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No, not that other FF XIII game you've been waiting for.

Continuing Square-Enix’s love affair with the character Lightning, a new game has been announced for consoles that focuses on her greatest and final battle.  Lightning’s powers grew beyond those of a normal human during the FF XIII-2 storyline and will continue to expand in this new game titled Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, which is set to release in 2013.  It appears that customizing Lightning’s clothing and selecting from a variety of weapons will be a big feature in what might be an action-heavy adventure.  Andriasang provided a liveblog translation of a presentation made at the Final Fantasy 25^th Anniversary Event in Shibuya where the new game was revealed.

It’s unclear what sort of combat will be involved in the new title, with mention of “button response” being important during the game’s development.  The game will be set in a world called Novus Partus that features some “retro” features like phone booths and has a monorail that runs between cities.  No other concrete features for the game were revealed except some sort of Facebook integration.

It can be assumed that Square Enix is continuing to use the FF XIII assets and tools it spent so many years creating for the original game in the development of this new title.  Hopefully these games will help the company figure out how to economically develop its cinematic RPGs as we get closer and closer to another generation of consoles.