Played the demo at TGS...

[4x4eyes]

Alright, so I played two of the three missions that were at TGS and so far, the game is pretty cool. The downside was that we were started right at the begining of the missions so there was no chance to explore Clad 6 or the rooms. But anyways....

-Mission Mode-

Tried out the new field where you fight the big four legged spider like mech boss. This guy is absolutely HUGE....you have to take out one of its legs to make its center core pop out, but even that can be a real chore when it's spinning all over the place.

The charge shot is pretty cool. It did some pretty good damage. The chain combos are gonna take getting used to though. Especially if you're playing multiplayer. I was playing it with a bunch of kids and they kept on interrupting my combos...I think. Might've just been me screwing it all up myself. But yeah, they'll take getting used to. Especially if you're gonna weapon switch for a combo finish.

The dodge roll is such a godsend. Pretty obvious what it does besides rolling through a laser fence, but it also helped a lot in battle mode which I'll get to in a bit.

Other than that, I didn't get to see anyone using a mirage blast or any of the new nanoblasts/SUVs. They showed them in the display video though. The SUV with the Cast jumping onto a Transforming Airboard was cool. Kinda reminded me of Eureka 7.


-Battle Mode-

I wanted to play this more than the Mission Mode. The Trampolines were fun. Jumping all around the place and such.

And it's cool to finally be able to play against each other competitively besides just Airboard Racing. The combat was still a little iffy and suffered from the same lock-on issues that the first one had, but this IS a demo version and hopefully they can fix this.

Blocking someone's attacks is a nice touch, but dodging the attack all together really helps.....if you can pull it off. Tapping the R button twice will make your character roll out of the way which was weird cause I thought that circle and R was the command...

After the demo was all said and done I got to meet Sakai and shake hands with him. I asked him if he was gonna work on Phantasy Star for the PS3 and he said "That's still quite a ways yet". It seemd like he was tired and didn't wanna talk to anyone, so I just left with my two Fanta Straps.

The demo was good and gave me a taste of what's in store. But I really wish they could've let me explore the colony and worlds a bit more.

Other than that, it's a cool game so far. Definately better than the first, that's a given. But by how much, we'll just have to wait and see.

Edit: According to the PSP2 Passport, a demo (which might or might not be the same one as the TGS demo) will be released in November and should (my kanji isn't really good) support character import from the first full version of PS Portable. And I think you also get the Exam saber for doing so as well. But if your character is made from scratch in PSP2's demo and THEN imported, you get an unknown rare item.

Another rare item will be attainable if you access Fanta's website. Also, there will be a mini-game somewhere where you can get a Fanta collectible for your My Room as well.