14 DAY TRIAL // The game has already been released in Japan and the word going around is that it's a gem polished to near perfection, so its long development time would be explained. But it looks like a lot of this time was spent not on polishing the title, but on porting it from the PS2 to the PS3. As an original design, the game was meant to be run on the number-two PlayStation console, but the arrival of the third one threw a wrench in Square Enix's well-oiled machine. Talking to OPM Benelux, Yoshinori Kitase, the producer of FFXIII, revealed that the game wasn't meant to come out on the PlayStation 3.
“Final Fantasy XIII was originally meant to be a PS2 title, but we had to switch systems due to the arrival of the PS3,” Kitase said. “That cost us about one and a half years and was constantly a case of trial and error. However, because we worked so hard at the beginning, we got to a cruising speed much faster than anticipated and therefore could start on the translation and international voice recording process at an early stage of the development.”
“It’s because of this that we can release both the European as well as the American version barely three months after the Japanese release,” he explained. This goes to confirm the rumor started by “Scenario and Battle Ultimania,” a hardback strategy guide in Japan, which showed what FFXIII looked like in its PS2 days. The game already had an Active Time Battle system and it featured cel-shaded graphics, but at the time the screens were taken characters weren't yet implemented. That would explain how Yuna and Rikku, two Final Fantasy X, got in there.
We've also learned that the game's development process is going to be showcased at GDC, which will probably shed more light on the subject, but also that Final Fantasy XIII is going to receive a DLC, as Kitase confirmed. Maybe it could even arrive around the time of the March 8 western release date.
