<i>Final Fantasy XIII-2</i> playable demo now available

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Final Fantasy XIII-2 playable demo now available

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If you're looking forward to Final Fantasy XIII-2 and the wait is killing you, there's some potentially good news: Square-Enix today released a playable demo for the game that is available for download on both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.

The demo takes place in Bresha Ruins and lets you control Noel and Serah as they are pitted against a gigantic and powerful adversary called Atlas. An anomaly in time and space has caused Atlas to appear. By participating in the battle against Atlas, players will be able to experience many gameplay features and enhancements to the original Final Fantasy XIII engine, including cinematic action sequences in battles and environments with multiple areas and paths to explore (a change that those who played through Final Fantasy XIII should definitely appreciate).

Also featured in the demo is the brand new Paradigm Pack System. Players will be able to enlist defeated enemies into their party and develop them alongside Serah and Noel. Gotta catch 'em all, right?

“The demo provides an excellent opportunity for players to try out the evolved battle system and fully explore an entire area of the game,” said Yoshinori Kitase, producer of Final Fantasy XIII-2. “We are very pleased to give our fans the chance to see the multitude of game improvements for themselves.”

I don't tend to try game demos myself, and I probably won't try this one, but I have to say... the more I hear about Final Fantasy XIII-2, the more I want to play through it. We'll be sure to review the proper retail version following its release at the end of the month, but in the meantime, maybe you'll give the demo a go and let us know what you think?

Staff article by Jason Venter (January 10, 2012)

Jason Venter has been playing games for 30 years, since discovering the Apple IIe version of Mario Bros. in his elementary school days. Now he writes about them, here at HonestGamers and also at other sites that agree to pay him for his words.

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	Suskie posted January 11, 2012: I played it last night. Thoughts? Meh. The battle system seems largely unchanged except for the inclusion of stupid, uninspired, completely unnecessary quick-time events (seriously, what did they think that would improve?) and the ability to add monsters you've defeated to your party, which pretty much just means having an extra character to fight with. (They also have what are essentially limit breaks.) On the plus side, I liked FFXIII's battle system and I'm glad to see that the sequel's level design gives you a little more breathing room; on the other hand, what I loved about the original was the steadily expanding learning curve of its battle system, and that's something you can't grasp in a one-hour demo. I pretty much fought every battle in the same manner. Also, no matter how good this game is, I feel it's kind of shot itself in the foot by being a sequel to FFXIII. The story, characters and world-building in the original were such a convoluted disaster that I've already completely put it out of my mind, and as such, I haven't the foggiest idea what's going on in this game. l'Cie? Cie'th? Cocoon? What the hell is all this stuff?
	jerec posted January 11, 2012: I vaguely remember FFXIII's made up terms for stuff. The game itself had an index, I think. You could look up all that crap. I think the idea behind the worldbuilding was actually quite interesting, but the whole on-rails RPG didn't let you see enough of it, and the potential went to waste. I should have a go at this demo, because I doubt I'll be paying full price for this one (or any FF game, now). The same battle system worries me, because like you said, each battle gets played out the same way. I got through FFXIII using RAV RAV COM, sometimes switching in a healer or one of the other classes if I felt like it.
	Roto13 posted January 11, 2012: I don't know why so many people have trouble understanding XIII's world. Fal'cie are "gods" that make life comfortable for the people in Cocoon or Pulse, l'Cie are Fal'cie slaves, Ci'eth are l'Cie that fail to accomplish their given tasks. Cocoon is a tiny planet with people living in it sealed off from and floating above a world called Pulse. There was a war between the two worlds once long ago and now the people in Cocoon are constantly living in fear that Pulse is going to attack again. Sanctum is Cocoon's evil government who has the people convinced that Pulse is so evil that anyone that comes in contact with anything from there becomes tainted and must be "purged" (which they say means sent to live on Pulse, but actually means executed). That's basically the world. Nothing really overly complicated about it. It makes perfect sense to me. Regarding the battle system, two ravagers and a commando are a fine way to start most battles, but bosses (and later regular enemies) go down a lot quicker and easier if you learn to take advantage of your roles. For example, use Commando/Synergist/Saboteur or Medic/Synergist/Saboteur to cast buffs (specifically haste, protect, shell, and en[element] if you know the enemy's elemental weakness) and debuffs (slow, deshell, deprotect are absolutely necessary for a lot of bosses), then switch to Commando/Ravagerx2 to start the chain, and then three Ravagers (or two Ravagers and a Saboteur) to build the chain up quickly to get the enemy staggered. A lot of the hunts on Pulse take a good bit of thought before you can manage to take them down. I mean, you can get by (in most of the mandatory bits of the main game, anyway) with Commando/Ravager/Ravager and a Medic or two thrown in from time to time, but I don't know why anyone would want to. Seems like it would take an unnecessarily long time.
	honestgamer posted January 11, 2012: There's entirely too much "Cie" in that lore, and I think that's the problem. When I would write fiction, I had to be careful not to give characters similar names or the readers would get lost half the time. That was a consistent criticism. Yet here we have three or four separate concepts/characters/whatever with incredibly similar names. That's probably the biggest problem. With all of that said, I'm definitely looking forward to this game. I got enough of the lore--even with the confusion--to get the general idea and I'm interested to see where the story goes. More than that, though, I'm cheered by the prospect of more open worlds to explore. The game looks like it could be awesome.
	Suskie posted January 11, 2012: Actually, the problem is that the story attached to FFXIII's world was so awful that I forgot about it all the second I put the game away, so being thrust back into it after two years is disorienting. But yes, Roto, you're totally the superior being for remembering it all.
	jerec posted January 11, 2012: What I played of this demo seemed a lot better than FFXIII, though. An open sort of area where you can talk to NPCs, for one thing.
	zippdementia posted January 12, 2012: I'm with Suskie on this one, completely. The part of myself that's interested in seeing what was good about FFXIII (the battle system and graphics) being put to use in a better fashion is totally overwhelmed by a lack of desire to revisit any of the same characters or setting. Funny, back when I was kid I wanted nothing more than direct sequels to my favorite RPG series. Now that Square Enix has started regularly doing that, I wish they would stop.
	espiga posted January 12, 2012: I played the demo, it's pretty awful. It's nice that the areas are more open, even if the NPCs don't seem to serve much purpose. At least it adds some flavor to the world that was sorely lacking in XIII-1. Unfortunately, the battle system is still terrible, because every single battle can be won by spamming "auto-battle" and occasionally switching up the jobs. I like the job switching mechanic, but it seems rather pointless when your other party slot is being filled with the equivalent of 1-3 Pokemon that's locked to a single job. Also, the demo was terribly short, and I didn't even really have any context as to why I was there doing that stuff with the characters. It's pretty sad, really. Considering how Final Fantasy Type-0's demo consisted of the first 3 hours or so of the game, allowed you to carry over your save data to the real game, and even encouraged you to do so by giving you special costumes to wear that can only be unlocked by carrying over the demo's save data... Seeing XIII-2's demo in the state it's in is just pathetic. Likewise, Type-0 had a 11 minute trailer that was pure gameplay footage after the first 10 seconds or so, compared to XIII-2's trailers, which are 90% cutscene, 10% gameplay. To me, it's painfully obvious which title Square Enix is more proud of, despite the media blitz that XIII-2 is receiving in the States.
	Suskie posted January 12, 2012: Unfortunately, the battle system is still terrible, because every single battle can be won by spamming "auto-battle" and occasionally switching up the jobs. I like the job switching mechanic, but it seems rather pointless when your other party slot is being filled with the equivalent of 1-3 Pokemon that's locked to a single job. What I liked about FFXIII was its steadily (albeit slowly) ramping difficulty curve, which gave you more options in battle as it fed you new combat situations that you couldn't just autopilot your way through. And yeah, the FFXIII-2 demo's battles all pretty much played out the same way for me, which got boring pretty quickly. It could very well be that FFXIII-2 gets progressively more engaging, as the first one did (for me, at least), but a demo is supposed to get me excited for a game, and this one didn't. Besides, FFXIII was criticized mercilessly for taking so sluggishly long to fully unveil its combat mechanics; why start from square one again for the sequel?
	honestgamer posted January 12, 2012: I've never liked a demo very much, except for the Final Fantasy X one... which I wound up liking maybe better than the overall game, truth be told. Seriously, demos have almost made me miss a lot of great games that I wound up loving (Skies of Arcadia and Driver: San Francisco leap most readily to mind), so not only do I not usually judge games by their demos, but I also don't usually play demos at all!
	zigfried posted January 13, 2012: Likewise, Type-0 had a 11 minute trailer that was pure gameplay footage after the first 10 seconds or so That trailer is probably the coolest videogame trailer I've ever watched. After 3 or 4 minutes, it became a game of "How long will they keep showing nothing but exciting gameplay footage? When will they break down and finally show me a CG?" And the answer to that question was spectacular. I want the game more than I've wanted any Final Fantasy since FF1. //Zig
	Suskie posted January 13, 2012: I just watched it. That game looks sooooo much better than Final Fantasy XIII/XIII-2, holy crap.
	threetimes posted January 14, 2012: I was a bit disappointed that you couldn't save progress on the demo. I played for half an hour, needed to take a break. Stopped and then found out I'd have to start again. No thanks.
	True posted January 19, 2012: The story, characters and world-building in the original were such a convoluted disaster that I've already completely put it out of my mind, and as such, I haven't the foggiest idea what's going on in this game. l'Cie? Cie'th? Cocoon? What the hell is all this stuff? I thought I was the only one. I tried the demo and its bizarre vocabulary actually prompted me to buy and replay XIII to try and get a grip on what all that shit meant. I'm halfway through. It didn't help. On a side note: Fang is hot. So is Lightning. $20 well spent.
	zippdementia posted January 19, 2012: For free you could go online and look at hot porn. Some of them even have stories as convoluted as FFXIII.
	True posted January 19, 2012: For free you could go online and look at hot porn. Some of them even have stories as convoluted as FFXIII. Stories? What kind of crazy-ass porn are you watching?

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