Final Fantasy XIII’s plastic fantastic conservatism versus the raw promise of Just Cause 2

Imagine two games which couldn’t be more different being showcased to the game press together. Both Final Fantasy XIII, the latest installment in the long running RPG-series, and Just Cause 2, sequel to 2006 action title Just Cause by Swedish developer Avalanche Studios were playable at the Square Enix 2010 line-up event at Metropolis Cinema in Antwerp, Belgium. Final Fantasy is of course the flagship of Square Enix, while the first Just Cause was published by Eidos. Now that Square Enix owns Eidos, the Swedish franchise has found a new home in the Japanese powerhouse. It’s kind of strange to compare two games which are so remarkably different, but it was exactly that huge difference in play mechanics and control which was so compelling about the whole afternoon. Not because of the different genres, but because of what they represent: willingness to experiment (JC2) versus conservatism (FFXIII).

The event began with Adrian Arnese of Square Enix’s London office playing through several scenes of FFXIII on one of the Metropolis complex’s big movie screens. Some of these scenes were from the beginning of the game, while others were from 30/40 hours in. He showed the main characters like Lightning, Hope, Snow, Vanille  and Sazh  battling through different environments, all the while explaining more about the game’s storyline and how the main characters are connected by their misfortune to be chosen as a l’Cie, a sort of servant for a godlike species called fal’Cie. Environments included a kind of power plant, a city and vast grassy plains. Lots of beautiful environments, but none were as pretty as the character models themselves, especially their facial features. A lot of work has obviously gone into those.

During an opportunity to test the game first-hand we found that while the graphics might blow you away, the gameplay alone does not carry the game, at least not the opening sequence. There’s lots of repetition when it comes to battles and you don’t even get to control all team members, just the ‘leader’. (At least in this early part, let’s hope that feature isn’t carried over to the rest of the game). Combat was simplified compared to earlier Final Fantasies: health gets restored automatically and free of charge after each battle, while a potion used in combat heals the entire team. In this early scene, it was possible to turn your back to the screen and start talking to onlookers, all the while bashing the command button and still win battles. We tested this. This simplification might attract new fans but it seems like a missed opportunity to grab the player by the throat right from the start. To be fair: an RPG  like this has to be played patiently. You need time to take it all in and let both the story and the gameplay unfold. A press event where you typically play for half an hour, all the while skipping story sequences doesn’t do this kind of game justice.

Just Cause 2 surprised us with it’s fun gameplay. There is a big drive to play and fool around with the controls right from the start, although the control takes getting used to. The grappling hook from the first game has been given extended functionality and is easier to operate. It’s a device which can be used not only for climbing and dragging cars out of a ditch, but also for such frivolities as tying an enemy to a gas canister and then launching him into the air, to name just one of many possibilities in this huge, free-roaming environment.  A combination of grappling and base-jumping using a retractable parachute  makes navigation a blast. Main character Rico Rodriguez can drive any vehicle, destroy lots of objects and grapple and base-jump his way through the landscape. Like lead game designer Peter Johanssen and community manager Mike Oldman say: “There is so much to do, you won’t be bored even if you don’t follow the missions at all.”

And that’s exactly the big difference between JC2 and FFXIII: the willingness, perhaps the need, of Avalanche to experiment with gameplay features stands in stark contrast with the conservatism of Square Enix’s own FFXIII. Final Fantasy XIII looks highly polished, with trademark superb graphics. But its character-archetypes feel very worn out. There’s the mysterious woman with a dark past, the gruff fighter who still manages to look very fashionable and the cheerful young girl who can’t decide whether she’s jailbait or just carefree. Very nice, but we’ve seen ‘em before. The gameplay is mostly conventional with a dynamic looking, but ultimately turn-based battle system that -at least in the early levels- is very restrictive. As if Square Enix is afraid players might break something in the process. On the other hand, Just Cause 2 is looking kind of rough around the edges when compared to Final Fantasy, but offers more in terms of rewarding experimental behaviour. While not offering something mind-blowingly new, it is not as bound by tradition as FFXIII. Just Cause 2 playfully combines mechanics from several action games -like Bionic Commando and Grand Theft Auto-, with the unique twist of making the grappling hook so fun and versatile, providing the player with multiple solutions to any given problem. And shouldn’t that be what great games are all about?

Whether or not JC2 stays interesting for the whole 40 hours the developers claim players will spend at it, remains to be seen. Yet it is a junior franchise ready to carve out a piece of the market for its own and therefore seems to have more raw energy than FF.  Square Enix stays middle of the road in terms of new gameplay features, like so many Japanese developers tend to do.  Where are the truly new ideas? RPG’s are a conservative genre by definition but there will be a time when pretty graphics alone won’t cut it.