Final Fantasy XIII-2

According to Square Enix's Adrian Arnese, you don't need to have played Final Fantasy XIII to enjoy Final Fantasy XIII-2. There are more and less forgiving ways of interpreting this.

The face-value take is that the developer has successfully speed-moulded a standalone epic from the tissues of last year's notoriously long-in-development hit. The more cynical assessment is that between time paradoxes, cosmic portals and people on the radio wondering whether they actually, you know, exist, the new game is likely to baffle regardless of prior experience. Impenetrability has a way of levelling the playing field.

Speaking of levelled playing fields, say a big hello to XII-2's big new feature: a manual jump button. That's right, Square's noble quest to restore the element of discovery to XIII's vacuum-wrapped corridors has driven it into the arms of the platform genre. You'll unlock other exploratory abilities further in, we're told, and you'll want to revisit areas when you do to clean them out.

The free-form battle system has also been fiddled with, to perhaps more substantial effect. Outside combat, the presence of a Moogle helpmate (yes, Moogles are back on the menu) makes pre-emptive striking easier: instead of dodging an enemy's view cone, you simply chase them down within a time limit for a surprise attack.

The cut and thrust of Paradigm shifts and command queuing persist unaltered, but new "Cinematic Action" sequences - QTEs, to cut a short story even shorter - break up larger encounters. Nailing the prompts leads to a big visual payout and buffs for all party members. Last but not least, you can recruit certain monsters into your group for a time by crystallising them.

Dialogue trees are bushier, one bystander spouting six or seven lines on request, and the pasty adolescents under your hand have more say in driving the plot, thanks to some BioWare-ish touches. The demo puts us in charge of two, poster-girl Lightning's newly badass sister Serah and mop-haired newcomer Noel Kriess.

At the climax a "Live Trigger" multiple-choice event invites us to ask our companions how we should go about nobbling an enormous invisible giant. Tackle the beast head-on, or employ a mysteriously manifest device to bring him down? Till next time.