Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Yaaaaaaaaaay!!CE version is the US version. Canadian regular version is shiny though this time around.
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FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 |OT| Change the Future
- Thread starter Kagari
- Start date
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
^ it's still on.
Me too.. It would have bugged me so much. At this point, I feel pretty confidant that most of the good vocal tracks are intact.
Me too.. It would have bugged me so much. At this point, I feel pretty confidant that most of the good vocal tracks are intact.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Uhhh... did that catgirl sound like Vanille to anyone else? Are they having the VAs do NPC dialogue as well?
DevelopmentArrested
Banned
so uh when's the review due
RPGCrazied
Member
like 35mins for IGN's.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Maybe it's because it's the weekend, but I'd rather have the game now since I have the time available to allocate to it.
The tone of the stream so far sounds like it's 8-9 range for IGN.
Yeah, switch to Noel. He has better animations. He's a bro.
The tone of the stream so far sounds like it's 8-9 range for IGN.
Yeah, switch to Noel. He has better animations. He's a bro.
brandonh83
Banned
trying to win some stuff, lol
going by the stream I am now expecting to like the game a lot more than I thought I would.
going by the stream I am now expecting to like the game a lot more than I thought I would.
R_thanatos
Member
Nice "embarrassing" stream...
For once the IGN stream worked for me ..
For once the IGN stream worked for me ..
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Endorsing auto-battle?
Tsk tsk.
Tsk tsk.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Haha you're probably one of the 5 people on this planet who doesn't consider that normal practice.
drhankmccoyphd
Member
Maybe it's me, I'm watching the IGN stream and most of the environment textures look about the same as XIII, although the character models and lighting look a bit more bland.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
I started to notice that they were selecting Auto-Battle every turn after the guy told the other guy to pick it. @_@Haha you're probably one of the 5 people on this planet who doesn't consider that normal practice.
LOL, selecting Auto-Battle makes the battles boring for me. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of players selected it out of convenience, though.
gundamkyoukai
Member
Was planing on getting this but after hearing about the ending don't think i will until i can get it for cheap .
To many other games coming out that worth my money day 1.
To many other games coming out that worth my money day 1.
brandonh83
Banned
FFXIII-2 IGN video review: "I could use this main menu as a slip'n'slide"
Amen! I was auto-battle was a sub option instead of the primary option. I will be sticking with the old fashioned manual way. It makes the battles more fun and engaging.
RPGCrazied
Member
IGN gave it an 8.0
+bigger worlds
-No closure to the story
+bigger worlds
-No closure to the story
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
I figured they'd rate it an 8.
Noooo...come back, Crazy Chocobo...! Come baaaaack...
Also, Auto-Battle selects the worst commands with poor animation syncing for the characters using the abilities, so I really dislike using it.
Noooo...come back, Crazy Chocobo...! Come baaaaack...
Yeah, Auto-Battle was probably their way of streamlining the combat for a general audience as opposed to regular RPG players. Problem is, they didn't make it a sub-option (even though you could default the option to Abilities in the menu instead). Oh well. :/
Also, Auto-Battle selects the worst commands with poor animation syncing for the characters using the abilities, so I really dislike using it.
R_thanatos
Member
I just laughed at the metal monster .. i wonder if it's capturable ??
samus4ever
Banned
About what I expected.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
RPGCrazied
Member
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
They probably dinged it for the narrative, and the guy didn't seem to enjoy the core CSB battle system a heck of a lot. 8 was kind of predictable.
They aren't like Giant Bomb and leaving their stuff on 5 minutes after the stream ends I guess, lol.
It's a ...oh, nevermind. Check your PMs.
It's still in there; the stream just ended, that's all.Perfo said:
They aren't like Giant Bomb and leaving their stuff on 5 minutes after the stream ends I guess, lol.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
It's funny that you put it like that... because I thought the crux of XIII games' combat IS auto-battle.
XIII is like a game where you set up and switch football plays (through paradigms), it is not a game where you generally choose individual player actions, unless you need to fine-tune your approach for certain situations.
IMO the designers clearly intend for you to be using it nearly all the time... Choosing to abstain from it is a hardcore option, which I commend you for, but I don't think it's how most people will play.
I guess it's the same as the XII gambit debate. I saw hardcore GAFfers abstaining from those, which was interesting. But in my view, the whole game was about setting up gambits and relying on the AI's actions
It's funny that you put it like that... because I thought the crux of XIII games' combat IS auto-battle.
XIII is like a game where you set up and switch football plays (through paradigms), it is not a game where you generally choose individual player actions, unless you need to fine-tune your approach for certain situations.
IMO the designers clearly intend for you to be using it nearly all the time... Choosing to abstain from it is a hardcore option, which I commend you for, but I don't think it's how most people will play.
I guess it's the same as the XII gambit debate. I saw hardcore GAFfers abstaining from those, which was interesting. But in my view, the whole game was about setting up gambits and relying on the AI's actions
I see your point to a degree but XII's gambits were WAY more customizable when compared to the paradigm/auto battle system in XIII.
XIII's auto battle annoys me when it decides to do things like "Ruin - Attack - Ruin - Attack" in a battle where "Attack x4" or "Ruin x4" would have been equally effective in much less time.
I would love to have the level of customization XII had in gambits.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Yeah, that's not how most people will play at all. They want to get through the game and see the narrative through to the end. They aren't going to care about selecting abilities unless they want to use the characters' Full ATB attack.It's funny that you put it like that... because I thought the crux of XIII games' combat IS auto-battle.
XIII is like a game where you set up and switch football plays (through paradigms), it is not a game where you generally choose individual player actions, unless you need to fine-tune your approach for certain situations.
IMO the designers clearly intend for you to be using it nearly all the time... Choosing to abstain from it is a hardcore option, which I commend you for, but I don't think it's how most people will play.
I guess it's the same as the XII gambit debate. I saw hardcore GAFfers abstaining from those, which was interesting. But in my view, the whole game was about setting up gambits and relying on the AI's actions
I generally play games a little differently and try to exhaust the system given to me so with FFXIII, I had to select the Abilities from the get-go.
The problem I found with Auto-Battle was that it selected the poorest commands for efficiency, synergy, animation-linking, and speed and ended up making the battle less synergetic and clunkier. For example, if an enemy has no elemental weakness, Auto-Battle would generally select Fire as the default spell. This is not the best spell to use to increase the Break Bar at all. It takes time for the initial cast to be made, and it takes time for the spell to hit the enemy. The best spell to use in almost every situation is Thunder because it's fast and it isn't going to take a lot of time to meet the target depending on distance.
Sometimes Auto-Battle, for some utterly stupid reason would select a "Fire, Flamestrike, Fire, Flamestrike" pattern in the ATB bar... which makes zero sense to me in terms of efficiency if you want to break the enemy and if you have a COM or SAB in your party to decelerate the Break bar's decreasing percentage. The animations for the character to cast, then hit, then cast, then hit will take a longer time than necessary. It's better to go for one or the other instead.
I generally found Auto-Battle quite inefficient and not-up-to-task as a result. :|
FFXII was designed with gambits in mind, so I liked using them. The game doesn't play itself, but it makes emergency item usage and spell usage more convenient. It's kinda like Tales almost. It doesn't necessarily replace the system if you don't let it as you have the ability to customize it however you like.
Yeah, this too.
brandonh83
Banned
Apparently there's no resolution either, but hey, thank god for DLC.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
The resolution missing is no problem to me, I'm used to trilogies by now; XIII-3 will probably wrap up the story, while the DLCs will expand the current one. I'm more concerned when I read that the story has less importance than previous games. They promised me an even more dramatic story and now, reading IGN's review, it seems to be a filler episode like some of Naruto's anime ones. Oh God.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
^ I suppose this responds to you as well, Schala:
I guess it's not good from the perspective of killing efficiency.
I think it does things like ruin/attack for "cinematic" purposes, to vary up the attacks and at least try to make it more visually interesting. The AI defaulting to a single attack spamming might look odd from an aesthetic perspective.
I can see how someone would prefer a more efficient AI, though. Hardcore paradigm tweaking does sound interesting.
EDIT: and you are right about "elemental" inefficency, DS..
I guess it's not good from the perspective of killing efficiency.
I think it does things like ruin/attack for "cinematic" purposes, to vary up the attacks and at least try to make it more visually interesting. The AI defaulting to a single attack spamming might look odd from an aesthetic perspective.
I can see how someone would prefer a more efficient AI, though. Hardcore paradigm tweaking does sound interesting.
EDIT: and you are right about "elemental" inefficency, DS..
brandonh83
Banned
If XIII-3 is indeed coming, I won't mind either as cliffhangers never bother me, but if there's no resolve and no XIII-3 in sight I may find that troublesome.
The Praiseworthy
Member
I feel depressed about the story....
But at the same time good for being better game than XIII.
Still, what were they thinking about making the story the way it is now in the game?
But at the same time good for being better game than XIII.
Still, what were they thinking about making the story the way it is now in the game?
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
That'll be Shenmue all over again lol ~
jimmypython
Member
yes, it is a pretty accurate description........
TheJollyCorner
Member
maybe FFXIII-3 was always in the grand scheme of things?
I mean, look how fast they pumped out XIII-2. I wouldn't be surprised if we see XIII-3 next year (because Versus won't be out until 2014 looooooool! :{)
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
But others said the story is actually there but just non-sense and absurd. I hate reviews, it's a infinite loop of contradictions between each other, lol ~
3 Feb. is close, gotta resist!
Big Papa Husker
Member
Best Buy has a 40 or so page book that has art and a story of what happened between XIII and XIII-2. I'm getting that one because I would assume Square will sell the preorder bonuses after a while.
StunandStab
Member
I think the reason it does that actually is if the enemy's weakness is not known, the auto-attack chooses to use both in order to determine its weakness/whether it has a weakness or not. If it has no weakness, it will continue to use both if there's no clear winner as to which does more damage. It always annoyed me when it did this as well, when all attack or all ruin was clearly the better option.
Although I did find that the auto-attack often did make the right choice and just did the same attack over and over (usually once Libra had been used). But yeah, the alternating between physical and magic attack is annoying, I did select abilities whenever it did that.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Hmm that makes sense.
Electivirus
Member
Thank god. >.<
StunandStab
Member
Wait, there are differences in the OST between the Japanese release and the NA release?
Wait what? Really? I thought I heard it was a small throwaway thing (although hardcover).
40 pages, and includes art is great. I was so sure I'd go FS for the steelbook, but now I'm confused again.
Has anyone actually seen the book? Like, maybe pictures or something online?
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
That's correct too. Wasn't the aesthetic point of Final Fantasy XIII's Command Synergy Battle system supposed to take notes from Advent Children in terms of attack animations and cinematic direction? I wouldn't be surprised if that were Auto-Battle's intent at all.
Edit: What StunandStab says is true too. Ruin is more of a magical attack, and Attack is, well, Attack. It needs to experiment with both. But it continues to use both when there is no clear winner between the two, which is rather irksome.
lol, and yeah, you kinda need to preplan a few of the Optima, party synergy and timing. Honestly, CSB shines a lot when you do the more difficult late-postgame stuff like Vercingetorix, Atticus and the Shaolong Gui/Long Gui, because they're generally unpredictable and you have to keep yourself on your toes. Even the Barthandelus battles were more enjoyable than the other battles leading up to those points because you had to keep on your toes a little (lol, I must be one of the few people who enjoyed the Bart battles). Hitting Auto-Attack most of the time can sometimes hinder your progress. It's a little too bad that the rest of the game didn't really support CSB like those postgame battles did.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
40 pages is kinda small... -_- But I'm getting it.
In the IGN stream, they were clutching it. Looks like a pretty tiny and thin "diary" look
But I want it!
As a "book", sure, but as a pre-order bonus? That seems great.Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
40 pages is kinda small... -_- But I'm getting it.
In the IGN stream, they were clutching it. Looks like a pretty tiny and thin "diary" look
Do we know for sure that the CE doesn't come with a game case now? It looked like it was just in the same fold thing that the OST also comes in. That's really the only reason I want the steelbook - so I can put the game in a real case.
StunandStab
Member
I also enjoyed the Barthandelus battles, Schala. They were some of the of the few battles that actually forced me to think about my battle strategy. Also, I loved the music, and Lightning yelling "Barthandelus!" when switching paradigms.