Finishing up the playable demo of Final Fantasy XIII, I must say that I am very impressed. And to be honest, I was a bit of a skeptic on whether or not this game was going to be worth my time.
About the Prequel :
First off, I would like to mention that I was a huge fan of Final Fantasy XIII for a few reasons.
I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay. I loved the concept of Paradigm Shift. Anyone who believed Final Fantasy XIII was nothing but selecting: Attack, Attack, Attack, clearly did not get very far in the game. Paradigm Shift keeps the player on their toes at all times.
I thought the music was fantastic. So much, in fact, that I have been trying to learn the songs on the piano for myself. A lot of people were naysayers because Nobuo Uematsu did not do the music. The only complaint I had was I felt like there wasn’t as big of a musical score selection as from previous Final Fantasy games. But what was there, was very well done.
I liked how the game was linear in a sense that you always knew where to go to progress in the game. You never really lost touch from the main story because of this, and you always were in the midst of action vs being lost and not knowing where your next objective was.
What I wasn’t a fan of was I felt the story was kind of weak and I didn’t really feel close to any of the characters. I basically only liked Lightning and the others just didn’t do it for me as much as the usual large loveable cast in a Final Fantasy game. But that’s just me.
And for me, story is really what drives me in an RPG. If the story is lacking, it better have awesome gameplay. I was worried that Final Fantasy XIII-2 would fall short of both the story and the gameplay aspect, being a sequel and all. I have not even pre-ordered the game (as of yet) because I was not sure if I could expect the very best.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Demo
You can complete the playable demo in about an hour. Upon completion it goes through a series of clips of cutscenes and gameplay that one will see when the game is released in its entirety.
Right off the bat I noticed how they did not fall short on the graphics, much like the prequel. Everything is beautifully rendered and sharp. The music is very fitting to the setting and pleasing to the ear. I can’t wait to hear more scores from the game itself.
A new character is introduced, Noel Kreiss. Noel has come from the future, because Lightning (the lead protagonist in FFXIII) wants him to find her sister Serah in the past. Noel is apparently the “last of humanity.”
New Features for Battle System:
Change who the leader is during battle Cinematic Action – It’s basically like a cut scene during battle. This makes you feel like the story is slightly progressing even in the midst of battle. Select the correct button in time to fulfill an attack and progress the scene. It makes the game keep that fast pace feel. Add Monsters you encounter to your party Swap out Monsters during battle by adding them to your Paradigms Feral Link – A unique attack is unleashed after you fill the Feral Link Gauge by your Monster Entering a battle is different than what I’ve seen before. Basically the screen is not cluttered with enemies. Instead, when you are about to enter a random battle the enemies essentially pop out of the ground. You can strike at them first causing a “Preemptive Strike” or you can even run away from them. The map turns red when an enemy is trying to start an encounter and then returns to normal if you escape. The transition from the regular map into a random battle is extremely fast. I didn’t notice any real load time. The end of a battle screen is the same as FFXIII, where you are scored by stars based on how well you did, along with any items or Monsters you obtained.
Vendor
I encountered a merchant named Chocolina. Basically she is a wandering merchant woman dressed as a big Chocobo. Call me crazy but my first impressions of her reminded me of the Chiquita Banana Lady. Perhaps it was her bubbly personality and her colorful Chocobo costume. I haven’t decided if she will become annoying as you progress through the game and have to listen to her for hours every time you enter an item shop or not. Maybe she won’t be so bad, but she is a reoccurring vendor.
Moogle
A moogle follows Serah around, pointing out areas of interest, and making his mark during cutscenes. And he says more than, “Kupo!” He is a very cute, classic moogle who is holding onto a wand type thing with a clock on it. He doesn’t do anything from what I can see in any of the actual battles other than transform into Serah’s weapon, as you will see Serah embracing him as a victory pose at the end of battle.
Temporal Rift
Temporal Rift is a puzzle area you have to complete to progress. There are crystals on the grid that you have to walk over. When you pass a grid, it disappears so you cannot back track. If you screw up, you can reset the grids and try again. The purpose is to make it to the end of the puzzle by walking over the right blocks in the right order. So far it seemed like it might be a pretty fun puzzle throughout the game. The Temporal Rifts in the demo were pretty simple, but it made me wonder how often they occur or how complex they get. It’ll be something I anticipate when I play the game in its entirety.
Adornments
Adornments are basically for fun. After taming Monsters, not only do you have the opportunity to level them up, but also dress them up! This may seem really cheesy and unneccesary to some but I think it was pretty fun. I only acquired two Adornments during the demo.
The one I equipped to one of my Monsters was an Orange Newsboy Cap which was essentially an orange and white striped baseball cap that I could put on one of my Monsters. It made me laugh and smile, while wondering what other crazy Adornments the game has to offer.
Adornments are only a fun cosmetic, and add no attributes to your Monsters.
Other side notes:
I liked Noel more as a character than I thought I would from seeing simple screenshots. I was afraid he was going to be a whiny hero that you wanted to slap. But, so far he seems pretty likeable.
The menu was clean and similar to FFXIII.
The maps weren’t as linear as FFXIII, (some complained about FFXIII being too linear) but they still seemed pretty direct. You always knew where to go next, but there were a few extra twists and turns to make on the way instead of a single tunnel.
When scrolling through weapons for your character you can see the item being held by the character before officially being equipped. I thought this was a nice little feature to the menu, with an added 360 view available.
Overall impressions:
With all the customization of the Paradigms, Monsters, Adornments, and leveling up I feel like Final Fantasy XIII-2 will become an addicting game all bundled up in as a gorgeous package of visuals, music and story. It’s always hard to fully judge a game, based on a demo, but I am extremely impressed with what I have seen thus far.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is to be released Jan. 31, 2012, in the U.S.