Remember two or three years back, a few months before Final Fantasy XII came out, when Squeenix treated us to a remarkable bunch of videos showcasing the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII and it’s action-themed partner, Versus XIII? At this point it’s time to venture a terrible theory: it was all just for LOL’s, and we will never play these games.

Legend/God Tetsuya Nomura has come out and said that Final Fantasy Versus XIII is currently “on hold” so that the development team can go give the regular FF XIII team some help getting their shit in gear. Not that we should’ve expected it any earlier, but it looks like we’ll be getting FFXIII in late ‘09 (at the earliest) and Versus XIII just before the world ends, if the Maya are to be believed.

Versus XIII is apparently going to be a more action-oriented adventure with a Kingdom Hearts feel to it, whereas FF XIII classic will have more conventional Final Fantasy battle system, though the early trailers suggest that fluidity between adventuring and battling will be a big advancement.

UPDATE:
Square Enix, in response to this story, told Eurogamer that “Reports that development for Final Fantasy Versus XIII is on hold are false. The truth of the situation is that when free, some staff from the Versus team have been helping with the XIII team on development of Final Fantasy XIII. Development for both titles is continuing as originally scheduled.”

Sounds like the guys on the Versus XIII team aren’t going to be getting much sleep between now and 2010.

From Kotaku