"One day, we're going to look back with nostalgia on the Final Fantasy XIII developer interviews that periodically appeared in Famitsu. Today, the latest such interview hit with the latest Famitsu, now just one week before FFXIII sees release.

In the interview, producer Yoshinori Kitasei and director Motomu Toriyama discussed a few odds and ends about FFXIII's unique combat system, including roles, optimas, and summons.

The dialogue began with the very basics -- why use the term "role" instead of "job"? Toriyama explained that the essence of the role system differs from jobs in that here you're changing your character's role in battle. They thus decided to give the system the new "role" name.

Additionally, Toriyama added, each individual role has more extreme personalities than you'll find in past FF jobs, and so they did not want to make use of the names of current jobs.

Kitase noted that the borders between the roles are different from past jobs. For instance, an Attacker, as opposed to a Warrior class (Senshi), can fight with both swords and magic.

So why are there only six roles? Toriyama explained that when considering management of roles during battle, they narrowed down to these six. It may seem like few at a glance, but when you consider that each of the three battle party members can have a different role, you get a large number of Optimas combinations. He believes there is greater combat variation in FFXIII than in past FF titles.

While Toriyama touted the variations offered by giving each character a different role, you're actually a bit limited from the start. Initially, each character has access to just three roles. Work through the story, and the character will gain access to the other roles.

As the roles available to your characters increases, so too do your available Optimas, in order to match the newly available role groupings. The Famitsu interviewer suggested an example: if you have two characters with access to the Attacker role, and a third character unlocks the Attacker role, you'll gain the ability to use an optima that features three Attackers.

Part Two:

"While Kitase said that this is the idea, he suggested that this particular grouping is not one that you'd actually use. You might use an Optima that consists of three Blasters, he said, but not one that consists of three Attackers.

The two shared their own patterns of Optima use.

Toriyama starts off his boss fights with a support type of Optima (an example would be a grouping of Attacker, Enhancer, and Jammer). Then, depending on the situation, he'll switch off to something else -- most often Rush Assault (an Attacker with two Blasters). When there are lots of enemies, he uses Defender.

Kitase said that his usage pattern mimics that of Toriyama. However, towards the second half of the game, as the enemies become stronger, he'll sometimes start off with support-style Optimas. He uses Defender when he thinks he's going to be pummeled by a powerful attack.

Toriayama also noted that most people will probably use the Rush Assault Optima. This was the initial Optima that was revealed for the game when the Optima system was first announced.

Outside of the role and Optima system, the interview touched upon the game's summon system. Different from past Final Fantasy games, FFXIII's summons are tied to individual characters. Each of the six main characters has a particular summon, which they can call out in battle.

Kitase explained the reasoning behind this as partially being due to story. They wanted to give the feeling of the character and summon being as one. So, they narrowed the number of summons and focused on just one per character. Driving mode, where the summon transforms into a vehicle and the character rides it, is also part of this desire to make the two seem like one unit.

The summons grow, both directly and indirectly. Their development as far as increasing HP goes, is tied in with your character's growth. Their finishing move level is tied with how much you use them.

Part Three:

"The Tokyo Game Show demo was meant to show off the summon system, so it allowed players to summon all they wanted. In the final version, you'll be limited. Toriyama gave a rough figure of being able to call the summon once every ten battles, although this of course changes depending on play style.

While not directly related to battle, the two also discussed the game's recently unveiled mission system. As revealed a few weeks back, players can take on monster combat missions in Pulse by speaking to obelisks placed around the world.

Toriyama wouldn't give an exact figure for the number of missions, but did say that there are quite a few available. Some of the missions will put you against enemies that are stronger than the final boss! He said that those who work through the missions a good way and return to the story will feel that the last boss is weak.

The mission system is tied into the game's weapon upgrade system. To make a weapon reach its ultimate state, you'll have to build it up quite a considerable amount. In some cases, you'll be able to get the materials required to transform a weapon only by working through missions.

Outside of the interview, the magazine has a huge general article about FFXIII (in addition to a review, whose score is apparently causing a huge upspike in nerd rage). There are a bunch of little bits revealed in the mini interview blurbs in the gutters of the feature (Famitsu's FFXIII articles always have these):

TROPHY SUPPORT
FFXIII has support for Trophies. Players will be able to get all the Bronze Trophies just by working through the story. Gold will require special unspecified conditions.
CUSTOM THEMES
Some Trophies make a "Special" option appear off the title screen. Click on the option, and you'll be able to download special Cross Media Bar themes. The conditions for getting these range form simple to difficult. The easiest, according to Toriyama, is one where you have to fight 100 of a certain type of enemy. Get this Trophy, and you'll gain access to a special theme for a certain character.
SUMMONS AND JOBS
Toriyama revealed a connection between summons and roles. While you're free to change your character's role however you please, each character has a particular role which matches nicely with his or her summon. This special role is usually the role which the character specializes in from the start.
BATTLE RESTART
At any time (before reaching the battle result screen, of course) you're able to freely select to restart battle. Doing so takes you back to just before you encountered the enemy. You'll be able to change your equipment and Optima as you please before trying again. This works during Boss battles as well.
BATTLE SPEED
As with past FF games, battles in FFXIII progress in real time. The action will not stop even when you're selecting commands from the command menu. However, you can adjust speed in the config menu, Toriyama confirmed. The game offers two speeds: standard and slow.
HOW DO I LEARN MORE ABOUT FFXIII?
Those who want to learn more about the game's background story, including such areas as Cocoon society, the fal'Cie, and Pulse, will be able to do so directly from the game by selecting an "Auto Clip" option from the main menu.

If you think FFXIII coverage is coming to an end now that the game is hitting retail next week, think again! In addition to the first of a series of FF books coming out on the 10th (that's today!), Famitsu promises not only a strategy guide next week, but more development commentary.

We'll probably be hearing about FFXIII long after its release."

Here is the link:

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/12/10/ffxiii_battle_system_interview/

Don't we have an official FFXIII thread for stuff like this?

Very nice read, had some details that we didn't knew yet.

But what caught my eye was that Gestalt's are tied to your jobs? Do you mean that you can actually change Gestalt's in the game? :O That would be very awesome xD

Platinum trophy confirmed!

What about airships? We haven't heard much about them

I rather have no airships, than the last airships implemented on both FFX and FFXII. No world map sucks big time :(

why don't you say that to all ppl posting final fantasy 13 threads? :/

if seen a lot ff13 threads lately nobody's complaining <.<

I've complained, you just don't see my reports (and I'd rather not have my recent threads filled with FFXIII threads).

here is full famitsu interview from 1UP

A few highlights from the interview with Final Fantasy XIII producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Motomu Toriyama published in this week's Famitsu magazine, the final interview before the game's December 17 release in Japan:

- Where did the idea for the battle system come from? "The concept was to fuse speedy action elements with the strategic parts of battle," Toriyama said. "The video we showed at the initial announcement [at the 2006 E3 show] showed an ATB-based battle system that ran very fast. To make that work, we implemented features like multiple command inputs and juggling and so on. That lead to the chain and break systems, which accelerates things even further. The style has changed, but the original concept has survived the entire process. The Paradigm Shift system didn't exist at that initial announcement, but it's improved the strategic aspect of battle so much that I think it's done one better on what we were picturing at first."

"In FF up to now, the key to battle was choosing the right commands for each character based on the battle situation," Kitase added. "But if you gave a command to each of your three party members here in order, like Toriyama said, there's a limit to how fast you can make things while still allowing the player to stay in control. So instead we have the player only controlling the leader, planning chains and formations with the other two AI-controlled characters. We figured that was about what the player could handle. That was where the paradigms came from -- they keep battles fun while retaining the balance between speed and strategy. Making each character's role obvious -- attack, recover, shield -- and letting you switch between them instantly lets you fight your way through battles more adroitly."

- Can every character use all six of the game's roles from the get-go? "Three roles are unlocked for each character at the start," Toriyama replied. "After that, you get more as the story goes on. Once you get more roles, then you also get more paradigms, which are basically combinations of these roles."

- Can you stop time in the battle, like in previous FFs? "There is no full Command Wait option," Toriyama said, "but you can adjust the speed of battle in the configuration. There's 'normal' and 'slow' options."

"When things get busy, you need to switch paradigms instinctively to keep up," Kitase added. "I think players will adjust the order of their paradigms to deal with that. If you change to the wrong paradigm at the wrong time, you could lose the whole party, after all."

- FFXIII's summon system is a pretty vast departure from what we've seen in previous games. "The summon system is perhaps the epitome of the action element we tried to put into battles," Toriyama commented. "There's a lot of strategy behind them -- how you should build up the chain and break it, and how long you have them fight in normal mode to set the stage just right. Controlling them is a very exhilarating experience; it's like a sort of bonus stage in the midst of battle."

- Was the idea that each character gets a single Eidolon there from the start? "It relates to the story," Toriyama replied, "but I did want each character to have a closer bond with his or her Eidolon. That's why we cut their numbers and focused on making each one that much better."

- One of the new features in FFXIII for hardcore players is the Mission system, letting you undertake special (and extremely difficult) missions for extra bonuses. How many missions are there? "I can't give you a number, but there's a fair amount," said Toriyama. "Over half of the monsters involved are stronger than the final boss! If you go back to the story after tackling a bunch of mission, you'll probably find the last boss to be a pushover."

- Wrapping up the interview, Kitase revealed that FFXIII has been in some form of development for a good half-decade. "The FFX-2 International team kind of got off to a jogging start on this title after they finished up that project," he said. "It's been five years since they first came up with a project concept -- for the PS2, back at that time. We shifted platforms to the PS3 before announcing it to the public, but it's been just about three and a half years since then. We've made people wait quite a while, but I think we've used the time well."

@twesterm

an FF is on the verge of releasing

& this is BIG NEWS so it deserves its own thread!
___________

@OP

WOW...that combo thing using 3 people sounds VERY interesting!