This trailer was released today and it was probably lost among the craziness of the press conferences, but here it is. I love Final Fantasy XIII and I think this trailer looks amazing. It also looks like they addressed the problems that people had with the first game. I really do wish all the best for this title. I know this is probably not the install base for most of the Giantbomb community, but for the few who are interested, please enjoy this awesome trailer.

EDIT - Okay, apparently the Gamespot HD trailler cannot be embedded, so I changed the above video to a 360p version of it. The HD version of this same trailer can be found at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMD0epdbC4A

Gameplay footage via Kotaku: Here and Here.

Thanks buddy, i was just looking for this.

Edit: I guess it's okay, i didn't especially love FF13 but as an avid final fantasy fan i S-ranked it anyway. I was hoping they fixed the battle system but it seems auto-battle remains, they added some kind of quick time event finishers. Some pretty brutal aliasing going on there too which is nuts considering if there was one thing final fantasy 13 had it was impressive visuals.

I'll play it because i'm curious but i'm not expecting to enjoy it more than 13. I just hope the dialogue isn't as horribly stilted as it was. Thats one thing they need to fix with final fantasy games in general, the voice actors/actresses are excellent with some real talent, but when they're reading lines that read like they were just fed through a japanese-english google translator, you got some issues.

I thought the battle system was the best part. Yeah, I didn't use Auto-Battle ever though, my own choices, I thought, were always much better than what they recommended. Unless I was using Saboteur or a buff-centric Paradigm.

The trailer's pretty nuts because of the bonkers stuff that's happening in battle. Lightning's chasing a monster on Odin as you're in the battle system. The quick time events. The monster taming seems like it could be neat.

I'm going to have to disagree with you though about the voice acting though - to a degree. Yeah, it doesn't match up to the likes of Uncharted or Assassin's Creed or anything, but I think it's pretty well done. Especially Reno Wilson who does Sazh. Ali Hillis (Lightning, and Liara in Mass Effect) is great too, but she didn't sell it in this trailer. She's great in FFXIII though. I found that the dialogue in this game was localized much better than previous Final Fantasies.

EDIT - Also, I'm liking this Mass Effect see-what-your-party-members-think style option system too:

@Lelcar said:

I thought the battle system was the best part. Yeah, I didn't use Auto-Battle ever though, my own choices, I thought, were always much better than what they recommended. Unless I was using Saboteur or a buff-centric Paradigm.

The trailer's pretty nuts because of the bonkers stuff that's happening in battle. Lightning's chasing a monster on Odin as you're in the battle system. The quick time events. The monster taming seems like it could be neat.

I'm going to have to disagree with you though about the voice acting though - to a degree. Yeah, it doesn't match up to the likes of Uncharted or Assassin's Creed or anything, but I think it's pretty well done. Especially Reno Wilson who does Sazh. Ali Hillis (Lightning, and Liara in Mass Effect) is great too, but she didn't sell it in this trailer. She's great in FFXIII though. I found that the dialogue in this game was localized much better than previous Final Fantasies.

They upped the cinematic appeal of the combat, the best part of final fantasy 13 was it's visuals, that applies to combat too, but honestly thats just not what i'm looking for. The base gameplay was the weakest part. Quick time events are also something that needs to die.

As for voice acting, i disagree with your disagreement :p

I consider myself a bit of a VO connoissuer and like i said, the talent in these games is always very good, as you say, our very own Liara provides the voice of lightning to a great result, but it's not her voice work i take issue with, it's the writing and direction. When you play a game like say, mass effect 2 or L.A Noire or even on the lesser end of the scale, something like enslaved, the actors tend to convey emotion, display a understanding of their surroundings and emote naturally. Of course is this a very difficult thing to do with videogames as they're actually sitting in a studio. But i find with Final fantasy games the direction is never good, the talent is squandered and you end up with a lot of unnatural pauses in speech as they try to sync the lip movement with the japanese speech. Which is always terrible (this was worst in Final fantasy X but still prevolent in XIII). Theres also issue with translation, some words are just used in such a far reaching concept that it's so obvious that it wasn't written in English the first time around.

In short, i don't take umbridge with the voice acting, just with how the studio directs the talent they have. Which is to say, poorly.

@jadeskye:Yeah, I hear what you're saying and I'm glad that you're blaming it on the writing/directing and not the voice actors, because that's a general misconception that it's the voice actor's fault that the voice acting is bad. More often than not it's the direction. I have a University degree in Radio Broadcasting and currently working at a radio station here in Canada, and I'm using that degree to try and become a voice actor for my long term goal, as I have acting experience as well and that's where my true passions lie. So, it's good to hear you say that.

But I still think that Jack Fletcher, who is a legendary director, did a great job at directing this. I really didn't have a problem with the dialogue, and I thought a lot of lines came out fluidly. Besides Reno Wilson, I thought Troy Baker and Vincent Martella had some of the best interaction in the game. Still though, in terms of voice directing, Final Fantasy XII has to be his best work.

@Lelcar: I wasn't aware jack fletcher was the director, perhaps the problems do lie entirely with the japanese roots of the game then. The ruling of syncing japanese lip-sync to english voice over creating unnatural pauses and issues taken with literal translation.

For instance if you take another japanese game, Persona 4 (or persona 3 FES which i recently finished :p) The voice acting is incredible and very natural, the translation is sublime. if it wasn't for the japanese setting you wouldn't know that game was made in Japan. Yet Final fantasy 13 oozes that awkward timing and language issue.

Perhaps it's purely culture, lip sync and localisation. Which is a shame because i really adore just about every VO in that game. With the possible exception of Vanille, she was very uneven, never quite knew what accent she should pull off.

I could have married Rachel Robinson for her portrayal of Oerba Yun Fang though.

@jadeskye: Oh I agree completely about Persona. Persona 3 and Persona 4's voice acting and direction is absolutely top of the line in terms of a localized translation. The lines are written very well, but I think the great delivery is due to the fact that the voice actors don't have to adhere to the anime-constraints of matching lip flaps. They have the freedom to deliver the line how they want and at whatever pace; since they're just reading to a character icon. You'll notice that the anime scenes in Persona 4, while there aren't many lines, they are delivered much worse than normal dialogue.

That's really nobody's fault though. It's hard to work under such constricting circumstances with all parties involved. Also, if you listen to interviews with voice actors, you'll realize that Japan doesn't like to have their lines changed when localizing. So, often it's a culture thing, and Japan being too stubborn to realize that some things need to be changed or it will be lost in translation. David Hayter has stated that he would have changed many lines in Metal Gear Solid, but the authority was denied.

@Lelcar: Makes sense, as i grow up Japanese culture makes both more and less sense to me.

Also you should never deny David Hayter ANYTHING.

Metal GEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR.

I'd do anything to go back in time and somehow get access to watch that guy record his lines.

Awesome trailer, I too loved FFXIII so I'm really looking forward to this game.

Can't say I'm excited, and I especially don't like that they started pushing the XIII universe so hard before even knowing if it'd be successful. FFXIII is perhaps the perfect example of how dated Japanese game development is.

But I will at least say that it seems they've taken onboard what went wrong with XIII and are legitimately trying to fix some of the issues, so that's good. But I'll be waiting for XV, hopefully it can be a back to basics/reboot of sorts.

@WinterSnowblind said:

Can't say I'm excited, and I especially don't like that they started pushing the XIII universe so hard before even knowing if it'd be successful. FFXIII is perhaps the perfect example of how dated Japanese game development is.

But I will at least say that it seems they've taken onboard what went wrong with XIII and are legitimately trying to fix some of the issues, so that's good. But I'll be waiting for XV, hopefully it can be a back to basics/reboot of sorts.

What would be your hopes for XV? back to turn based party battle systems? I would like to see a more complex battle system like days of yore but i suspect this more cinematic approach they've gone for will persist. They've spent way too long and way too much money developing this idea.

I'm totally not interested in the same battle system. Still looks interesting though, even if I haven't finished FF13 and probably never will.

@jadeskye: Well, I'm a big fan of the Dragon Quest games. I love how they've managed to evolve in recent years with VIII and IX, but still stay true to the fundamentals. They don't need fancy graphics, elaborate battle systems or melodramatic characters.

Frankly, I'd be happy with an XBLA/PSN game, in a similar style of IV, V and VI.. A retro approach, like Mega Man 9. Maybe that wouldn't appease the massive fanbase, but it'd be fun, and it'd keep the massive development costs down that are almost killing the company.

Actual gameplay footage:

Running around Bresha Ruins, talking to people and capturing monsters.

Temporal Rift puzzle gameplay.

Good news. No more straight lines.