There should be a law against buying a product for the sole purpose of getting at its free pack-in. Though, if that was the case, I suppose I would be jail, along with droves of Final Fantasy fans. Prisons would even more overpopulated than they are now. Rapists and murderers would walk the streets in search of new prey, while innocent but gullible consumers would be sitting in cells, cursing the day they bought Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete. After all, that might be the biggest reason most Japanese gamers picked up the Blu Ray release of the Final Fantasy CG movie, even if they already owned the same movie on DVD. The movie itself has new added scenes and crisper high resolution visuals, sure, but it was the inclusion of the long awaited Final Fantasy XIII demo that pushed the box set to the top of hundreds of Most Wanted Lists.

When the very first trailer for Final Fantasy XIII was revealed, it was pretty hard to figure out what exactly the battle system was, but it was obviously very stylish. The Heads Up Display has changed a little bit since then. Gone is the humorous "Blizzrad" misspelling. In fact, almost all of the English is gone. It looks like the Japanese version will have full Japanese menus as well (with Japanese games, you can never be sure; the demo itself still has English sprinkled around in random places). Let's get this out of the way first: the game is beautiful. The demo is absolutely gorgeous, and when you consider that much of the frame rate issues and low resolution textures found in the demo have already been fixed in recent builds of the final game, it is very hard to find things to complain about. In fact, the demo seems to look better and better as you continue to play.

Each of the characters is rendered meticulously, and there seems to be little difference between the fidelity of the cut scene models and those the player uses in battle. From Snow's beard shadow to the threads and fibers in Lightning's clothing, the attention to detail even in this demo is mind blowing. There have been complaints about the generic nature of the art style, and while that is a valid argument at this point in the game, there are signs that the game has its heart in the right place. It's hard to judge atmosphere from such a small chunk of the game, so perhaps it is better to reserve judgment for the final product, especially when the game seems like it have drastic atmospheric changes throughout the game. The very first battle seamlessly flows from the cut scene that sets it up, but don't get chummy with the idea. Final Fantasy XIII still does screen transitions for regular battles. It's unknown why exactly. All enemies involved in the battle are visible on the field (not just a single unit representing a group), and there does not seem to be any loading leading into battle.

The transition is quick and unobtrusive, though a friend who played the demo with me said he missed the dramatic wipes and shattered glass. To each their own, I suppose. The battle system itself is simple enough. Each character has a traditional ATB (Active Time Battle) bar that always fills over time, but segmented into three parts. Each attack, skill and magic uses between one and three bars. When issuing orders, players choose a combination of attacks that add up to 3, and then hit triangle or press the "Issue Command" button to push the combo through to the AI to perform. The player is forced to choose a target before picking skills, though, so it's impossible to split a command string between two enemies, or even an enemy and an ally.

If you intend to heal a teammate or yourself, you will have to dedicate a command string to them. Despite all of this, the battle system is fast, flashy, and even a little intricate. Players can launch enemies into the air and combo aerial attacks, or even throw magic attacks into a group and hit everyone. Because of the inclusion of the Issue Command button, players even have the choice of using a single attack to finish off a heavily damaged foe instead of wasting the entire ATB bar, adding a level of strategy to ATB conservation and use. There doesn't seem to be mana dependency at all, though. In the interest of simplicity, perhaps, magic relies solely on the ATB, with each more powerful magic requiring a larger bite of the bar to use.

Square Enix has stated in the past that the demo does not contain the "entire" battle system, but what that means is still a mystery. Most good games never give you everything at the beginning of the game and tend to layer the complexity on as the player gets more and more familiar with what they've learned, but it is unclear whether this demo is just from the beginning of the game, or if Square Enix forcibly ripped pieces of the system out for the purposes of the demo.

There probably will not be much news about Final Fantasy XIII until this winter, when the game is set to ship in Japan. For now, it is safe to say that from this slice of the full game, it looks like the next iteration in the world's most famous RPG series is in good hands.