Tetsuya Nomura on Parasite Eve, Kingdom Hearts, and FFXIII
Square Enix producer hints at upcoming developments for major titles.
Posted Sep 28, 2009 at 21:05, by Anoop Gantayat

Square Enix has yet to share official The 3rd Birthday gameplay shots, but that could change shortly.

Famitsu.com shared earlier today some commentary from Square Enix super producer Tetsuya Nomura regarding Final Fantasy Versus XIII's Tokyo Game Show showing. See this story for a summary of that.

The Famitsu.com report also had commentary from Nomura on other games, both his own and from Square Enix's competitors. Here's a bit of what was said.

Joining the debut of Versus XIII gameplay/test footage as a Square Enix surprise for TGS was a general release time frame for Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. Square Enix announced a January 2010 time frame for the game. Nomura would not get more specific with Famitsu, but did say that he hopes to release the game early. At the very least, it won't slip to February.

The new Birth By Sleep trailer that debuted at the event showed what appeared to be a board game sequence. Nomura did not share further specifics on just what the board game is. But, he did say that it can also be played during multiplayer mode.

Nomura also appears to have indirectly confirmed download content for the game. Said Nomura, "The multiplayer that we showed in the kiosks lacked download elements and other features, but it was still packed with plenty of enjoyable content."

Regarding game content as a whole, Nomura said that Square Enix has only introduced a small part of what we'll be seeing in the final game. The game's staff is still telling him that they can make the game fit on a single UMD though.

The TGS demo offered players a first chance at playing as Aqua, one of the three main characters. I didn't notice this myself, but apparently the character's clothing had her back showing. This is actually from a "too sexy version" of the character, Nomura said, and will be changed for the final.

Development on Kingdom Hearts is progressing well, said Nomura. There are some features that Square Enix has held back on announcing, but he expects these to be shown in time for a winter event of some form (I presume he's referring to Jump Festa, but he could also be referring to multiple winter events).

Moving on to Final Fantasy XIII, Nomura revealed that the mysterious black-haired character from the new trailer (now viewable at the FFXIII official site) will be fully detailed in October. It also appears that we'll be seeing more Nomura-designed characters in the future.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII's TGS trailer showed some new battle footage. Apparently, the footage was from the game's three-person party multiplayer mode. The layout of the battle screen has changed since we last saw gameplay footage from Agito, and Nomura believes it now gives a feeling of being closer to the action. The new battle screen is pretty much finalized, he said.

Other points mentioned by Nomura about the Agito footage include a character who shoots arrows from the first person. The battle system has a high action feel to it, he said. He also noted that the difficulty is quite high.

Joining Versus in showing first actual gameplay footage in the Square Enix theater was The 3rd Birthday. Nomura used the term TPS (third person shooter) to describe the game's battle screen layout, but did not get into specifics on how the actual battle system works.

It appears that most of what comprised the trailer gameplay footage is temporary. The lighting and color use are examples, as the staff has yet to give the game full art direction. Additionally, the battle scenes had a number of placeholder visuals for icons and so-forth, making director Hajime Tabata ask that they not show the game yet. This is why the footage was shown with noise and blurring effects.

Regardless of the early footage, Nomura told Famitsu.com that the time is almost at hand to give The 3rd Birthday a full reveal.

Closing off, Famitsu.com also asked Nomura to name some of the games that caught his eye on the TGS show floor. He mentioned Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2, and Lost Planet 2 on the console side of thing. For series games, he's looking forward to Tekken 6. He's also interested in seeing what features Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker will end up having.