Tetsuya Nomura provides an update on Final Fantasy XIII's sister projects.
Square Enix's The 3rd Birthday Twitter is about more than just The 3rd Birthday. Tetsuya Nomura has said that he'll be providing a few updates on his other projects, and he did just that earlier today for Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII.
Regarding Versus, he said, "Versus has had many difficulties, and past method of production have been completely inapplicable, but these are the difficulties of birth, so we are working hard. We have a lot to announce, but because we're going in order, I can't say too much yet."
This talk about "order" is in reference to Square Enix's policy of promoting games in the order of their release. Nomura himself first mentioned this policy in a pre-TGS interview last year. (Of course, in that interview, Nomura suggested that Versus might not be at TGS, which ended up not being true -- Square Enix showed test gameplay footage in a closed theater.)
Continuing on Versus, Nomura added, "There have been many questions regarding fields. It's not a completely open world. It's like the 2D FF games in HD. Although, in terms of looks, it's not a top-down view, it's like the screenshots that have been released. You'll move through the world from that view."
The screenshots Nomura is referring to were first shared in Dengeki PlayStation and Famitsu in late June. They depict the action from a third person view, behind-the-back of main character Noctis.
While the screens have yet to be officially shared online, Nomura discussed the screens in great depth in interviews in the two magazines. You can read a summary here.
Nomura also touched briefly upon development progress for both Agito and Versus. "Agito and Versus have different production styles and progress states, but they're both presently undergoing voice casting. 3rd's recording will end shortly. Next up is Agito."
If you're wondering when you'll be getting your next glimpse of Versus and Agito, don't turn to Gamesom. In a later Tweet, Nomura said that, similar to E3, the two games will not be shown at the European gaming event. Square Enix will only be showing The 3rd Birthday and Kingdom Hearts.
Nomura isn't devoting his full time to Versus and Agito, of course. He also has all those Kingdom Hearts games in the works. He even has some unannounced games on the way. Regarding these, he Tweeted, "There are a number of unannounced titles. These will come before Agito and Versus. Some have finished voice recording. Announcements will take place in Japan."
Outside of these Versus and Agito-related announcements, Nomura and his fellow The 3rd Birthday VIPs have been providing periodic updates on the PSP Parasite Eve followup. For summaries of the full Twitter feed, see this story, which is being updated as additional Tweets are posted.
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/08/09/versus_xiii_voice_recording/
