So, we played the demo to Final Fantasy XIII-2, one of the more awkwardly titled games in Square history and one you told us you wanted us to tackle. And it’s…well, really, it’s a gigantic freaking mess. It’s dumped everything you like about other games into a blender and hit frappe, and then thrown it at the wall to see what sticks.
Visually, it’s absolutely stunning, but then again, this is Square and their flagship franchise: of course it’s pretty. It’d be shocking if it weren’t.
But mechanics wise…Good Lord, was there a mechanic they didn’t include? You can now capture and level up monsters as part of your party (seriously). NPCs are obviously day players from Mass Effect. And then there are the fights.
The automated battle mechanic is just really weird and uncomfortable: it feels like the game wrests the controller from you because you’re too stupid to play it the way it wants to be played. There are lots of menus and meters that are at least comprehensible, although we really don’t want to get into the battle system right now since we have to save some rants for the review.
Also, Chocolina, the weapons merchant? Yeah, she needs to die. What is it with the Japanese and incredibly annoying minor characters?
There are likeable parts. It’s a fairly open world, for example, and the side quests seem to have an effect on the main quest. But overall, this demo doesn’t make us confident for the full game. Which, yes, we are playing anyway.
image courtesy Square Enix
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As long as it isn’t a 30 hour hallway this time, I plan on giving it a shot.
Apparently some critics have played it through three times, and claim it took them 200 hours. Do these people urinate?
That alone is the reason i won’t purchase another FF game. Holy shit that was a tortous.
Good lord. I can only assume these critics were Japanese, so they probably used some Hello Kitty adult-sized diapers or some kind of weird robotic urinal.
Evil Twin, the image of a smiling robo urinal approaching a Japanese game critic as he unzips his pants distractedly made me cry. Congratulations.
Anyone who buys this game is part of the problem.
Then we’re part of the problem: no way Square is sending us a preview code, so we’re going to have to buy it and see what’s the what.
Here, I have a magic two week in the future telescope and I will tell you what I see:
The game is bad.
You’re welcome.
Legit, you should be paying me for writing your review for you already.
Unfortunately, our job entails actually being more thoughtful than that. Although I do plan to steal the Penny Arcade line about how the game is…uh, playing with itself.