If you haven't heard, the new Blu-Ray release of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is on the streets in Japan. Why should you care about the umpteenth version of a movie that originally came out almost four years ago? Because it comes with a playable PlayStation 3 demo version of Final Fantasy XIII, silly. Faster than we could even import a copy of the demo, some intrepid YouTube user has posted high-quality footage of the entire thing in five parts.
Here's a choice installment, where you can see cutscenes, combat, and running-around-in-the-overworld. You know, all the parts of your balanced JRPG breakfast!
This is the latest in a long line of Final Fantasy demos being packed in with other products Square wants to sell en masse. I remember running to the store as fast as possible and buying Tobal No. 1 just to get my hands on the FFVII demo disc contained therein (and then being pleasantly surprised that I'd gotten a pretty sweet fighting game in the process). Maybe I'm just old and jaded, but that rabid excitement for new Final Fantasy games burned itself out sometime after FFX. I still want to play XIII, but for the time being, I'm happy looking at this demo from afar.
If you want to see the whole 45-minute demo, just start at the beginning. Fair warning: The videos may get pulled at any moment, so you're better off watching them sooner than later.