If you are one of the many round eyes who thought Final Fantasy XIII was too linear, then never fear. Final Fantasy Versus XIII' director, Tetsuya Nomura, has confirmed that his contribution to the Fabula Nova Crystallis saga will create a fine illusion of freedom, with a world map and old school airships.
"Not everything is connected together, so the various areas have different levels of progress. However, you can fly across the world map in an air ship," confirms Nomura.
Versus is one of Square Enix's biggest mysteries. We've only seen a few scraps of teaser footage and the occasional screenshot, with very little else to go on in between. From what we can tell, it's set on a totally different world than XIII, only containing a similar theme of humans being in thrall to more powerful beings.
In any case, after my personal disappointment with XIII, I now look to this PS3 exclusive to plug the RPG gap. I really hope Versus can provide a better product so I can carry Square Enix round on a big chair like king of the town.
Tetsuya Nomura Interviewed At Twitter [Andria Sang]
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Contest:
7:00 AM on 03.18.2010
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I bet Nomura is using Versus to troll cosplayers.
Anyway SE needs to release some tangible details about Versus. Exclusive or not, I'm going to get my hands on it one way or another.
From what I understand, all the XIII games have totally different settings. Their united by a theme instead of a location.
Answer me this though.
How is flying around on a world map from point A, but having to go to point B to progress the game any different to doing the same, albeit in less open areas in FFXIII?
I'd rather have something cool like the Archlyte Steppe in FFXIII than a largely bland World Map.
Looking forward to versus all the same.
If you are interested in working from the ground up and becoming a staff member for a gaming community, please contact me for more info at ozymandias6@gmail.com
The last few years have been painful in the Sonic franchise. Has it always sucked? Will Sonic 4 suck? Games change. It sounds like you haven't done any research at all because SE has constantly stated that Versus will play entirely different than FFXIII.
I didn't completely agree with Jim's review either but that comment was silly...
And don't tell tell me that it opens up at Chapter 11 because all you can do in Pulse is the exact same fucking thing you could only do in the rest of the game. Battle similar looking monsters for a few hours. It isn't even an interesting area. Just a big ass field.
Mini rant over. Feel better now.
Ch 11 is virtually every FF; with you running around, fighting against the same monsters for hours on end.
Yet it takes nearly 20 hours to get to. Hell, they even took escaping from battles out to drag it out even more.
When I complain about the linearity in XIII, I'm on about something beyond the simple term of linear like in JRPGs compared to WRPGs. Somehow, some way, they figured out how to strip a genre that is already known for being linear to the point where there's nothing but a simple battle system and an even simpler story. They took the plunge towards repetitive.
That battle systems have always been shallow/simple; Monster A has weakness X, cast B in order to exploit weakness X, is probably as complicated as it has ever gotten. In my persepective XIII's battle system is a derivative of XII. The stories have always been simple with "twists" or depth more due to keeping the player in the dark than anything else. So you go from point A to point B killing everything in your path the entire game. For some people that really was not an issue. That was generally how I played even the more openworld FFs. I went from objective to objective and I didn't spend much time doing side-quests or talking to every NPC or exploring every nook and cranny. The problem with FFXIII isn't that it's a piece of shit. It's that people came in with their own expectations and when those expectations were not fully met they're freaked out. That's why you see reviews ranging from 2 to 10.
(and frustration at disappointments from SE like Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant)
Still, I was pretty impressed with Fromsoft's Demon's Souls, and Sega's Valkyria Chronicles (and in Folklore...I loved the critter designs) and those are PS3 exclusives. (I have a PS3 and 20 something games for it.)
I think it just boils down to me not liking what I've seen and heard so far.
no one is going to even remember this "saga" a year after it's finally over. is it really any surprise they haven't been able to make a decent FF since X, with their heads so far up their own asses? the levels of pretentiousness at Square astound even me.
myspace hair=bad
oh for the days before jRPG characters discovered mousse!
But here's the main difference. Things like the towns, villages, academies, bases, Story NPCs, sidequests and all that jazz helped flesh it out and seem bigger than it was as well as the world it was happening in. FF games, as any fan of the series knows, have always been linear to some degree, so this one continuing that trend is no surprise. It's the fact that they stripped out nearly everything except combat and cutscenes that makes this game "linear" even for a JRPG. If you took out the combat, it'd literally be a B movie with nothing missing from the story and you'd have the same experience.
I didn't really have much in terms of large expectations either. Back in December I had heard all about how "linear" the game was. And this is exactly what I said about that on the 21st of Dec on another forum:
"Linear? That means it's bad? Linear is part of the JRPG motto at this point."
But I spoke way too soon.
Too bad he doesn't state what two titles they are, though there's only so many to sift through that he could be working on. Though my favourite part is when he said, "I occasionally receive dinner invites from Kojima."
I believe in you! Datte Bayo
Gimped for 360 much?
That's gotta burn xbots, that's gotta sting a little right?
It's an MMO, of course it's going to be open world.
<Caaaaaautiously oP-P-P-P-P-P-timistic>