In this week's edition of Weekly Famitsu, some information regarding the upcoming FF title was revealed through the mouths of the creators. Also, the upcoming Famitsu DVD due out 27th of this month is to include a new trailer of FFXII.

As revealed last week, Mr.Yoshida, responsible for the character designs, talked about the two new characters, Fran and Balflear, and his views towards them.

Fran, age unknown, is from the race of Viera. "Her overall image was 'a woman who you can depend on'. I began designing the facials for Fran first because the overall designs for the Vieran people was already there before-hand. Just a side note, I began designing ordinary Vieran people from their back position" said Mr.Yoshida.

Balflear, aged 22, is from the race of Hume. "I designed him with referrences to the 'hero' that I have imagined inside of me. He'll be playing a busy role in the story. I want you guys to pay close attention to his expressions and motions" said Mr.Yoshida, "and he's my most favourite" he added.

In the interview with Mr.Minagawa, he discusses graphics and character-model details: * Air-pirate is portrayed as lawless freelance who've deviated from the empires. * Balflear and the other(s?) will join the party relatively ealier in the story. * Balflear's primary weapon is a gun, but he may use other weapons as you progress through the game. * Tried to emphasize the cuteness in Fran. * Fran and Balflear is both equivalent partners. * Fran is an experienced fighter with the art of swords and martial art. * Vieran people, natually, lived in a remote area away from the crowd of the world. * There are more main characters and non-playable characters with important roles. * Matsuno's scenario/story = lots of character's involvement. * Reduced polygons in character model down to half the amount of that of FFX and FFXI. * The techniques used in creating the models is the same with FFX and FFXI. * Matsuno likes the FFXI touch and wants to adapt something similar to FFXII.

Mr.Minaba discusses the key visuals with Fran and Balflear. In reply to a question, "is the small airship owned by Balflear?", he answered, "it might appear as dead obvious, but it's a secret as this stage. The airship is an important one and we've already gave it a name". Another question arose from in the interview room, "maybe it'll be able to transform...". In reply he said, "I'll pass on the message 'it appears it might be too obvious' down to the team". (lol)

They are planning to adapt their own languages and alphabets for different races (except for Hume, for obvious reasons), but cannot confirm that it will have the feature in the final product.

With Mr.Matsuno being a big fan of FFXI, he wants to bring in the on-field equipment on characters. Fields are made accordingly to the character's body. Camera can be controlled 360 degrees anywhere. Map (World Map?) is big, but not a big as FFXI.

The battle system is a big change and may surprise some fans when it's revealed. As you can see in the revealed screenshots of the battle scenes, the three balls has blue objects that's "filling up" the balls... You may say it's a change for a good reason in a way. "FFX-2 battle system went a little beyond the previous systems by bring in some situations where the enemies and the party isn't lined up in lines facing each other. We want to work on that and take it even beyond that with FFX-2 plus-alpha...".

About the "Mist" that we heared Fran and Balflear say in the trailer, "it's use has been changing from it's initial use. Nobody really knows how it's involvement in the story is really like except for Mr.Matsuno's.

Final Fantasy XII (FFXII) is due out in summer 2004 in Japan with no sign of delay as of now. We should be expecting a new trailer on the net after 27th, thanks to Famitsu. No details for international release has been given.