“Final Fantasy XIII-2 director Motomu Toriyama has provided a big hint about when we can expect to hear the game’s final release date. During the Q&A session of a fan event held in Tokyo over the weekend, Toriyama was asked by attendees for a more specific date than the currently announced December timeframe. He responded “It will be announced at Tokyo XXXXXX.”
The number of Xs in his response — at least as Famitsu.com transcribed it in its report from the event — matches the Japanese word for “Game Show” (which is just “Game Show”, so it looks like we’ll get the date next week!
Tokyo Game Show may also be the revealing grounds for the identity of the mysterious man who was shown in a confrontation in Valhalla with Lightning during the game’s first trailer earlier this year. Square Enix’s PR department said to expect this info from next week’s big event as well.
Other points mentioned in the Q&A session:
Asked if they’re looking into releasing download content, producer Yoshinori Kitase asked a PR person “Is it okay if I say?” but was denied permission, so he instead said that they’re actively looking into it.
Asked if we’ll get a limited edition, Kitase said they’re “really actively looking into it.”
If you have your XIII save data, you’ll get some bonuses in XIII-2.
As previously announced, XIII-2 has a monster raising component. Your characters are built up using a new growth system like the Crystarium system from the original. Your monsters have their own growth system which is similar to this.
You’ll find over 150 monster types in the game. They all have unique inputs for performing their special skills, so those who aren’t too good with action games can select a monster with simple controls.
In XIII, you could only ride Chocobos in the Gran Pulse world. In XIII-2, you can ride them anywhere. However, you won’t have access to Chocobos at the start of the game. You’ll gain access at a point where it starts to be difficult to move around with ease.
The game will have a red Chocobo. Toriyama says that this will be a unique Chocobo amongst the series’ Chocobos.
That Moogle Serah uses as a weapon and as a means of grabbing items items is from Lightning’s world. He’s come to help Serah.
The “Fragments” shown in last week’S screenshots of the game’s time travel interface are part of a quest system. You get them from NPCs and can attempt to clear the related quest. You’ll start to encounter these fragments right from the game’s first chapter.
Asked about the game’s length, Toriyama explained that just looking at the story volume, it’s a bit shorter than XIII. However, there are all sorts of additional play elements this time, including the time travel, the fragments, and lots of mini games.
It was already announced that most of the characters from XIII will appear in XIII-2. We’ll get an introduction to some of those characters at TGS. Some of the characters will be playable (not necessarily at TGS, but playable in the game).
Serah and Snow are not yet married, and Snow apparently has a good reason for this. In the final version of the game, we’ll get the full word on the current status of their relationship.
Development on XIII-2 is currently at 90%. The game has been in development for a little over one and a half years, according to Kitase.”