Georgia Van Cuylenburg (Vanille)

Recently Georgia Van Cuylenburg was interviewed on her voice acting career in the midst of voice recording the part of Vanille in Final Fantasy XIII.

UPDATE: Looks like the owner of the video "TNC/thursdaynightcombo" got butthurt and privatized the video. So instead, I'll show you another video of Miss Cuylenberg that I stumbled across. I was particularly surprised that she suffers from a condition called allopecia, in which your hair falls out.



SOURCES: LewMarklinShow (YouTube)

Maybe I'm A Poser

SOURCES: Gamespot, Klee Kuo (Square-Enix)

The Making of Dissidia - Direction

Yoshinori Kitase's developer's blog at 1up was updated with a message from Takeshi Arakawa, the director of Dissidia: Final Fantasy.

Hi this is Takeshi Arakawa, director of DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY.



I joined the DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY team right after completing development of the overseas version of THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU. The staff members of the DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY team were all very young, so producer Kitase-san brought me on board as the organizer to get things moving. There are many aspects of DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY’s system that were influenced by THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU.

During development we played all the FINAL FANTASY games and a selection of action games from a variety of publishers. Much like the players we were making the game for, we were influenced by things that intrigued us personally. The process was sort of like gathering inspiration from a historical art piece and reflecting it in your own work.

As a rule we were extremely careful to treat DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY as a genuine entry in the FINAL FANTASY series. FINAL FANTASY is an RPG series, and we were very aware that transitioning to the action genre would be a risk for the development team and fans alike. But at the same time, being the team that brought the action in KINGDOM HEARTS II to life, they were very eager to take on the challenge. As mentioned above, this game was developed by a very young team; so many staff members were big fans of the FINAL FANTASY series and had grown up playing the games. I think everyone had a lot of fun making DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY, since they were able to bring all of their gaming experience to life.

The Battles

Planning director Takahashi was head of the battle department that created the battle system for this game. Rather than working off of an existing fighting game system, they wanted to build upon the KINGDOM HEARTS II team’s idea for an action-fighter game. In that sense, the resulting system has a very distinctive feel to it. I think one of the reasons why the genre was set as “Fighting Action” in Japan was because it couldn’t be defined otherwise.

One of the great things about this game is that it has a feature that enables players to export and save their battles as a movie file (AVI) to their memory stick, making it easier to upload the footage to video sites. You can also edit camera data in your replays, and we’ve been surprised by the quality of some of the videos created by dedicated fans, including (but not limited to) the FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN battle between Sephiroth and Cloud, or a reenactment of the last scene from FINAL FANTASY IX.



Characters

Every character has a unique style, and each one will give you a different gameplay experience. There are some characters that can attack through a series of speedy combos, and others that require a very strategic approach much like a game of chess. Each character will level and evolve differently depending on how players customize them, so in the end victory depends on your skill and determination! I would recommend working with a character you can most relate to.

Preparing for North American Release

We felt that bringing over the Japanese version as-is would not be exciting enough for audiences in North America, where action games are very popular. Since the RPG genre is much more popular in Japan, it became a central aspect in developing DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY. With the sheer volume of story, localizing posed a great challenge, but with the help of the North American and European marketing and QA teams we were able to include the Arcade mode.

The Arcade mode was created for all the hard-core action gamers in North America.

With this mode, there’s no need to level the characters, and you can jump right into the action from the get-go. All characters are available from the start, so there is no need to unlock content either. The characters’ actions and system details have also been balanced so that overall, the gameplay is smoother compared to the Japanese release. I think the North American version can be considered the “complete” version.

You can actually try out the Arcade mode through the Playstation Network downloadable demo that is currently available! It would be great if you could give it a try!

I’d also like all fans of the series to try out the Story mode at least once -- it is one of the best parts of DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY. With a rich storyline that’s sure to satisfy fans of the main series, this mode comes complete with elements like leveling and experience points for the characters. I think both RPG fans and casual players that aren’t familiar with the action genre will be able to play through to the end of the game, enjoying the story as well as the shopping and ability systems. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that the DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY experience is on par with that of a numbered FINAL FANTASY title.

Closing comments

Even people who have never played a FINAL FANTASY game are sure to have a good time with DISSIDA FINAL FANTASY. We’ve taken the best of what FINAL FANTASY I~XII had to offer, and I think the amount of customization that can be brought to each battle makes this such a great game. Even though you be defeated one day, the summons, character level or customization options of the next day could lead you right to victory. Playing DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY before getting into the upcoming FINAL FANTASY XIII (or even playing both at the same time) might be a good way to get a feel for the FINAL FANTASY universe!

SOURCES: 1UP

FFXIII character revealed: "Yaag Rosch"

Some early news ahead of GamesCom: the male character pictured in the FFXIII trailer is named "Yaag Rosch". He is also detailed to be a Lieutenant Colonel of the Cocoon's forces. He is dedicated to justice and protecting Cocoon, but it is revealed he has doubts about Sanctum's handling of affairs. According to the scan he'll play a rival's role to Lightning & Co., and functions somewhat reminiscent of the Turks from FFVII.


Also of note is that Lightning's summon Odin will feature a "DRIVING MODE" like Snow in which Odin transforms in to a white horse (Sleipnir) and Lightning rides him around the battlefield picking off enemies. A command list also appears for her as well, with such (roughly translated) attacks as "Roaring Sword", "Vacuum Breaker", "Iron Sword", etc.

SOURCES: FF7ac Reunion, FFU, V-Jump, mini-memo

Staff list revealed for Four Warriors

Recently, the official website for Four Warriors of Light was updated with a more detailed listing of the staff taking part.

The game is being developed by

Production: Tomoya Asano
Director: Takashi Tokita and Hiroaki Yabuta
Main Program: Shimpei Takayanagi
Scenario: Kougyoku Iduki
Design and Art Direction characters: Akihiko Yoshida
Direction Chart: Jin Tamura
Illustrations: Yuka Miyamoto, Masao Tsubasa and Tomomi Fujino
Sound Direction: Tomohiro Kamiya
Music composition: Naoshi Mizuta
Arrangements and synthesizer programming: Mitsuto Suzuki

SOUCRES: Final Fantasy Union

1UP's Game Night with Dissidia

SOURCES: 1UP

IGN Video Review : Dissidia + gallery

IGN has uploaded a video review of Dissidia: Final Fantasy; take a look!



Also a gallery of screenshots from the English version has also been uploaded.
View them here!

SOURCES: IGN

I'm back and time for a recap

Alrighty, now that I'm back I might as well post a bit of news that's happened in this little gap since I last wrote. (Also thx steve<3) So, a list of the major news stories in the lsat few weeks:

IGN Posts Dissidia character exhibitions for Bartz, Terra, Cloud and Squall.
Gamespy Posts Dissidia character exhibitions for Exdeath, Kefka, Sephiroth and Ultimecia
Dissidia demo for PSP releases on PSN.
New screenshots for Four Warriors of Light.
Direct feed FFXIII screenshots.
Final Fantasy XIII to get release date in the coming weeks.

New Final Fantasy XIII Screenshots

Greetings, folks! Sorry for the long delay, but our good buddy Shamdeo has suddenly gone AWOL, and has left me in charge of presenting you folks with news on his behalf! 

As for today, I present to you some fresh new screenshots from Final Fantasy XIII!

Click here to view them!

SOURCES: finalfantasy-xiii.net