ok, so i'm devoting this whole blog to ff13 information for now.
Final Fantasy XIII (ファイナルファンタジーXIII Fainaru Fantajī Sātīn?) is a console role-playing game being developed by Square Enix. It is slated to be released on December 17, 2009 in Japan on PlayStation 3, and on March 9, 2010 in Europe and North America on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.[1][2] First appearing at the 2006 E3, the game features futuristic elements is set in a high-tech world.
Final Fantasy XIII is the flagship title of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII collection.
Gameplay
The concept for Final Fantasy XIII's battle system is to maintain the strategic nature of command-based battles. The system stemmed from a desire to create battles similar to those found in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.[5] Like those in Final Fantasy XII, enemies are integrated into the world environment. Yet unlike Final Fantasy XII battles do not take place in the same "dimension", but rather a short flash transports players to a new battle screen, separate from the main playing world.[6] The Active Time Battle(ATB) system will return, but it works differently from its predecessors. Users will be able to chain large numbers of commands together in order to achieve attack bonuses.[7]
The
Final Fantasy XIII battle system, with the option to use "Paradigm Shift".
The first battle system was shown during the E3 2006, but it was only a prototype. A new interface was shown recently by Square Enix in various Japanese magazines and trailers (depicted in the image adjacent). In battle, the player can only control one character at a time out of a party of up to three.
Multiple commands can be stacked into slots per turn and released at the same time to form a combo. The number of command slots increases as the characters grow in strength.[7] These commands include series staples such as Attack, Fire, Blizzard and Cure, as well as new ones such as Ruin, Ruinaga, and Radial Strike.[8][9] The difference between XIII's battle system and the ATB gauge is that these commands can still be placed in the slots even though the bar has run out, and the actions will be executed once the required slots are filled up. This, however, affects the chain combo hits as the combo has been interrupted. The game does not make use of MP but introduces "cost points" for each command, which determine how many times the commands can be used per turn. Because magic cannot be used outside of battle, the HP of the party is completely restored after each battle.[7]
The player is able to view the HP and name of the enemy before engaging it in battle. When engaging an enemy, the camera moves to another position and the battle menu appears, making the battle transitions nearly seamless.[10] The after-battle victory screen in XIII holds information such as the time it took to finish the battle, the highest number of combos executed, the number of break attacks and the quality of battle which is determined by a ranking of one to five stars.
A "break state" is one of the new features of the Final Fantasy XIII battle system. The breaks refer to the times an enemy enters a state of non-retaliation. This occurs when a chain combo has been maintained for a certain period of time on an enemy. When a high level combo has been achieved, the enemy will glow red and enter this state, during which the player will be able to inflict high amounts of damage. The chain bar will gradually deplete during this period; when it becomes empty, the break state ends.
The party will be able to purchase new weapons in the game and actually see them in battle.[11]
Paradigm Shift
A new option in battle was revealed during Gamescom 2009 called "Paradigm Shift" (called "Optima Change" in Japan). Using this option, players can switch party members' roles during battle. For example, a character can be switched to use defensive or offensive tactics as the battle dictates.[12]
[edit]Summons
The classic summoned creatures called Eidolons (as they were in Final Fantasy IV DS and Final Fantasy IX) will return in Final Fantasy XIII. Each character possesses only one Eidolon that is summoned from a crystal that sprouts from the character's mark of l'Cie.[7]The Eidolons include both series staples like Shiva, Odin, Alexander and Bahamut as well as newcomers such as Brynhildr.[13] When summoned, the Eidolon stay in battle while the characters accompanying the summoner leaves the party.[14] There is also a new feature called "Gestalt Mode" (known as "Driving Mode" in Japan), which when activated joins the summoned and its summoner somehow; for example, the character Snow can ride and steer the combined Shiva Nix and Shiva Styria. This changes the pace of the combat significantly. But not all summons turn into mechanical vehicles; Odin's Gestalt Mode changes him into a horse for Lightning to ride, while Alexander's Gestalt Mode changes him into a large castle which surounds the enemy and fires canon balls at them from all sides. [15] The summons play a major role in the game's storyline as well, much like Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy X.[16]
[edit]Crystarium System
The leveling system for the game is called the Crystarium System which resembles the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X.[17] Instead of gaining experience points after winning a battle, characters gain CP (Crystarium Points) which can then be spent in order to unlock abilities and increase attributes such as maximum HP.
The plot of Final Fantasy XIII revolves around the fal'Cie (pronounced /ˈfælsiː "fal see"/), beings created from crystals residing inside them.[7] People who are marked by the fal'Cie for greater purposes are called l'Cie.[18]Each l'Cie has a Focus, a goal the fal'Cie wants him or her to fulfill within a certain amount of time; however, the fal'Cie do not explicitly say what the goal is. l'Cie gain the ability to summon Eidolons (monsters who fight with the l'Cie), but this ability comes with a price: if an l'Cie dies before completing his or her Focus, or fails to complete his or her Focus within a period of time, he or she becomes a monster known as a "Cie Corpse."[19]For this reason, being chosen as a l'Cie is seen as a curse.
Some thirteen centuries ago, a fal'Cie constructed a paradise for humanity: the shell-like city of Cocoon, which floats high above the surface of the world known as Pulse. Both Pulse and Cocoon are maintained by their own fal'Cie.[7][20] Cocoon's fal'Cie created life forms and machines for its inhabitants to use, and humanity flourished. Over time, the people of Cocoon began to fear for the safety of their world, and they worried that it would be cast down from the sky into the hell that they saw Pulse to be.
In the present day, the wilderness of Pulse has strange effects on people, and the theocratic government of Cocoon, known as Sanctum, quarantines and exiles anyone who has been influenced by Pulse from Cocoon with the help of its mighty army, PSICOM.[21] However, as Snow leads Team Nora in a vain attempt to stop the purging of civilians, the mysterious Lightning fights her way past PSICOM soldiers to find Pulse's fal'Cie with the aid of Sazh. Through a chain of events, these three, along with two exiles, Vanille and Hope, are chosen by the fal'Cie of Pulse against their will to become l'Cie, and with that become enemies of humanity who are tasked with bringing about the downfall of Cocoon.
