Final Fantasy XIII-2 Community Event

Saturday afternoon. Portabello Road, London. It's world famous (no thanks to the film, Notting Hill) market is in full swing and it is busy. I'm walking at snail's pace, trying to push past dawdlers and tourists taking their sweet time. If only they'd just let me pass and get to where I need to get to. That place being the Electric Cinema; the venue for the Final Fantasy XIII-2 Community Event, run by Square-Enix exclusively for community members on their website (i.e. people who bother to sign up).

I stand at the front of the queue, having got there ridiculously early, and as it grows I hear curious locals and non-gamers asking such questions like "I've never seen it so busy. What are they queuing up for?" and "Isn't Final Fantasy a love film?".

Inside

After an hour, it's finally time to let us into the lobby and have my name checked off the guest list. As I enter the main room I think "wow".

A goody bag and poster are found to adorn each of the leather armchairs (Yeeeaahhh! My own armrests!) that make up the entire seating in the room. Not only are the seats comfortable, but each seat has it's own foot rest to put some weary feet up. How could this any better?

As I look over to my right hand side, I find a chocolate cupcake and a coke. Not bad, given the 5 minutes spent signing up to the website to attend this free event. I was already a goody bag up anyway!

On with the show

The presentation starts with a 'you're some of the first people in world to see this new footage, so please no photo or filming' disclaimer, so hopefully I'll still be making sense as I try and describe what happens. After a short interpreted speech (probably pre-written in both Japansese and English) from FFXIII-2 producer, Yoshinori Kitase, we jump into a mid level gameplay session. According to guy talking us through, we are in the Act 3 of the game wondering about a returning area called Sunleth Waterscape. Controlling Noel Kreiss, a character new to FFXIII-2, the person running the demo leads a party of Lightning's sister, Serah Farron, and returning character & Serah's fiancé, Snow Villiers.

The demo goes through a couple of random encounters whilst traversing the level to demonstrate the different fiends that will aid Noel and Serah in the game as their '3rd party member'. Having already played a FFXIII-2 demo at Eurogamer Expo 2011 back in September, this is nothing new. However, the fact that Snow still participates as a party member, but isn't involved in Paradigm Shifts is an interesting reveal.

There's an emphasis on exploration on FFXIII-2, which is not exactly hard given how the majority of FFXIII was so linear. There are many branching routes to take throughout the level, but for the sake of time, we only explore one alternative route, which involves riding on the back of a giant four-legged beast. Ideally, it was also a good time for Square-Enix to reveal a feature, called Moogle Throw, where despite protests from the poor creature, you pick up Serah's Moogle (and the party's companion), Mog, and aim him at out-of-reach treasure orbs whilst in a first person view. He will then open and retrieve any items picked up from the treasure orbs and return to the party; no doubt hoping that he won't be thrown again.

The main objective of this part of game is to collect an artefact, which are used at the Time Gates, as part of the story's progression. Once obtaining the artefact, a cutscene initiates, which is very promptly skipped by Square-Enix, so not to reveal plot spoliers. The demo comes to an end and a small raffle of three FFXIII figures and an Xbox 360 begins. The couple immediately sitting to my left win the first figure and the eventual Xbox 360. So much for being at the front of the queue! The short event is over and all that is left to is get a couple more pictures and then set off to re-negotiate the busy Portabello Road.

Yoshinori Kitase and I. My Japanese doesn't extend far enough to allow me to ask him 'Why was FFXIII so linear and is Kingdom Hearts 3 ever going to be made?'