Learn about Final Fantasy XIII's battle system

PS3 News | Get ready to chain.

A recent 1UP article revealed information about the battle system of the upcoming epic, Final Fantasy XIII.

Final Fantasy XIII's battles will be essentially in real-time, with no more random battles (as was introduced in XII), as you can see enemies in the game field and upon contact will launch into battle. There is a time gauge for your party which fills up while you wait, and once it does your characters are able to execute commands. However, the gauge is divided into sections, as one section fills up you might be able to use one command such as 'Fight', but when it fills up completely you can give several commands in one go and watch as your party executes them, with different results depending on the sequence of your commands. Pretty much, commands cost you sections of the gauge, so while a simple 'Item' command would lose you just one part of the gauge, complex magic could cost a lot more.

Intoducing yet another gauge is the system for chain attacks. Attacking enemies multiple times starts a chain, giving you bonus damage, and fills up another gauge at the top-right of the screen. Eventually, it'll start to flash red, putting enemies into 'Break' and letting you deal even more damage until the gauge runs down again. Also, enemies in 'Break' mode can be lifted into the air and juggled.

That's all the info we have for now on Final Fantasy XIII's battle system, but stay tuned for more details of the game following the demo's launch with Advent Children: Complete on April 16 in Japan.

Related Final Fantasy Versus XIII Content

Final Fantasy 13 release date revealed
14 Nov, 2009 Start fantasizing. UPDATE: Australian date also confirmed.

New Final Fantasy XIII details emerge
20 Aug, 2008 Demo may be longer than the movie it's packaged with.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII put on hold
19 Jun, 2008 Final Fantasy XIII to become developer's priority.

20 Comments

Buttmouth

10 months ago

The battles in XII are still considered random?

Juggling and combos sound cool, I think we've seen that in one of the trailers.

Adam

10 months ago

Sorry, I should have made that clearer, the way that sentence was meant to sound was 'no more random battles, just like XII'. I'll fix it now

ppjim3

10 months ago

I'm glad they aren't completely disregarding FFXII with this version. I really enjoyed the new battle system and I like the sounds of the new 'chain' system as it brings back a little more 'required-control' to the system that FF12 lacked.

Is there any word if gambits or similar will make a return or are you forced to control every move of every character in real-time? I can't see how that is even possible unless the battle system is in a 'group' mode rather than separate characters. That is, 1 guage for ALL characters rather than 1 guage per character.

Very interesting none the less!

Skiller

10 months ago

Real time combat? I may not get this after all

ittekimasu

10 months ago

Will they have gambits? nothing was more fun than using blutak to level up. HAH to you gameshark! HAHA!

admeister

10 months ago

Skiller wrote

Real time combat? I may not get this after all

It's not real time combat, it actually sounds like a modified ATB system, the likes of which featured in FFX-2. It sounds pretty good so far, the loss of random battles is mostly a plus imo. I don't think we'll be seeing Gambits, as they really only work with a real time system.

I'm very interested to see how the game plays, so I've pre-ordered the demo.

stick_theory

10 months ago

ffxii sucked balls, i was soo bored throughout it. the gambit system for the most part made me forget i was actually in a party. i did however like the 'limits'. i also like random encounters, it forces you to fight, whereas if im bored im more likely to avoid enemies just to get pwned by a boss and have to go and grind anyway.
the chain system kinda reminds me of legaia, which had a rockin battle system! i would really like to see that series return.

ManeKast

10 months ago

Awesome, I loved XII. Hurry up and bring out the game.

bleach1st

10 months ago

sounds complicated :S hopefully it won't be like the FFXII battle system... I hated that

admeister

10 months ago

bleach1st wrote

sounds complicated :S hopefully it won't be like the FFXII battle system... I hated that

Same here, I didn't like FFXII much at all so I was pretty concerned about this game. From what I've seen/heard so far the gameplay looks pretty good, but I really don't know for sure until I play it, which is exactly what I plan to do come April.

I'll be sure to let everyone know exactly what it's like.

M@TT_K

10 months ago

So I take it most of you guys like the FFX style of battles?
I know I did.

I hated the battle-system in XII. And the License Board was absolutely stupid, in my opinion. I hope they eventually go back to something like the one in X.

EDIT: Bah. Need to proof read sometimes, I swear.

Itachi

10 months ago

M@TT_K wrote

So I take it most of you guys like the FFX style of battles?
I know I did.

I hated the battle-system in XII. And the License Board was absolutely stupid, in my opinion.I hope they eventually go back to something like the X.

Have to agree here there is no point to having a gambit system if you have a system like FFX. Seriously i loved being in control of ALL my characters not just the one. That is what i feel anyway. Its been so long since i have played a final fantasy i wish it would hurry up.....

M@TT_K

10 months ago

Itachi wrote

M@TT_K wrote

So I take it most of you guys like the FFX style of battles?
I know I did.

I hated the battle-system in XII. And the License Board was absolutely stupid, in my opinion.I hope they eventually go back to something like the X.

Have to agree here there is no point to having a gambit system if you have a system like FFX. Seriously i loved being in control of ALL my characters not just the one. That is what i feel anyway.

Not to mention that your team mates were absolutely useless sometimes.

I play an RPG for the strategy and awesome battles. I don't wanna play an action game with "RPG" sticky-taped onto it.

Itachi

10 months ago

M@TT_K wrote

Itachi wrote

M@TT_K wrote

So I take it most of you guys like the FFX style of battles?
I know I did.

I hated the battle-system in XII. And the License Board was absolutely stupid, in my opinion.I hope they eventually go back to something like the X.

Have to agree here there is no point to having a gambit system if you have a system like FFX. Seriously i loved being in control of ALL my characters not just the one. That is what i feel anyway.

Not to mention that your team mates were absolutely useless sometimes.

I play an RPG for the strategy and awesome battles. I don't wanna play an action game with "RPG" sticky-taped onto it.

Your not the only one. See i said to my friends i reckon they made FF12 like that was because a lot of people missed out on playing ff11 since it was online. Either way i can not wait for another final fantasy it has been to damn long! Your are 100% on it thoe more strategy would be ftw.

M@TT_K

10 months ago

Itachi wrote

I know what you mean about it being too long in between great RPGs.

I've been thinking about going through my collection and playing them again, but I'm scared that I'll start, and then have to complete it 100%. RPG's, the time-sucks they are.

*Sigh*
It better be worth the wait, or I'll be disappointed.

shinhawk

10 months ago

admeister wrote

Skiller wrote

Real time combat? I may not get this after all

The battle system sounds a bit like Parasite Eve; run around freely during a battle, but must wait for ATB to fill up for an attack.

Benza

10 months ago

Eh, I'll wait to see how it turns out.

I'm just glad they finnaly gave up on the random battles with attack defend etc cause that **** could not be more boring.

embersilvermoon

10 months ago

From the looks of it they're mixing up several battle elements from various RPGs into FFXIII. It looks as though they really want to make FFXIII much more action-oriented than previous Final Fantasy games.

It's looking to be a battle system combining elements of FFX and FFXII - A seamless world like FFXII combined with battles that focused on the enemy similar to that of FFX from my understanding of it.

It's interesting that they've decided to remove the MP system altogether and replace it with the ATB bar only to determine the cost of spells and other actions. I think it's nice how they've streamlined it so you don't have to worry about ATB and MP but only the ATB bar.

What has interested me the most regarding the battle system though (so far) is the amount of control we have over the characters. From what I've read they sped up the battle sequences yet we will apparently have more control over our characters than we previously did (I'm assuming the article meant FFXII...).

Can't wait to hear more info about FFXIII. It is looking to be one heck of a game.

sobriquet835

10 months ago

So long as there is no Gambit system, it will be awesome. Other than that, the battle system in XII was great.

Cerebral

10 months ago

Again, I thought the battle system in XII was a huge step forward for the series, and the gambit system much more deep and rewarding than similar systems in ARPGs (Tales series). I'm just glad that S-E are willing to mix it up, looking forawrd to playing this whenever it does release.

Edit: May as well post this here, interviews with Kitase and Toriyama Motomu have been (somewhat) translated and floating around on the web. The interviews are massive, so I'll just link to them. Pretty interesting read.

Quote

---Can we consider the battle part in the demo to be pretty close to the release version?
Toriyama: Yes. The demo's designed so you can experience the basic system in its entirety. The new Active Time Battle (ATB) sensation, I feel, can be experienced in the demo. Furthermore, this game does not have a seamless battle system like FFXII, but the change into battle is very rapid and has been designed to play with a similar sensation to a seamless system. Of course, moving out of battle is also very smooth, so from a data access/reading point of view, one should be able to play this stress-free.

Quote

The Demo's new Battle
---I had the opportunity to play the demo and what I found quite impressive was the change into the battle scene being so quick that it almost felt seamless.
Kitase: The game isn't seamless, but I think it's quick enough for everyone to be content with it. Seamless battles are definitely possible, but, for example, due to special attacks and polygon counts for summons due to memory, there are various limitations that are bourne from trying to go seamless. But by having the battles be independant, it is possible to be, more or less, released from those memory limitations.

---The battle is based on the Active Time Battle (ATB), but it creates a sense of speed moreso than before.
Kitase: The battle system being speedy was initially proposed by the director, Toriyama, and Tsuchida was put in charge of dropping in FFX's battle system into the game. Combining command input resulting in flashy action and using the ATB Bar as the cost to do so and wrapping that up into one system that adds the fun of strategery (yes I know it's not a real word) is something we were aiming for from the beginning of development.

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