So from what I gathered from the various impressions here the story is meh, the monsters party members are meh, the game is easy and it's more open. I'm definitely okay with the game focusing more on offensive paradigms so that doesn't bother me that much. The only thing is the random encounters thing. From the impressions here, almost everyone loathed it. I definitely have to watch more youtube videos/read more impressions on that cause I really hate random encounters.
How high would you say the encounter rate is? I've heard 3-5 steps, but I figured my friend was exaggerating. He really disliked the Moogle Clock since he dislikes random encounters.
But I do have a question now that you mention it. You said that some enemies will start chasing you like wolves. Based on what you're saying, wolves would normally have higher agility or something and the game didn't really adjust their speed for the area or the speed of your characters' running? Or is it because their animations typically cover more ground than your characters' standard running animation?
Well darn.. i was thinking of replaying XIII before XIII2 comes out.. if its not needed then meh.. idk. i mean i did like/appreciate the game for what it offered.
About the pre-order bonus, idk whether to go for gamestop genji bow bonus (with powerup membership - ill be using my friends) or amazon omega boss bonus. although im sure the bonus' will end up as dlc. anyones thoughts on which i should take?
The last numbered game was cut from an entirely different cloth.. It's just possible that the next numbered FF will be completely different. But swearing off the XIII team is a fair decision....
The last numbered game was cut from an entirely different cloth.. It's just possible that the next numbered FF will be completely different. But swearing off the XIII team is a fair decision....
ff12 had a disaster called storyline however no one can deny the FF12 exploration is beyond every other FF game and much more fun and challenging than other ff titles ( ff13 is harder but it isn't that much fun )
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all i can say about ff13-2 that it's a mediocre FF title , i hate the characters and don't feel the story is meaningful or interesting but the quiz/tasks in the game are at least good and fun to some point and maybe at the 20th hour of the game you might get bored of it and throw it away for good .
is it worth a buy ? not really but it's worth a rent at least
i hope i won't treat this game like i treated ff13
Why do you think he wouldn't do it? There were many times in FFXIII where I wanted to take out the disc and break it. Probably rip apart the actual cover too while I was at it.
Why do you think he wouldn't do it? There were many times in FFXIII where I wanted to take out the disc and break it. Probably rip apart the actual cover too while I was at it.
ff12 had a disaster called storyline however no one can deny the FF12 exploration is beyond every other FF game and much more fun and challenging than other ff titles ( ff13 is harder but it isn't that much fun )
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all i can say about ff13-2 that it's a mediocre FF title , i hate the characters and don't feel the story is meaningful or interesting but the quiz/tasks in the game are at least good and fun to some point and maybe at the 20th hour of the game you might get bored of it and throw it away for good .
is it worth a buy ? not really but it's worth a rent at least
i hope i won't treat this game like i treated ff13
- Story - There were a few decent bits, most of them near the end (past the 2/3 of the way point when the stupidity seemed to peak. I quite enjoyed the last hour overall), but mostly this varied between mediocre to really bad. Anyone who's intending on playing the game for the story is probably going to be disappointed, especially if they don't like stories based on paradoxes. It doesn't help that it's so short.
Thanks for the detailed impressions. With the story being shorter, you mean the gameplay time feels reduced compared to XIII or the overall plot, being the script itself, containing less dialogues and cutscenes?
If its anything like Lost Odyssey you can probably redeem with a Japanese live account, download it and have it tied to your console and have it working for whatever region you buy the game for.
If its anything like Lost Odyssey you can probably redeem with a Japanese live account, download it and have it tied to your console and have it working for whatever region you buy the game for.
If its anything like Lost Odyssey you can probably redeem with a Japanese live account, download it and have it tied to your console and have it working for whatever region you buy the game for.
I am not sure, who did you fight when you go right from the platform that leads to the final battle? The normal normal enemy there is the boss from 13 but there is a rare yellow single version as rare spawn too. However once you fought there once, the spawns stay empty. In had to time reversal and redo the whole dungeon to get my last enemy there.
I am not sure, who did you fight when you go right from the platform that leads to the final battle? The normal normal enemy there is the boss from 13 but there is a rare yellow single version as rare spawn too. However once you fought there once, the spawns stay empty. In had to time reversal and redo the whole dungeon to get my last enemy there.
Done for the night... 155/160 fragments... and 3 more things I need to get on the enemy report, but those 3 things require a bunch of needless runaround :<
Enter a fight with サボテンダーthen switch to all DEF or all HLR then wait for it to evolve. It was like this in FFXIII too I believe.
) you just have to make sure that the right monster spawn before you defeat them. I think the combination (of 3 different monsters) changes everytime you leave the platform and go back again.
I think Noel, at least his dialogue, was written better than Snow. He fits into the hero mould better, and he doesn't seem irritating at all. His actions, for the most part, seemed justified and the part where
he tears Snow apart
made me smile. Like I said in the FF community thread, I don't think I'll like Serah's English voice much since it will remind me of Omochao.
Oh god, Serah's voiced by Omochao? I wonder if that's where most of the hate came from...
But yeah, I really liked all the different bits of dialogue people had - whether it's just normal conversation, riding a chocobo, reactions to you throwing Mog, you finding things with him using it, you revealing hidden stuff or whatever. There were a few long lines that got a bit grating after you heard them too many times, but mostly they were just little harmless things that went a way towards making the people in towns feel a little more alive.
The encounter rate seems to vary from place to place, there's one particular area where 3-5 steps isn't an exaggeration at all (and the worst thing is most of the enemies in that area give 1CP each) but generally it's not quite that bad and about 10 feels more like the average. Fortunately when you're going through an area for the first time it's usually not that hard to just run past most enemies and once you're out of range then the enemy disappears off the map and you're safe. The system's a step above pure random encounters at least, but when it gets most annoying is when you go back to an area and are trying to explore. You do have access to a chocobo when you've finished an area which will get rid of random encounters, but that's not quite as awesome as it seems because when you're riding on a chocobo Mog won't react to the barely visible hidden chests anymore, which is what most things you want are. So unless you're on foot you have to find them on your own, then jump off the chocobo and use his search ability. Most of the later areas have the crazy chocobo instead of the regular one too, and unlike the regular chocobo that one gobbles its way through gysahl greens like mad so just isn't that practical until right near the end when you have more disposal income.
As for the wolves, they run much faster on the field map than your characters. Combine that with the fact that there's no safe time (the green bit at the start of the moogle clock) before the monster notices you, and once they've got their eyes on you unless you get lucky and they start running in the wrong way or something, you're going to end up in a battle because it's impossible to get out of the encounter area before they catch you. I think the ideal solution would've been to make it so that for enemies more than a certain amount of levels below you have the entire moogle clock bar as green, which would give you more than enough time to run out of the encounter area and avoid a battle while still meaning that if you wanted to fight a weaker monster to catch it then you wouldn't have any problems, but unfortunately this isn't how it works. There's actually a fragment skill that lets you kill enemies directly from the field too, but you can't get it until you have entries for every single enemy in the game, and that's pretty much the last thing anyone does so it's completely useless by the time you get it.
Thanks for the detailed impressions. With the story being shorter, you mean the gameplay time feels reduced compared to XIII or the overall plot, being the script itself, containing less dialogues and cutscenes?
The overall plot, it took me 81 hours (which is a bit longer than the forum average of about 75) to do everything for the platinum, but in terms of just the main story you could easily polish it off in about 25 or something. For some people this'll probably fine, but I love my 40+ hour RPGs so I was a bit disappointed by the length.
Enter a fight with サボテンダーthen switch to all DEF or all HLR then wait for it to evolve. It was like this in FFXIII too I believe.
Once you do time reversal (yes you have to do
platforming all over again
) you just have to make sure that the right monster spawn before you defeat them. I think the combination (of 3 different monsters) changes everytime you leave the platform and go back again.
As a tip, do three healers and don't use any defenders. I tried defenders thinking that would be the best way forward... and Noel managed to kill it anyway.
And yeah, for the right of the final platform you'll get one of three encounters - either ショロトル and ミキストリ, just ショロトル, or テストカトリポ. If you get the ショロトル alone one then it won't stop any of them spawning, but if you kill either the two of them or テストカトリポ then you have to rewind time and do it all again to get the remaining one(s). I thought I was done with that place, getting 100% on its map was a nightmare ;_;
) you just have to make sure that the right monster spawn before you defeat them. I think the combination (of 3 different monsters) changes everytime you leave the platform and go back again.
The overall plot, it took me 81 hours (which is a bit longer than the forum average of about 75) to do everything for the platinum, but in terms of just the main story you could easily polish it off in about 25 or something. For some people this'll probably fine, but I love my 40+ hour RPGs so I was a bit disappointed by the length.
I remember the last hrs in XIII (and XII) being almost empty of story (/cutscenes, dialogues). Basically from when you land on Pulse the story takes a long pause, maybe between 6 and 8hrs depending on how fast you are. If in XIII-2 they did cut "dead" moments like these, the experience should feel more complete and better paced. Is this the case?
I just hope the amount of actual story here is still close to the typical jrpg, just that the "grindy or boring gameplay moments without a story" (like Pulse) are cut-off for the better of it.
Can someone explain a little bit more to me about monster inheritance? Do they inherit stats from other monsters, or just abilities? And does that mean that it's best to collect a bunch of great abilities first, then slap them onto a monster with fantastic stats for the endgame?
Can someone explain a little bit more to me about monster inheritance? Do they inherit stats from other monsters, or just abilities? And does that mean that it's best to collect a bunch of great abilities first, then slap them onto a monster with fantastic stats for the endgame?
No stats, just abilities which are either active so commands or attacks like ruin or passive like more hp. Pretty right on the last thing, you get the best monster by fusing like 6-8 monsters into one and then fusing that monster into another one.
No stats, just abilities which are either active so commands or attacks like ruin or passive like more hp. Pretty right on the last thing, you get the best monster by fusing like 6-8 monsters into one and then fusing that monster into another one.
So is there a limit to how many abilities a single monster can hold? And, if so, can you delete less-than-great abilities in order to free up room for better ones?
