Sort of forgot about this post, I posted this quick translation I threw together elsewhere but it'd be more appropriate here. Sorry my Japanese isn't fantastic, but I translated the key points... ah well that's just mostly because I was lazy. Everything that's important in the interview is here, I just condensed the responses and questions.
Source:
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1236525_1124.htmlF: What version are we seeing here?
H: The final debug isn't finished yet, and the tuning is still in process, but you can probably call this the step just before beta.
F: The character creation changed a lot.
H: Yes! It's very close to the retail version now. Things like the color of the tail of Mi'qotes and the shape of Elezen ears aren't in yet, but will be done before retail.
F: The battle system changed. The effect gauge is completely changed.
H: Before the alpha test, it was considered an issue for replanning in the development side, but just to be sure, we wanted player input, and so we began the alpha test with it. As expected, there were many requests to up the tempo, and so the development team got to work. Having a system where the action gauge requires waiting for it to fill up before attacking was the wrong approach, and so we changed it to a gauge that fills and stores prior (to battle) and have it consume as you fight. We actually barely got this in for E3, it's still being debugged and balanced in Japan.
F: Visuals are better, new specs?
H: We added distance blur, ambient occlusion and projection shadows, but these features can be turned off if your system can't handle it of course!
F: When does PS3 version come out?
H: We're in collaboration with SCE and it's under development. As the environment (of play, I assume this is akin to a configuration setting) for Playstation 3 users cannot vary, we would like to include changeable options on what effects are on. The Playstation 2 version of FFXI had something like this as well.
F: When Beta?
H: From today's version, the necessary system changes to make are almost finished; it's very close to release, I think. At the moment, debugging and the like are going on. As the alpha test to this week is practically complete, when we return to Japan, the plan is to begin preparing the beta. Expect it sometime about a month from now I think!Here there is a few questions with Kurosawa-san, it's mostly about the feedback they got from the Alpha, nothing really interesting, he thanks the players and said all regions got great feedback.
F: Will there be voice chat?
H: For now I'm going to say there are no plans. It's very hard to do between PC and PS3, and also real-time translation functions for voice chat to players from other places would be quite difficult.
F: Finally, what would you like to say to the players?
Tanaka: Beta test is coming soon, please look forward to it. As the development team is hard at work and could not attend E3 including the director, I want to say thank you on their behalf!
Kurosawa: To be able to excite players from around the world and taking in various opinions into developmental considerations, we hope you look forward to this game.
