FFXIII teaser ends with new trailer

Last week, Square Enix sent its Final Fantasy faithful into a tizzy with a somewhat cryptic countdown timer displayed prominently on the company's Web site. So what did Square Enix have up its sleeve? Those hoping for hot new gameplay details, a release date, or maybe-just-maybe a Wii adaptation...

Last week, Square Enix sent its Final Fantasy faithful into a tizzy with a somewhat cryptic countdown timer displayed prominently on the company's Web site. So what did Square Enix have up its sleeve? Those hoping for hot new gameplay details, a release date, or maybe-just-maybe a Wii adaptation may be in for a letdown.

This morning, Square Enix's weeklong countdown timer ended, and the result was...a new trailer for Final Fantasy XIII. Granted, showings of the hotly anticipated PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game have been few and far between since it was first announced during the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo, so it's difficult to construe the trailer as an out-and-out disappointment.

Along with the expected expertly rendered cutscenes, the trailer demonstrates for the first time substantive clips of FFXIII's gameplay. The in-game combat sequences exhibit a variety of characters matching sword and magic against mechanized beasts sporting automatic weapons in both indoor and outdoor environments. The trailer also offers up snippets of the game's mechs-meet-medieval storyline, with in-game characters dropping references to focuses, pulses, fal'Cie, l'Cie, Cocoon, PSICOM, Sanctum, and Serah.

Though it is expected to arrive in Japan later this year, North American and European gamers aren't expected to see the launch of the game until 2010, at the earliest. For more information, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of FFXIII.

303 Comments

  • Last_Grimreaper

    Posted Mar 19, 2009 3:48 am PT

    I must say that it loks promesing when looking at the graphics (except for the framerate issue atm). Character design is the same old Japanise "POP culture" style as SE seems to like implementing.
    I just hope that FF XIII has as much story as FF 6, 7, 8, 9 or even at least as much as 10. X-2 was like an expansion so it's excused for not having a great story but FF 12 really let me down. Young dude wanting to be a pirate (treasure island anyone?), kingdom falls to the empire (star wars? also most graphiscs, like the judges and troopers remind me a bit too much of Darth Vader and Storm troopers.) Aso the battle system for FF XII was poor, what's fun about only controlling 1 out of 3 characters and on random fights you only ran up to the enemy anyways and let your toons do everything for you. (sure I admit that level balance has been an issue in previous games since you could just press "Attack" and win most fights.) Final fantasy series have been worse since Sakagutchi and most of his team left Square Enix.

  • FireCrossHalo

    Posted Mar 4, 2009 3:02 pm PT

    as long as it is not like Final Fantasy 12 im all for it. It sucked, very horrible combat or at least i think. Does any one know who the girl with sword/gun name is? Driving me nuts hahaha

  • FireCrossHalo

    Posted Mar 4, 2009 3:02 pm PT

    as long as it is not like Final Fantasy 12 im all for it. It sucked, very horrible combat or at least i think. Does any one know who the girl with sword/gun name is? Driving me nuts hahaha

  • BDROMDrive

    Posted Feb 21, 2009 4:50 pm PT

    PS3 has to wait a long time for their games, like Last Remnant and Eternal Sonata, so why not release the PS3 version first? Microcrap should have jumped on-board sooner instead of delaying the game because they demanded a simultaneous release. It's not the gamers fault that Microcrap's version wasn't in development. They should wait for their 12-disc compilation, not us.

  • dornob2562

    Posted Feb 17, 2009 7:25 pm PT

    2010? Dang. Well, Dissidia will come out in July though.

  • Dux30

    Posted Feb 7, 2009 7:36 pm PT

    My only problem with FF XII battle style is that you only really controled 1 person. You would just set everyone else to Auto and that was it. I hope in XIII they find a way to give you better control of your party.

  • FF-Kupo

    Posted Feb 7, 2009 5:37 pm PT

    I loved FF XII's battle style... If its anything like that I can't wait... In my opinion the free roaming style is much more fast paced and you have to be more strategic. After you get stopped trying to get somewhere 10 times gets REALLY annoying... Just glad its not turned based... just wish it would come out this year.. doesn't look like it tho

  • TheoleDominion

    Posted Feb 6, 2009 10:44 am PT

    No turn-base, yeah you can blame today's gaming market for that. Real-time RPG's are out-selling the turn-based ones, especially the last 5 years or so.

  • ClaudeLv250

    Posted Feb 6, 2009 2:35 am PT

    I don't understand the people jumpingoff the ship. FF hasn't been strictly turned based for well over a decade - FFX is the exception.

  • SoulTaker23

    Posted Feb 5, 2009 7:27 pm PT

    crap no turn based...... guess ill have to stick to ffx for another year...

  • piercedxdenizen

    Posted Feb 5, 2009 4:57 am PT

    As with all final fantasy's, this looks promising, but i have to say it definetly doesn't even look comparable to versus

  • red0584

    Posted Feb 3, 2009 3:18 pm PT

    It's not turn based? Crap. You know what, I don't really care. I'm not gonna get FFXIII. I'm done with Final Fantasy

  • whitejackel

    Posted Feb 3, 2009 8:44 am PT

    I honestly never could get into a FF game for some very odd reason cuz i love xenosaga and other hardcore rpg's. But this one i am actuly looking forward to.

  • Kampy1

    Posted Feb 2, 2009 11:01 pm PT

    yay no turn-based.

  • haishido

    Posted Feb 1, 2009 4:24 pm PT

    Try something new? Good on ya Square . I know the days of the FF7 era are gone but c'mon people. I'm sure square wouldn't be here as long as it has staying turn-based forever. You gotta teach an old dog new tricks. Can't wait for this one.

  • Spongedart

    Posted Feb 1, 2009 12:57 pm PT

    Why is it that everyoone wants random battles and turn based combat? It's not even fun anymore. I would rather the game have free form fighting than have to select everything from a menu and that determines if i win or lose a battle. All that aside, I still think it looks pretty good for a game still in development. I'm sure all the frame rate problems will be fixed by the time it releases in japan.

  • CoRiNi

    Posted Feb 1, 2009 9:43 am PT

    it's not RPG .. .. it doesn't feel as Final Fantasy anymore ..they should sell the name to it's owner Sakagutchi at Mistwalker .. I'm sure he will give us a very well done Original Final Fantasy .. this is so disappointing .. sadly the name hasn't changed so I'm getting this game even to just put it in my games closet.

  • _full_metal_

    Posted Feb 1, 2009 1:26 am PT

    why announce a game thats going to be released in 2 to 3 years why dont developers announce games a few weeks before release its much better that way atleast we wont have to wait

  • Purplekjw

    Posted Feb 1, 2009 12:44 am PT

    I thought it was pretty impressive. Framerate aside, the combat system looks great. I don't know what everyone else expected, or why you are disappointed.

  • Flame_Blade88

    Posted Jan 31, 2009 11:36 am PT

    I don't know whether it was the compression of the videos I've seen, but the framerate drops are really noticeable, sadly I'm going to have to say that I came away unimpressed with the new trailer gameplay-wise.

  • x9739777

    Posted Jan 31, 2009 4:04 am PT

    I agree with Matws. I'm shocked that no-one else has picked up (even the media) on the this blatant fact that during combat the frame-rate just drops so much it looks like it is wlaking through glue. from the company that brought us The Last Remnant I fear that Square has not learnt its programming lessons and will deliver a frame-rate disaster similar to that experienced in TLR! god help us all!

  • dempseym

    Posted Jan 30, 2009 11:00 pm PT

    I really think they need to come out with a version for the Wii.....please!?

  • Matws

    Posted Jan 30, 2009 6:15 pm PT

    it's just me or the game's framerate drowps drastically during combats?
    anws, i agree with Hunchie: the FFX-2 combat system was pretty awesome. but this still looks too much like FFXII combat system, which was fun to play, but didn't felt like FF.

  • Darkcloud25

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 8:23 pm PT

    I seriously hate their new battle system. Please bring Random Encounters Square!

  • death919

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 2:27 pm PT

    I actually thought it looked more like the Tales series battle system but with an "action bar" that determine's how many attacks you can do (and when you use it up you have to wait until it refills).

  • Quinzark

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 12:32 pm PT

    i want this game so much. There's no way it could live up to how good i expect it to be but if it comes even close then it'll make it to my top 5 & that's pretty damn good XD

  • Hunchie

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 12:05 pm PT

    Hard to tell when you can't read japanese. But the combat system looks a lot like FF X-2 to me, which was a good system (not talking about the dreessphere, just the combat sequence). For the rest of the trailer, reminds me a lot of FF-VII. After all the time they put to make this game, we should expect a game that will surpass FF-VII.

  • Hvac0120

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 12:04 pm PT

    Hvac0120 aka Me wrote:
    My experience with Final Fantasy games is XIII, IX, X, and XI (PS2). I only finished X (can't really finish XI, but spent over a year playing).


    Correction - In my original statement I included XIII. This is obviously a mistake. I meant to put VIII.

  • Generalmojo

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 11:39 am PT

    Lets hope they dont put the quality down for this since its also on 360 :*(

  • Jehuty-88

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 11:39 am PT

    this game looks and sounds awsome. You can really tell that tetsuya nomura's develoment team worked on this title insted of the development team that made ff12.

  • xXl_IMoRTaL_lXx

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 11:36 am PT

    freakn looks sweet

  • Mugen76

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 11:34 am PT

    This is making me want to scream. I can't wait until this game comes out, I don't care if I don't understand Japanese, I'm importing this game, dammit!

  • abu_eljod

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 11:28 am PT

    The Final Fantasy series is awesome,especially 4,6,7,8,10,and maybe 12 but they began to do some mistakes like 9,10-2,11,(and maybe 12),i didn't play FF7CC,so i can't say anything about it,but that's not the point,my point is that am dying to play the FF13's because they spent so much time creating them, i would think that this set will bring Final Fantasy back to it's former glory,at least i hope so,but hey that's just my opinion.

  • Hvac0120

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 10:50 am PT

    My experience with Final Fantasy games is XIII, IX, X, and XI (PS2). I only finished X (can't really finish XI, but spent over a year playing).

    I think this trailer looks amazing. One of the most annoying things of FF games is the transition between walking around the world to fighting monsters. There's always been some sort of transition animation while it loads. If I am looking at this the right way, then it looks as if the fights will just happen.

    Of course, I've read that FFXII was similar to XI, where the creatures where in plain view, but I don't know how they handled transitioning into a fight.

    The graphics look amazing. I'm a little upset that they haven't streamlined the menu system for shortcuts. But I also can't read Japanese, so it might be better than I think it will be.

    I'm definitely excited. I'm also curious what, if any, multiplayer they will include.

  • TheKvazzy

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 10:48 am PT

    i played all FF and the moust of them i liked 7,8,9,10, 11 and 12 so i cant wait for the 13

  • chzchzchzwiz

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 9:53 am PT

    I agree with Altiar to some extent. FF9, 8 7 are amazing. But I also really liked FF 12. Then again I like the whole series. Only one I havent played is FF3.

  • Altiar25

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 9:46 am PT

    teh ff's on teh ps1 were best...

  • BigDawgSteve420

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 9:42 am PT

    I don't know why, but that trailer got me less excited for the game. It looks good and all, but I'm just not interested.

  • gulamh

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 9:14 am PT

    Not suprised it isn't coming until 2010. I just hope it has an epic story and a good soundtrack.

  • necronaux

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 9:13 am PT

    Come on... it can't take them a year + to translate the dialog, can it?

  • NAWAF005

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 9:08 am PT

    i wana buy FFXIII and FFvsXIII game no matter what it cost

  • otanikun

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 8:53 am PT

    Pretty sad we won't see it until next year, but I'm expecting it to be awesome for that long of a delay.

  • jaxorz90

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 8:36 am PT

    final fantasy is one of my fav series and FFX is probably my favorite game of all time

    when i bought an xbox i was well pissed i couldnt play it but now am well psyked for this comming out when it EVENTUALLY gets to Europe XD

  • christania

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 8:02 am PT

    twizzlerz5616 your answer is yes. the ps3 can play other ps3 games from any region because it is region free, however a backward compatible north American ps3 (i.e. the old 60 gigs) will NOT play Japanese ps2 games because the ps2 part still holds the same region protection as do the games. Japanese version Final Fantasy 13 WILL work on a NA ps3, but if you don't know the language well enough you won't really understand all that's going on of course. I can't wait for this game either!

  • twizzlerz5616

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 7:46 am PT

    does any one know if the ffxiii that will be released in 2009 (japan) will be compatable with the NA ps3? that was a stupid question but a valid one. im sooo stoked for it its rediculous! XD

  • hehhahtsoria

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 7:36 am PT

    i think they are letting too much hype build for this game
    the combat looked very repetitive "run up, attack, jump back and throw something"
    oh then there was "run up attack, knock in the air, attack some more"
    that doesnt mean it wont be fun though
    and the story seems very interesting
    i just dont want to expect too much and be dissappointed

  • zekere

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 7:34 am PT

    I'm so IN for a new FF game, the king of JRGS's ...I'm glad for everyone who will enjoy this one next year...both on PS3 (me) or 360 .

  • SkidzoTM

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 7:30 am PT

    OMG!!! the game looks insane! And for those who wonder why it'll be release in Japan in 2009 and in NA in 2010, well its because in Japan its a PS3 exclusive. In NA we will have to wait till the X360 version is ready... I hope that people will give a big F U to square to trying to put a game that huge on a console that cant support it and make NA PS3 owners wait because we dont have that much games in the man time...

    F*** you for trying that stunt in NA Square!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • metalgear-solid

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 6:59 am PT

    LOL at trying to play this on the Xbox 360, in my opinion.

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