Final Fantasy XIII Demo Hands-on

Final Fantasy XIII demo comes along with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete, giving players a brief in-sight of the gameplay mechanics and breathtaking graphics. I have completed the demo some time ago and it was as exciting as others had claimed.

The Advent Children Complete package includes the the Advent Children Blu ray and the Final Fantasy XIII Demo disc. The jewel cases are slightly smaller than your usual PS3 game package, so if you crack them …good luck in finding a replacement.

Playing the game in 1080p was awesome, had a chance to test it on my 24″ Dell LCD and my LCD TV @ 32″, both at 1080p. Let us hope the full version will fix some texture garbles (yes, there is some low texture res found in the demo). I wish I have a bigger screen so that the full HD can be more “obvious” :P

The demo starts off following a train that is traveling through a beautifully rendered valley. After showing off this beautiful scenery and the cool train, the camera moves along with you inside. The main character, Lightning appears, along with her accomplice Sazh, a man with a large afro. The action kicks off with what we see on the trailer – yup! Lightning and Sazh freed some cloaked victims on the train while attacking the guards aboard.

The train moves along into the Cocoon and by the time it arrives, a battle which appears to be between 2 rival sides (Psi-com soldiers and some “Purger” rebels? are already be in progress. The guards are able to summon beasts to assist them in their defence. One of which, attacked the train. The scene was fluid and we get our first boss battle – A stingray kind of giant robat with razor sharp saw blades.

Gameplay:

The demo introduces FFXIII’s gameplay which is a mix of real-time and command-based fighting, allowing you to queue up commands by selecting from the menu, and then execute them in a combo by pressing triangle – so you can queue up a physical attack followed by a spell, then cure yourself in one combo or performing an aerial combo by executing a launcher attack followed by a spell or follow-up attack. Yes, I am expecting possibilities in the full version.

The demo brings the player to try from Lightning and Snow’s perspective, allowing you to try blade slashing and fist bashing combos while pairing up with magic spells. I am not going to touch much on the story that took place in the demo but rather lets just say the demo is shaping up well on what we can expect in Final Fantasy XIII. Not to forget, there is still summons and also those customization.

Final Fantasy XIII is expected to retail in Winter 2009, the state side version is tentatively expected for a 2010 release.