Square Enix have disclosed some info on their forthcoming RPG epic. And according to them, Final Fantasy XIII will have strong western influences and not be a typical J-RPG. Do you believe them? I sure as hell don't. Square Enix's criteria for making the game westernized is probably throwing in a black character, and that box has already been ticked. So I guess the rest of the game will be business as usual. Nothing I've seen of the game so far signals the game will be any form of departure from what's come before. The battle system for one thing is J-RPG all the way - completely doing away with XII's Western-ish style battle system and resorting back to a sit, pick and wait affair with no manual movement.It seems producing a game with Western appeal is the new in thing for Japanese developers. They've begun to realize that having a top selling game in Japan alone is not enough. And have finally come around to the fact that the Xbox 360 is a profitable and marketable system that they cannot continue to ignore. The whole western appeal approach appears to be bringing in big sales for those who have opted for it so far, but at the expense of quality on some levels. Twilight princess did the whole western thing, but didn't push it enough and stayed tethered to some pretty outdated game play elements. Resident evil 5 did it, and the game fell short and got slung into generic third person shooter territory. Now Square Enix are about to do the same thing with Final Fantasy. One wonders if they've really done it though. Nintendo and Capcom are risk takers. They won't think twice about switching things up with their beloved franchises. But Square Enix are all about the re-hashing and the same ol', same ol' - only deviating and taking a risk on a title when it's a spin-off.
Square Enix also mentioned that XIII game will blur genre's. They say it like they know how to work any genre aside from an RPG. They should forget trying to mix in new genre's and pump Western appeal into their games, and try to focus on what made Final Fantasy such a brilliant game in the first place and drive that into their forthcoming entries. I'd take a solid J-RPG'd to the eye balls Final Fantasy game true to the essence of the classics any day, over some westernized come bastardized take on the franchise.