FFXIII: Gameplay possibilities and FF history

We know that speculation about what gameplay in Final Fantasy XIII will be like is moot, simply because development of the game is already underway. However, one can’t deny that theorizing and speculating is very much entertaining. So allow us to dig through the gameplay mechanics history of the seemingly endless Final Fantasy series and from that let’s try to paint a picture of what we could expect from the world of Fabula Nova Crystallis.

Since we’re looking at the history of something, let’s start with the present. What do we know about the game so far? Let’s start with the latest info on FFXIII and work backwards. After all that backtracking, let’s take a look at how game play mechanics and general gameplay evolved from the first FF moving forward all the way to today’s latest hour eating installment, time-warp-of-a-game, Final Fantasy XII. (The current talk of the town as far as online comic strips are concerned.)

FFXIII and its PS2 roots

The latest bit of details we could find on FF XIII comes from IGN. They report that they managed to get (from Japanese publication Degenki,) a few comments from Motomu Toriyama and Tetsuya Nomura about FF XIII and FF Versus XII.

We find out that the game was originally developed for the PS2, and experienced an almost complete engine overhaul when it underwent a platform change after May 2005. Toriyama says:

The areas that we kept are the Fabula Nova Crystallis world, the pieces of the mythology related to FFXIII, and the character details. On the other hand, the battle and game-play systems were restarted from scratch when production moved to the PS3.

We also found out that the game was originally developed by the X-2 team. However, in an effort to take advantage of the PS3 hardware, many new staff members are now taking part.

Keep this PS2 origin in mind, we’ll talk about it again later.

The full article awaits after the jump!

We know that speculation about what gameplay in Final Fantasy XIII will be like is moot, simply because development of the game is already underway. However, one can’t deny that theorizing and speculating is very much entertaining. So allow us to dig through the gameplay mechanics history of the seemingly endless Final Fantasy series and from that let’s try to paint a picture of what we could expect from the world of Fabula Nova Crystallis.

Since we’re looking at the history of something, let’s start with the present. What do we know about the game so far? Let’s start with the latest info on FFXIII and work backwards. After all that backtracking, let’s take a look at how game play mechanics and general gameplay evolved from the first FF moving forward all the way to today’s latest hour eating installment, time-warp-of-a-game, Final Fantasy XII. (The current talk of the town as far as online comic strips are concerned.)

FFXIII and its PS2 roots

The latest bit of details we could find on FF XIII comes from IGN. They report that they managed to get (from Japanese publication Degenki,) a few comments from Motomu Toriyama and Tetsuya Nomura about FF XIII and FF Versus XII.

We find out that the game was originally developed for the PS2, and experienced an almost complete engine overhaul when it underwent a platform change after May 2005. Toriyama says:

The areas that we kept are the Fabula Nova Crystallis world, the pieces of the mythology related to FFXIII, and the character details. On the other hand, the battle and game-play systems were restarted from scratch when production moved to the PS3.

We also found out that the game was originally developed by the X-2 team. However, in an effort to take advantage of the PS3 hardware, many new staff members are now taking part.

Keep this PS2 origin in mind, we’ll talk about it again later.

The White Engine

What next? Let’s talk about something we’ve already heard about: The White Engine.

Here’s what we know about it so far: It is an engine that allows photo-realistic CGI to be rendered in real-time. It handles advanced audio processing, cinematic cut-scene transition, physics effects calculations and special effects rendering. It reportedly uses four of the six synergistic processing elements (SPEs) available to games, of the Cell processor, to achieve near-pre-rendered CGI quality in real-time. All that jazz and the fact that Square-Enix will be using it on a lot of their future games for the next-gen. It isn’t something that’s just for the FFXIII games.

Nomura, director of FFXIII Versus, says that they’ll be going through many different versions of the White Engine over time. Future games will be using different versions of the tools. Nomura says:

Things like real time footage and specifics on areas like the battle system will come once the White Engine is complete, We’re currently working hard on the development of [the White Engine], and once it’s done, we’ll have to research what can be done with it. Of course, we do have an idea of what we’d like to do…

…It’s sort of like FFXIII is there as a target. FF Versus XIII will also use the White Engine, and it will be tuned for FF Versus XIII.

Squeenix and the Magicite we can mine from YouTube trailers and screenshots

Previous reports say that Squeenix (we’ll call them that for now, yes we know it is LiveJournal-fan-girlish, but it is an oh so usable pet name) intends for Final Fantasy XIII to be more action oriented and fast paced than previous versions of the game.

What do we know about it so far? From the many forum and wiki posts of internet-freeze-frame video-game-trailer-analysts, we know about the Overclock system.

Here’s some info for those of you who don’t know (paraphrased from Wikipedia): In the upper right-hand corner of the battle screen, a circle-shaped gauge is visible. Once the number inside this circle and other conditions have been met, the protagonist can enter an Overclock status. This status has a slow-motion effect, slowing down everyone but the player.

Some say that the Overclock system would replace the traditional limit break/overdrive system found in previous Final Fantasy games.

One has to note though that Overclock seems to resemble the Trance mode in Final Fantasy IX. Once Overclock is activated a number appears inside the meter and decreases, probably signifying the duration of the Overclock mode.

Okay, PS2 origins, and a game mechanic that has similarities to the FFIX trance mode. That’s two building blocks. We’re getting there.

Now we look at gameplay of old, time to put on the gaming old-bie hat

So now that we’ve drained interviews from Squeenix execs and looked at what people speculated from the trailer that’s all over YouTube, let’s look at FF game mechanic history. Yep, here’s where we get our hands dirty.

Of course we’re not going to through each and every installments’ nuts and bolts. Instead, we’ll take a look at what we feel are notable direction changes executed throughout the series and add that to the info we have to give you guys a good estimate of what we might be seeing in the PS3.

FF I-III: The turn, and the menu.

This is where it all starts really, you can’t get any older, more basic, or more geriatric (I jest, I mean nostalgic) than this. Its combat menu is the the heart and soul of all turn based videogame RPGs. Paper, pen, and dice of table top fare gets translated and simulated into an arguably faster and more action packed (for its time) RPG experience.

The combat menu is a game-play element that any Final Fantasy cannot do without. So a combat menu is mandatory.

FFIII and FFV: The job system

While this is more of a character development aspect than a game-play aspect, character improvement is still a heavy part of overall game-play in FF games. We’re putting this up here because the job system is a notable change of direction in the FF series when it came to leveling-up your character.

We also put this here because this is something we expect that you won’t see in it’s exact form. The games that FFXIII character designer Tetsuya Nomura and FFXIII director Motomu Toriyama were involved heavily in include: VI, VII, VIII, X and X-2. Can you notice any common themes in those games? Yep, no Jobs… sort of.

Yes, there were “specializations” in X’s spheres, and there were jobs er, dresses in X-2, but that’s two games out of five. VI, VII, and VIII used very unique means of gaining abilities, from Espers, to Materia, to Draw-ing them from enemies.

We’re expecting a character development system that is open enough to allow for specialization like X but isn’t as straight forward and mix-match like the Job/dress system.

FFIV, X, XI, XII: The ATB, CTB, RTB, and ADB

Ah, the many ways that players can make actions. Here’s the evolution of it in FF:

The Active Time Battle System – You all know how this works. If you’re not that confident with your FF combat skills, then you’ve probably been playing FFIV – IX on wait mode. In active, instead of having one universal turn for all the characters to act in sequence (like say in D&D), each character (including the enemy) gets a bar that fills up depending on their stats, and when it’s full that’s when you get to act. If you take too long thinking about what to do in the combat menu, the boss will probably get two or three attacks in.

The Conditional Turn-based Battle System – What was fun in FFX was if you were strategic enough, you can manage to not let your opponent act at all. Time magic has never been so important.

The Real Time Battle System – As real time as you can get. After all, FFXI is an MMO, so it has to move like one right? However, unlike in hack and slash MMORPGs, the attack speed, hit rate and dodge rate of the character are dependent on the game’s statistics system, rather than by player input. So it’s still a little FF-y.

The Active Dimensional Battle System – A lot of people thought at start that this is real-time combat and that the Gambit system is Squeenix’s next great attempt to snatch control from the players. The thing is, this system is actually an FFXII Frankensteinian love child of the ATB and Vagrant Story’s battle system. Also, the gambit system is actually a nice tool to get past all the no-brainer decisions that bogged the previous installments down. “Low hp – must potion,” things like that. The system is far from perfect though, but it still does what it’s set up to do.

So what system can we expect to see in FFXIII? We’re not quite sure if the YouTube trailer really does show in-game action sequences or it’s just really a dressed up pre-rendered scene, but from what we can gather it looks like a nicely done ADB system without the “indicator lines.”

The similarities of Overclock to FFIX’s Trance definitely makes us think that FFXIII‘s will be something similar to the ADB system.

Here’s what Toriyama had to say:

Final Fantasy XIII took on the challenge of seeing how much of the battles in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children can be recreated in a game. The battles that were impossible to be presented in current Final Fantasy games were shown in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. In reverse, Final Fantasy XIII will show how much of that can be represented in the game.

Let’s see, FFX-2 let you jump when moving around the map, FFXII let you move around during combat, perhaps FFXIII will combine those two and then incorporate Advent Children like animation?

Of course, what we gamers are really wishing they’ll include are combat options that require the player to have good reflexes. Like, say that shoulder button tapping thing that Squall’s Gunblade required, only this time it will actually animate differently during combat? Hey, Squeenix did that before with Xenogears, why not with FXIII?

All the small details, and past themes.

The games that Nomura was involved in had the characters named Cloud, Squall, and Tidus. This game will probably have a similarly element based named lead.

Reports from TGS have said that FFXIII is the most futuristic FF to date, with cyborg magitech dragons and such. We can certainly see that from the YouTube trailer.

The reports, the trailer, and the female lead with a gunblade strongly suggest that the game will make many references to themes visited in VI. After all, Terra was the last (action-y as opposed to love interrest) female lead that we saw take solo shots on posters and box covers. It’s very likely that a sci-fi heavy FF installment with an adamant and capable female lead in it will hearken to the magitech, Esper filled FFVI.

It is still unsure if they use the Ivalice names (Belias, Mateus, etc) or the much more conventional Esper names (Ifrit, Shiva, Bahamut) for the “Summons” in this version of the game, but that’s just me fan-boying, the names of the summons are irrelevant. What’s pertinent to gameplay is if they will be there or not. The FFVI connection and the fact that Nomura is in this title also suggest that “Summons” (a theme since VI) will make yet another return.

So what have we got?

FFXIII So far looks like a game that is set to give the action-RPG genre a stealthy turn-based kick in the gonads.

How? With a much hyped “White Engine” handling the graphics, and a predecessors like Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story, Xenogears, Valkyrie Profile, and Kingdom Hearts which give weight to Toriyama’s promise that the game will have combat that is as action packed as Cloud versus Sephiroth in Advent Children and still as strategically deep as Final Fantasy veterans are used to.

We speculate that we’ll see combat scenes that look like cut-scenes, hopefully combat animation that can match Advent Children, a mechanic that will allow for reflexes to factor in with menu-command selection (because they promise action and they delivered with other “action” titles like KH2 and Valkyrie). The game has PS2 roots and Squeenix has shown that with FFXII and KH2 that they can implement action RPGs and they can add in some “action” to mask their turn based fare.

Expect a lot of Magitech-esque, bullet-time kung-fu from an angry girl with a Gunblade.

Here’s one thing we know for certain though, we do not want to see a wonderful combat cut-scene in FFXIII get bogged down by slow uninvolving turn based combat. An example of this is what we saw in the Lost Odyssey trailer. Yes we know that turn based combat can get very involving (for example the Magus boss fight in Chrono Trigger), but to allow a wonderful cut scene like that get marred by a very simple turn based sequence that went, “menu-select-attack-dead enemy-select-next-enemy” is a crime.