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FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 |OT| Change the Future

E

exhume

Member
Lightning debates! I can get into this.

Lightning may not be well-written or well-thought out, but at least there's little about her that offends on a feminist level. This is more than can be said for most jRPG females.
 
F

Fimbulvetr

Member
Phenomic said:
Also, you say he's a bum here's no real indication that he really is one. I guess they just want you to imply that for some reason.
Click to expand...
The thing is Lightning’s reasons for hating Snow from the start do exist. The problem is that they are much better emphasized in the prequel novel. She initially just dislikes him for being flagrantly irresponsible and a blowhard. She also thinks he’s going to be a bad influence on Serah, and that his carefree lifestyle won’t be enough to provide for her as well as Lightning has been doing for years.

I still feel Lightning is a meh character, but the novel makes her anger seem more reasonable and makes her dedication to Serah a much bigger deal(for example, Lightning dropped out of high school and pretty much gave up on any future dreams to join the military just so she could have a steady income for Serah. All you get from the game is “I had to provide for Serah, so I came up with this shitty nickname and started acting like an asshole” without any real look into just how much Light gave up for her sister and why she’s so overprotective other than “cause she’s my sister”).

A lot of what makes certain characters tick is in that novel, unfortunately.
 
J

jorgeton

Member
That chocobo metal track is both hilarious and catchy. And awful, truly awful.

Also re: Lightning, I'm sure her design and personality were borne from extensive focus group feedback. Its probably why I dig her so much! Strong female character who isnt sexualized to the nth degree? Yes please. I found her disdain for Snow one of the highlights of FF13. I also really enjoyed her leading lady turn in Dissidia012. I hope FF13-2 sneaks in a reference to it, as what happens in Dissidia is very similar to the predicament she's in at the start of 13-2.
 
B

brandonh83

Banned
The soundtrack is great. I still don't like some of the vocal tracks and Crazy Chocobo is the worst thing of all time, but there's a lot of good stuff here, plenty of variety and just a lot of nice tracks in general.

I really dig the way "Eclipse" begins.
 
N

Ninjimbo

Member
How is Lightning not well-written? I thought her transition from vindictive bitch to hero with purpose was smooth. She has some nice moments too.
 
N

Ninjimbo

Member
I thought it was good writing for the most part. The end gets weird with too many holes, but I thought the character arcs were satisfying enough. They set out to make a standard shonen drama and I think it worked out.
 
F

Fimbulvetr

Member
Ninjimbo said:
How is Lightning not well-written? I thought her transition from vindictive bitch to hero with purpose was smooth. She has some nice moments too.
Click to expand...
As said earlier, her reasons for being a bitch are much better stated and more sympathetic in the prequel novels than in the actual game.

Also, bad pacing (she has, like, the shortest character arc in the game, next to Fang, and afterwards all she exists for is doing backflips and spouting crappy one liners between motivational dialogue), and heavy handed dialogue (she literally stops the game to explain to another character how her character developed, twice in the span of half an hour. Wut?).
 
W

Witchfinder General

punched Wheelchair Mike
Kagari said:
Nothing in FFXIII was "well-written," but don't tell that to Toriyama.
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Actually, the main characters (barring the villains) in FFXIII were some of the best written characters from a Final Fantasy game. Each had an excellent arc and the reasons for them banding together (or not, at least initially) was well implemented. Granted, this is contrasted by the actual plot itself being mostly nonsensical. Funnily enough FFXII is the exact opposite: Poorly defined characters (but pretty interesting villains) but a good story.
 
R

R_thanatos

Member
Ninjimbo said:
How is Lightning not well-written? I thought her transition from vindictive bitch to hero with purpose was smooth. She has some nice moments too.
Click to expand...

Lighting decisions at many points during the games are stupid... Is it jalousy ? pride ? confidance ? The fact that you get their back story with flashback doesn't help.

at some point i just didn't care and assumed that the other guys were evil .. ( It was that ) ..the only good thing in FF13 was Hope motives to hate snow ( perfectly understandable ) and he also managed to get over his issues 3 chapters later and become the awesome mage i didn't need but the one i deserved ..


Sahz was also pretty clear and good to follow , he was just with the unpredictable and obscure vanille most of the time but in the end ..his position in face of what's happening and what he was doing was clear , set and GOOD.. he even got the best ending of the cast .
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
Phenomic said:
Right... does the game go that far in advance though? I figured it would be just pretty much 3 years ahead and backward to change things.
Click to expand...

We're actually only going forward in time. They've said that the paradoxes only start after the point where FFXIII ends. So no travelling back before the ending of FFXIII (unless it's actually a twist of course) The scenes with Snow is set in
300
AF. Noel is from even further in time than that. They're aiming to change
the future of the world as seen from Noel's time, not the past. Although that seems to be Hope's aims
 
J

jorgeton

Member
Fimbulvetr said:
As said earlier, her reasons for being a bitch are much better stated and more sympathetic in the prequel novels than in the actual game.
Click to expand...

Man, why is it when a woman is strong and driven she's instantly labeled a bitch? If a guy acted the same way Lightning did he'd be labeled as bad-ass.. or a take no prisoners lone wolf. or something. but because it's a woman = bitch.

I thought Lightning had ample reasons for being annoyed with Sazh at the game's opening and with Snow for 90% of the game. She was trying to rescue her sister and had total tunnel vision about it -- it was her only focus (pun intended) and everything else was just in her way.
 
Lady Bird

Lady Bird

Matsuno's Goebbels
Witchfinder General said:
Actually, the main characters (barring the villains) in FFXIII were some of the best written characters from a Final Fantasy game.
Click to expand...
Heh, I don't agree. The only character that even feels truly alive is Sazh, and even then, when you get to analyze him, you bump into inconsistencies in his arch.

Lightning is shallow, and any "character exposition" from her is told through boring monologues that disrupt the pace of the game, not unlike the villains of the game, and last for the entirety of one/ two cutscenes. This is possibly the most kind of amateur writing there is. It's what you would expect from someone who has no storytelling talent, and simply info-dumps everything to 1-2 cutscenes. But FFXIII is even worse. It goes as far as contradict Lightning's (and the game's) big thematic idea at the ending. It's laughably bad.

Lightning is a mix of Squall and Ashe, without the writing depth from both.

Snow is shallow, one-dimensional, and his extremely dumb ideas work out because the writing sucks that much. Hope is Vaan with more screentime, which gives the illusion he has more development as well, when he does not. Vanille acts in an extremely retarded and unnatural way. Fang is potential-wasted.

And that's not even taking into account the completely horrible, unnatural dialogues.
 
F

Fimbulvetr

Member
jorgeton said:
Man, why is it when a woman is strong and driven she's instantly labeled a bitch? If a guy acted the same way Lightning did he'd be labeled as bad-ass.. or a take no prisoners lone wolf. or something. but because it's a woman = bitch
Click to expand...
But she is a bitch, and her entire character arc is based on her becoming less of one. And if it was a dude, I’d call him a dick because, well, then he’d be a dick.

So please stop assuming I dislike a character based entirely on gender bias when I gave multiple actual reasons that I think she’s badly written and hard for me to like.
 
H

Hi2u

Banned
Grivenger said:
Heh, I don't agree. The only character that even feels truly alive is Sazh, and even then, when you get to analyze him, you bump into inconsistencies in his arch.

Lightning is shallow, and any "character exposition" from her is told through boring monologues that disrupt the pace of the game, not unlike the villains of the game, and last for the entirety of one/ two cutscenes. This is possibly the most kind of amateur writing there is. It's what you would expect from someone who has no storytelling talent, and simply info-dumps everything to 1-2 cutscenes. But FFXIII is even worse. It goes as far as contradict Lightning's (and the game's) big thematic idea at the ending. It's laughably bad.

Lightning is a mix of Squall and Ashe, without the writing depth from both.

Snow is shallow, one-dimensional, and his extremely dumb ideas work out because the writing sucks that much. Hope is Vaan with more screentime, which gives the illusion he has more development as well, when he does not. Vanille acts in an extremely retarded and unnatural way. Fang is potential-wasted.

And that's not even taking into account the completely horrible, unnatural dialogues.
Click to expand...

I'm still surprised by the chick with the glasses getting so much screen time making you think she was the main villain of the game in the trailers. Heck, she was more developed and fleshed out than the actual main villain in FFXIII, who didn't even have a lot to say in the entire game and their second appearance on Pulse was out of the blue and completely put in as placeholder.

It's like Squeenix forgot to remove them from there and put just a boss battle with something else instead. Like why would the main villain be there in the middle of a wasteland just waiting for you. Script wasn't great but I still thought the game was fantastic.
 
N

Ninjimbo

Member
Fimbulvetr said:
As said earlier, her reasons for being a bitch are much better stated and more sympathetic in the prequel novels than in the actual game.

Also, bad pacing (she has, like, the shortest character arc in the game, next to Fang, and afterwards all she exists for is doing backflips and spouting crappy one liners between motivational dialogue), and heavy handed dialogue (she literally stops the game to explain to another character how her character developed, twice in the span of half an hour. Wut?).
Click to expand...

I thought she was presented well early on in the game actually. She's a renegade soldier trying to save her sister from the worst fate she can possibly imagine. Then when she loses her, she loses all drive and for awhile becomes an agent of chaos even going as far as to train a kid in assassination. Eventually she turns that around because she has her moments with Snow and Hope. I remember thinking it was great, especially the scenes in the past where you see Lightning before everything went down. I really liked her relationship with Snow since that's something I rarely see in videogames.

Yeah. The dialogue can get kinda iffy in the heavy moments, but they don't ruin the story for me. The good outweighs the bad.
 
J

jorgeton

Member
Fimbulvetr said:
But she is a bitch, and her entire character arc is based on her becoming less of one. And if it was a dude, I’d call him a dick because, well, then he’d be a dick.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Didn't mean to single you out, I meant it more as a general statement about the perception of strong women.

I found Lightning quite engaging, but less so as she softened up towards the end. The same could be said of FF13's story actually, the first half (when the gameplay was on rails) was strong, but the second half (when you actually gain control of your party) was just bad.
 
D

djplaeskool

Member
Ukfu7.jpg
 
R

RyougaSaotome

Member
Ninjimbo said:
I thought she was presented well early on in the game actually. She's a renegade soldier trying to save her sister from the worst fate she can possibly imagine. Then when she loses her, she loses all drive and for awhile becomes an agent of chaos even going as far as to train a kid in assassination. Eventually she turns that around because she has her moments with Snow and Hope. I remember thinking it was great, especially the scenes in the past where you see Lightning before everything went down. I really liked her relationship with Snow since that's something I rarely see in videogames.

Yeah. The dialogue can get kinda iffy in the heavy moments, but they don't ruin the story for me. The good outweighs the bad.
Click to expand...


This was pretty much how I felt about it. Yeah, the script is filled with typical melodramatic moments, but it pretty much plays out like a shonen manga, which I was OK with on the whole.

I also think Sazh is criminally under-appreciated.
 
D

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Witchfinder General said:
Actually, the main characters (barring the villains) in FFXIII were some of the best written characters from a Final Fantasy game.
Click to expand...
If we're sticking with mainline, Balthier and Vivi would beg to differ. Maybe Auron.

jorgeton said:
Man, why is it when a woman is strong and driven she's instantly labeled a bitch? If a guy acted the same way Lightning did he'd be labeled as bad-ass.. or a take no prisoners lone wolf. or something. but because it's a woman = bitch.
Click to expand...
This may not mean much but... I'm female and even I thought she was bitchy, and her entire arc was essentially about her softening up. As a 21-year-old back then, I could not empathize with her (who was apparently the same age) at all, even through the "protective older sister" bits (which, again, I should have been able to empathize with given my familial role but couldn't find myself doing so at all).

Fimbulvetr's right. Even if it were a guy, I'd find myself saying that he's an asshole. It isn't really about gender... it's about poor writing and being utterly shallow.

Edit: But she's more sympathetic in Episode 0, I agree. It gives her reason to become frustrated with Serah getting engaged at an early age.
 
S

Styles

Member
Some of these tracks sound very similar to Nier, which I absolute loved.

I'm baffled as to why they didn't pick Noel's theme as the game's theme song. Some amazing tracks so far.
 
F

Fimbulvetr

Member
Vect said:
I'm baffled as to why they didn't pick Noel's theme as the game's theme song. Some amazing tracks so far.
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They made the battle theme a version of it (just like Blinded By Light).

Also I’m guessing, just like in XIII, the game’s main theme is the instrumental of Serah’s theme.
 
ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Yuel sounds like she's related Yaag.
 
D

Droplet

Member
I have mixed feelings about this soundtrack. On the one hand, I love most of the vocal tracks and the rearrangements of FFXIII music. On the other, I have no idea what could possibly make somebody come up with some of this stuff. The way the aggressive mixes work in-game seems very cool though. I wish more games would be that playful with the audio.
 
xion4360

xion4360

Member
hmm.. well despite not really liking Hamauzu as the composer in XIII, now I much prefer his stuff to most of the others in XIII-2. Disc 3 is a complete wash for me. I hate tracks with Vocals, or pop-y tracks... and there are more than a few of those. I much prefer the XIII ost seeing as how I kept 28 tracks from that one, and only 16 out of a 4 disc ost for XIII-2.

BUT The Ending Credits track (10 minutes) is pure greatness!

Also this little piece isn't in it, the latter part - http://youtu.be/tIhKnPgAMFg
 
S

Styles

Member
I really like how they weaved the 'miracle' track from FFXIII into Serah's theme at the end. These little homages they've made for FFXIII are really cool.
 
B

Bullza2o

Member
I just watched a trailer, and they showed sidequests. I don't recall if there were sidequests in XIII, but anyways this game looks promising.
 
Z

ZephyrFate

Banned
Droplet said:
I have mixed feelings about this soundtrack. On the one hand, I love most of the vocal tracks and the rearrangements of FFXIII music. On the other, I have no idea what could possibly make somebody come up with some of this stuff. The way the aggressive mixes work in-game seems very cool though. I wish more games would be that playful with the audio.
Click to expand...

New Bodhum, Historia Crux, and a good chunk of Joelle's vocal themes work so well for vocal themes.
 
A

AlphaDragoon

Member
Dark Schala said:
Agreed. I don't like Lightning very much. A strong female character to me in a game would be... Chris from Genso Suikoden III or Ayra from Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, I guess. Or maybe the closest thing might be Celes Chere from FFVI if we want to stay within the series. I found Celes to be a far more convincing female protagonist than Lightning.
Click to expand...

My problem with Light was that making a "strong female character" meant make an unlikable douchebag who resorts to the typical canned "badass" trope (talk like you're going to hurt/kill anyone who annoys you, punch allies who disagree with you, scowl a lot, etc.).

I can't stand FFVI but Celes was like, ten times better as a strong female character than Lightning ever will be.
 
H

hamauzu kaito

Member
I feel that people that play games forget that characters, that can now be seen as "archetypal" because of our "familiarity" with such characters, are very real. No matter how much people would like to say something is archetypal or stereotypical, people do behave like these characters. I think the reactions in this forum are similar to what people say when they watch movies, particularly scary ones. They always say "I would have never done that, or people dont do that in real life." However, people do. I think that imposing your own or others life experiences on those of the characters is totally unrealistic. This is a fantasy, and therefore we do not set the rules or the stage. Take it for what is is and believe it, isnt that why its a role playing game? :end rant: :p
 
D

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
THANK GOD for the instant Optima... Paradigm Shifting. They fixed one thing out of many.

Noel's animations are so slow, though. :/

AlphaDragoon said:
My problem with Light was that making a "strong female character" meant make an unlikable douchebag who resorts to the typical canned "badass" trope (talk like you're going to hurt/kill anyone who annoys you, punch allies who disagree with you, scowl a lot, etc.).

I can't stand FFVI but Celes was like, ten times better as a strong female character than Lightning ever will be.
Click to expand...
I absolutely agree with you. A lot of her behaviour made no sense to me, partially because I thought she was supposed to be more disciplined and mature than that... until I realize the trope she was adhering to.
 
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