Final Fantasy XIII's Battle System!!

Weekly Famitsu’s latest report (scans here) on Final Fantasy XIII focus on the game’s latest trailer, some actual gameplay footage and also details about it’s demo. I haven’t been following the game that closely before, but with a demo coming in probably three months’ time, it probably is time to get use to the game’s characters and battle system.

Keywords

First a little summary of what we know so far about the game’s world. fal’Cie created Cocoon, a floating city with millions of people and pick their l’Cie to carry out their missions. The city is governed by the Holy Government and prosper thanks to the use of crystals. Lightning, Snow and the newly named Oeba Dia Vanille are all l’Cie, who fal’Cie communicate with through “Vision”. It seems that even these l’Cie are not clear of their missions.

Oeba Dia Vanille

In the latest trailer, Vanille is seen being taken away by guards waiting to be expelled to Pulse, a world underneath Cocoon that the people of Cocoon very afraid of. Holy Government has the right to expel people they suspect of having ‘bad influence’ on Cocoon, although it’s still unknown what Vanille did to get herself into trouble. She is also friend to Lightning and Snow, the latest screen shows her playing around with Snow’s weapon. Her own weapon is something looks like curvy tree branches and can be folded when not in use. Famitsu also noted that since her fashion is so different from Lightning and others, it’s possible that Cocoon also has people of different cultures. While she may looks cute and cheerful, Famitsu says there are some tragic story behind her.

Holy Government Army

The Holy Government army, where Lightning used to be a former soldier, is a mix of normal soldier called “Psicom” and monsters that are mechanically enhanced. Psicom’s is being lead by a general that appears to be strong with his special tactic skills.

Lightning and a mysterious character, who Famitsu says seems to know Lightning pretty well, standing in front of a “Ibutsu” (foreign substance) ‘tied’ with light strings. “Ibutsu” has the ability to turn water and ice into crystal and there is ’something’ inside it that Lightning wanted.

Lightning

CG and real-time versions of Lightning, which looks almost similar. As mentioned before, Lightning was formerly a member of the Holy Government army and in a cut scene (above right), she can be seen telling somebody that she wasn’t fired or being kicked out from the army, but do so voluntarily.

Before battles, she can triggers a tiny object in her thumb and a blue wave will then surrounds her, which seems to give her the power to control objects. The weapon in her hand can change from a sword to gun on the fly too. Besides weapons, she has magic attacks and as one of the commands shown, she can use Cure magic too.

Battle System

Battles in FFXIII take place on the spot and depending on the command being used, the viewpoint will change automatically in order to present a battle that is fast and smooth. If there are other members in the party, they will help you out with moves such as follow-up attacks on enemies that you just sent flying away. You can also switch to other characters on the fly during battles.

Lightning is up against a large size “Heavy Attack Manasvin” made by the Holy Government. The machine is being used for patrol as well and the massive looking laser attack seems deadly. Its various parts suggest a wide variety of attacking options.

Command Stock: Players select the “Action” (the five buttons near the bottom left of the screen) they would like to use, which is then moved to the Command Stock slots (three slots above the Action buttons) to be executed in turn. Some “Action” buttons seem to have several layers behind them, which means you’ll have more than five actions to choose from.

Command Cost: Each of the “Action” has a number attached to them, this is the “Cost” or the number of slots that particular “Action” will take in the Command Stock. For example, you can have three Fire command in the list since it’s “Cost” is only 1 but you can only use Firaga, which costs 3, if you have three empty slots in the Command Stock.

Enhanced ATB (Active Time Battle): The bar underneath Lightning’s name (the one with 444 value) indicates that the game will be using ATB system, where players can perform various actions before it’s empty. However, ATB in FFXIII is a little different and can be controlled by the players as it is affected by the kind of commands being executed in the Command Stock. Commands with larger “Cost” will drain the bar faster compare commands with lower “Cost”.

Symbol Encounter: Enemies are visible on the map and again there will be no battle screen transition.

Chain & Bonus: Located at the top right of the screen, Chain shows the number of consecutive hits you inflicted on the enemies while Bonus’ use is still unclear at this point. Previous reports shows “Overclock” in place of Bonus, Famitsu says this probably has something to do with increasing certain ability of your character. The word “Break” can be seen replacing “Chain” in some screens, still no official words on that but Famitsu says it probably related to Final Fantasy VII’s Limit Break.

Enemy’s HP: Unlike previous games, enemies’ name and HP are displayed.

Demo

In typical Square Enix fashion, you can only play the demo, which was announced at TGS2008, by buying the expensive versions of Final Fantasy VII Advent Chirldren Complete. Three versions of the Blu-ray disc were announced actually, First Print Normal Edition and PlayStation 3 Bundle First Print Normal Edition will have the demo (Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII’s trailers also included) while Normal Edition will only has the movie.

Taken from ps3hyper