Final Fantasy XIII release "a season later" in West

November 11th, 2009, 18:28 Posted By: wraggster

Square Enix hopes to release Final Fantasy XIII - due out in Japan next month - "merely a season later" in the West.

Speaking to CVG, FFXIII producer Yoshinori Kitase said the developer is currently putting "the final touches" on the Western version - which according to his 'season' statement could be out as soon as March.

"We are currently applying every effort to giving the final touches to the overseas versions. We will make an official announcement when we are ready. Please wait a little bit longer," Kitase told CVG, when quizzed on the European release date.

"We aim for the highest possible quality for each language version and extra quality can only be achieved at the expense of a difference in release dates," he reasoned.

"However, it must be noted that the difference will be significantly shorter for this title," he said. "It used to take six months to a year to localise a title for overseas. We are hoping to release this game outside Japan probably merely a season later than the street date for the Japanese version."

The Square Enix producer put the Western delay down to the large quantity of text and voice work in the game.

"It takes nearly a whole year to record Japanese voices and an extra three to four months to do English. This illustrates how huge the script is," he said.

"Also, as far as Final Fantasy is concerned, each character's lip movements are animated in a way that they are synchronised with every spoken line in English. I suppose that no other studio abroad has ever done this."

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