Square Enix fast-tracking FFXIII localization - Report

this is gonna be EPIC!!!!!

So tempted to pick it up when released in Japan... Gonna have to leave real early to get a decent spot in line though.

By far the best spoken words in the above walkthrough are "I think I just slapped that guy, did I just slap that guy? ... I think I did."

Yeah, the international version will release in japan before we even see the American original game. SE is just taking too long and is thinking of Japan release to much. This should be released world wide at the same time. Japan can have the international game.

They should be doing all the voice acting at the same time. I can't believe they just focus on one language when doing recording. Seriously sad to see this is how the Japanese do things.

wow... the graphics look really good. I was worried they wouldn't be ps3 standard any more for the battles... I hope the English voice acting is similar to the Japanese I hated the voice acting in FFX but FFXII was done well!

It will be delayed another 6 months from April 2010... don't hold your breath people. Square Enix are behaving like morons lately.

Wow, as long a wait as it is for XIII, I still can't help but be intrigued by the inevitable "international" edition that'll release down the line for the Japanese market that will have played XIII to death before our domestic eyes even manage to SEE the damned game... Maybe all this could've been averted if Square had decided to go all multiplatform "worldwide" release BEFORE they finished the PS3 version of the game.

The sooner the better, but they shouldn't overwork themselves too.... i mean, fast work may yield bad results, so if they need time to make the US and EU versions, they should have it. Otherwise people will get bad interpretations and the company will eventually get the blame...

@xxxkinkykevxxx, i did not mean less content but that EU version can get extra content like new bosses or weapons etc, this has happened before.

Thank God! Beginning to lose faith in Square Enix but this a nice pick me up. After reading previous posts I hope they do get it right though, but the sooner the better really.

@ Spider-Jim i have to agree with you, even tho it sucks that we have to wait this long for the game to be released...i'd rather have a quality game that took long to translate instead of one that sounds cheasy. and FF12 was amazing in that area and every other aspect as well ;)

is Kitase serious? i hope they are doing the same for all of their games. look at star ocean 3!! xbox only for english verson, but they are releasing a ps3 verson for JPN... WTH are they thinking!! they'd already done the translation and made a ps3 verson, it wouldn't take that much work to put them together. little extra expense => global market = lots more profit... o_O|||

I don't see why this game is taking so long to make, and imagine how long it would take to make it to the us had they been waiting to do the localized versions until later... For the amount of time put into making this game, it better be the best game I have ever seen.

:(

What took SquareEnix THIS long to figure this part of the business model out? Arrogance. If they were really clever they would have realised the GLOBAL market has more value than just concentrating on your local market for all these years and keeping the best bits for the local market,Or re-translate thier version poorly which has been done time and time again. As usual the Japanese companies are the last to realise the global market value of any of thier products. They better learn to open Up before they fall into stagnation in the long term.

Yes , that's good as long as they don't skimp. 12 has an impressive script and excellent acting/dialogue. I was quite impressed. So I will be happy as long as quality is not lost!!!

..........why does it take so long to translate Japanese into English? i mean come on, we have 26 letters in our alphabet, and 2 forms (standard and cursive, which both are similer to each other.) while japanese has 3 forms, and symbols usually have more then one letter per symbol.......should it really be that hard? and alot of European languages aren't to hard to pick up. so why does it take so long to translate. (this is just my statement, and know this.....i only know enlgish so i don't know the real difficulty of translation.)

YAYYYY

On the one hand, April 2010 isn't so bad...as long as its out by the summer, i'm happy. secondly, this FF has potential. Because while SE may contemplate work between Versus 13 and the next FF (pfft!), DLC is a definite for both of these.

This better be the best game I've ever played, i love final fantasy, can't get enough, but if this doesnt have at least 150 hrs of gameplay, it has totally not been worth the wait...

I love the video. can't wait for the new one. But...all the lame convo during the video sucked! Just play the game a little so I can check it out....

Yep i also totally agree with ckin

And I agree with ckin. Subtitles ftw. Star Ocean 3 would've been infinitely better if we had the Japanese voices. The english ones were so lame.

angaox, you ever made a script? you ever translated a script? do you have any idea the amount of work that goes into a script? Well, okay, the script is now finished and translated. Now you need some actors. You need ones that don't suck, which take time to find. Once the cast is assembled, then the hard part begins. You know how long it takes to make a movie? Well, same thing goes into this one, but instead of good body language + believable dialogue, you've gotta match good (english, german, spanish, wtf-ever) dialogue with Japanese mouth flaps, which ain't an easy feat. all this takes a lot of time. People always criticize for others being too slow until they get into whatever they accused them of being too slow at and finally realize how fast time flies. I know you really, really want to play your Final Fantasy XIII, but a lot of work has to be done first. Play something else in the meantime and forget about FF XIII. The wait will be much less severe. :D

Does anyone else play through half of FF games and then just get bored and move on to something else? Regardless I'll still be buying this :D

Well kangaox i dont think resident evil 4 and 5 or even any other resident evils had japanese voices. They use english voices and just puts jap subs in for the jap version so thats probably why its faster. But good to hear they are now doing japan and english voices near the same time, rather than waiting till jap version is complete. Hopefully this cuts the time in half so we only get to wait 3 months to play this. I hope the EU version won't have any differences other than having other EU languages substitles cause im in the EU but im gonna import this from US.

i cant see why they cannot Produce their games like Capcom have done with the last 2 Resi's no long then a week for the japenese version and the western versions to be released! SE need to lift their game.

Looks like I'm waiting another year. But I know cutscenes will be up on youtube w/ english translations so no big. Now I just want some info on Versus XIII, I'm way more interested in that one!

Well if they've already begun to do the english texting, and even voice, then what stops them to release the PS3 version, if it's done before the 360, in JPN, US and EU at the same time? There aren't any region codes these days and most have TV's to play the NTSC games. So what are stopping them, really? I don't even want the english voice, just give me english text with japanese voice!

The last FF title I played was FFXI on PS2. I played that title for a year. That game was certainly not a traditional FF game. Before that was FFX on PS2. One of my favorite games of all time. I skipped over the spin-offs and FFXII. XII intrigues me, but it's too late for me to turn back to that game. Instead I look forward to FFXIII. I've already been waiting so long for this game that I am content just sitting back and waiting for a release date. I already know that it will take me about 6 months to 1 year to finish the main story once I finally get it. The videos have looked sweet so far. I bought my PS3 with FFXIII as one of the exclusives I had to get. It may not be exclusive any more and I do have an Xbox 360, but I have a feeling the PS3 version will be the best version to have... _

well at least i don't have to wait for the american verion of the game... i'm getting the japanese verion cause i could read and understand it... so i'll let you all know how the game is , when i get to play it half a year before all of you's...

I beg to differ, I think it will be the highest selling FF in years. I'm very glad they're doing this, I hate how long it takes to record other languages and do subtitles. When I heard no FF13 till April I thought that was ages, I neglected the fact it will be closer to christmas till I get a copy, because they record more than just English for the European title. Any news that it will be hitting sooner is very welcome in my eyes... but I'm honestly hoping for FF versus 13 more.

I agree with rygar9 100%. FF3 is one of the best FFs i ever played, and one of the best RPGs i ever played (third, to only Chrono Trigger and Earthbound) What Square needs to do is make Chrono Trigger a series.

i'll bet it will be the worst selling ff title to date. they gave to much credit to sony. i was playing ff on nintendo way before sony even came out with the ps.i'll never forget buying ff 3 for the nintendo. it cost me 75 bucks but when the world blew up and i thought it was over. i thought man that was lame. then you pop up on a island and eat fish and build a raft. thats when i really thought they had a great franchise. then they did'nt release another numbered one till ff7. i have them all but they'll never make another one like ff3 .

well, for as long as this is taking, there's no reason why this game shouldn't be the most polished and best FF of the series. If the game disappoints after taking this long to bring out, I have a feeling it's going to leave a lot of people with a sour taste in their mouths for Square-Enix games and hurt them in the long run, so hopefully Square is taking this time to make this game better than it has to be.

Oh well wat games can we look forward to after the dust has settled on this one

Ok fine, it'll take a while...but dont tell us it will be out in 2008, then 2009, and now 2010. Thats bull!

they should really just release the Japanese version, followed by an "English" version in US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and anywhere else that a large number of people speak the language... it's all well and good that in the european version I get to have German subtitles... but I don't really care lol... and after that they should translate to the other languages that take forever to translate to. but since they're doing the English translation during the development (should have really done that before >.>) it should be done quicker... and with the PS3 being practically region free if they don't release in UK with the US... then import ftw...

Meh, getting the import as soon as it's out in the "Land of the Rising Sun". Hopefully, they'll be English subtitles, otherwise, it'll be just like old times when most games in Japan never made it too Europe.

I never understand why there is such a big delay between the EU and NA releases.

Despite XII's snooze-fest of a battle system I still have high hopes for XIII. ATB ftw.

as long as the US version is region free then I am set, bugger waiting so long just import

flyingteddy Posted May 6, 2009 9:28 am GMT i see this as good and bad news, it would be great to get it earlier but one side effect of getting the game later is that you get more content. they wont be giving less content the game is made, its the translations that take so long

crossing my fingers that we do get the game earlier. remember crisis core? man, that was a long wait.... :(

the sooner the better, lets hope it takes less than a year ... (I doubt it though)

Whoo yay! Hopefully too much isn't changed that we'll get screwed hard when they release their remix version :P

well at least we know that they are working to put it out now! :D

A year??? :'(.

i see this as good and bad news, it would be great to get it earlier but one side effect of getting the game later is that you get more content.