Okay, so downloading the Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo kept me very anxious. I am sure many people have been curious to see this game and wondering how it is like. How much has changed from Final Fantasy XIII? Has anything been improved? Find out here.
Alright, so I know the VERY first thing people are wondering. The linearity as Final Fantasy XIII was seen as a nightmare with its overworld. By overworld, I mean this.
Yes, this is actually what a map looks like in Final Fantasy XIII. Oooooh! A Line!
Now that we got that joke out of the way, as soon as this demo started up, it seems they are ditching Full-Motion Video pre-rendered cut scenes as far as this demo shows, which means the time and the budget must be focused somewhere else on the game. Once again, I also notice the framerate has dipped comparing to the previous installment, but it’s really not enough to care. Presented with a battle right into the demo, the battle system is similar yet there are quite a bit of differences. For one, after a while, I was given a Quick Time Event. Now these Quick Time Events involve you having to press the indicated button(s) or move the joystick in the indicated direction(s) and if you fail, you don’t actually get a game over, quick time events are a determinant of bonuses, not success. I won’t necessarily judge, since Quick Time Event(s) are a mixed received subject in the world of gaming, you may say it breaks up the monotonous-ness of lengthy combat or you may say it is unfair for unexpecting eyes.
Final Fantasy meets God of War.
Alright now we are done with the battle but now lets look at the ma- HOLY COW!!!
Immediately, I get very happy and I run around in every direction, I find hidden treasures, I talk to almost every NPC and get side quests from quite a few of them. Ran into locked doors I cannot access yet (oh I cannot wait until it comes out so I can see where it goes) and I was just impressed. Only one small complaint is how its both a pro and a con that the NPC’s are all voiced. That is great in one way, but in another way one of the NPC’s I talked to sounded like they were just reading their lines but it is very forgivable. Then I even ran into the shopkee—WHAT THE…
..Well hello there...wait you are the shopkeeper? Interesting...
Well now after seeing Chocolina (calm down there square fans, an attractive woman in a Chocobo outfit is easy to get your attention, I know!) who talks like a whimsical Dr. Seuss character (who runs every store in the demo if I forgot to mention), we then get onto the battlefield where the monsters are. From here on out, here is a list of the notable features (or changes from FFXIII).
- Enemy icons no longer roam on the field, they appear at random intervals and a barrier around you appears with those enemies in the barriers along with the mog clock that appears on the screen. The mog clock determines the bonuses or negative bonuses if a battle occurs, sectioned by green, yellow and red. If you strike the enemy early enough and start the battle, you will get a preemptive strike (Green). If you simply touch the enemy icon or if you strike while it is in the yellow section, it will be a normal battle. If the mog clock runs out of time and you havent gotten away from the enemies, you will get negative bonuses into the battle and you cannot escape that battle.
- You can change leaders on the fly in mid-battle
- If the character you are controlling dies, you will be shifted over to the other character to control
- Monsters can be used in your party, but they are only one class so in the paradigms, you can switch the monster that is used to something different, instead of changing their class. (Since they only have one)
- The Monsters in your party have special abilities with meters that will build up to allow you to use them, those special abilities are also determined by Quick-Time-Events, the more accurate you are with the indicated actions, the better the attack will be.
- Accessories are now determined by accessory points instead of just how many open slots a character has. You can put on as many accessories on one character as you want until their accessory points hit 0.
- You are allowed to manually jump outside of battle, used for platforming.
- There is a travel percentage indicated on every map to tell you how much you have traveled.
- The Crystarium System now gives bonuses every so often and you get to choose what bonus you get (such as a new class, another ATB gauge, etc.)
- There are now puzzle-like events where you have to pick up all objects but you can only step on each square once.
So there is the Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo and overall, I am impressed. It feels promising and a huge improvement over Final Fantasy XIII. Game Crunch will be looking forward to playing Final Fantasy XIII-2.
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