[Scarlett.]

After five years of development time, Final Fantasy XIII released as what even Square Enix calls a “disappointment”. The developer has since pledged to work on shortening the development cycle for upcoming games.

While speaking with Yoshinori Kitase at gamescom, he explained that the development team for Final Fantasy XIII took over five years because of the leap in technology. Thankfully, the team plans on being quicker with their next title in development.

“Final Fantasy XIII, for example, was the first ever numbered Final Fantasy for Xbox 360 and PS3, so we really wanted to make it absolutely perfect and it took a long time to make it perfect. But maybe next time around we need a much shorter time.”

He was then asked to elaborate on his statement about “much shorter time”, to which he replied:

“Yes, yes, hopefully.”

While “hopefully” isn’t exactly a commitment, the good thing is that Square Enix now has the Crystal Tools engine complete, which should spell a much shorter development cycle. While Final Fantasy XIV is nearly upon us, the PS3 exclusive Final Fantasy Versus XIII was recently given a dry 2012 release date. Although the development of Final Fantasy XV is yet to be announced, we can only hope that it doesn’t take half a decade to complete.

Playstation Blog

Hopefully it will be of a higher quality too

[BB_Eye]

I normally don't approve of game developers making decisions based on market research, but I'm kinda glad they're taking feedback over this. I really really wanted XIII to be great, but they spent too much time and energy getting every last visual detail perfect and not creating an interesting world to explore or making new, fun characters (as opposed to a female Cloud and a whiney emo boy who loves his mother).

It was a good game overall, just not a great game.

[Tom4784]

I don't think FFXIII was that disappointing really, just a bit overhyped. It's definitely not one of the worst FFs *looks at FFV & FF3*. I think they need to work on the story more next tiem as FF13's gameplay was great but the story was lacking.

A good story can work wonders.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by BB_Eye

I normally don't approve of game developers making decisions based on market research, but I'm kinda glad they're taking feedback over this. I really really wanted XIII to be great, but they spent too much time and energy getting every last visual detail perfect and not creating an interesting world to explore or making new, fun characters (as opposed to a female Cloud and a whiney emo boy who loves his mother).

It was a good game overall, just not a great game.

I loved Lightning & Hope, Snow on the other hand.... 'Hero this, Serah that'. One of the worst FF characters ever.

[Scarlett.]

XIII is definately the worst modern FF game, the fact that you were forced to read the codex to understand what the **** was going on says it all about the game, and shows lazyness in the story telling, the world was bland and the story deserved a better outing

[BB_Eye]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

I loved Lightning & Hope, Snow on the other hand.... 'Hero this, Serah that'. One of the worst FF characters ever.

Snow was such a ridiculous, silly character that he never bothered me that much. I always find blatant American stereotypes in anime or Japanese videogames quite funny. I should probably add I didn't like Sazh as a character either. They didn't seem to treat him as anything more than the token stereotypical black guy. A more invisible, slightly less macho Barret.

In Square's defence, at least they had a back-up plan for FFXIII with Versus XIII. I'm interested to see how that will turn out before I start worrying about FFXV.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Chewy

XIII is definately the worst modern FF game, the fact that you were forced to read the codex to understand what the **** was going on says it all about the game, and shows lazyness in the story telling, the world was bland and the story deserved a better outing

I think Final Fantasy XII's the worst modern FF by far. I think the storyline's definitely the weakest since the earlier 2D games but I still really enjoyed the game and most of it's characters.

Originally Posted by BB_Eye

Snow was such a ridiculous, silly character that he never bothered me that much. I always find blatant American stereotypes in anime or Japanese videogames quite funny. I should probably add I didn't like Sazh as a character either. They didn't seem to treat him as anything more than the token stereotypical black guy. A more invisible, slightly less macho Barret.

In Square's defence, at least they had a back-up plan for FFXIII with Versus XIII. I'm interested to see how that will turn out before I start worrying about FFXV.

Snow irked me everytime he talked, at least with Vanille she developed into something kinda interesting but Snow's the same character throughout. I disagree about Sazh though, When I first saw him I expected another Barett type character but I thought he was one of the better characters. I don't think he was that stereotypical either really.

I think Versus is going to end up being special, It's been in developement since FFX apparently (or maybe it was XII but either way that's a long development time) and every time I see it I get the same vibe I got from the likes of FF7 & 10 and the other games I generally consider the best.

[Scarlett.]

Versus looks great

XII was much better IMO, there was more to do and you felt like you was walking around a fictional world and not running down a long path until you reach a clearing where you can talk to some hovering stones who want you to kill something

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Chewy

Versus looks great

XII was much better IMO, there was more to do and you felt like you was walking around a fictional world and not running down a long path until you reach a clearing where you can talk to some hovering stones who want you to kill something

I just couldn't get into XII at all, hated the characters, hated the story, hated the gameplay. At least XIII got two of those right

[Novo]

No hating on FFV

Lone wolf was a beast of a character

[Tom4784]

V was just so...meh. It doesn't help that it's sandwiched inbetween two of the best FF games either.

[Mystic Mock]

i loved final fantasy 13,as i was surprised at how good hope was,sazh was the best character in the game imo.

and the battle system was much less complicated than 12.

[Grimnir]

I would like to see them remake FF7 on PS3

imagine the story and gameplay being exactly the game, but with next gen graphics, sound and voice acting

it would sell millions and millions of copies for sure