Cocoon.....
A city in the skies, created by the Crystals. A peaceful town, protected by machines, has been without turmoil for many years. Now they live in fear. Fear of everything outside their city, people, monsters, but above everything else they fear what comes from the dark regions. There has been reported contacts though with those known as pulse from the world below. Those who made contact with them have began to ask questions about the way their lives are lived. With the growing threat of the ones that came into contact with pulse, the government ruling Cocoon has declared anyone that contacts a pulse will be exiled.
Then, One Crystal began seeking out a woman. A woman who would destroy this world and all who live there. One believes that this woman has the power to bring this world to its utter end. That woman is Lightning.

Final Fantasy XIII will mark the transition for the series to the PS3. XIII has also been confirmed for release to the Xbox 360. This is a great relief for those who still cannot afford the PS3, or who do not want to buy one. It also marks the first release of Final Fantasy (Outside of XI) for the Xbox.
It was originally being produced for the PS2, but it has been rumored that after seeing the power of the new generation system, the entire project was scrapped and started over.
Not much is known even now about Final Fantasy XIII. It has been confirmed that the battles will be set to real-time such as they were in XII, and XI. The Active Time Dimension (ATD) system for XII has been replaced with a new ATB system. Ech action taken by the character costs ATB points. It is not known at this time how the points are gained, though one can assume they are gotten after battles. Nor is it known what will happen if they are completely consumed in battle.
All of the game is being produced on Squares new Crystal Tools engine. It has been confirmed that all forthcoming releases including Final Fantasy Versus XIII will be utilizing this system.
"The engine handles advanced audio processing, cinematic cut-scene transition, physics effects calculations and special effects rendering. The Crystal Tools reportedly uses four of the six developer-available synergistic processing elements (SPEs) of the Cell Broadband Engine Architecture microprocessor to achieve near-pre-rendered CGI quality in real-time. Square Enix recently announced they had licensed Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 to use on a number of particular other upcoming current generation titles, but will still use Crystal Tools for Final Fantasy XIII" (quoted from Wikipedia)
Whatever the specs for the new system, the battles seem to be overwhelmingly awesome in the trailers seen thus far.
There is little known about the music for XIII, but what has been heard for the compilation thus far shows Square is still dealing with some of the best scoring in the gaming world.
Without any real knowledge of the game, it is difficult to give any more review of the project. But as more information becomes available, I will be placing it here.
As of right now there is no confirmed release date for either Japan or America. But it has been stated that Square would like to go for a simultaneous release across the globe, as they are doing with their "Last Remnant" project.