FFXIII-2 Demo Review: Better than FFXIII?

[IcyShards]

Tell me what you think of the video or/and the game! Comments are greatly appreciated!

Without further ado...

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Demo Overview (HD Gameplay Footage) - YouTube

So far, I'm impressed with the demo. I was really amazed by the fact that the map was branched in different areas that had unique looks. The scenery, the weather and the flow of the environment amazed me. I definitely enjoyed the anomaly puzzles. The one thing that disappointed me was the fact that you had to press a button to jump cliffs (though I can see why Square Enix decided to set it this way).

What do you think of the gameplay? Do you think Square Enix focused too much on that, making the story worse than it was before? Do you feel like the cinematic actions are too gimmicky? What about the puzzles and other mini-games such as the chocobo race? How do you feel about being able to play less characters? Do you miss unique past characters such as Fang and Sazh?

Most importantly, will you be getting the game and give it a chance?

Please share your thoughts!

[Andromeda]

I tend to be less critical until I'm pushed to the dislike side of things. So I pretty much just will forgive anything. I found the couple of additions and tweaks to the battle positive. The possibility to change leaders in battles and repeat previous inputted strings of commands are before welcome. The wound damage you take now certainly adds a new sense of danger and tactics to the battles.

I was surprised that npcs had like 5-8 things to say rather than the usual 1-3 things. Plus it does a full cycle, so if you accidentally skip over something you can see it again. It is a little confusing with all of the moving that they do, that they end up on the other side of the map sometimes.

I am wondering if Chocolina is going to be the only shop or if there will be others available. Everything else about the game I enjoyed. I put in 3 hours to the game on my first playthrough and I'll probably put several more before the game is released.

[IcyShards]

I tend to be less critical until I'm pushed to the dislike side of things. So I pretty much just will forgive anything. I found the couple of additions and tweaks to the battle positive. The possibility to change leaders in battles and repeat previous inputted strings of commands are before welcome. The wound damage you take now certainly adds a new sense of danger and tactics to the battles.

I was surprised that npcs had like 5-8 things to say rather than the usual 1-3 things. Plus it does a full cycle, so if you accidentally skip over something you can see it again. It is a little confusing with all of the moving that they do, that they end up on the other side of the map sometimes.

I am wondering if Chocolina is going to be the only shop or if there will be others available. Everything else about the game I enjoyed. I put in 3 hours to the game on my first playthrough and I'll probably put several more before the game is released.

Yes, the existence of wound damage does make the battles a little bit more hectic. Therefore, less time is spent on just pressing the auto-attack. I was satisfied to see that the NPCs finally say things that actually matter for game progression. I love the Live Trigger feature: options are always interesting. Players are able to somewhat set the difficulty of boss battles by having that possibility. I just can't get enough of the transition between the areas. It's so well-made that you only realize that towards the end.

[che]

Hard to tell if it's better than the first one or not, but they certainly added a bunch of cool new stuff. I'm gonna pick it up for sure.

The anomaly puzzles are kinda meh, but whatever.

3 hours into the demo, Andro? I beat it in like 30 minutes. What did I miss?

[IcyShards]

Hard to tell if it's better than the first one or not, but they certainly added a bunch of cool new stuff. I'm gonna pick it up for sure.

The anomaly puzzles are kinda meh, but whatever.

3 hours into the demo, Andro? I beat it in like 30 minutes. What did I miss?

Side quests, trying to expand the Crystarium and train the monsters a little bit more.

[Andromeda]

Yeah I talked to everyone that had something to say and exhausted all of their dialogue. I did both of the quests that were available, explored the entire area. And I maxed out one monster, brought another to the next level of the Crystarium and did the same for Sarah and Noel. I unlocked Synergist and Saboteur and got them both to lv 7 among leveling other roles as well. So I did a lot in the demo before actually finishing it.

Besides I had fun. ^^ I didn't want to stop playing and for the next two weeks this is all I'll have to play of FFXIII-2.

[loaf]

I need to buy me some FFXIII and get busy again for my 2nd playthrough on my own 360.

[che]

So you start with like 21 Phoenix Downs, and they sell for 500g each. The new weapons once you get to Chocobolina are a huge upgrade, but for like 960g each. I just sold a couple and was able to buy them. Pretty cool.

Didn't know you could unlock the other two classes in the demo. TY

[Andromeda]

Yeah, I didn't notice until later that I had so many Phoenix Downs and my usual habit of being a pack rat ignored the sell option. But I still made enough to buy the weapons and upgrade items for the monsters, apart from the ones I earned.

[proudclod_sj]

I was generally impressed by the demo, played it for little over an hour to get a feel for it. I loved XIII and XIII-2 is, by dev's self confessions, improvements on the whole.

Best new features for me were the ability to change leader at any time, in XIII that caused a lot of problems post game with stronger monsters so glad thats sorted, also the paradigm shift times are so much shorter with no animations... the flow of battle is much more seamless.

The inclusion of monsters as a third party member works much better than i first thought it would, i can only guess that its going to make for so much more customisation when it comes to personal battle set ups.

Going to jump back into the demo now and do as others have mentioned, level up noel and serah along with some of the monsters, as well as sell the pheonix downs and maybe try Atlas the hard way. Cant wait for the full game!

[Nas Lost]

ima cop dis wen it becomez a greatist hitz title 4 20 buckz

[Tezcat]

I enjoyed the demo. Having played the full game I definitely prefer it to XIII and can't wait to play it in English.

[Alex]

I am extremly pleased with the demo, it's really fun. I like all the new improvements, like the new crystarium which gives A LOT more freedom than it did in 13. I also liked the puzzles, and the non-linearity !
I played the demo for about 2 hrs and I am most pleased with the ability to recruit monsters to your party, it's really fun to customize and name them.
When I played it I got this weird -but positive- vibe of old-school Final Fantasy. I dunno, but it just felt great !

I am SOOOOOO getting this !

[markandrewkinzett]

Completely opinionated it does look great but until you play the game you cannot properly judge it some may prefer others some may prefer this but until you have played the game I wouldn't speculate on wht it is gonna be like. In any case I will say yes it DOES look awesome and it probably will be but until you have played it I would not put anything down in stone just yet.

[IcyShards]

Completely opinionated it does look great but until you play the game you cannot properly judge it some may prefer others some may prefer this but until you have played the game I wouldn't speculate on wht it is gonna be like. In any case I will say yes it DOES look awesome and it probably will be but until you have played it I would not put anything down in stone just yet.

That is all correct. This is why I'm simply reviewing the upcoming game based on my first impressions. There is definitely a possibility for disappointment once the full game is out. The story may primarily be the negative aspect of the game.

[adamjr67]

I was really impressed with the demo, but will see if the game is better than FFX111

[cetra_aeris]

I thoroughly enjoyed the Demo when I played it. To be quite honest I enjoy the new jumping feature. I pretty much spend a good 5 minutes just jumping around the map! The new battle stratagy and being able to switch leaders in battle is an improvement to say the least. And the different dialogue made the surroundings more interesting. I liked the fact that there were different responses for the character by which leader you chose.

The mog clock and revealing treasures were also a neat new trick. Especially since Mog doesn't always show you where they were at. I found two unseen treasures that just happened to catch my attention in the light.

I have to say I'm really looking forward to this new game, and I can't wait to play. I've been playing the Demo over and Over! It just facinates me.

[Rowan]

I played it a few times to get as much out of it as I could. I have the crystal edition on pre-order. Heres my verdict.

The weapon models didnt change, only the colours did which is an incredible let down, they could at least try to create new models for weapons instead of just changing colours. Having said that, I assume there will be different models of weapons, but there will be many that are the same but different colours, this to me is just pure laziness on part of the design team. But it may just be demo exclusive, we wont know until the release.

The jumping was exactly the same as the jumping in FF13, when you see a circle of light, you jump. So nothing new there.

One major thing that bothered me was the crystarium, it confused me. I didnt understand if it was just one big crystarium with all classes combined in it, I wasnt able to distinguish how far I had advanced in one class compared to another.

The monsters were pretty cool to have in your party, not to mention an utter neccassity. Without them, you will lose that demo. So we must rely on them to be in the party. Not sure if I like that. Although I did like how customizable they are. Hopefully more than 1 accessory can be equipped on a monster at a time. I enjoy how they can be leveled up too.

I didnt enjoy the puzzle part at first, but I could see myself enjoying them as a nice change of pace.

Battle system. This is what grinds my gears. When the remake was in the works, they were talking about revamping the battle system as it was perhaps a weak point of final fantasy 13. I find myself hitting auto-attack pretty much all the time aside from when I need to click a button to change paradigm ,then auto-attack again in that paradigm. The battle system has added in the use of a pet monster (which is essentially just another character) and the only other thing I saw was the "wound" effect which would lower your hp permantly for that battle (unless you cure it with magic or an item). These 2 things in my opinion are far from a re-vamped battle system. As I mentioned earlier, one can still get away with the old Auto-Attack. This is probably the biggest dissapointment for me. But what can you expect from a recycled sequel? You dont have to look too far for an example of one (X-2) to realise why this sequal would be any different.


Having said those things though, it is final fantasy and I am intruiged by what else it has to offer. More important things such as character development and storyline save the game for me. Cant say im that impressed with the character of Noel, but I dont know much about him yet. Naturally I'm expecting FF13-2 to have far more than what the demo offered.

some good stuff:
Chocolina is cool.
I like how the character models show in the menu.
The monster development system shows promise.
I like equipping and combining lots of accessories, seems to be good customization there.
Environments seem a little better (from trailers mostly).

[Andres]

The Demo was pretty good and it was big upgrade from FF13 =]