Final Fantasy XIII ships in Japan – new screens and clip to tide over the west

Final Fantasy XIII is almost here.  Well, it is if your “here” is Japan, where the game will hit shelves December 17, only two days from now.  The JRPG-starved rest of the world will have to wait until March 9th, 2010.  However, as the hype machine ramps up in advance of the game’s Japanese launch, those of us stuck stateside can’t help but feel that heady emotional cocktail of excitement, anxiety, and yearning.  Here to enable all of those gut-busting emotions, we wanted to update you folks on recent happenings in Square Enix’s world.

First comes the news that copies of FFXIII have officially shipped in Japan.  The numbers are as follows:  Square Enix has so far shipped a million copies for launch, to be followed by another 150k for the first weekend, followed by another 150k for the second weekend.  That’s 1.3 million copies of the much anticipated title ready to be snapped up by eager otaku in the first week and a half.

Now onto the goods: we’ve got a plethora of new screens to share.  In the gallery at the bottom of the page, you’ll find a whole host of new battle shots as well as three landscape shots.  We’ve seen this game’s battle system in action, but these give us glimpses of monsters we haven’t seen yet.  Each landscape stuns in a different way, from a mess of machine to an ancient ruin and a lush jungle with some funky flower-trees.

Finally, peep the clip below – the latest Final Fantasy XIII ad to hit Japan television sets.  To call it “action-packed” barely does the clip justice; it shows off some new battle footage as well as some pretty heavy cinematics.  Was that an Alexander summon I saw somewhere in there?  You be the judge:

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*Images courtesy of Square Enix.  Video courtesy of YouTube user beyondsanda.

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