Final Fantasy XIII-2

Final Fantasy XIII-2 was one of the exceptional cases where a mainline entry in the series appeared on Xbox 360 in Japan on the same day as on PlayStation 3 – the previous Final Fantasy XIII was released in Japan only for the Sony console, and the Xbox 360 version arrived there only much later. For the sequel, Square Enix therefore decided to bet on Microsoft's console much more than before and offer it to Japanese players right from day one, rather than with a delay as with the previous entry.

Technically, however, the Xbox 360 version had to cope with the smaller capacity of the DVD discs of the time compared to Blu-ray on PlayStation 3, so on Xbox the game was released split across multiple install discs. Players therefore had to swap discs at certain points during play, something the PlayStation 3 version, thanks to its single medium, didn't have to deal with. The content itself, the graphics, and the scope of the game, however, did not differ between the consoles in any way – it was a completely equal release with the same quests, battles, and later downloadable add-ons, such as new costumes or boss-battle scenarios, which were released gradually on both consoles simultaneously.

Controls were adapted for the Xbox gamepad, but otherwise the game ran on the same engine and with the same visuals as the competing version. The difference in the number of discs was thus practically the only thing players choosing between platforms had to consider, before two years later a PC port complemented both versions, unifying both console releases into a single digital version with no need to deal with physical media at all and no limitations imposed by optical disc capacity. For collectors of physical releases, though, the boxed Xbox 360 version, with several discs inside, remains one of the small curious details of the whole trilogy and a reminder of a time when the data demands of big games were starting to bump up against the limits of the optical media of the day, before the shift to digital distribution and hard-drive downloads became commonplace.

Why play it: With the same engine and visuals as on competing platforms, differing only in the number of discs, collectors of physical releases will appreciate the boxed Xbox 360 version as a curious reminder of the limits of the optical media of that era.