UPDATE: Square Enix has pulled the trailer from YouTube. The publisher has promised to post an official version on January 27, which you can see right here.
Many gamers in RPG circles have been calling Final Fantasy Versus XIII “our last hope.” We’re banking it all on this game, that it’ll be what Final Fantasy XIII should’ve been: the mind-blowing cinematic JRPG that defines a generation. I really don’t want to jinx this, but it’s looking like Versus XIII will be that game. In this trailer revealed at the Square Enix 1st Production Department Premier (I love typing that), Tetsuya Nomura and crew lay it all on the line, showing exploration, combat, and beautifully-rendered cut scenes that look substantially better than the original trailer from 2006. It seems to be a real-time action RPG; the combat plays like a third person shooter when controlling party members with guns; you can get into turrets and even mechs to fight enemies; players will fight hordes of monsters at a time in massive, open environments; and Noctis can be seen fighting enemies on platforms flying through a city as terrifying velocities. This last scene seems to corroborate that there will be a lot of interactive set pieces to get the blood pumping – another scene shows the protagonist running from a Behemoth vomiting fireballs apparently in-game, and the windows crash in suddenly at a party, catching everyone off guard.
The end also confirms that the game will still be PlayStation 3 exclusive, and it shows from just how stunning the graphics are in the cutscenes. The only tragedy in this whole matter is that no release date has been pinned down. Many of the aspects of the game appear to be finalized, though, so hopefully we can get our hands on it soon.
