Yesterday I gave myself the priveledge of watching the 1up crew play the Japanese Final Fantasy XIII, and I have to say that it looks great so far. I do agree with the comments of the staff that the game play in the demo is pretty damn linear, but like they also said, most demos are used just to show off graphics and give you a little taste, and from what I say, this taste was good.
The battle system seems to be very similar to that of Chrono Trigger, which is to say that your attacks are turned based, but the enemies are attacking all the time. Also, another new thing about the FFXIII battle system is that you can only control one character, but will it only be limited to one during the whole battle like the 1up crew said? I think not! If you watch the video and look in the corner with all the health bars, you can see a flag next to the character that you are controlling. This may mean that you can switch between characters during battle, or maybe outside of battle,
The after battle screen is totally new. As far as I know, this is the first FF game with a ranking system, besides some of the Tactics series. Based on the speed of the battle and how you take out your enemies, you receive one to five stars. The 1up crew said that so far no type of EXP has been announced, but if you look under the stars you can see a line that says BONUS TP EARNED. Although the demo gives you 0 no matter how well you do, this may be the EXP you use to level your characters. My guess is that TP stands for Talent Points. Maybe another licence board-esque development thing?
Finally, the graphics are just top notch. This has to be one the greatest looking games I've seen on PS3. Unfortunately, this may cause problems for the port and delay the US release even more, like the newest RPG blog says. Just think, Square has repeated that the game utilizes all of the PS3 multiple times, and because the hardware is most likely different from the 360, this may cause huge technical problems.
Aside from the impending further delay of the game, I'm still very excited. I'm very glad that they went back to good ol' turn based battles, and the fact that they made it like Chrono Trigger is a very cool idea. Luckily I'm patient, and I shall wait for this game as long as it takes.
