Final Fantasy XIII-2 Demo Out

Bond · 01-14-2012, 12:09 PM

Apparently a FFXIII-2 demo is out on Xbox Live (and I would assume PS3). Everyone should try it and post impressions here.

DarkMaster · 01-15-2012, 01:13 PM

Tried it. It's pretty alright, although I was noticing a lot of framerate issues (PS3 version). I guess I'm not used to 25fps with all the PC gaming I do. Areas are bigger and more open, there's actually people to talk to and they give you quests. Those things alone are marked improvements over the first game.

Battle system is mainly the same. Lots of tweaks and improvements made to paradigms and the crystarium. Having monsters join you in combat is neat, thought I think I would just prefer a third real party member.

The main thing I'm not liking is the characters... the worst character from the first game (Serah) is now the main character, which is the worst idea they could've come up with. I would rather play as ANYONE other than her, even annoying-ass Vanille has more personality. New guy Noel seems like your typical anime dude, we'll see how he turns out. And also Mog is stupid as shit, turning into weapons and making dumbass whiny comments in a horrible child-like voice.

It's really hard to judge any game by a demo, especially for a 40+ hour RPG. It's getting some decent reviews and many people say they really listened to fans complaints with XIII, so I'll give it a shot at some point.

BreakABone · 01-15-2012, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkMaster

Tried it. It's pretty alright, although I was noticing a lot of framerate issues (PS3 version). I guess I'm not used to 25fps with all the PC gaming I do. Areas are bigger and more open, there's actually people to talk to and they give you quests. Those things alone are marked improvements over the first game.

Battle system is mainly the same. Lots of tweaks and improvements made to paradigms and the crystarium. Having monsters join you in combat is neat, thought I think I would just prefer a third real party member.

The main thing I'm not liking is the characters... the worst character from the first game (Serah) is now the main character, which is the worst idea they could've come up with. I would rather play as ANYONE other than her, even annoying-ass Vanille has more personality. New guy Noel seems like your typical anime dude, we'll see how he turns out. And also Mog is stupid as shit, turning into weapons and making dumbass whiny comments in a horrible child-like voice.

It's really hard to judge any game by a demo, especially for a 40+ hour RPG. It's getting some decent reviews and many people say they really listened to fans complaints with XIII, so I'll give it a shot at some point.

Yeah RPGs are a real tough thing to sell in a brief demo, which is actually why I downloaded this, wanted to see what they shared.

I will say I haven't played FF XIII yet so I honestly can't speak of the issues people had with the first one.

But I kind of enjoyed the demo because I think the battle system in the game is interesting and different. You said its similar to XIII so that must be a good thing, but its kind of an interesting spin on the turn based battle.

Also an interesting, albeit it odd spin on random battles since, they are random but you have to manually engage them for the most part.

I do like the creature stuff, reminds me of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, but that also got tiresome. I'd rather have a legit human with some growth in that final role.

Also, the story, albeit just a snippet, seems weird with multi-plane existence or something.

Typhoid · 01-15-2012, 05:15 PM

(On the annoying character front).

Do you have to be Serah throughout the game (like you'd have to 'be' Cloud in 7) - or is it like 12, where there is no actual main character, and you can just control whomever you want.

Quote:

But I kind of enjoyed the demo because I think the battle system in the game is interesting and different. You said its similar to XIII so that must be a good thing, but its kind of an interesting spin on the turn based battle.

I feel like I'm the only one - but I actually really enjoyed the battle system of 13. It was (in my mind) the perfect mesh of oldschool FF, and real-time.

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Also, the story, albeit just a snippet, seems weird with multi-plane existence or something.

Play the first one. err...the 13th one. I found the story to actually be pretty enjoyable for a Final Fantasy game. Obviously you can't compare it to NA RPG's because it's got 0 grit in it. I found it to be like playing a movie. The path is pre-determined, but you're just along for the ride. I appreciated that, because it looked so good. Plus the boss battles were actually pretty tough - unless you googled how to speed through it rather than trial and error.

DarkMaster · 01-15-2012, 05:21 PM

You can switch between Serah and Noel as controllable characters, they are the only party members in the game. The third role in combat goes to a monster that you summon based on what paradigms its assigned to. You can customize your monsters with accessories that change their look, and also level them up to improve their usefulness. I believe you can also merge monsters to create new ones.

And yes, the battle system being pretty much the same is a definite good thing, it was easily the best aspect of XIII.