Hopefully you readers manage to catch that small announcement in the forums the past few days, especially since it was the first time gamers got to try out a recent build of the thirteenth iteration of the Square Enix meal ticket. The chosen few among the GAX forumites manage to get a taste of the TGS ‘09 build of the soon-to-be-out-in-Japanese Final Fantasy XIII this morning at Cathay Cineleisure, meaning that it’s the second time the TGS build of the game was shown in a public place (the first time’s in TGS ‘09, doi). After seeing a demo of both Lightning and Snow’s demo showcasing the combat system, they were treated with a showing of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete on a huge-as-heck big screen TV. Of course, they got their hands on FFXIII after that. While it’s not the full game, it showcased a lot of things to expect from what players will be doing the majority of the time: specifically the part where your party and your enemies sorta take turns hitting each other.

The calm before the storm..

We can’t start talking about FFXIII without mentioning how bloody gorgeous it is. From the effects of the summons you use in-game to just the locations and vistas, we can clearly see that a lot of thought was placed in production values and visuals. The best part is how seamless everything is. Loading screens and load times are non-existent and battle transitions happen as quick as a flash, short of one battle at the end of Lightning’s part (one out of eight battle transitions is a pretty good average, right?). Menus, options, and the overall flow of combat is just smooth, with neither hiccups or graphical stutters to be found. If this is any indication as to what to expect from the final product, this is definitely a high standard that Square Enix has set in terms of seamless transactions and transitions from overworld to in-game battles that are the mainstays of a Japanese RPG.

Yet amidst all the glitter, FFXIII still maintains a semblance of tradition established by its forefathers.The story is (supposedly at first) still the timeless template of youthful rebels fighting off an organization that believes that it’s doing good when in fact they’re doing harm. I’m sure they’ll pull off a bit of a twist or two somewhere down the line. You still have three characters participating in combat; this particular demo had you control only Lightning or Snow in their respective parties. The classic myth-inspired magical beasts known as Espers can be summon mid-battle, with Lightning’s Odin and Snow’s Shiva making their revamped appearance and with the ability to initiate Driving Mode.

Think of this bit as Espers doing their “special moves” with their respective summoners. Lightning rides on Odin, transformed into a horse, and chops up enemies while on her steed, while Snow rides on a chopper-formed Shiva and does some stunts and wheel-screeching. While on Driving Mode, the bottom-left screen will display commands on how to pull off certain attacks, with the yellow-highlighted number on the left indicating how many moves you can pull off before it reaches zero. Pressing Triangle immediately ends Driving Mode and make the Espers go away, but not without a big bang that damages on-screen enemies.

Other characters will have their own summons and Drive Mode attacks, be it ‘child prodigy’ Hope’s Alexander, ‘token African-American comic relief’ Sazh’s Ifrit Brynhildr, and ’stand-in for FFX’s Rikku’ Vanille’s newly-revealed Hecatoncheir, whose Driving Mode reminds me of a fantasy version of ED-209. Neat.

FFXIII still keeps their Active Time Battle system, but with a new form. As you wait for the bar to recharge, you’ll notice that it’ll fill up either four bars (for Lightning) or three bars (for Snow). When you initiate an attack, you will do a slew of attacks that will take up each of these bars. For instance, using Lightning’s area-of-effect sword-swipe will use up two ATBs. The rest of the ATBs can be used for other attacks. You also have TPs to worry about: these are the points needed to summon your Espers as well as do other functions like the ever-reliable Scan/Libra to check on enemy strengths and weaknesses.

Speaking of the usual elemental weaknesses of enemies, you also have to keep into account the Break meter of each of them. Whenever Lightning or Snow does a string of attacks, the top-right yellow bar will continuously build up. Using special defense-weakening moves like Snow’s Whirlwind will make the Break meter rise faster, until the point where they reach a Break status. In that newly-introduced state, enemies will receive double the damage from subsequent attacks. It’s imperative to keep this in mind as well as keep track of when your A.I-controlled party members will act out their commands, as the demo showcased enemies that are hard to wipe out with the usual spamming of attacks.

FFXIII also has a new twist on the Square Enix patented Job System: the Optima Change. Scratch that: think of it as an extension instead of a full-on twist. You can change party member designations on the fly with the L1 button. When Lightning’s designation is set to an “Attacker”, she’ll have the usual hard-hitting melee/sword moves, including the aforementioned sword-swipe. When she changes into a “Blaster”, she’ll have an additional three other attacks involving lightning magic and gunplay that will hit enemies continuously until they reach Break status.

Snow’s “Defender” mode is also unique. He can’t attack in that state, but his defense increases, becomes a high priority target for enemies via his Taunt skill, and can perform the equivalent of the Knight skill “Cover” (where he takes one for the team) on his teammates if they end up getting targeted. At the same time, his other teammates will change themselves to “Blaster” mode where they can pelt magic spells without the risk of getting hurt thanks to Snow’s designation.

And you’ll need to exploit the Optima Change to the fullest: not many enemies can go down as quick if you don’t utilize the extra abilities on a character’s alternate mode. When I faced off against the boss of the demo, a flying big-faced blue demon thing, my team of Snow, Satzh, and Vanille weren’t doing big damage until I switched all of them to “Blaster” mode. Sazh and Vanille were then throwing spells and projectiles that were not only doing significant damage, but made the boss’ Break meter rise absurdly high. It was slim pickings from there, as after the boss gets in a Break state that I made Snow revert back to his “Attacker” mode and pummel the daylights out of it. Clearly the system is anything but window dressing; you need to think ahead and plan out your available Optima changes for future fights against bosses or tougher enemies.

The end of the demo was capped with a scene where Lightning & co. found a ship as a small bird perches onto the top of a ruin while it watches. It cuts to the ship flying while the antagonistic army of Psicom gave chase. There isn’t much context to gather from these scenes, so it was just a matter of admiring the pretty colors and effects presented on the screen.

It’s hard to gauge how much of the “new” has taken over what’s left of the “old” in Final Fantasy, given that it is a demo of what is claimed to be a 40 to 60 hour RPG. I will say that short of the obvious language barrier (this is, after all, a Japanese game), every RPG gamer will at least want to see how the full game will fare and would probably buy it out of sheer curiosity (or just wait for their PS3-loving friends to buy it and subsequently drop by their place every day of the week). I know I will: I’m already impressed as to how much of a thinking man’s game the battles will turn out, as well as see how the female equivalent of Cloud turn out in the event of the game.