Hello to all the PlayStation.Blog readers! This is Yoshinori Kitase, the producer of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
It’s been very busy this year, as Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has already launched last month in Japan. But the team here is currently working hard to make sure the game is available in the United States without a hitch on February 11th, 2014.
One thing I’m particularly proud of is that there are many “firsts” for Lightning Returns. This is the first time we’ve created a trilogy in more than 25 years of Final Fantasy. This is also the first time we’ve introduced a completely heart-pounding, action-oriented battle system. Japanese voice-overs are something that all of you fans have been asking for. As a gift, we’ll be providing that to you all for free for the first two weeks of the game’s launch.
We’ve also shown you the behind-the-scenes development of the game from the Tokyo offices that you can re-watch here. And finally, players will be able to post screenshots of their very own Lightning through social media, so I’m very excited to see thousands of different versions of Lightning around the world.
There are only seven more days until the end of the year — how will you be spending the rest of 2013?
As for me, I will be spending the rest of the year playing lots of games I haven’t had a chance to play due to my busy schedule — with, of course, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remaster at the top of the list! I’m also playing these games in hopes for another great year in the gaming industry!
On behalf of the Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII team, happy holidays, and we wish you all the best for the New Year!
That girl never smiles , even for a christmas card xD
Merry christmas everybody.
Thanks!
Merry Christmas everybody! & for those who don’t celebrate, Have a great winter break!
Thank you! No more Lighting please.
Thanks!
Thank you , you too ! Lightning looks great .
Kitase-san, please, We want more games from Toriyama-san!! All of his games are awesome and I can’t wait for FF16 or FFX-3.
Thank you!
happy holidays guys. :D
P.S: waiting for Light to return to my PS3
Thank you and Happy Holidays to you and the FF teams as well!
Will Lightning also be available in Canada / North American on February 11th, 2014 without a hitch, or just the United States?
Kitase Please move on from FFXIII and try to look back at fan complaints. It took 3 games for this even look remotely interesting and I’ve loved many of the previous works in the series that had your involvement including Dirge of Cerberus. Let this cast of largely uninteresting characters die already. I’m not picking up FFXIII-3 (Lightning Returns) for the simple reason that the series of FFXIII characters and the story that surounds then is at large boring. I’ve played every FF to date and haven’t missed a pre-order since FF6 was released in the states as FF3. Please move on to another FF.
Thanks for the holiday wishes! I wish only the best for SE in the future as well! Still hoping for Type-0 in the West, too!
I never understood all the FFXIII hate. I mean, it’s just fantastic. Beautiful story and great characters.
Can’t wait for FFXIII Lightning Returns. I’m sooooo sad to see this will be the last Lightning game. She’s one of my top Final Fantasy female characters. :[
Anywho, keep it up! Game looks fantastic and can’t wait to play! Already pre-ordered mine months ago. :33
Kitase-sama: Stop destroying the company and the beloved franchises of old! Thank you.
Final Fantasy Type-O for PS Vita in the West thanks!
Happy Holidays Square.
Kitase-san
Final Fantasy Type-0 on VITA
Final Fantasy XII HD on VITA/PS3
Thanks and Happy Holidays
Hey Square drop Enix and bring back Square Soft. FF has been a train wreck ever since the merge. I will never or recommend any FF 13 games. They are boring. Very boring. Go back to true turn base JRPG game making. Give us a story line that will keep us guled to the tv. Characters that we are interested in and want to know about there past. You guys get mad because your FF 13 does not sell has good has previous installment’s because your fanbase (whats left of them) does not want this crap you been making. Im getting FF X HD and KH HD 2. But thats it. Happy holidays and I hope this game bombs so you guys can open your eyes.
And if you want to get mkre of my money remake FF7, 8 & 9. An btw giving that wanna be herion Lightning FF7 outfits is big disrespect to FF7 and big slap in your fans faces.
Sucks Lightning Returns isn’t on PS4. I really don’t wanna plug back in the PS3 for a while. Ohh well I’ll be playing FFX|X-2 on Vita soon atleast. Also what PGDarkLordMalik said, but don’t take 3 years for HD game please. Merry Christmas, Type-0 finally releasing would be the best gift you can give me right now.
Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III release dates please.
@16, you’re a insult to Final Fantasy. Speak for yourself, I think Lightning is awesome, how is she a wannabe? You know she’s pretty much a goddess who fought at the end of time to save all eternity? She makes what was done in any other FF kinda small in comparison and FFIX is hands down my favourite FF followed by FFVII. But if you think Lightning isn’t that good don’t try make it seem like no one likes her, she’s one of my Fav ff characters
Vivi
Zidane
Lightning
Cloud
Rikku
Are my favs
thnx FF and Square Enix!!
Happy Holidays peeps :D and Happy gaming
Merry Christmas
Happy Holidays to you too!! Thank you for an amazing year of FF awesomeness!!
Ff 13-3 next gen port please
Christmas Eve and the man’s wishing us a Merry Christmas? I’ll save the complaints for another day.
Seriously,
Shin Final Fantasy Muson
Possible?
Please!
@24 Thank you
Some people are heartless a. Merry Christmas and I’m really excited for FFXIII. Can’t wait and great work altogether.
Square, PLEASE stop releasing collector’s editions where the CD tray is glued to the back cover of the artbook! It’s AWFUL and I actively avoid these editions when I’d otherwise be all over them. It makes the games not fit in at all with the rest of my collection. Thank you.
Geesh. Can’t go anywhere without someone complaining about the game for goodness sakes. Theyre saying “Happy Holidays!”. Not “Come here and whine like a bunch of kids.”
Happy Holidays Squeenix! And Happy Holidays to Lightning-chan ;).
@19 Teflon02
Your statement is ridiculous. “She became a goddess to fight at the end of time to save all eternity”.
If she was half the character any of the other FF leads have been she wouldn’t need to become anything other than what she was. You’re basically saying she wasn’t good enough so she had to become something else because she sucked. What’s worse she didn’t become as such by her own hand.
Next issue if eternity is eternal than how can she fight at the end of something that never ends? Maybe its a testament to how stupid and absurd FFXIII’s story has become as a result of them trying to super extend something that didn’t have much substance to begin with, but that context is just broken.
I’m happy to see lightning and the rest of the cast go. I can’t wait till this series is a forgotten memory after FF15 releases.
@6
That’s a huge insult to the FFXV and other FF teams for you to nonchalantly skip over there games in favor of Toriyama’s games. The from what I read you are a fan of Abe’s battle systems not Toriyama’s games. Toriyama has been a huge blemish on the FF franchise and has been slowly killing it. Heck LRFFXIII is one of the worse reviewed and selling FF in Japan. This reflects how most people are feeling about the FFXIII sub series. Tired, frustrated and done. Only Nomura can salvage the franchise with FFXV.
@11
You may not understand it but FF fans have extremely valid reasons that have been addressed many times on many occasions. Just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean the complaints and the criticisms behind the games aren’t there or aren’t as valid as your own opinion.
Anyways thank you Kitase-San for the warm wishes. I just wish your company didn’t throw Lightning in our face at every opportunity like right now. This could’ve been done better. We could’ve gotten a company wide holiday wish with all the games coming out over the next year on the card (FFXHD, LRFFXIII, Thief, KHHD2.5, FFXV) but instead we get something that is only from one facet of the company and that feels like a slap in the face to the other hard working teams at SE.
Not here to complain but I wish you guys were more aware of your single minded goal of promoting LR. This is a time for every part of the company to wish its fans happy holidays but all your doing is promoting a single part of the company and using it to promote every facet of your new game. Better luck on next year.
@31
It’s not opinion, it’s a fact. Lots of people love the series. They have sold MILLIONS and made MILLIONS. That alone speaks for itself.
Sad to see all the trolls here, especially on the holidays.
Happy Holidays Square Enix :)
“Japanese voice-overs are something that all of you fans have been asking for. As a gift, we’ll be providing that to you all for free for the first two weeks of the game’s launch.”
please make this a standard along with Kingdom Hearts from now on.
i want Final Fantasy XV to have dual audio, the Japanese cast really fit well to the characters
so yes, even if it’s DLC only, i’m willing to pay for this Day 1. better than most BS DLC’s i see nowadays.
Happy Holidays once again to Square Enix and to everyone!
Lol FF 13 series is joke and so is Toriyama.
http://www.p4rgaming.com/hundreds-of-japanese-gamers-return-lightning-returns-after-finding-out-its-not-a-dress-up-sim/
Even Nomura thinks its DLC ridden joke :) He saved the real quality of the series.
http://www.p4rgaming.com/tetsuya-nomura-spent-3-months-convincing-square-enix-not-to-move-final-fantasy-xv-to-smartphones/
Enjoy and happy holidays.
Please port FF13-3 to PS4 as well! Otherwise I doubt I’ll buy it :/
It doesn’t deserve a port.
@30….. You just said MY STATEMENT was ridiculous. Did you really even think out what you said? Or are you just trolling? So YOUR argument is that if Lightning was any good she would not be in that position? Are you dumb that’s like saying A man in my neighbourhood stopping one person from being racist is a way better then MLK because he did something on bigger scale. Don’t be dumb, and you really wanna try get technical? Let’s punch some holes in your logic.
You must not have played FFXIII and XIII-2, the end of time is eternity. where all things end, but your basically stuck at a stage with no beginning or end, meaning it has no rule with time. Lightning was pulled into that, and she is fighting a guy who can’t die, but she can, if either one of them die, then everything in existence will be erased. Ones objective is just that, he has lived to see the same person reincarnated and die over and over. He was being selfish and wanted to end that cycle by ending all things. So a man who showed up at the end of time aka eternity was lighting’s break, she sends him to basically team up with her sister to stop him from being immortal so he can be killed. If you think something is wrong, then read what you said and then slap yourself in the face for that dumb response with no form of logic
Thanks, Kitase. I was one of those disappointed with Final Fantasy XIII. I bought Final Fantasy XIII-2 at a later date and finally began to play through it earlier this month, after the Lightning Returns promotion ended in Final Fantasy XIV. I would like to say that I was very surprised in the jump in quality between Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2. I have LR pre-ordered already and, if the trend of development continues, I imagine I’ll be pretty happy with how LR has progressed.
Looking forward to the game, and I hope you kids have a good Christmas as well.
Also, I really don’t care about Japanese voices because the NA voicework has been fantastic in all FF games, but I’m still happy to see the option added. Thanks.
@33 S_T_O_N_E_
Yes lots of people bought the game to the point where each iteration on the series is seemling dropping by half with each title. The Preorders are dropping in comparison with each iteration as well. There are things to be excited about as far as this being a game, but its wasted on the FFXIII universe. In the 14 FF titles out there FF13 is the only one I hold with contempt and disdain. I so wanted to like both FFXIII and FFXIII-2, but ultimately I can’t justify coming back for a third for a character I absolutely hate. If I get this game it’ll be in the bargin bin and not an upfront buy. At least I’ll have a good FF releasing relatively close with FFX HD and FF14 beta starting around the same time for PS4.
Thank you for the 13 series. I know some hate it but I highly enjoyed 13 and 13-2 and cant wait for LR. I already Pre ordered the LE. Lighting is my second favorite female FF character with Tifa being number 1. Also it would have been nice for lighting to smile for the holidays.
Happy Holidays, Kitase-san. I’m looking forward to Lightning Returns and FFX/X-2 HD Collections! Can’t wait for FFXV either! :)
@35 thanks for the links and the laughs.its almost surreal that they didnt advertise this game correctly over there.and yeah the FF series has been in decline for awhile now.but hey there’s always stuff like braverly default,no?
@44
Eh bravely default doesint do anything for me. The game looks really ugly I hate the style and the combat iv seen doesint get my juices going.
@35
All this shows is that people are really stupid. Always do your research before you buy. We live in the age of the interenet theres no excuse for this.
I’ll be spending my Holiday playing FF XIV until Lightning Returns comes out.
Let’s hope the Digital Rivers ship my Collector Edition within the release window.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
As much as I am a final fantasy fan, I stopped loving the games after X and X-2. Final fantasy XIII was a joke. Go to point A to point B with a predetermined amount of enemies so you don’t grind and over power yourself much more than the enemy.
To all those people that said FF cannot go back to its roots because of technology can take a look at Ni No Kuni and that’s how you do a RPG with a world map. RPG’s are meant to explore, not hold your hand.
I am looking forward to FF XV and I hope they learned their lesson about this trilogy.
No DBZ for pre-order on the psn today :,( that suck
This is getting old asking for games you are guys not putting up on psn but putting Theme like Brias Slumber what the hell she got to do with games you guys are funny and she is ugly I will not pay for her face on my TV