Final Fantasy Versus XIII: Nine Years Later

Can you believe it’s been nine years since Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced by Square Enix? Actually, I’m sure you can.

Skepticism and cynicism has always surrounded the title, even after its announcement on this very day at E3 2006. Expectations lowered for the franchise after it and Final Fantasy XIII were confirmed as the first installments with no involvement from creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, but those expectations nonetheless remained at a high level considering they had to match the heights of their superlative predecessors.

The announcement also told us that Versus XIII would take a long time to complete, given the all-CG announcement video shown in lieu of an in-engine one. That it was coming from the team previously responsible for Kingdom Hearts II, released in Japan only six months before the announcement, meant development was only just beginning at the time.

But even then, no one knew it would quite take this long.

Since I made similar posts of befuddlement about Final Fantasy Ver…uh, Final Fantasy XV’s prolonged development time in 2012 in 2014, let’s do something different this year: here’s a look at how things have changed over time.

Development for Versus XIII was at such an early point between 2006 and 2008 that protagonist Noctis Lucis Caelum was still without his final outfit. His initial placeholder garb was designed by character designer Tetsuya Nomura. The clothing worn by him, and all the main characters in the final version, was, at that time, in the process of being designed by Hiromu Takahara of designer clothing label Roen. It took until Tokyo Game Show 2009 for the final designs to surface, a surefire indicator of how slow development was progressing.

Though the final design for Noctis is more practical, there’s an intangible mystique surrounding his old, baggy outfit. There’s a chance it could make it to final version of FFXV as an extra option, though hopefully they won’t do something silly like make it a preorder bonus. (I fully expect them to take the “silly” option, by the way.) The screenshots above also show how modifications were made to the outfits of the other playable characters, Ignis, Gladiolus, and Prompto from left to right. Unlike Noctis, though, theirs were practical to begin with.

Of course, the biggest change to the project involved the removal of Tetsuya Nomura himself. After helming the project as director as it languished in development hell for years, Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda made the decision to replace him with co-director Hajime Tabata. As good as Nomura’s complete vision sounded, including crafting a game whose expansive world would rival Final Fantasy XII’s, it’s clear his unwillingness to compromise on that was continually holding the project back from completion. Attitudes like that tend to beget vaporware, so it’s easy to see why this happened.

While Tabata doesn’t want to alter Nomura’s vision too drastically, changes are clearly being made beyond what we’ve seen. Don’t expect the scope to be quite as large as what Nomura originally described. That sounded nice on paper, but it’s Tabata’s main job to make sure the game actually releases in the next year-and-a-half or so. The longer this game remains in development, the longer it remains an embarrassment for Square Enix, as it remains the largest sign of how woefully inefficient their internal management and development resources are.

One significant change can be with our own two eyes, however: the removal of other playable characters. Tabata confirmed Noctis will be the only playable character, and party members can only be triggered for assists and team attacks. This contradicts the 2011 gameplay trailer (that I can’t believe is still available on Square Enix’s Youtube channel), where other characters were being controlled by the player. As nice as this would have been for the sake of variety, creating four different move sets would have been very resource intensive for the team. It was dropped for understandable reasons.

The outlook for what could have been an FFXV series also changed dramatically. Shortly after its reveal at E3 2013, Nomura expressed interest in creating sequels, similar to what the FFXIII games received. This was a good plan for further expanding on what exists in its world, and reuse entire environments from the first game to ensure that Square Enix would at least see some profit from this project. With Tabata taking the helm, though, this idea appears to have vanished. Tabata hasn’t mentioned anything about sequels, as he’s clearly interested in pursuing another project that might be Type-1 after this game is finished, teased in the recent release of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD.

In recent months, Tabata has claimed that the development team continues to make changes based on feedback from the “Episode Duscae” demo included with Type-0 HD. Some of these changes will be implemented in an update the demo will receive in the coming weeks. Those who played the demo remarked that while it has promise, it’s very, very obviously a game still in development, indicated through its unpolished battle system. In addition to another possible “Active Time Report” segment in the interim between now and mid-June, a new trailer should be shown at Square Enix’s E3 2015 conference — the first one they’re holding at E3 in five years.

There’s no way Final Fantasy XV will include all the features Final Fantasy Versus XIII was intended to have, though their reasons for it are understandable. It would be nice if Nomura and Tabata provided the long story about what worked and didn’t behind the scenes sometime after its release, though it will perhaps be saved for one of those Japanese official guidebooks always released after every mainline FF title.

Since I’m not expecting this game to release in around 18 months, it’s possible I’ll be writing a “Ten Years of Versus” post this time next year. Look forward to it!