In the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu there's an extensive interview to Tetsuya Nomura and part of it is dedicated to the ultimate PS3 chimera, Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

During the interview Nomura gave some interesting information about the game's cutscenes, confirming that the real time ones will let the player retain control of the characters to avoid any sudden break in the gameplay.

He also mentioned that the development team is using an entirely new technique to get rid of the artificial facial expressions you see in many games, and create much more natural ones.  During the interview Nomura shown three screenshots to the editors and while they aren't able to publish them, given that they are firmly under embargo, they reported being extremely impressed with the quality.

The lighting engine seems to be the most interesting part. According to Nomura it applies concepts normally used in pre-rendering technology to real time rendering, and it gave the editors the impression that the screenshots looked extremely similar to actual real life pictures.

Another interesting tidbit is that the player can take pictures in the game at any time, using the protagonist's cellphone.

Finally, recording of the voices of the game is underway, with many scenes featuring the four male characters speaking together, and recorded together in the studio, while they interact directly with each other. That's actually peculiar, considering that recording multiple actors at the same time is rare in Japanese voice acting, and is more akin to western techniques like the ones used, for instance, in the world-renowned Italian studios.

The date for the next reveal about the game has already been set, but of course Nomura was tight-lipped about the specifics. We'll have to wait. We already did for several years, after all. Patience is a virtue.

[FF Reunion via Andriasang]