Final Fantasy Versus XIII

Final Fantasy Versus XIII (ファイナルファンタジー ヴェルサスXIII, Fainaru Fantajī Verusasu Sātīn) is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the Sony PlayStation 3 video game console.

Alongside Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII, the game is a part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII compilation. Unveiled at E3 2006, the game focuses on a mysterious protagonist, named Noctis Lucis Caelum, who is the last heir of a dynasty ruling over the only remaining city to control crystals. Under unforeseen circumstances, he makes a stand against marauders seeking to take the crystal as their own.


Final Fantasy Versus XIII is, according to its developers, a wholly independent story unfolding with different characters and a different visual design. Although it is set within the same Final Fantasy XIII universe, it is unrelated to any other entry within the compilation and is thus neither a sequel nor a prequel to any other entries in the Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy XIII series.

December 19, 2009, gameplay footage of Final Fantasy Versus XIII was shown as part of a trailer shown at Jump Festa 2010 in Japan.

When asked by a Square Enix investor at a shareholders meeting about a possible Xbox 360 port, president Yoichi Wada stated "We'll be looking into it internally until right before the formal announcement."

After some backlash, he later clarified his original statement by saying on Twitter "It looks like the [inter]net is heating up. Versus on Xbox? What I said at the earnings press conference was just that until a formal announcement is made at the announcement time; all points about all titles are not finalized."

During GamesCom 2010, Yoshinori Kitase cast doubt over a release within the next year as he stated that Square Enix wouldn't commit to a 2011 release. A brief trailer for Final Fantasy Versus XIII was shown at the 2010 Tokyo Game Show, where Square Enix announced that a press conference regarding the Fabula Nova Crystallis series will be held on January 11, 2011. On December 13, 2010, the date for the conference was changed to January 18, 2011 and the conference is now known as the "Square Enix 1st Production Department Premier."

The exclusivity status of Final Fantasy Versus XIII is a long debated and overly drawn out one. It doesn’t help that Square Enix’s development teams put out one message to keep fans happy and the executives put out another to keep share holders happy. With Nomura sticking to his guns and assuring fans that the game will remain a Playstation 3 exclusive and Yoichi Wada saying Square is looking into a multi-platform release, you can probably guess who’s going to win the debate.

Potential proof that Xbox 360 development may have already begun lies in a job listing posted on Square Enix’s careers page asking for a Battle Planner for the game. The job asks for experience in developing a 3D action game, level design and battle design as well as the clincher – “development experience on a PS3, or Xbox 360 package title”. It certainly isn’t definitive proof that an Xbox 360 version is planned and it could be simply a mistake by the recruitment team but it’s certainly some food for thought.

There’s been enough debate among fans whether some of the footage in yesterdays Final Fantasy Versus XIII TGS trailer is real-time or pre-rendered, to warrant Nomura weighing in to clarify what’s going on. The debate centres around whether the opening cinematic in the Versus section of the trailer is in-game or pre-rendered footage. On the 3rd Birthday Twitter, Nomura says that this scene with Noctis is indeed pre-rendered but the rest of the trailer is completely in-game. Nomura also says that the desert Noctis is running around would probably be best to travel around via a car unless the player chose not to do so.

The part of his Tweet I’m most interested in though is the last. He confirms that the Behemoth fight at the end of the trailer has been slowed down. Nomura says this is because Noctis is so fast that the viewer wouldn’t be able to see him clearly. It’s a big sigh of relief but it does make me question why they even chose to do this in the first place. I’m sure most of us would have preferred to see him fight at normal speed.