There’s something weird about summoning a god and turning her into a motorcycle. But that’s exactly what happened during our latest peek at Final Fantasy XIII, the newest in the series that spawned thousands of turn-based-RPG imitators. And the fact that you can ride that motorcycle around and drop icicles that kill enemies? Well, let’s step back a bit…

The bike battle we glimpsed is a combat scenario referred to as Gestalt mode — a new approach to a Final Fantasy–series staple of summoning mythical creatures to beat down on the bad guy. But instead of simply calling on them and having them swoop in and lay waste, then go back to wherever they came from, each character in your party will be “paired” with a specific summon. In the case of Shiva, she’s tied to FFXIII’s resident badass-with-a-bandanna, Snow.

Once he invoked Shiva, the rest of the party disappeared, leaving him to fight alongside Shiva’s physical form — in this case, a set of twins wielding a giant wheel. That’s not too weird, right? But in Gestalt mode, the twins transform into…a motorcycle that Snow can hop onto to ride around the battle area. Game director Motomu Toriyama claims that this segment in a fight will feel more “actionoriented” than the usual command-driven, turnbased approach of regular combat.

But that “regular combat” doesn’t necessarily follow the old Final Fantasy–series rules, either. Having stacking attacks that depend on the number of “slots” in your active time bar mixes up the action, allowing you to choose different ways to battle an enemy. Got all that straight? Whew!

Riding gods and stacking attacks? It certainly seems that Final Fantasy’s Xbox 360 debut will be a fresh experience for series noobs and veterans alike.