The Merged Final Fantasy XIII-2 Thread

[Starmongoose]

Kevadu echoes my thoughts on the battle system.


I'm not gonna say I won't be getting it. I probably will, just that it won't necessarily be anywhere near the release date.

This for sure.  I can't afford it, and while I make exceptions, I don't want to afford it right away at the very least.  If the reviews are good, great... but if this is more of the same, than wtf is Squeenix thinking?

We will see after E3 I guess, but yeah, if it is more of the same it won't even be a blip on my radar.

[CDFN]

One thing is certain though, it's hard to take jrpgs seriously after playing the witcher. Maybe I'm just not part of the target audience anymore or maybe japanese developers just don't know any better, but playing games that treat you like an adult sure is refreshing. I doubt we'll ever see that kind of maturity in jrpgs. It's just a completely different world, I'm all for variety and I want japanese games to maintain the features that make them unique but they sure could learn a thing or two from western games.
But yeah, XIII clicked with me so I hope the sequel will be able to grab my attention.

[CDFN]

One interesting thing that nobody mentioned is the fact that the very first screens to be revealed are already in english. World wide simultaneous release?
The fact that the new character's outfit is similar to Fang's probably isn't a coincidence, though I'm not sure how that would tie in with the story.

[Alisha]

most people probally dont care about this but i wonder if they will give some clarity on the relationship between vanille and fang.

[Bytor]

I don't really mind if they use the same battle system but I'd like to see it tweaked a bit. I actually wish it would be slowed down just a bit so I could see more of what was happening as opposed to numbers flying all over the screen. I like watching the game I'm playing , not staring at my HP numbers go up and down and my attack numbers flashing seemingly non-stop across the screen.

[hell_snake]

The fact that the new character's outfit is similar to Fang's probably isn't a coincidence, though I'm not sure how that would tie in with the story.

Fang's brother confirmed.

The only thing that can get me excited for this game is the addition of towns and proper side-quests. I can overlook a mediocre story if the game has decent distractions.

[CDFN]

Hm, these pics are probably from the very beginning. That's probably the town the survivors from cocoon built on pulse. For some reason monsters are attacking it, the new guy shows up and gives Serah a sword and the first battle in the game begins.
The game will probably alternate between the different parties like the prequel did.
I'm pretty sure that all playable characters besides Light and Serah will be new. I'm also very confident that unlike X-2 they wont be recycling areas from the previous game, it's unlikely that they will return to cocoon so pulse will be the only previously seen area and it will definitely have changed a lot during the years that passed since the first game.

[insertnamehere]

I went into 13 forgetting that it was an FF game and that it took 4 years(?) to develop, so I may be too lenient.
I thought was too easy, but I only played like an hour or 2 of it.
I almost always got 5 stars on each battle, so it always went by quickly.
Story was fairly good from all that I got out of it, but I felt like Lightning had no room to develop and would get stale quickly.
I hated that money appears to be only in chests and come from selling items from battle that only come come up occasionally.
I also hate that games display just current HP (and MP) instead of current and max HP/MP, especially with HD ones that plenty of room to display both.
Camera control is shitty.
iirc, gameinformer mentioned that its story made no sense but at least it had "one of the best battle systems" of all time or something like that.
I thought Nier had a funner battle system than FF13.
If someone calls something "one of the best" in anything like that, what line do we draw for best?
Top 10, top 20, top 50, or maybe just all battle systems ever made?
FF13 has one of the best battle systems ever.
AND THAT FUCKING DATALOG THING.
It explained about purging, Cocoon being assholes, and Pulse being uninhabitable and terrifying about 5 times each in an hour, once for each story entry.

[Starmongoose]

Hm, these pics are probably from the very beginning. That's probably the town the survivors from cocoon built on pulse. For some reason monsters are attacking it, the new guy shows up and gives Serah a sword and the first battle in the game begins.

Isn't that how FFX started?

[CDFN]

Hm, these pics are probably from the very beginning. That's probably the town the survivors from cocoon built on pulse. For some reason monsters are attacking it, the new guy shows up and gives Serah a sword and the first battle in the game begins.

Isn't that how FFX started?

Now that you mention it, yeah.
I doubt that the battle system will be completely identical, I'd like to think that at least some of the feedback was incorporated in to every aspect of the game, battle system included.

[Prime Mover]

I had no problem with the FFXIII battle system. At least it was something different, and I could do with one more. I'll agree with most people that the thing that trashed FFXIII was how random and bizarre the story was. They got so far off the deep end with their weird fantasy elements, that it was impossible to relate to. And since all of the characters' struggles were DIRECTLY related to unfathomable fantasy weirdness, it was difficult to sympathize with them.

I love Fantasy and Sci-Fi... a lot in fact. But it has to be done right. It has to be applicable, and used to explore applicable concepts, at least at some level. If the human relationships are too divorced from our own experiences, than it's very hard to relate to them, and suddenly the emotional core of the story becomes meaningless and impossible to sympathize with. In ANY story (sci-fi or not), if I can extract some basic human framework, removed from the specifics of setting or plot, then the writers have succeeded.

Contrast FFXIII with Nier. If you really dive into the world of Nier's backstory, it's pretty out-there, just as random, illogical, and nonsensical as FFXIIIs. But all that random mumbo-jumbo is pretty irrelevant to the individual character struggles and relationships within the confines of the game. So you can still sympathize with the characters, even though their situation is so incredibly goofy. The basic conflicts are fairly universal, even if the underlying reasoning isn't. That's how Nier works. If Nier had brought up all it's weirdness right upfront, made up dozens of mumbo-jumbo keywords and descriptions, and shoved it down your throat at every given opportunity, it would have been SHIT.

And that's where FFXIII went wrong. The writers reveled in overly-complex, overly random, hard-to-conceive bullshit, and had to bring it up every chance they could get. I don't believe that FFXIIIs back story is any worse or weirder than Nier's, but the fact they had to call your attention to it every 3 seconds was detrimental.

[Mickeymac92]

I don't recall having trouble understanding the plot or sympathizing with the characters. I actually felt that the gameplay in FFXIII was pretty flawed and I'm hoping in the sequel it will be better. Really, I'm just looking forward to a new adventure with the same characters again. I'll adjust to the rest of the game as I go.

[CDFN]

I agree with Prime, the fundamentals of the story werent as bad as people say, it was just poorly presented. Maybe the fact that I read episode 0 before playing the game helped but I didn't really find it that hard to follow. The concept was strong but poorly executed and the cast was at least more likeable than in VIII and X.
But like I said in the game's thread, I'm done talking about it.
I'm interested in seeing SE's ability to take the feedback and incorporate it into the game. This will be their second shot at it and this time they don't have the excuse that feedback from western focus groups came too late.


Show us what you got SE because we already told you what we want.

[Farron]

I loved the battle system in XIII. Fast paced, always having to change your optima. I even liked most of the cast, maybe not Snow but still more than I liked in most other FF games, especially compared to VI which is easily one of the best games yet 90% of the cast is garbage.

I'm surely looking forward to it!

ON a side note, you guys think SE forgot about VersusXIII or they just think our memory is that bad ?
I mean, after the XIV fiasco, I'm pretty sure they're taking their time with Versus but they surely need some money.

[hell_snake]

Teaser Trailer time!

http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6315324/

Battle system seems to be the exact same.