Some new interesting statements from Yoichi Wada concerning his passion for games before he joined Square Enix:

"There are a lot of games that I like. And there are a lot of games that I loved. Especially when 3D games started to become popular. One that’s really stuck with me is Kenji Eno’s D. I also really liked the Myst, Resident Evil and Metal Gear titles from that period."

hopefully versus 13 will be the true last FF

Pretty much, it's still the same since the dawn of video games, with very little inovation and to my eyes, FFXIII is step back even to it's predecessors. When SE developers won't be strangled by the franchise, they can actually come up with something rather interesting.

Very little innovation? That's a rather odd statement, seeing that too much Innovation is often brought up by fans and critics together each time a new Final Fantasy is released.

Really? I heard FF13 took away turn based play, the other characters are AI controlled, new leveling system, limited weapons/upgrades, monster encounters are no longer random, etc, etc... there was even an article posted but I can't find it right now.

@nightsurge

The game is still turn based play, in fact, it's more turn based than FFXII was, as it expands on the ATB system that FFX-2 used.

The AI controlled characters are new true, but it's the same thing for those who used gambits on FFXII, so I don't see why they are complaining now

The Leveling system is the same one used in FFX and FFXII, with just some adjustments and differentiations.

The Weapon/upgrades is entirely new and it has very much depth to it, since each weapon gains individual EXP and can be enhanced diferently

There are random encounters in the game, just look in youtube for playthrough videos, you'll find tons of them.

^I believe ya. It was just what I had heard. I probably didn't read close enough into all of it.

You can find the same leveling system in FFX which is great IMO, because you can evolve your character in an invidual way.

I'm currently playing FFX for the first time and it's really great btw, but what's annoying me the most are the hidden monster encounters that appear every 5 seconds. So it's great that FFXIII won't include that element.

@nightsurge

No worries there, I think I know what article you're referring, I read it once on N4G as well and it scared me like hell, but then I found the FFXIII forums and my fears quickly dissipated :P

2 MONTHS 2 DAYS TO GO!!

can't wait, ever since reading user reviews my hype has shot up tons more!