Now this is interesting. In a recent interview with Japan Vibes (which, oddly enough, is a French magazine), Final Fantasy I through VI character designer Yoshitaka Amano mentioned Final Fantasy XIII as one of the projects he was working on. He wouldn't say anything about what he was doing for the project, or what system it was for.

This is worth noting for a couple reasons. One, it's one of the first mentions of FFXIII in any capacity. There was a rumor in EGM recently which said that the game would be shown in trailer form at E3 as it had supposedly been in production for some time, but Square gave out the usual "We have made no official announcements" response. This acknowledges that it's in development, which certainly no one doubted, but it's the first semi-official word all the same.

Secondly, it confirms that Amano is still working on the series. Considering he's done work for all the Final Fantasies, some might take this as a given, but after longtime series producer Hironobu Sakaguchi left to form his own company (and took some FF veterans with him), and longtime composer Nobuo Uematsu went freelance, you can't be too sure. The question on the mind of many, though, is not whether Amano is doing work at all, but what kind of work is it.

Some have taken the news to suggest that Amano might be back on as a character designer. This may be due to the mistaken belief that Amano was removed from the series after Final Fantasy VI, where Tetsuyo Nomura took over as character designer because Amano's flowing, ornate art was too difficult to replicate in 3D. Actually, Amano has worked on every installment of the series, acting as "image illustrator" for every FF from VII onward, excluding FFIX where he returned to character design. Thus the work he refers to may not be any different from the work he's done previously -- logo design, promotional images, etc.

There's always the possibility they may use him again as a designer, just don't take this as the evidence for it. What is worth noting, though, is that he seems to do his non-character design work rather late in production. Witness this interview from December of 2000, where he says he's in New York to work on images for FFX, just six months before the game's Japanese release. If he is doing his regular image illustrator job for FFXIII, it may be further proof that the game is very close to completion already.

Source: Games Are Fun