Chris "WildCardCorsair" Garcia

It's that time again, time for a new Final Fantasy. Square Enix is quickly becoming the Call of Duty of RPGs and that statement kills me more than you know. Now... this isn't the first direct sequel Squeenix has tried to milk a game for, the first being Final Fantasy X-2, a game that a spectacular failure in my, and many many many other people's, eyes. Ironicially enough the game can be compared to X-2 just as easily as XIII. Before I begin that though, let me start with my general impressions from playing the game last night.

So I think everyone's first question will be: "Is it actually an RPG this time?" the answer is.... maybe. First you're fighting a giant hand as Noel and Serah. Combat at this point is 99% similar to XIII. The 1% being the addition of Quick Time Events, which every gamer I know aside from Gusto will roll his eyes at. Indeed, it seems like Final Fantasy is becoming the next Kingdom Hearts (Dont rage, internets, I love KH, but you have to admit KH2 would have been just as good without the QTE).

So after the giant hand leaves, presumably for a manicure, you're stuck in a camp. You're given leave to roam around and talk to some (not all) people in the camp before leaving but in all honesty this doesn't feel like the town experience from other games I was hoping would finally be included this time around. Most noticibly talking to the assorted individuals you could yielded absolutely no(!) quests of any kind. In fact I wondered why the hell the game even let you talk to anyone, most of the conversation was entirely irrelevant. It's around this time Gusto also pointed out the rain effects. While the rain would occasionally splash the "screen" (c'mon people have you even HEARD of the fourth wall?) and that looked good, the ripple effects as the rain hit the ground were completely out of sync and very generic looking.

Yay, now it's time to go out and kill more monsters with Noel and Serah! Heading out of the camp you are immediatly thrown into a battle against a cait sith and one of those roasted chicken looking things with the picture frame around it like a hoola-hoop. Easy peasy, but upon winning the baddies crystalize and Mog explains Serah has the ability to command certain monsters. Oh shit, is this actually a new mechanic?! So I head to the menu and equip the two monsters I have. The very next battle I run into I have an adorable little cait sith running around behind me, with paradigms of his own. Essentially these guys become the new party members.

Immediatly in fights I notice my active monster has a Feral something-or-other gague (sorry the name escapes me at the moment). It's essentially the new "Limit Break" gague and once it fills you can press a button and your little monster will unleash a small attack of varying power based on how quickly you enter a couple quick time commands.

I headed back to the menu and noticed a few more things at this point. The first was the monsters can level up. The second was a very very intruiging fuse ability. I don't know why I didn't check it out, but I was instantly excited, as many of the Shin Megami Tensei games feature a kind of demon fusion that allows for very awesome gameplay and party customizing options. Another observation was a revamped Chrysallis system. This is one of the things that bugged me about XIII as your characters were on rails both in environments and in stat growth. This time around instead of having a seperate path for all your paradigms you have intead one path and when you activate a node you choose for the node to enhance an existing paradigm. For instance Noel has Sentinel, Commando, Ravager, and another I never used... I think it was Synergyst. Activating a node allowed me to choose a paradigm to activate it for, keeping the cursor over Sentinal showed that particular node would have unlocked an ability, shifting the cursor to Ravager I saw that same node would have activated Frostbite. Smaller nodes didn't reveal what they added but activating a smaller node for Sentinal added HP to Noel. I think this is the single best addition to this game as it allows for true character customization and all the pride that goes along with it. I'm sure many a geek will hit the forums with his "superior Noel Sentinel build", but thats ok, because for the first time since FFVIII I feel like I have direct control over what "Jobs" my characters are, or at least which once I choose to advance. You have no idea how happy that single fact makes me.

The last real observation I made in the demo before turning it off was that there seems to other choices you can make in the course of gameplay. When the big, newly manicured hand comes back and starts tearing up the place because you chipped his last nail job, you are given the option to face him directly or to head into a small facility and operate a newly powered up peice of machinery that you believe may weaken him. I chose to go that route and after fighting a few more monsters and solving some minigame puzzles that seem like they're Sqeenix's answer to Catherine, I powered up the machine and hoped for the best. The beast became fully corporeal, making him a huge blue guy instead of just a hand, but reportedly he became "slower" according some some annoying chick calling you on your invisible phone. Immediatly going to fight him I felt like I made a HUGE mistake as he thuroughly cleaned my clock with his two hands, instead of just one. Right here is where I turned it off but you better know when I get home tonight I'm firing it up and going to see if not having powered up that machine actually makes a difference in the fight or if that is just the illusion of choice, something far worse than never having been given a choice in the first place.

Now if you haven't made up your mind about this game based on the changes made, or in some cases not made, or at least made up your mind about whether or not you're going to play the demo, let me make one thing clear. If you abolutely hated Final Fantasy XIII, if you just loathed this game so much you didn't finish it, or regreted playing it, Final Fantasy XIII-2 will not be the great redeemer. But if you feel like me, that FFXIII was a good game, just not a good Final Fantasy, FFXIII-2 may be the game you can feel good about, maybe even bring home to meet your mother.