Demo Line Up Excites, Disappoints

Asura's Wrath, Amy and FFXIII-2 demos hit XBL

By Justin Brenis
Editor-In-Chief

This past weekend was a pretty important one for upcoming release demos on Xbox Live. While the demos for Asura's Wrath, Amy and FFXIII-2 didn't hit all systems, they did land for Microsoft supports, and I spent some time with each of them.

While Asura managed to stand out as the surprising hit of the bunch, I was both expectedly and unexpectedly disappointed by Final Fantasy and Amy, respectively.

Let's jump right into this:

Asura's Wrath

Honestly, I didn't know too much about Asura or his wrath before I booted up the demo. The highly anticipated game from Capcom looks pretty similar to God of War, but with distinctive Japanese influences, an armless (sort of) hero and a lot of headbutting.

You could imagine my surprise, then, when the game started up by flaunting elements of third-person shooting, traditional beat'em up brawlers, fighting games and enough QTEs to break down even the strongest thumbs.

The graphics, which emphasize the Japanese influence of the game, are breathtaking. There's a surreal quality to the game, and the demo treats you to barren deserts, lush mountains, the outer rims of Earth's atmosphere and even the moon. Each setting showed amazing attention to detail. All the more so because they aren't just painted backdrops surrounding you. The fights between the gods and Asura get so intense that the world itself gets torn up.

For a game with such diverse gameplay, and switches between play styles with little to no warning, the demo controlled beautifully. It took me a second or two to get the hang of what it wanted for the shooting sections, but I adjusted quickly. Fighting was fighting whether it was beat'em up or more Mortal Kombat style, and the QTEs were forgiving enough to allow those of us without hair-trigger fingers a slight margin of error.

While I still have no idea what the story of Asura's Wrath is, small plot points are revealed. They involve what seems to be a wrongful accusation against Asura from his fellow deities, thereby damning him and putting his daughter in danger. It looks like he must now kill the gods who wronged him and rescue her.

See? God of War. Sort of.

If you haven't yet, I recommend downloading this demo and trying it out before the game launches on Feb. 21. Even if it's not for you, you'll at least appreciate the unique approach it takes.

Amy

I very rarely say this about a game based solely on the demo, but avoid Amy at all costs.

Honestly, the game will make you wish you had what to
 stab yourself in the neck with.

Lexis Numerique has been hyping their XBLA/PSN survival-horror title for quite some time, now. Most recently, they polled fans on Facebook, asking whether it was fair to charge more for the same game on the PSN over XBLA. With all this hype, many jaded Resident Evil and Silent Hill fans were looking forward to what was promised to be a return to a more classical approach to survival-horror.

What you get instead is a confusing, glitchy and nearly broken experience that will, more than likely, leave you so frustrated that you won't even make it to the end of the demo. God knows I didn't.

Amy is a mute little girl who, you're lead to believe, you rescued from some kind of dangerous facility where bad things had been done to her. While on a train to a distant hospital, Amy draws a disturbing vision of the Yetis from Ski Free eating people and suddenly--BOOM! An explosion goes off in the distance. The shock causes the train to derail, and suddenly there are zombie-like monsters everywhere, and Amy has gone missing. You have to find here and figure out what has happened before it's too late!

Unfortunately, the game has lackluster graphics, a nearly inoperable control scheme and a barely functional HUD. The in-game compass is misleading, there is no way to track your non-regenerating health, when scanning areas you must stand in the exact right place to be successful, and the graphics are so dark that even with the luminosity turned all the way up I found myself wandering helplessly into dead ends.

Not to mention the fact that the enemies are laughable. If there's any sense of survival or horror in the game, I wasn't able to find it.

After having put a good 45 minutes into the Amy demo (or what felt like much longer) and having not progressed beyond the main area of the train station, I simply gave up.

Sorry Lexis Numerique, but when your demo sets up that bad a first impression, I don't want to know what the rest of the game is like.

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Finally the last, and most anticipated, demo: Final Fantasy XIII-2.

To be honest, this game had a lot going against it from the start. I never understood the need or appeal of a Final Fantasy sequel that continues the previous storyline. Before Final Fantasy X-2, it was unheard of, and I was pretty disappointed considering how great Final Fantasy X turned out to be.

Final Fantasy XIII, however, was a disaster of a game on so many different levels that a sequel was a good opportunity to remedy the problems from the first time around.

Enix is present in the demo. The game still offers stunning, if not slightly cartoony, graphics and a creative array of enemies, heroes, costumes and weapons. The controls remain familiar from the first time around, and there are some tweaks to the gameplay. It didn't take long for me to ease back into the swing of FFXIII.

Don't worry, take a break. Little Timmy can take over for
the time being.

This, however, is also the demo's biggest setback. Maybe the worst part of FFXIII is that it almost doesn't require a person to play it. The series turned its back on traditionalism by eliminating the turn-based fighting style of previous FF games, instead subbing in a real-time Auto Battle system. This system is back in XIII-2 and left me just as bored.

To emphasize the lack of attention Auto Battle requires, I managed to beat every enemy encounter--not counting the first boss fight, which incorporated QTEs--without even looking at my TV. In fact, at one point I just kept pressing A with one hand while writing an e-mail and then playing Words With Friends on my phone with the other. I shouldn't want to play games to amuse myself while I'm playing a game.

Honestly, Squenix, why don't you just turn the damn thing into a movie and cut us all a break at this point.

To try and mix things up, the Crystarium (one of the few well-designed things in XIII, but largely stolen from X) has gotten a facelift, albeit a confusing one. Also, a new meta-element has been added to the battles.

Now, like with Pokémon, some battles end with you collecting the enemy you defeated. You can then add this "trained" enemy to your fighting group, adding to the Paradigm deck you'll remember from XIII. While an interesting attempt to mix up the battles, it doesn't make  much difference.

In the end, I hoped to see Square Enix take the steps to improve upon the disaster that was XIII, all I found was the same old crud with some new glitter sprinkled on top for effect.

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Well, there you have it folks. Some early impressions of some of this year's most-wanted Q1 games! Again, not all these demos are currently available outside of XBL.