This week’s issue of Famitsu will contain an interview with Final Fantasy Versus XIII director Tetsuya Nomura in what will appear to be our first substantive information since the Square-Enix 1st Production Department Premiere in January. Preliminary information about the game is making it’s way onto the web tonight. Here’s what we’ve been gathering (this post will be updated as information becomes available):

Cutscenes in Final Fantasy Versus XIII are said to be “manipulatable”, and this may imply that the camera may be movable during them. When approaching cutscene direction, Mr. Nomura seems to take a page from the FPS genre in which event scenes do not necessarily disturb the flow of gameplay.

In previous Final Fantasy games, different models are used for event and gameplay scenes in which higher-polygon characters are used for event scenes. Mr. Nomura says that for Final Fantasy Versus XIII they have “unified” the models for both events and gameplay, meaning that they may be the same or very similar models during each phase.

Combat in Versus XIII will be dynamic, and there will be changing situations that will keep the gameplay fresh.

Famitsu seemed to be impressed with the screenshots Mr. Nomura toted along with him, one person noting that they did not believe that it was a real-time screenshot because of the graphical quality. A lot of time and skill has gone into the graphics for the game, especially the lighting.

Oh, and we’re getting a Noctis phone (like that Cloud phone that was released all those years ago with Advent Children).

Voice recording for the game is actually in progress, and it seems that they are recording while the game is still in deep development, meaning that the actors may come in at different stages of the game’s progress to record their dialogue. The four male characters (Noctis, Ignis, Gladiolus, and Prompto) have all been recording dialogue and they have conversations where their voices overlap.

Tetsuya Nomura also explained to Famitsu that he does not know when he will be able to share more information about Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but he apologizes that he is making everyone wait so long for this game. It seems he wants to make his next info dump meaningful.

The screenshots shown to Famitsu show various areas of the city, one showing a rough-looking part of town and another screenshot displaying how the lightning in the game will reflect areas in the day or night. We’ve seen in the SE1PDP conference trailer how day and night cycles will be present in Versus XIII.

The first screenshot shows off an arcade and seems to be in a rough area of town the area we’ve seen in the trailers reminiscent of Vatican City and Italy. Noctis is present as well as a behemoth enemy. This is the screenshot that the Famitsu reporter was amazed at as far as graphical quality. The second screenshot is also in the city about about noon with the third showing off the same location at night. Noctis is seen as the playable character in these screenshots.

Takeshi Nozue who co-directed Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children with Tetsuya Nomura was brought onto the project for his expertise in lighting, and contributed to how impressive it makes the game look in it’s current build.

Production on Final Fantasy Versus XIII is currently being worked on by key members of the project’s staff, but the full-swing of the game’s production is currently being prepared in which more staff (most likely for making art assets) will be brought in to assist with the project.

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