Heaps of fresh info on Square’s hotly anticipated Final Fantasy XIII has surfaced within the pages of the latest issue of Japan’s Famitsu magazine.
Among the crop of juicy details divulged by fellow FFXIII team members Tetsuya Nomura and Motomu Toriyama includes confirmation that the PlayStation 3 version of the mammoth RPG won’t require installation, as well as news that the game will indeed support Trophies.
Furthermore, Toriyama also touched on the game’s load times, stating that the only time you’ll experience such events is when the action hops location from town to field. Apparently, the technical boffins on the FFXIII team specifically tackled the issue of loading times early on to ensure the action runs as smoothly as possible.
Elsewhere, Nomura-san turned his attention to FFXIII’s ever-expanding character roster, specifically new girl Oerba Yu Fang. Apparently, this sultry black-haired sort was originally conceived as a male character before the team ultimately switched the role to a female instead. In the process, Fang was sexed up at the expense of Lightning’s image in order to differentiate the two.
Nomura then discussed the character of Sazh, revealing that early concepts had him sporting an outlandish hat – that is, despite already having a gigantic Afro on his noggin, which also happens to house a baby Chocobo. Finally, Toriyama briefly hinted at a returning Final Fantasy hero who will play a major role in the events of FFXIII, which all but confirms the appearance of the ubiquitous Cid character who has showed up in previous iterations of the franchise.
Final Fantasy XIII is due out on PS3 in Japan on December 17, with a western release scheduled for spring 2010.