Final Fantasy XIII-2 Demo Review

Serah Farron, wielding the Starseeker.

When a demo hits just 20 days before release and already has a complete Japanese version, that's a sign that the demo will not feature any changes from the final version.


The demo of Final Fantasy XIII-2 is surprisingly long and in-depth, allowing you full access to the battle system early in the game, although the demo will cause anyone who doesn't know any of the backstory to be incredibly confused. The game is also clearly not for people who did not play Final Fantasy XIII, picking up battle-wise right after the former; 4 l'cie roles are unlocked right from the start and you have the option to unlock a 5th role halfway through the demo.


Although the Paradigm Shift system is largely unchanged, the Paradigms themselves can be more finely tuned between the default FFXIII setting, a setting with more focus on a single target labeled "cross" or "X", and a setting with more focus on multiple targets labeled "wide" or "W." This allows the Synergist, Saboteur, and Medic roles to be more varied in ability, potentially causing a Deck to be filled with 2 or all 3 variants of the same Paradigm. There's also a new menu option, allowing you to change the party leader before entering commands, which makes the difficulty much easier since you don't get a Game Over for the party leader dying.



The place the demo takes place is incredibly deliberate. Without spoiling too much (and sounding nonsensical in the process), the demo takes place 5 years after the fall of Cocoon (5 A.F.) in the town (yes, town) of Lake Bresha, back up on Cocoon. We never got to see Lake Bresha before it was crystallized in FFXIII and seeing a town with actual friendly people in it organized like FFXII is really cool.


It's difficult to judge the story because of being thrust into the 2nd Chapter without any explanation of what happened in the first chapter, but apparently a lot happened in Chapter 1 because there's this girl named Alyssa who keeps talking to you and a moogle who follows Serah everywhere. Hilariously enough, Noel and Serah are just as surprised as the player to see that the moogle speaks.


The Crystarium is vastly improved, allowing you use your CP to enhance your stats as you wish and develop roles at your own pace, although if you don't level up the roles balanced, it takes more time to develop the lower level roles. Monsters take the place of a 3rd party member, having only one role, and you can only have 3 different captured monsters in your deck, forcing more strategy before certain areas and boss fights. Monsters can be infused into other monsters, transferring their abilities for when you get much stronger monsters for use in combat; notoriously, Omega Weapon is an available monster to use in the party once defeated.


One weakness I did find is that sometimes too much is going on during battles that the game can be incredibly hectic, especially for a scenario that takes place so early in the game.


Chocolina is incredibly hot, but her purpose doesn't make a lot of sense; I was fine with the robo-shops in FFXIII, but I guess SE wanted to make the shopping experience more personable after people complained about the lack of NPCs encountered in the previous game.




I still don't know if I'll be purchasing the full game when it comes out. The game is much less linear than the previous game and features an even better battle system, but the game's music is downright awful, minus the few tracks returning from FFXIII (Desperate Struggle). The red chocobo song sounds like a Limp Biskit song, although the lyrics are hilarious.