Today Square-Enix has announced that Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, the closing chapter of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, will be rebranded as an NES-exclusive game. Motomu Toriyama has explained that he hopes this decision will respond to the fandom's complaints of declining quality with the Final Fantasy brand. "Sales in the series were not up to my expectations on the Playstation 3 or the Xbox 360. The first two games of the trilogy were clearly perfect games in every way, so the flaw must lie with the console. The Famicom [the NES's Japanese marketing name] is the greatest selling video game console of its time and revolutionized the home video game industry. The Final Fantasy series was once part of that great legacy, and it is my hope we can recapture that."
Toriyama has said he is still looking at the possibility of including DLC elements for the game. "So far there have been difficulties adapting DLC to the Famicom system. Some of my staff have expressed concerns that the Famicom has no capacity to connect to the Internet, but I am certain we can come up with innovations to solve this problem. Standard operating procedure to make more money used to be to re-release our games in Japan six months after the initial release with a few bonus features added. Obviously this was a poor business practice, because we never did this in North American or Europe. With downloadable content we can take all those bonus features and release them worldwide, also saving money on the production of new game discs. But the process is still not perfect. We want to make more money, but we still want our fans to be willing to give us more money. It's a delicate situation...please do not quote me on this, I'm not sure our PR department would appreciate me saying these things. No, I said don't!"
Toriyama confirms that the game will still focus on Lightning, and his desire for this game compared to its predecessors is to continue perfecting the battle system. "Final Fantasy XIII almost eliminated the problem of video games slowing down to allow players to play them, it is my hope we can continue to marginalize this flaw to streamline the game as much as possible. The new gameplay system focusing on Lightning cosplaying is working out very well with our player testers, and our art department has come up with many designs even more embarrassing and gratuitous than what she has worn in past titles, so I encourage fans to stay tuned for more information in the future." When asked how Lightning Returns will wrap up the story from the past two games, Toriyama appeared to be confused and replied "Story? Oh, um...there's a god, and he's evil and...stuff...I'll have to get back to you, my head hurts suddenly."
When Square-Enix President Yoichi Wada was approached for comment on the decision, he said "I think he's out of his frickin' mind. We've known that for years around here but I lost a bet so until he finishes this game we can't fire him. But I don't really care to tell the truth, I'm out of here in two months so right now I'm busy stealing all the office supplies I can. Are you using that chair? Thank you."
Source : finalfantasywikia.