New Character, Battle Info For FFXIII

It should come out this year, and if it does, it'll certainly be one of the biggest titles of the generation thus far. We're hoping the announcement of a release date isn't far off but in the meantime, here are a few more fresh details from Square-Enix to tide you over.

According to RPGFan, there's some new information concerning the primary characters in the game. In some trailers, you've probably seen Lightning entering a train, where one of the people on board is Vanilla, the red-haired girl you may have seen pictures of. She joins Lightning and if you're wondering, there is another playable character – by the name of Snow – and Snow is the "head of a resistance movement fighting against the theocratic government of the Cocoon." The assembled party will have to fight normal Cocoon soldiers, but they'll face more powerful foes as well. You will see all the enemies on the field map and running into any one enemy will trigger an encounter, although Square-Enix has made it clear that the "transition between exploration and battle will be seamless." Basically, fans should expect an "enhanced version" of the familiar Active Time Battle system, so the combat is command-based.

However, even though a character will execute a command immediately, he or she has a limited number of "Action Points," which – obviously – dictate the number of performed actions. Certain actions require more points, so if Lightning has two action points, she can perform two basic attacks. Or, maybe she could use both action points at once to cast a spell; the decision is up to the player. Furthermore, you can execute chain attacks and stringing them together causes the bonus gauge to increase…although that's where the details end, so we're not sure how the bonus gauge works. Even so, this is more than enough to satisfy us for now, and we'll stay on the lookout for more. Final Fantasy XIII is gonna be epic .

Related Game(s): Final Fantasy XIII