14 DAY TRIAL // You can count on Japanese publishers to toy with fans of their games long before release dates. Last week, Square Enix pulled the old trick of putting up a countdown on its site, pointing to something big that was set to happen this Wednesday. It was Final Fantasy XIII related, so all the fans of the series were up in arms guessing what it would be. The more sober minds noticed that with the game still far away, Square Enix could only be posting a new video. Which indeed happened last night, with quite a bit of new footage unveiled to all those interested.
The game was initially presented at the 2006 E3 trade show and since then we've seen only bits and pieces of it, mostly full motion videos that did not show any gameplay whatsoever. The new trailer is pretty revealing, with the first glimpses of actual gameplay mixed in with pre-rendered sections.
The most interesting part of the new video was a battle sequence in which some characters, wielding swords and pretty impressive magic, battled mecha looking enemies that sported a variety of automatic weapons. The most interesting words we heard while watching the trailer were “focuses,” “pulses,” “fal'Cie,” “l'Cie,” “Cocoon,” “PSICOM” and “Sanctum.” Given how convoluted the plots of Final Fantasy games tend to be, it's anyone’s guess how they can all be put together.
The bad news is that Final Fantasy XIII will not make it outside of Japan before 2010. Square Enix said that the game would be released for the PlayStation 3 from Sony on the Japanese market in 2009 but that an agreement for simultaneous release with Microsoft means that it would only bring it to the rest of the world one year later.
You can watch the new trailer by clicking on this link. Please post a comment below if you've seen something interesting in there that we missed.