How could you hate MGS4?!
Never mind, I have more interesting things to talk about: The Final Fantasy XIII Demo!!!
I got it through post last week, but I only managed to play it today, and IMO it is as awesome as it gets.
The true successor to Final Fantasy X (11 cant be counted, and 12 was... lame)
First off, the packaging:
It came in a double cd/dvd-sized sleeve casing, and inside were the two crystal cd-cases for each disk (FFAC, one for the demo), each with their own mini-booklet.
Up until I saw the beautifully printed cd's (bluerays) I had my doubts, but seeing the XIII one put me into a fever to play it pronto.
So that is what I did... and it almost gave me a heart attack!
My PS3 is setup on a 52" plasma with HDMI cable and surround-sound, so usually I can see clearly the level of detail different game-companies tend to put into their games.
I was not expecting the opening movie sequence to almost bring tears to my eyes, honestly, the attention to detail was sublime and so awe-inspiring, amazingly detailed 3d models and effects, the entire scene looked as though it could be onto a cinema-screen and still you would feel that there were more details under each pixel
The music felt very reminiscent of FFX, a mellow primary theme, and the faster bass orientated music in-game.
I dont know if Uematsu has any part in this game (he retired from FF didn't he?) but the music in FF13 feels spot-on so far. Nothing overly jarring (like in Crises-Core) nor of sub-par quality (FF12).
And once I started playing, there was a long string of CG-sequences. But I wasn't bored. They were all so awesome, as much as I couldn't wait to get started, I wanted to see
more!
That's when things became a little tricky.
You first get to play in the middle of a "boss" battle of sorts (a scorpian type mecha!), and I didn't know Japanese very well so I had to take guesses and see what each action did.
The new battle system is a little annoying actually. They seem to have gone back to the old ATB (FF7-FF9) route, with the time-guage building up, but now you have three slots into which you can select actions to perform.
For quick actions, you select a 1-slot item then hit triangle, and as long as the ATB guage is above one-slot, the character would perform that action.
There were various 1-slot actions, and it seemed as though different combos and attack patterns were possible by selecting them in different orders.
Curing also worked the same way. For a quck Cure, you just select a single Cure-command and execute it as soon as the ATB-guage goes over one slot. Combine three Cure-commands and pressing triangle when the ATB-guage gets Cures the character THREE times.
Well, maybe its not that annoying, and only the language barrier made things a little awkward.
There were no "after-battle posing", instead a screen showing the time taken to dispatch the enemies with a 5-star ranking system. I couldn't understand the other information it showed though, but there was a pattern where the higher star-ratings (4,5) gave 1 or 2 "items" wheras lower star (1,2) would give nothing.
It is surely a new innovative system though, and I cant wait to see how levelling up will work (there was no Menu option in the demo at all).
When not in battle, the camera stays behind the character, similar to FF12, but with less control.
The maps reminded me of FFX, linear and one-way. Maybe it was just the restrictions placed on this first area (in all FFs after 4, the first areas are always linear).
"Treasure-chests" are floating orbs of some technological history, quite a break from tradition IMO. I had absolutely no idea what it was until I got near and it said "Treasure Chest" in english.
Around the maps are circular glowing rings on the floor, and as you go near it the character "jumps" over obstacles etc automatically.
And I wasn't able to talk to anyone explicitly, like in the older FF's you would go upto some NPC and hit the action-button and the NPC would start talking. The character would just start talking out loud, maybe you would hear the NPC saying something back, but no longer are you "stuck" whilst they communicate, and can now move around.
Maybe theses were a special kind of NPC though, because of the situation and what was going on.
And now the most important of my experiences: the characters, setting and story
One word can describe it better than any: Depth.
Immedietly you can notice the stark contrast between the outside world (natural, almost prehistoric and undisturbed by humans) and the inside of the City (technology overflowing, a City which has been around for a very long time).
And inside the City, there are ships flying around, bridges spanning endlessly in all directions, yet war-torn with a civil-war waging on. There is an immediete sense of history, that this technologically advanced place has been around for so long, that unrest within the populous is just another trivial event.
Then the parallels with FF7:
A cold, blond haired hero(ine) (with a sword), a chatty dark-skinned sidekick (with guns), getting off trains, dealing with scorpian mech bosses.
It isn't starkly obvious though, but any FF7-fan would realise the similarity with a slight pang of nostalgia (sigh).
What I dont understand is the fascination Japanese people have with black-guys and small yellow chicks?!
There was SNK's Duck character, recently Bruce-Irvin's new Tekken-6 special move, and now this new guy in FF13.
Peculiar.
Lighting's walk was a little too feminine for the situation, but hey, the game must appeal to the male audience in some other way too, right?
I believe she is generally quite feminine though, a fearless woman with a strong will, very much in the mould of Ashe or FFX-2 Yuna, but carrying a burden of secrets (much like Auron).
Snow is actually quite cool IMO, as open and friendly as they come (Wakka, Tidus, Zack) yet with none of their air-headedness. Fights with his fists, and doesnt babble.
The other characters who help him were unique and quite cool as well, but they didn't have HP values during battles so they are probably just "guests" who we wont get to see much of in the full game.
And then there is that mysterious red-haired girl (Vanille?), who puts the icing on the cake.
During the openging CG, we see her as a mature young woman, apparantly narrating the first and last lines of the entire demo.
But I swear she was also present in Snow's play-event, as a little girl who he accepts a gun from him.
If that truly is the same girl, then we can assume that the time-scale of this game will be quite large too, spanning over two generations. What happens to Lightining, Snow and Sazh, I dont know, but they will probably find a way around it (there is VersusXIII to add to the mystery too!)
Maybe parallelling FFX (the story of Auron, Braska and Jecht was a sgnificant factor of the current generation's events) or FF8 (Laguna and his story, the events leading from Squalls childhood through to the primary story arc). Or offcourse FF7 too.
All in all, this demo does what it sets out to do.
It proves that the Final Fantasy series is still a hallmark of video-games.
It is a *huge* leap forward from FF12, and will lead the way for even better (and sooner released) Final Fantasy games, thanks to the new game engine.
I can happily wait another year (or two) for the full game to finally come out (in its English perfection) now that I have seen what it promises.
This may very well become one of the best in the series.
Perhaps not as good as FF7 or FFX, but promises to be MUCH more than FF12 could ever be.
My money is on Final Fantasy XIV(14) now though.
The numerical significance of the number, along with the stable technological base for the developers, can only mean that the next title in the series will pull no punches to perfect the franchise and deliver the greatest Final Fantasy experience since FF7.
(whew)
