old school gameplay but awesome story, and yes the game is hard I died several times, and I admit I haven't beat the ultimate boss yet mainly because you only have 32 turns before he annihilates your party, plus both bosses ultimate and DLC heal themselves so yeah... its hard...

# Glad to hear — Digitus 2009-04-24 17:13

Obviously looking forward to this game and would have got it regardless of difficulty but some games can be too easy. Others can be just cheap. Thin line between cheap and difficult, hope the devs don't see a boss with the ability to attack 5 times in a row and insta kill your party and no way to avoid it BUT to level as difficult, thats just needless cheapness.

@Bandit, you should never base a game off of the console, Lost Odyssey is a superb game and the way the leveling system works is pretty great, enemies will give tons of exp if you're "under leveled" but once you reach the areas cap you get almost no exp. Keeps the difficulty challenge the same and makes you think more.

# Thank heavens — Stealth! 2009-04-25 05:07

I mean I haven't played a Challenging FF game for a love time man. I'm hoping the boss fights are hard cause from 7-12 was easy as $h!t.

Some good improvements as well. I just hope us NA'ers can get the game soon. ;(

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The last stretch: Final Fantasy XIII improvements for final version detailed

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