A Chat With the Final Fantasy XIII Team

1up's Shane Bettenhausen had the chance to sit down for a chat with the team behind FFXIII. They discuss the multiple versions of the games planned, the character of the title's heroine, the futuristic setting, and just a little bit about the game's battle system. From the article: "At first sight, it might seem like an action game, but FFXIII inherits the long tradition of the numbered FF games, which is the active-time battle command system. We are trying to use a similar system to what you've seen, but the major difference is that the battle will be speeded up considerably. In the past, you had to wait to input commands, but our goal here is to reduce that waiting time as much as possible, so that the battles are greatly speeded up."

FFX almost perfected the ATB system.

[Valdrax]

FFX almost perfected the active-time battle system in my opinion. It kept the order of initiative preserved, kept you from getting pounded on if you needed to dig into the menus (which I hate), and allowed you to pound away as fast as you could select actions. FFX was just smooth.

The only was ATB could be made better is to eliminate any need to dig into menus without getting rid of the pretty. I wish FF XIII luck, but I'm not sure I like where the series is going with FF XII in terms of control schema.