DEMO INCOMING!!

[nirojan]

Even though pre-order sales in the US are outpacing FFXIII, SE has decided to release a demo for XIII-2.

PSN: Jan 10, 2012
XBL: Jan 11, 2012

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Demo Incoming

[Rostum]

Hmm interesting, I'll have to try it out. Is this just for NA or is it for all regions?

[chionos]

Hmm interesting, I'll have to try it out. Is this just for NA or is it for all regions?

Looks like NA gets it on the 10th, EU on the 11th. After watching the Moogle trailer, my anticipation has increased quite a bit. Definitely gonna try out the demo.

[Jiro]

Well this could be interesting!

[Silent Warrior]

... I think I just crapped my pants. Download servers, tremble in fear!

(Did I ever tell you how much I like flat-rate ADSL connections?)

[Jessweeee♪]

I don't think my neighbor's unprotected wifi is going to cut it for this one.

[Mirage]

... I think I just crapped my pants. Download servers, tremble in fear!

(Did I ever tell you how much I like flat-rate ADSL connections?)

I don't understand... is that fast?

[nirojan]

My Impressions:
A definite good start to changing things.

There were a few thing i didn't like though. I wanted one-touch character switch, but you have to go into the triangle menu then switch out which seems a little pointless since L2 & R2 are unused. The "cinematic action" (glorified QTE's) are not as bad as some gaming Journalist made them out to be. At the end of the Atlas fight it was pretty much exactly what I expected, although in the full game I hope they have more then 'Move Left' and Press 'X'. Graphically I'm a little disappointed. There are ALOT MORE slowdowns and framerate drops. There aren't any trailing animations (such as walking on a puddle/body of water doesn't produce the associated distillation effects). Moogle gets EXTREMELY ANNOYING after playing for just under half an hour with it. Voice acting and lip syncing could use some work, but I'm guessing the US version's gone Gold about now and won't be changing anytime soon.

Some good things I liked about the demo. Choice and variety are definitely there. Love the way side-quests were given (in this instance soldiers you talk you tell you their problem FULLY VOICED and you can choose to accept the side mission). The Temporal Rifts don't seem that fun, but are a welcome change of pace from the usual combat. On the gameplay topic, the combat in entertaining and dynamic as ever and I love the Pokemon/DQ-type Monster collecting aspect. The fact that every creature has its own move set and Feral Link is astounding. Now while I berated the graphics earlier, things do look a little more polished than before. The faded look is gone, replaced with a glossy look. The water effect reflect building and backgrounds appropriately. The rain effect dripping on the screen (even though its been done in every game) is a nice touch. In the 'after-demo-video' snow effects looked nice and a bit of snow gathers on Noel's head. The Historia Crux and multiple pathways and decisions are really nice way to flesh out an RPG. But It seems kind of forced in XIII-2 and regardless of the decision you make, you end up with the same outcome in most cases (read this on a JPN review). Loved the Jump button, even though it's pretty useless. Hate it when it's absent from Mass Effect/Dragon Age (even though it'd be pretty useless in either series).

All in all, I'm looking forward to this game and got the Collector's edition Pre-ordered at Best Buy.

[FFFFsephychibi]

Square can have bad voice acting and an annoying moogle sidekick all they want, cause they just earned my $63.74

You can finally earn GIL when you defeat enemies again, the most ESSENTIAL staple in the history of the series. I'm so glad that has returned. Thank you Square Enix!!!! THANK YOUUUUU!!! ARIGATO GOZAIMASUUUUUU!!!

[Silent Warrior]

Mirage: Uh, I'm of course not quite sure what you misunderstood, but what I BASICALLY meant is that I'm happy I'm not on a connection that charges you per megabyte. A set monthly fee, no matter how much you download. Makes game demos significantly more bearable for the economy.

[Mirage]

Oh, ok. I just haven't heard of people having such a plan unless they were getting internet via their mobile phone or something like that.

Also, the demo was pretty pleasurable. I played it last night even though i'm in Europe. Screw you, EU PSN delays!

[Rocket Edge]

Downloading as we speak. I really hope it's not like XIII, you probably know my reasoning's like many others. Will come back later and give my review of the demo.

[Silent Warrior]

It seemed OK to me, but if I have one criticism, it's that the demo was way too short... MOAHR! :twisted:

I admit to a certain... apprehension regarding the Moogle. (If anyone misses it, it seems to morph into Serah's weapon. I'm not sure if I'm giving away a plot point here...) I'm also a little worried, actually, about the grandeur they seem to be aiming at with Atlas - if a mere boss (?) is like this, what antics, contortions and SFX are they going to pull at the Final Battle(tm)? Will they make my PS3 explode, blow my mind so I can't take the important bits in, or make me go '... Meh, didn't they do this 20 minutes ago?'?

[VeloZer0]

I'm also a little worried, actually, about the grandeur they seem to be aiming at with Atlas - if a mere boss (?)

We all know that size doesn't mater, just your ATK stat.

[Lamia]

I played and beat the demo. By going off this demo, the graphics are nowhere near the quality level of Final Fantasy XIII's. The game now features non-linear map design which is what we have all been expecting. In the demo, the map was well-designed and fun to explore but it comes with some trade-offs: there are now random encounters and an inferior framerate to FFXIII. The random encounters are interesting: a bolt of lightning strikes down randomly and suddenly you're surrounded by monsters. Your choices are to strike the monster on screen for a preemptive attack or dodge and run far enough away until the encounter disappears. Your success of running away can still fail even if you haven't been struck by the enemy and the timer runs out. The timer starts when a random encounter happens, and during this time you must run away or engage the enemy. When the timer stops you have either escaped or have failed to escape. This system is an odd design choice considering that one of the few things Final Fantasy fans have NOT missed is random encounters. While it is modernized version of the system, it surprisingly became quickly as annoying. In some ways it is worse than the old random encounter system, because you don't have to be moving around the map to be struck with an encounter. There were times where I was just checking out the scenery and BAM... I got to run away from monsters. Other times I was trying to listen to an NPC and BAM... random encounter. Overall, it is an OK system and allows the map design to be less streamlined than in XIII. In XIII, the meticulous presentation and the fact that dodging or sneaking up on encounters was central to the gameplay meant that narrow areas made sense. It's not hard to dodge an enemy in a wide open space! But I digress... Folks will be happy about the changes but it is apparent that there have been a few trade-offs.

You can now collect gil from defeating monsters. I know many will be happy about that although I did like the resource management in XIII--do I sell these items to make money or do I use them to upgrade my equipment? In XIII-2, you get both materials and gil from battles.

If the rest of the game is like the demo, then there will be side quests to complete throughout Final Fantasy XIII-2. Better yet, they are given by NPCs. In the past, there haven't been very many fetch and kill quests given by NPCs that you would normally see in a Western RPG. The side quests were usually at a much grander scale or dealt with an area on the map that was not visited during the storyline. Still, many people will appreciate this extra layer of interactivity, especially after XIII, which had no NPCs to interact with and not much to do outside progressing the main storyline.

The battle system is almost the same as the one in XIII. One main difference is now you can recruit monsters into your party. When I heard first heard about this I wasn't very excited about this feature. However, after playing the demo and realizing how fleshed out and polished the system is; I have changed my mind. You are able to have three monsters in your party at a time (they switch out according to which paradigm you have employed), they can be dressed in clothing, and they have special attacks. Neat!

The crystarium has improved. You now simply level up your job classes instead of having to hold down A to travel along the lines and nodes of the crystarium... which was pointless as it was linear anyway, and did not really have meaningiful deviating patches like in FFX's sphre grid. In XIII-2, when you reach a new crystarium level, you can now choose different bonuses for your character or even new roles to unlock. What's important about is that you have to make a CHOICE and I think gamers will appreciate that.

Finally, the hub areas in XIII-2. There was one large one filled with NPCs in the demo. It was very neat and nicely conceptualized. The only issue I have is that NPCs will not stop talking to you. There should be a few that automatically talk to you, sure.. but the majority should only speak if the player walks up to to the NPC and presses 'X'. But it is not the case in the XIII-2 demo, everywhere you go NPCs are talking your head off. Sometimes this clashes with Alyssa talking to you through a communication device (im assuming? lol she talked to me throughout the demo even when I was nowhere near her)... This is a minor complaint and I think most will be happy now that there are hubs and NPCs.

Oh, the music is amazing in the demo.

Overall, XIII-2 features changes that fans want but there are definitely some trade-offs. It's a weird situation because I think fans of XIII will not be like some of these trade-offs, while people that didn't like or hated XIII may not even bother buying this game.