One thing FF has always done well is use music to set the tone. Seeing the new site go up just reminded me what a priority Squeenix places on music and how it pays dividends in people's devotion and reaction to their stories, which are usually nothing special by comparison. I remember being drawn in by the music of the earlier games to such a degree that I was nearly fooled into thinking they had decent storylines. Final Fantasy VII stands out in particular here--Nobuo Uematsu carried us through that game, telling us with mechanistic precision what we should be feeling at a given moment. We felt it, by god, and it was good. We should all be thankful that the composers at Squeenix are committed to using their power for good.

I don't expect every track to be fully orchestrated like the two they chose for the site--they're putting their best foot forward. Still, it's a pretty good foot. I have a PS3 now, because of Bluray. I think I've been nudged into a 'will buy' on this one.

In a fit of intellectual honestly, the main character is actually a girl instead of just looking like one. I wonder how this will play out with the romantic subplots that usually run through these games. It's not going to be like Mass Effect where you'll have a choice of love interests. I gave up on having agency in JRPGs after being rejected by Lulu. I assume most red- (and otherwise-) blooded Western males that compose the target demographic are unprepared to woo virtual men. Still the game will have a T rating, not an M rating like Mass Effect. I don't believe the US is prepared for a triple AAA T-rated game where the main character's lesbian relationship informs the storyline.

I bet Lightning will have a largely sexless relationship with another more vulnerable female character that borders on (but never really becomes) lesbianism. That places her in the role of a man and allows for sexual tension and romance, but wouldn't result in a media apocolypse where 24 hour cable news networks dig up their 'SEXBOX?' graphics out of cold storage. Confines to Japanese archetypes. It also doesn't alienate the playerbase of dudes who aren't secure enough to virtually court another dude even in a role playing video game.

Or it could be that she has a normal heterosexual relationship. It probably wouldn't be that big of a deal, now that I think about it.