Final Fantasy 13-2 Demo Analysis

By Richard Leadbetter Published 16 January, 2012

Lessons learned on Xbox 360?

Few cross-platform games of recent times have disappointed as much as Square-Enix's Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy 13 which underwhelmed with sub-HD visuals, awful video quality and an inconsistent performance level. We expected better from the publisher and it looks as though the new sequel - just weeks away from release - is set to address a bulk of these issues.

We first saw Final Fantasy 13-2 on the showfloor at last year's Eurogamer Expo. The two versions of the game on display during the event looked very, very close, and last week's PSN/Xbox Live demo release gave us our first opportunity to analyse the new game in greater depth and to see if our initial impressions stood up to a more rigorous tech analysis.

There are few surprises with the PlayStation 3 version of the demo. From a technical perspective, FF13-2 picks up right where its predecessor left off: the game still renders at a native 720p resolution with 2x multi-sampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) applied, with a distinct aesthetic that's as much about the impressive post-processing effects work as it is about the undeniable quality of the core art assets. Final Fantasy 13-2 may look soft in places, but the lighting, blending and blurring create an impressive, easy-on-the-eye experience that dazzles with a battery of beautiful lighting effects - an extension of the style we saw deployed in the game's predecessor.

Indeed, there's very much a sense that from a technological point of view, the core engine hasn't been tweaked much at all on PlayStation 3, just that the developers are more confident with in how to make use of its capabilities. However, some of the things we would have liked to have seen fixed - such as the interlace-style 'alpha to coverage' effect on the hair of the main characters haven't been addressed. Clearly the tech team at Square-Enix had bigger issues on its mind, such as improving the lacklustre nature of the Xbox 360 engine port.

"Xbox 360 owners can take encouragement from the fact that the long list of visual issues we had with Final Fantasy 13 appears to have been comprehensively addressed with this sequel."

360-1
ps3-1
360-2
ps3-2

Resolution, shadowing and other rendering issues in the recently released Final Fantasy 13-2 playable demo suggest a big improvement on Xbox 360, giving a look that is almost identical to the PlayStation 3 game.

Based on what we've seen in the demo release, 360 owners can take encouragement from the fact that the long list of visual issues we had with the last game appears to have been comprehensively addressed with this sequel. The 1024x576 native rendering resolution from FF13 has gone, replaced with the same native 1280x720 2x MSAA set-up that PlayStation 3 owners enjoy. While the quality of the scaling in the last game was actually OK, the effect on the 'alpha to coverage' hair looked particularly dodgy, and the switch to native res addresses that, along with some of the more obvious issues with the "jaggies".

Less serious graphical defects that impacted the FF13 on Xbox 360 have also been fixed. The off-set shadow bias issue - which saw shadows submerged into textures and only partially visible - has also been fixed, for example. Indeed, aside from a slight difference in colour representation, the Xbox 360 version is now a very close match for its PlayStation 3 sibling - something you can check out for yourself in this 55-shot Final Fantasy 13-2 PS3/Xbox 360 comparison gallery.

But what of performance? The resolution deficiency on Xbox 360 did at least allow for the game to run more smoothly overall in the more linear 'corridor' levels (though falling apart somewhat in the more open chapters), so we were interested to see how the jump to native res with MSAA - with the inevitable need to tile the framebuffer from eDRAM to main memory - would impact frame-rate. The demo proves to be useful here, as the initial battle against the mighty hand of Atlus provides an excellent stress test for the engine.

"The Japanese version of FF13 weighs in at 7.75GB of data overall on Xbox 360, whereas the PS3 Blu-ray version utilises around 14GB of the 25GB available on a single-layer BD."

Performance analysis of the challenging demo intro and Atlus battle. With so many effects in play, the engine is challenged on both consoles but it's the PS3 that enjoys a consistent advantage.

In the demo at least, basic traversal and combat seems to be very close to a locked 30 frames per second on both platforms but this selection of action - taken from the beginning of the demo - clearly presents challenges to both consoles. It's not often that we see the same scenes impacting performance simultaneously on both machines, but that's definitely what's happening here and it's clearly PlayStation 3 owners that benefit from smoother performance overall.

Of course, right now we only have access to the demo code and if there's one thing we learned from the FF13 experience it's that conclusions can change on a per-level basis, so we're really looking forward to putting the final versions of the game to the test. Curiously, the final code ships on just one Xbox 360 DVD rather than the three that were required to house FF13. We're told that the Japanese version (which is already available) weighs in at 7.75GB of data overall on Xbox 360, whereas the PS3 Blu-ray version utilises around 14GB of the 25GB available on a single-layer BD.

What this tells us is that FF13-2 is far less reliant on streaming video from the disc, preferring to utilise the engine itself to play out the cinematic sequences - this is a much more space-efficient way of doing things and a measure of how much more confident Square-Enix is in its engine this time around. But is the gulf in disc size just down to movie utilisation? Apparently not.

We're told that the disc structure of both versions is much the same, allowing for direct comparisons. A movie folder accounts for 1.64GB of data on PS3 (down from around 32GB on FF13, which tells its own story), while the 360 equivalent is just 188MB, indicating that while video sequences are sparse on the new game, they'll almost certainly look a whole lot better on the Sony console. However, this still doesn't account for the majority of the difference in data utilisation, which is centred on level assets. Uncompressed audio could may make a difference - but we'll be reserving judgement here until we've had a chance to get an extended playtest on both versions.

Final Fantasy 13-2 is due for release in North America on January 31 with the UK game arriving on February 3. We'll have full Face-Off coverage closer to release.

Update: Some new information on the cinematics was sent to us from Twitter user miladesn, who explains that further movie files - about 8GB in total - are embedded in the level data, explaining the disc size difference. The files utilise variable bitrate encoding of 20-30mbps, with ATRACPlus 5.1 audio using 512kbps.

Picture of Richard.

About Richard Leadbetter

Rich has been a games journalist since the days of 16-bit and specialises in technical analysis. Commonly known around Eurogamer as the Blacksmith of the Future.

Read more articles from Richard by visiting the Richard Leadbetter archive page.

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Comments (60) Latest comment 4 months ago

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  • berelain #1 4 months ago

    Interesting; I played both versions of the demo and it seemed (to my untrained eyes) that the PS3 version still had a clear edge in terms of the crispness of its visuals and a smoother framerate.

    Which is annoying as I had hoped to get the 360 version, because I justs seem to like achievements more than trophies and because my old fat PS3 died and ate my FFXIII save with its passing.

  • GamesConnoisseur #2 4 months ago

    Lens of Truth also covered this recently and verdict was ties, but theirs initial findings are all just the screenshots as of this time.

    PS3 likely will still be the better version, but pleased the gap had narrowed a lot, the X360 version was pretty much a poor job as was PS3's versions of Bayonetta or Skyrim. No gamers deserved less than 100% effort to reach the best possible standard.

  • Bearintraining #3 4 months ago

    Yay for SE! I'm hoping though that there will be movies in FFXIII-2. The ending demo of FFXIII was so fantastic in terms of closure and sheer awesomeness.

  • Whatascoop #4 4 months ago

    Awww look at that 360! your game ALMOST looks at good as the PS3 version! You must be SO proud!

  • Darren #5 4 months ago

    I haven't played the PS3 demo yet but I did try the 360 one over the weekend.

    I was surprised by how good it looked and ran overall after the criticisms of the previous game but it goes without saying that visually the game really is quite gorgeous and, surprisingly (for a 360 game), free of screen-tearing. Unfortunatey, those lush graphics do come at a price and that is when running around the framerate feels a little chuggy/sluggish, more so than it did on the original FFXIII on the PS3. I suspect the heavy rain and decision to use double-buffering and v-sync had an impact on the framerate. I hope to try the PS3 version tonight.
    Edited by Darren at 16/01/12 @ 12:40

  • geeza2020 #6 4 months ago

    I thought this would be an article on how SE had addressed the crushing boredom, broken battle system and horrendous character design that was present in FFXIII, but it turns out they've just made it a bit shinier. Another "wait for bargain bin prices" me thinks, and if the last game is anything to go by, that will be about two weeks after its released.

  • miiiguel #7 4 months ago

    Realy like FFXIII, looks very good to me, I don't understand criticism about its quality, and tbh I don't care, awesome gaming experience, very polished.
    I have this on pre-order, might get the oficial game guide as well.
    Edited by miiiguel at 16/01/12 @ 12:45

  • PixelPirate #8 4 months ago

    @geeza2020 You clearly haven't played the demo. The fighting is alot more action orientated this time around, it is based on the same system as before, but you train monsters for you 3rd party member, which mixes things up a bit. They also have a better system for random battles. It easily outstrips its predecessor.

  • ozthegweat #9 4 months ago

    @geeza2020 As this is a Digital Foundry analysis, gameplay elements are not topics discussed in this article. But read the FFXIII-2 preview here on EG, they've actually done more than just make the 360 version shinier. They've addressed nearly every major complaint people had about FFXIII.
    Edited by ozthegweat at 16/01/12 @ 12:56

  • Monkey_Puncher #10 4 months ago

    Oh that's cute, people still play these games? Bless!

  • roquey Verified Lead Quality Assurance Tester and Compliance Specialist, Universally Speaking #11 4 months ago

    Were people that unhappy with changing discs or something? because d rather have multiple discs and great immersion in gameplay with art fmv etc than 1 disc with less of the pretties. Unless im missing the point being made ofcourse and the 1 disc does indeed do what the 3 had in XIII

  • Cadence #12 4 months ago

    After the fight with the giant hand I found the framerate in the open world section afterwards to be really bad. This is on the 360 version. Just really sluggish.

  • frazzl #13 4 months ago

    Got FFXIII on my PS3 and never finished it (stopped playing a few hours into exploring pulse). Got the 360 version recently for cheap, and with achievement for motivation, finished the game. Sure the PS3 version looked better but not enough to override my obsession with achievements. The fact that FFXIII-2 on the 360 is very similar to the PS3 version means this time around I'm going to save myself some money and get the 360 version right away :).

  • frazzl #14 4 months ago

    @Whatascoop As proud as you must be of Rimlag :)

  • frazzl #15 4 months ago

    @Darren I didn't encounter any noticeable slowdown outside of the cutscenes. The analysis above supports that:

    "In the demo at least, basic traversal and combat seems to be very close to a locked 30 frames per second on both platforms"
    Edited by frazzl at 16/01/12 @ 13:09

  • dagas #16 4 months ago

    I have FF13 on 360 and the problem for me was never that it didn't look quite as good as on PS3, it was that the game itself isn't very fun. I rather they made a more open FF game than a game on rails with cutscenes literally every few steps even if the graphics were worse.

  • Cjail #17 4 months ago

    I am happy and sad at the same time.
    I am happy because cross-platform games should always be identical, or nearly identical, on both consoles :)
    I am sad because PS3 version rarely receive this kind of "restyling" when they are the inferior ones :(
    Edited by Cjail at 16/01/12 @ 13:37

  • yuggy #18 4 months ago

    Either way, it's turned out to be as vapid as the first game. They really need to ditch that cold ultra-modern aesthetic.

  • jonbwfc #19 4 months ago

    I still fail to see the point of analysing a demo so intimately. Any results attained are subject to change without notice. I'd make a comparison with judging cakes at a village fate, so then I could use the term 'half baked'.

  • Kew1Melon #20 4 months ago

    @Whatascoop and its good to know your SUCH an arse.

  • Kew1Melon #21 4 months ago

    Even though some people give them stick, i have always loved the FF series.

  • SvennoJ #22 4 months ago

    So no more high quality 1080p cut scenes on ps3? That was the only really good part of the game, the rest was average.
    In engine cut scenes can never be as exciting or large in scope as pre-rendered ones.

  • kirankara #23 4 months ago

    Happy to see both console versions looking pretty much equal. Not my kind of game, but still amazed at how childish morons argue over whose console is best and putting down other one. I own both consoles, but differences is so minimal these days, i'm contemplating booting one, as never get chance to play all games I've bought anyway. Time to grow up children
    Edited by kirankara at 16/01/12 @ 17:05

  • uiruki #24 4 months ago

    The full game is absolutely full of frame drops. There are areas on the PS3 where it has difficulty managing even 15fps.

    The mesh translucencies are a nice flashback to the Saturn, though - Sega's best console!

  • telboy007 #25 4 months ago

    @uiruki Dreamcast.

  • hiscore #26 4 months ago

    Played the FFXIII-2 demo on PS3 and to me framedrops in cut scenes is a no-go, especially considering Square's [once] world leading craftsmanship in cgi etc. They chose to render in realtime and failed. The gameplay.. well, since they turned "androgynous" with FFVIII (FFIX being the exception) they lost me. This franchise should go back to its basics, which to me are: emotion, music, story, evolved and involved characters and all this set in a beautiful world which runs butter smooth. I like to see that 'J' back in Square's 'JRGPG's'.

  • Slipstream #27 4 months ago

    I still fail to see the point of analysing a demo so intimately.
    I don't, the 360 version of FFXIII in comparison was that bad.

    It's good to know that many of the issues have been addressed, and considering the work gone into making these amends, it's highly unlikely they'd undo it for the full release.
    Edited by Slipstream at 16/01/12 @ 23:10

  • Darren #28 4 months ago

    @frazzl - I can only comment on what I noticed and that was that running around felt sluggish to me in terms of response, like the game was lagging as you spin the camera around and stuff. It's not unplayable or anything like that. I don't remember PS3 FFXIII being like that though but since I haven't tried the new demo on that platform it may be that both suffer from this because of the rain effects? It isn't noticeable in combat because you don't control the camera or character movement directly, the game does.

  • BigHal #29 4 months ago

    All I take from this is that they didn't try to upgrade the engine for PS3 but bring 360 version upto scratch. As a predominantly PS3 gamer (I have both consoles but 360 is mainly for exclusives and XBLA) I find that disappointing. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they fixed the 360 version because gamers deserve better but it didn't preclude them from fixing or improving things on PS3.

    Anyway, I hope the game is better. FF XIII just does not compare (gameplay) to the great VII, IX and XII.

  • cloud_ix #30 4 months ago

    @BigHal tbh it seems they spent all the last one making the ps3 look good and ignoring the xbox 360 one, this time round they seem to have spent all their time improving the xbox 360 one and ignoring the ps3 a little.
    Seems fair overall

  • super_monty #31 4 months ago

    So little in graphics mean nothing to me. I don't understand why people are so fixated on them anyway, art direction and design is far more important.

    What will start affecting my platform purchasing for the next generation with be whoever announces which machine will have backward compatibly first, that's where my money will go.

  • Creasy #32 4 months ago

    what a piece of crap that demo was. uninstalled after about 20 seconds.

  • atrimus #33 4 months ago

    @Cjail

    well said. i can't help but wonder if developers would take parity just a tad more seriously if sites would call them out on it more, instead of faulting the system.

  • cloud_ix #34 4 months ago

    @Creasy I thought the title screen was stunning..

  • cloudskipa #35 4 months ago

    I missed out on FF XIII as I didn't like the sound of it. I haven't played a FF game properly since FF X (FF VIII is still my favourite) and so I thought I'd give this demo a try anyway (360 ver) without expecting a great deal.

    I was really surprised by it, it reminded me of how good FF games can be, I was thinking these games are maybe dated by today's standards but it's not the case, it has addictive combat and some gorgeous visuals/audio. I can't say I noticed any frame-rate drops, not that they are particularly important on games like this anyway, overall it ran great and based on the enjoyment I got from the demo I'll be picking it up. Happy to see the 360 version up to scratch too!

  • Widge #36 4 months ago

    @cloudskipa I actually enjoyed FFXIII as well, as it made a change from the 3rd person / first person / open world overload that was going on at the time.

  • Soulblitz #37 4 months ago

    So does this mean that the cutscenes will be really poor quality like they were in XIII on 360? The artifacting and compression on one cutscene in particular from XIII was absolutely atrocious.

  • Soulblitz #38 4 months ago

    @super_monty Graphical quality isn't a big deal, it's the performance that's the problem. A sudden drop in frame-rate, and even a consistently low frame-rate, can be off-putting and sometimes quite jarring, especially during fast gameplay.

    That's the thing I want fixed in the next hardware generation. Even if we don't make the jump to 1080p as standard for every game, a constant 30/60FPS (depending on what the developers are designing for) will be essential.

  • man.the.king #39 4 months ago

    @JAGUARCD32x

    I take it your bored at work or something?

    Do you really believe somebody like Whatascoop who posts that kind of tripe actually works for a living? :)

  • SvennoJ #40 4 months ago

    @Soulblitz. No, there won't be any artifacting since it will (mostly) be in engine cut scenes. They will suffer from frame rate drops, extra load times, limited to 720p, less detail, less going on at the same time on screen, perhaps texture and detail pop up depending on the engine, no fast cuts between totally different scenes, perhaps less then ideal anti aliasing, alpha coverage and shadow detail. But there won't be any macro blocking.

    I have no idea why they would go with in engine cut scenes. Pre-rendered is easier to make and all they needed to do is use a proper video codec instead of Bink. Most downloadable HD movies aren't bigger then the size of 1 dual layer dvd and look a lot better then ff13's cut scenes on 360.

  • Lucodeath #41 4 months ago

    @JAGUARCD32x
    About half of my xbox1 collection doesnt work with the 360. Good job I still have on original xbox. My PS3 doesnt play any of my PS2 games which is a ball ache cos the PS2 looks bob on a decent tv.
    Edited by Lucodeath at 16/01/12 @ 20:15

  • funkateer #42 4 months ago

    I guess I'm just weird, but I absolutely loved FFXIII and I have XIII-2 pre-ordered.
    IMHO the "sugar and rainbows" scene alone was so utterly beautiful and touching that this alone made me forgive the game's shortcomings.
    Yes, the game was also flawed, but the artfulness of it all carried me through it.

    I have high hopes for XIII-2 and I'm glad that this time around the 360 version is so close the PS3 version.
    But... I'm also slightly disappointed that we won't have those brain-meltingly beautiful 1080p FMVs this time around...

    Edit: Also FFXIII was notably one of the very few games this gen where you would just get a truly polished and butter-smooth game out of the box (at least on PS3), without having to sit through downloading GB's of patches first.
    Edited by funkateer at 16/01/12 @ 21:16

  • ssjcurly #43 4 months ago

    Not complaining about the effort being put into making the game look equal but is it just me or does seeing 1280x720 2x MSAA really put the limitations of the consoles into plain sight? Its hard to find tvs or monitors that dont run at 1080p now. I'm looking forward to the new consoles even if its just to give the graphics cards something to chew on with the 'ports' that arent designed for (sometimes sub)720p.

  • DBLue #44 4 months ago

    @hiscore "Played the FFXIII-2 demo on PS3 and to me framedrops in cut scenes is a no-go, especially considering Square's [once] world leading craftsmanship in cgi etc. They chose to render in realtime and failed."

    I don't really like what Square Enix has become in the last few years, but in terms of visual quality in CGI they remain to be beaten even by Pixar. In that department they still haven't failed to deliver.

    Regarding framerate issues, FFX also had plenty of moments were the level of detail in character models (Square's obsession apparently) was too much for the engine to handle. Also, some of the most gorgeous PSX titles like FFIX and Chrono Cross ran at a noticeably low framerate in battle.

    Their games tend to look pretty good but history has shown they're not afraid to stress the engine to keep graphical detail. FFXIII ran butter-smooth on PS3 but most areas in that game were little more than narrow corridors; also, pre-rendered video was used whenever high quality assets were required in cutscenes, which resulted in the ridulous 4 hours of FMV wasting disc space with scenes that could perfectly run in real time with a bit of optimization (which they only partially adressed in the sequel, apparently).

  • Toplinkar #45 4 months ago

    Congratulations to the Xbox360 owners. But i'm sad. Epic Games, Crytek, Infinity Ward and others always make their games run better (sometimes a lot) on the Xbox360 (proved by the digital foundry articles). However, these companies didn't get as much criticism as Square-Enix did for making a game performing better on the PS3.

    Now, even SE gave priority to the 360 which proves that now, besides Sony owned studios, everyone is more interested in optimizing for the 360, which means, inferior ports to the PS3 for the rest of it's existence. :(

  • smilernick #46 4 months ago

    Eff off Square Enix!! Talk to me when you have pulled your head out your arse, and decide to stick to what your good at and forget all this "let's be more western" nonsense! FFXIII was crap, this will be worse.

  • itsfuzzy #47 4 months ago

    I really don't understand all the hate for FFXIII on the 360, granted it wasn't nearly as good as Lost Odyssey, but it was hardly bargain bin material.

  • frazzl #48 4 months ago

    @itsfuzzy It's because there are plenty of stupid people on the Internet ready to jump on whatever hate wagon is currently popular. After all it's not as if FFXIII is any less linear or cliched than fan favourite FFX. Just ignore the muppets and enjoy whatever game takes your fancy. And just so the Sony fankids can have something to do, you can neg me again for wanting to play FFXIII-2 on my 360 instead of on my PS3 :p.

  • Retroid #49 4 months ago

    @Toplinkar The poor ports of Bayonetta & Ghostbusters to PS3 got particularly negative coverage for being shoddy jobs.

  • agent55 #50 4 months ago

    Biggest complaint other than the obvious linearity: No audio options. The bright, excessively loud "click clack" of the footsteps nearly drove me insane after umpteen hours. Horrible design oversight by giving the player zero control of the audio.

  • Collymilad #51 4 months ago

    @Whatascoop It's cool man, I'll take superior framerates and visuals in 90% of Multiplatform games over screenshot by screenshot nitpicking advantages in one game.

    And before people chime in about being back in 2007, this was still the case in 2011 albeit with a smaller gap.
    Edited by Collymilad at 17/01/12 @ 01:43

  • Aphexman #52 4 months ago

    Rip 360!

  • Raconteur #53 4 months ago

    Whatascoop#4
    Awww look at that 360! your game ALMOST looks at good as thePS3 version! You must be SO proud!
    You must be so relieved after all these years that you can finally say that.

  • Zerobob #54 4 months ago

    I can 100% see why it runs better on PS3, considering Sony's complicated development framework. It's a bit like a specialist Ferrari engine being transplanted into a Zonda and, even after a lot of tinkering, expecting the Zonda with the transplanted engine to be as good as the Ferrari in its original specifically engineered configuration.

    Personally I can't stand the tedious repetitive nature of FF.

  • Aphexman #55 4 months ago

    @Zerobob ps3 is a Veyron of consoles.

  • Whatascoop #56 4 months ago

    @JAGUARCD32x They should. They won't.

  • Retro_ #57 4 months ago

    Played the demo on PS3, It's bloody lovely. As a side note, I really enjoyed the music too, reminded me of the excellent music of FFXII (12), my favorite FF score.

  • pedrohasashi #58 4 months ago

    @Whatascoop

    What? Didnt you knew that that old machine CAn do what the ps3 does? ;) Go figure!

  • seeafish #59 4 months ago

    @frazzl dude you've heard of trophies right? Unless of course you already have a lot of investment in 360 achievements and not been an active PS3 trophy hunter I don't really see your point. The drrrriing sound of a trophy pop is like CRACK to me.

  • igorbarclay #60 4 months ago

    THANKS YOU FOR THIS! Like another poster said, I had trouble deciding which console to get this for. I prefer JGames and exclusives on the PS3 but the rest on the 360, because I live achievements more than trophies. I'll be going with the PS3 since it seems it is the right way to go.