With it's release in Japan set for December 17th, and few events between now and then, Tokyo Game Show 2009 was really the last big event Square Enix had to showcase Final Fantasy XIII. With one of the longest development times in Final Fantasy's history, Square Enix promising to revolutionize the RPG genre with the game, and so many mounting doubts about the game, Final Fantasy XIII had a lot to prove at the event. Gaming Union got some hands-on time with the game at TGS 2009, and it's time to compare and contrast to see if player concerns were really met by Square Enix.

For the last year in particular FFXIII has had gone through an equal amount of hype and doubt among gamers. Starting with the announcement of moving the title to the Xbox 360, concerns continued the mount as more in-game action was shown, and Square Enix's answers at the time not particularly cooling the situation. Gameplay and graphics have long been called into question, so when we got our hands on FFXIII at TGS 2009 we paid extra attention to see if the concerns are really substantiated or not.

Graphically speaking, what was on display was a lot of CG cutscenes, a lot of in-game cutscenes involving the whole cast, between two separate demos. The first demo featured Lightning and Hope infiltrating a military base, and the second jumped right into the shoes of Snow, Oerba, and Sazh traversing some sort of ruins. Environments were very detailed, and while quite linear like series-entries past, by far the graphics impress rather than stuck out. Textures looked fine, great in-fact, and any sense of them having been downgraded by any degree wasn't noticeable. A few details in cutscenes were previously the main point of concern, but in motion with top-notch animation, realistic physics on cloths and hair and visual effects, this was also a case of impressing rather than glaring.

Another area of concern caused by the announced Xbox 360 port was how it would supposedly impact the scale of the game, and even how far battle game-play would be pushed. Since the demo that was released with Advent Children Complete in Japan, the gameplay has only improved. The sheer fluidity of gameplay now compared to the demo is day and night. Fast, fun, cinematic, large environments with fantastic backdrops and even enormous, controllable summons couldn't dispel concerns any better. In terms of scale, in the first demo especially, there was lots to see off in the distance, battles were large, and there was plenty of verticality to each environment.

Concerns have also been voiced since the games announcement based on the reception of Final Fantasy XII among a large number of Final Fantasy fans. Many didn't enjoy the gambit system, the very un-cinematic approach to gameplay, and the story overall as well as the amount of character development. There were few cutscenes in FFXII when you would seemingly expect cutscenes to take place, and even when they did they never really fleshed out character, or even lasted particularly long past making Vaan look immature.

In terms of story, Final Fantasy XIII, from what we've seen in Japanese, looks quite story heavy. While playing the demo there was a fair bit of interactivity between the cast, however it being entirely in Japanese, it's tricky to draw any solid conclusions. Story details are still fairly vague, but the casts struggle as l'Cie is certainly proving to be an engaging factor of the story, as just watching the meaty FFXIII TGS 2009 trailer viewers can quite easily get sucked into the emotion flying around. Considering it's capable of that all in Japanese, our concerns have been met there, for now.

In terms of gambits, they're simply not present. Like Kingdom Hearts, team mates are AI controlled, and are only given a limited number of auto-play styles to execute. While it would be great to control the whole team in battle, due to how quickly the ATB gauge fills up, just controlling one lead character was enough of a task. Final Fantasy's battle system has never been so cinematic, Square Enix's goal of mimicking Advent Children's fight scenes had paid of, and coupled with the pacing of the gameplay and cutscenes outside of battle, the game simply kept players attention locked in.

There were a few draw backs to note about the demos that previously weren't voiced by the Final Fantasy fandom. Stealth elements to the gameplay weren't very well executed as your AI partner can run around freely while players try to hide for preemptive attacks, or avoiding enemies entirely. Furthermore the camera system has seemingly had some "stylish" motion added to it, giving it a feeling of gliding. While this may sound nice, camera control is always about precision, and when the camera continues to glide past where you point it too, it just feels unnecessary. Summons were also ridiculously overpowered, but most demos at events like TGS are dumbed down and overpowered so that players don't fail, so hopefully this is the case.

Overall Final Fantasy XIII had a fantastic showing at TGS 2009 and made good on repeated promises from the development team that the title will be making a lot of ground for the franchise, rather than compromising it for the sake of hitting a second console. Lest we forget the title is still a long-way off for North America and Europe as well, and Square Enix is also famous for tweaking their games pre-western-release. At this rate however it only seems like a few elements that could be adjusted, but otherwise series fans should relax their concerns about Final Fantasy XIII and instead enjoy the run-up to its release.