With the
Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo having been available in North America and Europe for the better part of a week now, and having personally played it a few times for the sake of enjoyment and analysis, I thought now would be as good a time as any to review it.
Although only a demo, this review will use virtually the same basic formatting as one of
Final Fantasy Insight's regular reviews, just without any use of imagery and of course lacking actual scores.
Story
The
Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo takes place during the game's second chapter, named
Episode 2: Unseen Intruder, and is set in the
Bresha Ruins in the year
005 AF. This means that we miss some of the important character introductions, and we're dropped straight into the plot of
Noel Kreiss seeing
Cocoon from the inside for the very first time. It seems that we get to play the majority of Episode 2, although a few key segments have been taken out (presumably to keep some of the plot a mystery), and I'd be lying if I said it was the most plot-heavy of demos. We hear a lot about Paradoxes, which are distortions in time and space in locations across the world across time caused by something that shouldn't belong in that time.
In this demo, we are confronted with a boss battle against the so-called Paradox Alpha (given the name
Atlas following the battle) as soon as it begins, and the rest of the chapter deals with Serah and Noel trying to find a way to defeat it, hopefully resolving the Paradox of that time and location.
Plotwise, that's about it, as a key scene it has removed is
Alyssa Zaidelle's introduction, which happens after the fight with Paradox Alpha. The demo cuts out a soon as you defeat Atlas at the end of the Episode, leaving out the final cutscenes of plot, presumably the scene shown in numerous trailers where Alyssa talks about her dead friends, as throughout the demo she contacts Serah and Noel over radio to ask if they can find a cemetary.
The Bresha Ruins -005 AF- are home to a research team from the
Academy who are studying the nature of the Paradoxes in the area, believed to be centered around the presence of Atlas. We are also introduced to
Chocolina, the time-travelling merchant who is the game's one-stop-shop for shopping. She is the game's only point of sale, and she appears more than frequently throughout the game, with four locations in the Bresha Ruins of the demo.
Gameplay
Gameplay is really where the meat of the demo happens, and we're given quite a free reign on a large majority of the game's exploration and battle mechanics. The battle system is taken from the final build of the game, including the ability to switch party leader in the heat of battle, and we also have free access to the battle-related options on the in-game menu outside of battle, meaning we can access the
Crystarium, alter our
Paradigm Pack (which is the set of three monsters you can switch in and out of Paradigms), and the full customisation of monsters, which includes their adornments (two available in the demo), names, and the
Infusion system.
On the actual battle controls, if you've played
Final Fantasy XIII, things will be familiar enough, so I won't linger there too much. The main differences are how
Paradigm Shift animations are now much shorter, the addition of
Feral Links, and the entry into battle using the
Mog Clock system. It's outside of battle that all the changes have happened.
Most importantly is probably the adidition of a monster-based third character in battle. A large quantity (see: not all) of enemies in the game have a chance to be recruited post-battle; this will be shown by a crystal floating up from the battlefield once all the enemies are defeated, and in the battle results screen, the recruited enemies will flash blue. The enemy will be recruited at Level 1, and will be immediately available to put into your Paradigm Pack, should you so wish. Each enemy is now given a set Paradigm Role, which is now included on their bestiary entry, visible as soon as you enter battle alongside whether or not they can be "Tamed". The Feral Links provide really quite fun mini-breaks from the normal flow of battle, and it's become something of a fun pastime of mine to try and see how quickly I can press the commands to get as high a bonus as possible.
Serah, Noel, and any monster in your inventory are all levelled up via the Crystarium (returning from
Final Fantasy XIII), though the method how differs between the two characters and the recruited enemy. Without getting too bogged down in the exact nature of it (I'll reserve that for the proper page in the
Final Fantasy XIII-2 section), stat progression is decided by which Role you level up on large nodes on the Crystarium, whilst abilities are restricted to the level of the Roles. Every time a full circuit of the Crystarium tier is completed, we get to choose a special bonus, ranging from a Role Bonus (increased attack power for Commando, faster Chain increase for Ravager, etc...), to extra ATB slots, even to unlocking Roles you currently don't have (Serah and Noel start off with only having access to Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, and Medic in the demo).
Monsters don't gain CP, but still have access to the Crystarium (which is shaped like the monster itself), where progression is determined by consuming certain items throughout the game. These otherwise-useless items are similar in existence to the Components from
Final Fantasy XIII, and are similarly split into organic and manmade categories, with organic monsters consuming organic ones, and robotic enemies consuming the inorganic ones. As they increase in level, they will need a higher number of items to increase in level, and further down the line will need a higher "grade" of item, and each item has an associated stat boost that affects the growth of the monster. As with Serah and Noel's various Roles, each monster will gain different abilities at different levels, and will gain bonuses every time they complete the tier of their Crystarium.
The big difference for enemies comes from the ability to
Infuse each enemy with another one. This allows any enemy to consume the crystal of another enemy to gain their passive abilities and even some of their attacks and magical abilities should they be allowed to wield them (this, for example, allows an enemy who learns Fire abilities exclusively to gain access to Blizzard). This removes the enemy "consumed" from the inventory, allowing the player to recruit another Level 1 monster of the same type and starting again.
The Crystarium and monster building in the demo provides quite a lot of depth (surprisingly just for a demo), and I can see it becoming something very strategic and interesting to use in the full game itself.
Finally, for exploration we have two new abilities in the demo (there's more in the final game), free-jumping and Mog Hunt. I'll be honest and say I was a little bit underwhelmed by the jumping in the demo, as we don't really get to use it for much, and the times when it's best used is still shown by the glowing blue rings used in
Final Fantasy XIII-2, so we don't get to really gain anything special through it. Whether or not this is different in the final game, I don't know. Mog Hunt sees a bit more use, in that there are several items hidden throughout the demo that Mog will sense (and one in particular that he won't, but you can see it sort of shimmering), and at the press of a button he'll warp time and space to make the treasure chest appear. Hunting for every one of these will probably be a lot more time consuming in the final game, especially with all the different locations and time zones available.
I was surprised at the level of freedom we had to explore the game's system, with what appears to be full access to the game's menus and battle options, it gave a really good taster of what the final game will have to offer, and I have to say I'm impressed. After my first playthrough I thought it might get boring in the long run, but I explored the Infusion system in particular in subsequent replays, and found myself trying to create the "ultimate monster" just for the demo. Speaking of which, a huge recommendation if you haven't played the demo, if you want a Commando monster, try and get the Meonekton, they're fairly easy to kill and yet have surprisingly high stats (especially compared to the Uridimmu, which is harder to fight and yet weaker once on your team).
Graphics and Design
Final Fantasy XIII-2 runs on the same engine as it's predecessor, so there aren't any huge surprises here. They're not the best graphics of this generation, but everything is surperbly detailed, and some improvements have undeniably been made to the character models. This is particularly noticeable on Serah's hair during the game's closeups, but also to some of the quirks of movement to the characters, like Serah using her arm to wipe her brow every so often when running. This makes the design in this aspect an improvement, but where one thing is better, other things make it worse. Although I like Mog (more on that in a second), I don't get why he looks like he's made of plastic. With the undeniable effort made in the looks of the characters (though it has to be said, with several NPCs I couldn't help but notice how they seemed to be pieced together from elements of characters in
Final Fantasy XIII, like men in PSICOM uniforms, but with Yaag Rosch's hair, etc...), it seems like Mog is still a work-in-progress, without any kind of fur detail. My only understanding of this is that it *could* have been done so that hiss transition into a non-furry weapon for Serah would be believable.
Speaking of weaponry, that's my other gripe in terms of design in the demo. Whilst I applaud the fact that we can gain a new weapon for both Serah and Noel, I was somewhat disappointed to discover that these weapons are simply recolours of their default weapons (not particularly attractive recolours at that), and I hope this won't be the overriding case throughout the game (at least we know the DLC weapons look different).
On the plus side is something that
Square Enix have gone to great lengths to tell us about, and that's the opening up of locations. Even at an early stage of the game as it is, the Bresha Ruins show that they really have expanded the location design for the game, allowing a choice of different paths, allowing gamers to never check out some places should they not wish to. It gives much more freedom of exploration, though it should be noted that each map has a "completion" rating, and from what I've heard (so don't quote me on it), you are rewarded for completing each map.
Music & Sound
The
Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo uses, rather ironically, thirteen pieces of music (I played through the demo three times just to catch them all) - with one of these being taken from the
Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack (
Desperate Struggle, used in the battle against a Cie'th), and one of which features in two "mixes" (haha, thirteen tracks, two mixes, XIII-2 anyone?) - followed by some extra music during a post-demo trailer. The music ranges from standard instrumental music, to electronic pieces, and includes one of the game's vocal pieces, a relatively unobstrusive rap (
Worlds Collide) during the battle against Paradox Alpha. I've been listening to the game's soundtrack on repeat since it's release in december, and I'm quite a fan of it, even some of those tracks that other people have been less than enthusiastic over. In terms of the demo, however, the only track in it that has really caused any sort of contention is the background music used throughout the Bresha Ruins,
Invisible Invader (I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's official English name is
Unseen Intruder, as with the Episode title).
On the game's official soundtrack,
Invisible Invader features lyrics performed in a rap style by
Aimee Blackshleger, and is a song that has been of some comment, with quite a large amount of negative criticism levelled at it, mostly stemming (as far as I'm aware), from the actual lyrics rather than the performer. Now I don't know if this is the case in the Japanese game (as there are several different time zones, so the music may differ in ways between each time zone), but the demo doesn't feature any lyrics. Personally I think this version of the track isn't as interesting, but I suppose it's completely subjective.
Voicing obviously returns, and it's a bit of a mixed bag from what I've picked up in the demo.
Laura Bailey's return as Serah is very welcome for me, I love Laura Bailey, and she helps to make Serah such a good character.
Jason Marsden seems nicely suited to being Noel, he certainly sounds better in the demo than he did in the game's trailers (I don't know what it is with
Square Enix and trailers, but they certainly seem to make the voices sound flat and emotionless). I'm probably one of the few people who enjoy the voice of Mog (we don't know who voices him yet, but I've been betting on Ariel Winter) - at least from the perspective of the acting, where I really hear nothing wrong (I just keep on remembering
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon, that was painful). My only issue with Mog is that he's male, and yet he undeniably sounds like a girl, and not just a woman trying to sound like a young boy but a girl. Its the kind of thing that doesn't bother me as much with the Japanese voice, but it really disturbs me in English. The other complaint I've heard alot (and I'll echo to a degree) is Chocolina, whilst some of her lines are fine (and I'm hoping that'll be the majority case in the game), there's something intensely grating about the rest of them that just makes me think of "cheap anime voicing".
Length & Replayability
This will be a short one, it's only a demo (the rest of the review has turned out a lot longer than I'd intended). The demo can probably comfortably be finished in roughly an hour, though it can take longer if you want to try out everything. As well as tracking down Atlas, there are three sidequests (two fetch quests and an enemy-kill quest), and with a total of nine different enemies to catch and develop, there's plenty of things to get lost in, especially coupled with a lack of restrictions on how to develop Serah and Noel (monsters are restricted due to the unavailability of high-grade items). My longest playthrough of the demo was today, clocking in at over three hours, during which I played a lot with the Infusion system.
Conclusion
So, to finish off what was meant to be a mini-review, I was nicely impressed with the demo. While it didn't give much in terms of plot, it more than made up for it in gameplay features, which so far have definitely gone to show that the developers took on board several of the criticisms levelled at
Final Fantasy XIII. If you can, I'd strongly recommend checking the demo out before the game's release in the next couple of weeks, and if you can't, all I can really say is that from the demo, I'm very excited at the prospect of the game's playability!
