New Final Fantasy X battle, cast details

[01.17.00] » Are active time battles dead? Have old motion capture actors become the new voice actors? The lead developers of FFVIII return with a few surprises up their sleeve.

    The lead development staff of Final Fantasy X has been revealed, and despite most of the staffers being holdovers from Final Fantasy VIII, one major surprise marks the list:

• Director: Yoshinori Kitase
• Scenario: Kazushige Nojima
• Art Director: Yusuke Naora
• Character Design: Tetsuya Nomura
  (all from FFVIII)
• Battle Director: Toshiro Tsuchida
  (Director of the Front Mission series)

    Tshuchida-san's selection as battle director apparently marks an end to active time battles in the series, as FFX is said to feature more strategic battles, possibly taking factors such as positioning into account. Due to this fact, the virtually-completed FFX is undergoing considerably more tuning to ensure a balanced combat engine, but remains on schedule for a spring release in Japan.

    The hero Tidus will be voiced by Seiichi Morita, while Yuna will be voiced by Mayuko Aoki. Both are new to voice acting and instead served as motion capture actors in FFVIII, with Morita acting as Zell and Aoki acting as both Rinoa and Edea. Square explained the choices as a desire to use voice actors that did not remind gamers of previous characters.

    Square also claims that there is no longer a clear distinction between towns/dungeons and the world map, though it remains to be seen whether that is meant graphically or in terms of actual world design. The game's camera, instead of following the character as in most 3D games, will follow series tradition and remain floating in place while now being player-movable.

    Thanks to Nick Rox for help with this story.