Final Fantasy XIII watered down because of Xbox360?

Since the announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would not only be on the Playstation 3 but would also be released for the Xbox360 in America, Fans have bickered back and forth which edition would be superior.  What first started as a petty spitting contest between fanboys for either system, soon turned itself back into the heated debate across forums and in stores over which system was better. But for the fans who didn’t care about the systems and focused solely on the game, one fear lingered in their minds, “If the systems versions were equal, what would we lose due to Xbox not using Blu-ray’s space availability?”.

In a recent interview with Final Fantasy XIII’s art director at the Japanese site FF-Reunion, Isamu Kamikokuryou revealed that almost a full games worth of content was removed from the final finished product of Final Fantasy XIII.

Among these removed bits of content was (aside extended dungeons) a secret base for Snow’s hero squad Nora (one time located within Lebreau’s shop), a full area for Lightning’s home (which included a park), and one of the game’s amusement parks also had an extended zoo area that had to be removed. Speculation can only lead one to believe that along with these areas being removed, portions of story that were involved with them were taken as well.

With all the recent heat that the game has gotten for a linear story, its a shame to see that this game was so deeply affected by what one can so plainly see as  the inclusion of an Xbox360 edition.

Fans first saw the signs of this possibility when Square-Enix revealed that most of the games side quests would be inaccessible until the later chapters of the game due to the disk restrictions of the Xbox360 and that they were aiming for the Xbox360 version to be merely 3 disks long and story related DLC for the game wouldn’t be a foreseen addition.

While news of the games English version being finally completed may ease the minds of some fans, others who viewed Xbox’s involvement from the begining as quite literally the worst thing for the game will have to now live with knowing what game they could have had if not for Xbox.

UPDATES/FOLLOW-UPS:

2/17 – Final Fantasy XIII looks better on PS3.

2/23 – Insomniac Games believes Final Fantasy XIII is best on PS3

2/24 – CONFIRMED: FINAL FANTASY XIII On XBOX360 Is Half The Size of PS3 Version.