New Fabula Nova Crystalis Details

Posted on Thursday 11th January 2007 at 23:55 by laszlow

A recent developer blog post by Square-Enix's Tetsuya Nomura revealed a great deal of new information regarding the Fabula Nova Crystalis project, which comprises the PS3 games Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as well as the cell phone game Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

The world of Final Fantasy XIII is called "Cocoon," and it uses crystal technology to create a highly advanced society. It is also completely surrounded by a large shell, which protects Cocoon and its inhabitants from all manner of evil residing outside of the shell, whose space is collectively called "Pulse." Cocoon's government reacts to the threat of the Pulse lurking monsters with "drastic measures," and uses the threat of exiling Cocoon citizens to Pulse as a means of controlling the people. Lightning, FF XIII's protagonist, is "chosen by the Crystal" to stop "those who would destroy the world," but Nomura (who is working on FF XIII as a character designer) was vague on any details otherwise.

Summons are going to be handled very differently in Final Fantasy XIII than in past FF games. They still serve as allies of our protagonist, but have some very unusual abilities; for example, the summon Shiva can now be transformed into a motorcycle, which Lightning can ride during battle. Somehow, this action-oriented feature is going to be implemented in a classic ATB system, but Nomura also stated that the game's developers are having "difficulties" implementing these new features.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII, an entirely separate game on its own, is supposedly set in a single kingdom within the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII and features a conflict centered over the last remaining crystal of said kingdom. The still-unnamed main character is a silver-haired swordsman who can teleport to any location where his sword is thrown. FF Versus XIII is being directed by Nomura himself and will use an action-oriented game engine based on the Kingdom Hearts series. Neither FF XIII nor FF Versus XIII has received a release date yet.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII is going to be a fully-3D cell phone game that centers on protecting another one of these crystals. That's essentially all that is known about Agito thus far, that and the fact that it doesn't have a release date either.

Source: RPGFan

Posted in: Square-Enix News, News from Japan

Written by	laszlow
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Comments

FallingHeart	Comment 1: 2007-01-11 23:58
	Quote (laszlow @ 11th January 2007 17:55) for example, the summon Shiva can now be transformed into a motorcycle, which Lightning can ride during battle. What the... Oh well. Cocoon sounds interesting enough, it'll probably compensate for the transformer-like summons. Moderator Edit You've been around long enough to know to watch your mouth, chief. -R51
NeoEx-Death	Comment 2: 2007-01-12 00:05
	Uhhh.... Shiva's a motorcycle in FF13? That's really lame, coming from Squenix.. I wish they would realize just how downhill they've gone already. EDIT: FH, you need to control your anger, man. And I don't think Cocoon is a working name for the world. Moderator Edit It is not your place to be a mod. We have been over this TIME and TIME again. STOP IT.
Cloud_Strife510	Comment 3: 2007-01-12 02:01
	Quote Shiva can now be transformed into a motorcycle Quote Uhhh.... Shiva's a motorcycle in FF13? That's really lame, coming from Squenix.. I wish they would realize just how downhill they've gone already. I completely agree. So far FFXIII sounds 100% lame. Iit hurts to see FF falling so badly.
Zeromus_X	Comment 4: 2007-01-12 03:57
	OMG SHIVA IS TEH MOTORCYCLE NOW THE GAME SUCKS Anyway, I'm not going to judge the game until I can lay eyes on the finished project. Of course, I am a bit stoked for the return of Crystals.
ultimage	Comment 5: 2007-01-12 05:17
	Ugh... there are going to be too many FF XIII's to focus on. I don't think I'm going to bother at all.
DrkMagimaster282	Comment 6: 2007-01-12 05:22
	The actual RPG XIII, not the Mortal-Combat-esque or cellphone one, i will actually try to get, PS3 or not, because without it my collection of FF mainstream games would not be complete. I welcome any changes or additions, such as the Shiva-cycle, because who knows what they could eventually do or act like! For example, what if you get to ride Bahamut like one of your airships, or even better, the overworld is a connected 3-d world like in a lot of MMORPG's...but i really doubt that overworld part...hehe
Del S	Comment 7: 2007-01-12 11:52
	Could be worse, they could turn a race of mysterious raiders into a pointless race enslaved by cheesy star-gods that seeks to kill all life in the galaxy for no apparent reason... Even I, with the dumbsday clock, am reserving judgement until we know more, but the preliminary estimates here are: Nobmura's at it again, the chain and belt obsessed fud. There had better be a sodding alien invasion at some point with a plot like that.
sweetdude	Comment 8: 2007-01-12 12:15
	Well, the motorbike could be good if they do it well - somehow. The thought of our beloved ice goddess being a bike rings other bells in my mind though... I've got to say, the main character (Lightening!?) looks just like Cloud from Advent Children.
Auragaea	Comment 9: 2007-01-13 18:06
	I'm actually looking foward to these changes. Just imagine the potential of using summons as vehicles! Also, I thought that Lightning wasn't the main character so what's the deal here?
Hamedo	Comment 10: 2007-01-13 18:38
	I am intrigued by the idea of riding an ice goddess in to battle, and wish to learn more. Sounds pretty wild thus far.
SaffireWeapon	Comment 11: 2007-01-13 18:59
	Final Fantasy going down hill?,someone's smoking rocks! Last I heard Final Fantasy XI has millions of gamers online, and Final Fantasy XII has been a huge hit so far, getting perfect scores in Japan and nearly perfect scores in North America, I don't think that puts Final Fantasy on that downhill hellish road, at least not in my map. Shiva tranforming into a motorcycle, that's not a big deal, I actualy kind of look forward to seeing what the hell this gonna be like. I welcome everything new into the universe of Final Fantasy, and never judge anything until I actualy see it with my own eyes, and play it with my own hands, so those judges out there, STOP IT! Lightning sure looks a lot like Cloud, why I wonder, simple my friend, the people working on this project are the same people who worked on Advent Children, and we know that character designs by Nomura have looked the same all the time, so it should come as no surprise that every new FF project where Nomura designs the characters will always look a little something like past characters. This look a like characters will never change until Nomura is removed from his character design position, then we will finally see new concepts.
karasuman	Comment 12: 2007-01-13 20:47
	I have a hard time imagining the Shivacycle without cringing. I think it's still too early to pass verdict on the game, though. Lots of things have sounded pretty lame in the initial description only to fit together just fine in the finished product. I'm really hoping that FFXIII is a worthwhile game. If it's not, I'm going to have a hard time convincing my husband to let us buy a PS3, for one thing. But, mostly, it's that we've been taking turns with FF games. I got to play FFX first, he got FFXII first, and it's my turn for FFXIII, the first one in the series that looks like it might actually have a girl kicking butt as the main character. If it's lame, the experience will probably merge with my FFX-2 flashbacks to drive me into a mental institution.
Neal	Comment 13: 2007-01-13 21:29
	I hope she shoots Diamond Dust out of her exhaust pipe.
Aether Master	Comment 14: 2007-01-15 19:04
	Hmm, if Shiva is going to be a motorcycle, I can only imagine what Ifrit is going to be... I'm sure ladies would love riding a big, burly fire demon into battle, as well.
fatman	Comment 15: 2007-01-15 19:42
	The motorcycle thing sounds odd I agree. But I like the fact they finally have a female lead to a FF game, it's about time. Let's just hope it's not a total let down, or they'll probably end up blaming it on that, and it will be male leads for the rest of time!
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