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[Ixion]

When I played through FFX it wasn't until about 20 hours or something in until I realized that it didn't have an overworld. The style of the game, the narrative, didn't call for one. It kind of had a Fellowship of the Ring vibe, which was really cool considering it came out like within 2-3 days of that film.

The Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite book. I just love a good ol' fashioned epic journey that takes you through a rich world, with varied locations.

This gave FFX a sense of focus that is lacking in some of the other installments, which relied on more ad-hoc goals, such as FFXII's search for those shards and what-not, and whatever the FFXIII characters were doing throughout the entire game. lol

I got to the overworld I was like "WTH is this? I'm a giant running around the world!"

Or maybe you're a normal person running around a miniature world?!

 

[Paches]

So I played 13 on my old 80gig PS3 and it crapped the bed and I didn't have my FF13 saves backed up. Can I just make a new save at the first save point and get all the benefits of having a FF13 save for FF13-2?

 

[Psi]

So I played 13 on my old 80gig PS3 and it crapped the bed and I didn't have my FF13 saves backed up. Can I just make a new save at the first save point and get all the benefits of having a FF13 save for FF13-2?

I think it has to be a clear save to get everything.

 

[brandonh83]

The Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite book. I just love a good ol' fashioned epic journey that takes you through a rich world, with varied locations.

Concurrently, Fellowship is my favorite film for that reason. The other two were up there with it and Return of the King is clearly just beyond epic and beautiful, but it's that beginning of the journey feel that I appreciate about Fellowship. One of the best parts in the film is when you see Frodo and Sam walking through those wheat field and such as Howard Shore's music is a bit reserved and mysterious. Kind of like yeah, they're just in some fields... for now.

 

[Ixion]

Kagari, I noticed a mistake in your gameplay preview.

You said:

Historia Crux is what makes time travel possible.

When it should be:

The Flux Capacitor is what makes time travel possible.

 

[Attackthebase]

Yes, it definitely was a game that was way ahead of its time when it released on the PS2. It's such a well executed game. Everything from the music, to the characters, to the story was vital in keeping you immersed till the end. I also felt that the linearity wasn't a big issue, and definitely not as blatantly obvious as FFXIII.


I lost my save file when I just needed a few trophies for platinum. I'm not going to bother lol, or maybe I will... arggh.

The story and characters are awful in FFX. I never understood people who railed against FFXIII's story and characters, but adored FFX's story and characters. It doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[Dark Schala]

It would be a supreme, character assassinating trolling on SE's part if it was about Noel. XD

If it really is about Noel, then I'd have a bit of a laugh because seriously? :lol

On the contrary, one of the main reasons I have a passion for FFX is it's art style. It's very Asian-inspired, which gives it a certain flavor I haven't experienced in other RPGs.

FFXIII and FFXIII-2 have very vibrant styles as well, but I don't find their worlds quite as distinctive as Spira.

I agree. I absolutely love Final Fantasy X's concept art. Spira really came out as an organic world with utterly beautiful architecture, contrasting deeply with the technological advancements of Zanarkand. IMO, it worked better than FFXIII's split of advanced vs undeveloped areas.

The jump from FFX to FFX-2 was kind of odd in terms of character facial feature artstyle, though (mostly Yuna's). Rikku always struck me as being western-like, so I didn't really have a problem with her. But otherwise, from the FFX games, I liked the background art a lot. Who did it? I have a super-soft spot for Honne, and any of the Suikoden BG designers, but I'm curious about the BG artist(s) for the FFX games. The backgrounds were quite stunning in both games.

(I also loved a lot of the three PSX-era prerendered background art. FFVIII's cityscapes were such a sight to behold, Midgar and the City of the Ancients in FFVII were wonderful to look at, and I loved nearly every single setpiece in FFIX from Lindblum to Treno to Esto Gaza to Conde Petie. So pretty.)

Amazon.ca still does not have omega boss as pre-order bonus, I have emailed both amazon and SE about it, neither knew anything about it.

Wait a few weeks. If they don't get it by then, order from Amazon.com.

For reference, Amazon.ca sometimes doesn't even get the same preorder bonuses as Amazon.com. I had to order Rayman Origins from the US just to get the artbook because Amazon Canada didn't carry it (which is really weird because I saw ads for it on Teletoon all the time and I figured they'd be going all-out to advertise it here).

 

[Kagari]

So I played 13 on my old 80gig PS3 and it crapped the bed and I didn't have my FF13 saves backed up. Can I just make a new save at the first save point and get all the benefits of having a FF13 save for FF13-2?

It doesn't have to be a completed one.

 

[Femmeworth]

LTTP but very nice job on the OP Kagari. It actually makes me interested in the game. D:

 

[Bob White]

Best OT I've ever seen. Clean and to the point. I hated 13, but was interested in 13-2 so I clicked the thread. The impressive OT, combined with the cool new info, went a long way in winning me over. Also, holy shit at the battle music.

 

[Ixion]

The story and characters are awful in FFX. I never understood people who railed against FFXIII's story and characters, but adored FFX's story and characters. It doesn't make much sense to me.

Well, everyone has different tastes, but I feel the main difference between those two games is that FFX focused a lot more on exposition, while FFXIII focused a lot more on character drama. Developing the world of Spira took up a fairly large chunk of the dialogue in FFX, while FFXIII left most of that to the data-log.

Also, in FFXIII, all six characters provide fairly constant melodramatic lines, but in FFX, we only have one character who does that, Tidus (and perhaps Yuna towards the end). And I would say he's still normal/cheery for the most part.

So basically, I feel the writing in FFX just has much better balance.

 

[Psi]

It doesn't have to be a completed one.

So there's nothing extra at all for having a clear save?

 

[jump_button]

Speaking of FFX-2 will we be getting a HD remake? lol

 

[Desmond]

Why are there no Euro prices in the OP?

 

[Clear]

The big difference story-wise between FFX and FFXIII was that in the former the focus from the start was a set of characters running towards their destiny, whereas in the latter they spend most of their time running away from it.

This is a very important distinction given how additional information about the world and the character's backstories get layered in as events progress. In X, each character has a distinct view from the get-go about Yuna's pilgrimage, which anchors them as individuals and gives them somewhere to grow toward as the reality of things is gradually revealed.

In XIII, everyone is kind of pulling in separate directions at the start, and thanks to the sluggish pacing and the ham-fisted way in which the world exposition is handled never really "come together" in a convincing manner.

Most of all though, FFXIII is seriously tonally out of whack from the start. The light, slightly frivolous tone at the beginning of the journey made sense in FFX's story, whereas in XIII it completely defuses what should be a grim and intense situation. Most importantly it makes the characters seem stupid and unattractive: they are on the run for the lives from a genocidal government, yet they are constantly bickering amongst themselves like soap opera characters.

 

[Perfo]

There is a new CG Render in the latest issue of Jump, featuring the character Paddra Nsu-Yuel. I think her design is slightly better than the other new characters shown in Final Fantasy XIII-2. I like her.

 

[michaeltraps]

Speaking of FFX-2 will we be getting a HD remake? lol

I hope so, I never finished the game and would absolutely jump on this. If all goes well with the FFX update, I can't imagine why they wouldn't run the PS2 gamut. Throw in Kingdom Hearts for good measure (including BBS) and I'll be a happy.

 

[Seda]

The story and characters are awful in FFX. I never understood people who railed against FFXIII's story and characters, but adored FFX's story and characters. It doesn't make much sense to me.

I'm going to have to disagree. I also thought FFXIII's story was poor and FFX's was much better. Both games had subpar villains though. In fact, there are only a handful of video game villains that I think are good villains.

 

[Kikujiro]

FFX was never overly melodramatic, despite the theme of the game. The pace was great and the ending was simply perfect, so beautiful.

I'm still sad they didn't let you visit Bevelle.

 

[Yoshichan]

Sweet mother of God.

 

[AngelSoldier]

So there's nothing extra at all for having a clear save?

Nope. At least not that anyone's heard. Same benefits all around.

 

[Yoshichan]

So Square lied to us, straight up?

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

The story is gonna be so obvious. Serah is gonna turn out to be future Lightning.

THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON.

 

[AngelSoldier]

So Square lied to us, straight up?

Well you still get some benefits for dragging a save over. Like the higher success rates at Casino's and the Extra monster decorations ...

 

[Yoshichan]

Well you still get some benefits for dragging a save over. Like the higher success rates at Casino's and the Extra monster decorations ...

So this is confirmed? The "extra" thing we get from carrying over a save is higher success rates and a tie for Behemoth King?

 

[Airgetlam]

FFX was never overly melodramatic, despite the theme of the game. The pace was great and the ending was simply perfect, so beautiful.

I'm still sad they didn't let you visit Bevelle.

...Until they made X-2, which kind of ruined it. I pretend that the events of X-2 never happened. I still don't know what they were thinking when they were writing that story.

 

[Chris R]

Speaking of FFX-2 will we be getting a HD remake? lol

I hope they do. I've always wanted to play it, just never gotten around to doing it.

And January (edit: early February ) seems so far away, but it will be here before we know it! My order is in at Amazon, ready to go

 

[Zafir]

...Until they made X-2, which kind of ruined it. I pretend that the events of X-2 never happened. I still don't know what they were thinking when they were writing that story.

Yeah, X-2 kind of stomped on the great ending that X had. That said, I don't think X-2 was that bad. Could have been an whole lot better though if they hadn't completely u-turned the themes.

 

[ronito]

Yes yes, but will there be towns?!

 

[AngelSoldier]

So this is confirmed? The "extra" thing we get from carrying over a save is higher success rates and a tie for Behemoth King?

Yes. There was a bunch of news articles about it.

Yes yes, but will there be towns?!

And Yes.

 

[BocoDragon]

On the contrary, one of the main reasons I have a passion for FFX is it's art style. It's very Asian-inspired, which gives it a certain flavor I haven't experienced in other RPGs.

FFXIII and FFXIII-2 have very vibrant styles as well, but I don't find their worlds quite as distinctive as Spira.

I too love the environments... I loved the Okinawa feel.

The character design was a low, low point in the series. Some of Nomura's hall of shame.

I really liked Yuna's and Rikku's outfit, too. The rest all have something that made me kind of embarrassed, as I said. They all have some sort of awful gimmick to them.. ie asymmetry, million belts, shirtless with suspenders, Auron's wierd one arm tuck thing.... I really think Nomura was in a phase where he had done FF a few times, and lost perspective. He thought "I work on a crazy fantasy series and my job is to make designs that are sooo wacky" and kind of took it too far. It's like everyone in FFX was like the animu dorks in XIII's Team Nora. I think all of his designs, before or since, have been generally more subdued.

But I've made this point on GAF before and it's a bit off topic.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I too like the environments...

The character design was a low, low point in the series. Some of Nomura's hall of shame.

I really liked Yuna's and Rikku's outfit, too. The rest all have something that made me kind of embarrassed, as I said. They all have some sort of awful gimmick to them.. ie asymmetry, million belts, shirtless with suspenders, Auron's wierd one arm tuck thing.... I really think Nomura was in a phase where he thought "this is a crazy fantasy series so everyone needs to be sooo wacky" and kind of took it too far. It's like everyone in FFX was like the animu dorks in XIII's Team Nora. I think all of his designs, before or since, have been generally more subdued.

But I've made this point on GAF before and it's a bit off topic.

I think he's gone too far in the other direction, honestly. Some of these characters look just like real-life people in a Japanese fashion magazine. I mean Hope in XII-2 looks like some hot-shot detective in a Japanese drama or something. I don't like it.

 

[ZephyrFate]

Yes yes, but will there be towns?!

Yes, go watch the Historia Crux & Field video.

 

[BocoDragon]

I think he's gone too far in the other direction, honestly. Some of these characters look just like real-life people in a Japanese fashion magazine. I mean Hope in XII-2 looks like some hot-shot detective in a Japanese drama or something. I don't like it.

It's funny.. I love the general style (not so much adult Hope), and I'm old school. FF8 was always aiming for a similar style (but "fashion" for late 90s Japan and for a simpler render), and I loved the design in that game. XIII, XIII-2 and Type-0 seem like the natural progression for the series to me.... the characters are generally devoid of silly clothing elements. (Generally... As I said: Team Nora = tacky freaks... Edit: Osaka Whore was fine.)

 

[Deleted member 17706]

It's funny.. I love the general style (not so much adult Hope), and I'm old school. FF8 was always aiming for a similar style (but "fashion" for late 90s Japan and for a simpler render), and I loved the design in that game. XIII, XIII-2 and Type-0 seem like the natural progression for the series to me.... the characters are generally devoid of silly clothing elements. (Generally... As I said: Team Nora = tacky freaks... Edit: Osaka Whore was fine.)

I just prefer my Final Fantasy to resemble modern-day reality less. I definitely lean more towards IX and XII in terms of aesthetic preference than VIII, X, and XIII. VII was sci-fi enough for me to enjoy it, though.

 

[Crash Station]

Yes yes, but will there be towns?!

The game is nothing but towns. When Square listens to a complaint, they go all out.

 

[BocoDragon]

I just prefer my Final Fantasy to resemble modern-day reality less. I definitely lean more towards IX and XII in terms of aesthetic preference than VIII, X, and XIII. VII was sci-fi enough for me to enjoy it, though.

They're probably doing the right thing by switching up the styles, then. You and I might bitch about the styles of individual entries, but we did buy and play them all, right? Meanwhile, the various styles are attracting different types of fans. Some would never have latched on without the animu, and some would have never latched on without the medieval fantasy.

Ive actually never seen an FF design that I completely hated... The only debate in my mind is to whether or not a particular design represents my ideal for FF.

 

[Deleted member 20920]

I think he's gone too far in the other direction, honestly. Some of these characters look just like real-life people in a Japanese fashion magazine. I mean Hope in XII-2 looks like some hot-shot detective in a Japanese drama or something. I don't like it.

He's not doing any of the character designs in FFXIII-2. Just the faces. The clothes they're wearing are designed by various different people.

I think that happened with X-2 too. Not every piece of clothing was done by Nomura.

 

[PK Gaming]

Incredible OT Kagari, did you make it all on your own?

Hype levels reaching critical, will not be able to contain for much longer........

 

[AngelSoldier]

Incredible OT Kagari, did you make it all on your own?

Hype levels reaching critical, will not be able to contain for much longer........

If you read the bottom, it points out that Kagari had help from a "NoElixrs"

 

[Neki]

not sure which pre-order bonus to get. the costume and weapon sounds cool, but future shop in Canada is offering a steelbook, and Amazon has that boss DLC.

 

[Aeana]

But otherwise, from the FFX games, I liked the background art a lot. Who did it? I have a super-soft spot for Honne, and any of the Suikoden BG designers, but I'm curious about the BG artist(s) for the FFX games. The backgrounds were quite stunning in both games.

Yusuke Naora for FF10. The new stuff in FF10-2 was taken over by Shintaro Takai, who was the battle art director for FF10.

 

[Karsticles]

Dialogue trees? Ugh.

 

[Neki]

you don't like variety Karst?

 

[Dark Schala]

Yusuke Naora for FF10. The new stuff in FF10-2 was taken over by Shintaro Takai, who was the battle art director for FF10.

Thanks, Aeana.

Cool, Naora I'm familiar with... didn't know he did FFX as well (thought he didn't do much after FFVIII and just went on to do SaGa and Compilation of FFVII stuff). I think he did the new character design for Estpolis DS as well, but I might be wrong.

Takai should do more things related to the background art aspects of the games. I liked a lot of the new X-2 environments so I'd like to see more of his work.

 

[Aeana]

Thanks, Aeana.

Cool, Naora I'm familiar with... didn't know he did FFX as well (thought he didn't do much after FFVIII and just went on to do SaGa and Compilation of FFVII stuff). I think he did the new character design for Estpolis DS as well, but I might be wrong.

Takai should do more things related to the background art aspects of the games. I liked a lot of the new X-2 environments so I'd like to see more of his work.

Besides SaGa games and FF10, he's also been the art producer for Last Remnant, the character designer for the Chaos Rings games, and the art director for FF Type-0.

 

[Perfo]

Looking at the latest infos coming out from JUMP, it seems the game will have a recap not just of the events from the previous game but also from Episode: Zero's novel. Is that just a text-recap or can we expect more than that? It would be cool if they made a playable version of those events, but I'm dreaming here, it's pretty obvious

 

[anaron]

Naora is a god.

 

[Tizoc]

So yeah it would take around 14-15 hours to get halfway through FF13 (ie the start of Gran Pulse). Currently grinding at the Behemoth vs. White wolf battle, and then I'm off to do some Item hunting~

Really hope 13-2 makes it so when u have a sentinel the other characters DON'T stay close to him.

 

[ZephyrFate]

There are battle formations now that make your characters move around in different ways on the battlefield.