GOONL!NE

Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Square Enix
Also on: Xbox 360
Console played on footage taken from: PLAYSTATION 3
Release Date: Winter 2009 (Japan)/2010 (West)
Rating: TBC

Well, it’s finally here, it exists, it doesnt exist from CGI anymore (mostly), Final Fantasy XIII is finally here, its playable and we decided to tell you what we think of the demo from the footage we’ve seen of it. Simply put, the demo kicks off with Lightning and Sazh in the train at what appears to be the beginning of the game. Lightning then hijacks the train by taking out every soldier that is within her reach.

Before we know it, we’re in the war-torn central of Cocoon where Lightning and Sazh taking down several flying enemy patrols before we’re met with that scorpion type enemy that we’re all used to by now. Everything you have seen in previous trailers, forget them, the game have been absolutely re-done in gameplay and CGI segments. The first half of the demo belongs to Lightning and Sazh, the second goes to Snow and Team Nora.

The gameplay in FFXIII is very good from what we seen, mixed too you could say, between Final Fantasy X’s turn based gameplay and Final Fantasy XII’s real time gameplay. It seems to be a fair compromise between those loved the RT mechanic in FFXII and those who wanted  turn based gameplay from FFX.

Final Fantasy XIII, even at this early stage and from a build which goes back to December 2008, looks amazing. It’s character models are very good looking on a graphicial stand-point, the world around you is well built and pulsating (no pun intended with Pulse) with everything going on around you in a war-torn world is just incredible, so is the design for enemies in FFXIII, they look very good. With all due respect to the dev team, Tetsuya Nomura, who is working on Final Fantasy Versus XIII, has done very well with the character design.

Musically, Final Fantasy is where it shines. Nobuo Uemitsu may not do the main sountrack, but he is invovled in creating the main theme for Final Fantasy XIII with the soundtrack been fully done by Masashi Hamauzu, who co-composed Final Fantasy X and from what was heard in the demo, this could be one of FFXIII’s stand out point’s.

Once the demo ends, your greeted with a screen of the logo and Lignting with a message “Thanks for Playing. Coming Winter 2009″ which will apply to Japan. That was then followed up by the brand new trailer of Nomura-san’s Versus XIII, spin-off to Final Fantasy XIII which simply looked stunning.

Overall: Truth be told, we cant give an honest preview till we have played it ourselves. But never fear, GOONL!NE will have a hands on preview of the game coming at some point in May and we’re are absolutely looking forward to it, with every ounce of blood in us.

That said, Final Fantasy XIII truly does look like it will be a winner for sure, you’d be a fool to bet against it right now. It simply is incredible.

The 13th fantasy is now a reality at last, not a pipe-dreamt fantasy.