We all noticed that FFXIII and FFVersusXIII were absent at E3 so I wanted to write a blog about what we know so far. So here it is ^_^

Logo :


Story
The world of XIII will have the most technologically advanced culture ever seen in a Final Fantasy game. The people in it have lived alongside magic for so long that it has become irreversably integrated into both their technology and their everyday lives.

Characters
Lightning


Described as an independent, strong-willed female hero, she wields a weapon that can transform between a gun or a sword. Character designer Tetsuya Nomura describes her as 'not very feminine', and says that he was asked to create a 'female version of Cloud' when designing her.
The bars on the shoulder of her uniform are said to indicate both rank and social status. According to information from Jump Festa in December 2006, her name is Lightning... This, however, appears to be either a nickname or codename. Her real name is currently unknown.
In addition to being a skilled fighter, she also has power over gravity and time-based magic.

???


This character is thus far a mystery. First debut at Jump Festa this new character sports a white trenchcoatsomewhat reminiscent of Seifer from FF VIII. This could potentially prove to be the actual main character or 'hero' of the game, rather than 'Lightning'.
In trailer shown at Square Enix Party he casts a spell into the air, which shimmers and dissolves into a dramatic Shiva summon. Instead of one ice goddess, this summon involves two Shivas, both of which have some crazy mechanical contraption on their backs. Once the summon is complete, a roller coaster-like maze of ice tracks form in the sky, wherein our hero hops on his futuristic-looking motorcycle (perhaps composed of the two Shivas and their mechanical bodies?) and begins blasting bad guys out of the air as he loops and jets around the newly created ice tracks.

Battle system
The battle system for Final Fantasy XIII incorperates the Active Time Battle (ATB) system seen in previous games in the series. Individual turns during battle, based on screenshots from the game, are taken by creating strings of multiple commands. Commands are selected based on their individual ATB Cost, which progressively depletes the ATB Gauge and effectively limits the number of commands that can be used in combination. These commands are then strung together into an onscreen attack pattern. Weapon exchanges can be made in the middle of battle. In the 2006 E3 trailer, we see Lightning change from gun mode to sword mode and vice versa. According to Toriyama, due to the detail done for weapons in the game, weapon transformations will be possible.
Another nifty feature in the battle system is the Overclock Gauge. This gauge will slowly charge over the span of a battle(or several battles) and once fully charged a count down timer will begin, and during this time, the character currently 'overclocked' will be able to unleash more powerful attacks and abilities. The following are phases of the overclock gauge along with non-official names for them.


Summons
Shiva


Shiva supports multiple elements(unlike in the past where she was ice exclusively). Also, Shiva has the ability to transform into a bike!

Magic
Previously known magic spells will be used such as Fire, Thunder, and Blizzard. MP(Mana/Magic Points) will be used as a source for these spells.
In this screen, you can see that the basic magic attacks are 40 mp each. You can also see in the command menu that it says 'Firaga', so the spells will go Fire->Fira->Firaga in terms of power, instead of the older system, Fire1->Fire2->Fire3.

There are also some sort of gravity attack which the character can do using devices on her fingertips. They can be used to knock opponents down using a powerful gravitational blast.


Weapons
Lightning uses a gun-blade based weapon. It is not exactly like the gun-blade used by Squall in FFVIII. Lightning's gun-blade can be flipped around(see below images) to rotate between melee and ranged attacks.