• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 |OT| Change the Future

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
Personally, I hope they leave XIII alone... no more sequels or spin-offs. The characters and world were not that interesting to begin with, in my opinion.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Personally, I hope they leave XIII alone... no more sequels or spin-offs. The characters and world were not that interesting to begin with, in my opinion.

I feel that since they have an aggressive six month DLC schedule along with a lot of multimedia projects, it suggests an intention that they want to keep the universe of XIII alive.

Whether that means more games or not, I feel I can't make a good hypothesis until I see the DLC.
 

frequency

Member
Personally, I hope they leave XIII alone... no more sequels or spin-offs. The characters and world were not that interesting to begin with, in my opinion.

Honestly, I don't care one way or another. I love FFXIII's characters and world and would not mind seeing more.

But then I know I'll probably love whatever FFXV becomes as well so...
Yeah I'm a complete fan. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Nothing beats being happy.


On another note, I really need to get around to cancelling 3 out of these 4 pre-orders. Still haven't decided if I want the Best Buy book or the Future Shop steel case.
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
I feel that since they have an aggressive six month DLC schedule along with a lot of multimedia projects, it suggests an intention that they want to keep the universe of XIII alive.

Whether that means more games or not, I feel I can't make a good hypothesis until I see the DLC.

Continuing to support an entry that most fans deemed disappointing probably isn't the best of ideas... Japanese sales are proof of that and western ones will follow.

Honestly, I don't care one way or another. I love FFXIII's characters and world and would not mind seeing more.

But then I know I'll probably love whatever FFXV becomes as well so...
Yeah I'm a complete fan. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Nothing beats being happy.

I want to see completely new ideas instead of more FFXIII.
 
Personally, I hope they leave XIII alone... no more sequels or spin-offs. The characters and world were not that interesting to begin with, in my opinion.

13-2 seems to have gone in the wrong direction. I would think the next logical step after 13 would be "humanity vs Pulse" in an epic struggle of survival (considering humans were pampered and taken care of by fal'cie until 13's ending), tied together by political intrigue, or basically power struggles between various factions trying to rule Pulse following the Sanctum's downfall. I think that would be a story worth telling.

whoops, getting fan-fictiony in here.

So yeah, game comes out Tuesday. I hope UPS gets it to me on time.
 

zychi

Banned
What are the chances this bombas before ME3 comes out in March? I want it, but there's no way I'm paying more than $30 for a potential "cut&paste" like I'm reading in the reviews. I'm in the minority that enjoyed 13's story, so I'd like to continue, but $30 is my limit.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I would think the next logical step after 13 would be "humanity vs Pulse" in an epic struggle of survival (considering humans were pampered and taken care of by fal'cie until 13's ending), tied together by political intrigue, or basically power struggles between various factions trying to rule Pulse following the Sanctum's downfall.
I am actually a little surprised they never went this route. At least with FFX-2, you had a clash of ideologies and policies regarding how the world should be run, and which people and factions should be included in deciding these things.

Throwing the fact that the Cocoon people were babied by the Cocoon fal'Cie all their lives and never really had to do things on their own before, you'd think that they'd have difficulty establishing a well-organized civilization as a result. Notice how strongly these people felt about being supported by the Cocoon fal'Cie in both Eden and Palumporum--you'd think that there'd be a lot of conflicts along the way to establishing order and government.

All you do is select attack attack attack over and over again and occasionally changing roles when needed. The interface is also really bad makes it hard to see enemy health and generally what is going on in battle like who my auto matically controlled team mate is attacking.The role system also means you can completely screw yourself over if you dont have the correct ones equipped.
*chuckle* That's what I first thought of the battle system too in earlier chapters of the original XIII. I really didn't like it at all. In all honesty, the game doesn't do much to support CSB very well unless it throws harder enemies at you, and this only happens about four times during the main game, and most of the time in late-postgame in FFXIII. With FFXIII-2, at least in the demo and what I've played of the main game, the balancing is thrown out, and the game gets pretty easy since it's very easy to level up and use the same Optimae over and over.

And my vision isn't very good, so it's kinda hard for me to see enemy health bars sometimes. You can reduce this difficulty by pressing R1/RT to bring up the enemy analysis screen and see the HP numbers. Not to mention that FFXIII-2 implements a rather wonderful text magnification option where you can highlight an option and it'll get magnified. With this option selected, the font during cutscenes and NPC convos also get bigger and easier to read.

With regards to your last bit, this is the best part of CSB which was not adequately explored in easier battles in the original XIII until late-postgame/Barthandelus battles. I like pre-prep and strategy like that, but it gets a little easier when you know what your characters' movesets are in each role you chose for your Optimae.
 

web01

Member
So I played the demo with no expectations after skipping XIII, aand i have to say I really hate hate hate the battle system. Seems so dumbed down for no good reason at all compared to previous FF games. I loved the battle sytems in both X and especially XII but I could never see myself playing this game. All you do is select attack attack attack over and over again and occasionally changing roles when needed. The interface is also really bad makes it hard to see enemy health and generally what is going on in battle like who my auto matically controlled team mate is attacking.The role system also means you can completely screw yourself over if you dont have the correct ones equipped.

/rant
 

exhume

Member
13-2 seems to have gone in the wrong direction. I would think the next logical step after 13 would be "humanity vs Pulse" in an epic struggle of survival (considering humans were pampered and taken care of by fal'cie until 13's ending), tied together by political intrigue, or basically power struggles between various factions trying to rule Pulse following the Sanctum's downfall. I think that would be a story worth telling.

You know, thinking about it, XIII's story was kinda similar to Magna Carta II's.

Still wish they'd make a prequel to XIII though.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Continuing to support an entry that most fans deemed disappointing probably isn't the best of ideas... Japanese sales are proof of that and western ones will follow.
For it to exist, we would need to determine a workable schedule.

Here's the best I can come up with.

Fall 2011:
-FFXIII-2 goes gold and releases, as does Type-0.
-Some staff from these games start piling on Versus to get it out for Fall 2012.
-Toriyama and friends start planning out and prototyping what a next generation Final Fantasy (XV) will be like.
-They also supervise remaining members of the FFXIII-2 team as they start making FFXIII-3.

Fall 2012:
-Versus goes gold/releases, freeing up lots of resources.
-Some staff from the project move on to finish up FFXIII-3.
-Some staff also start full development on FFXV, since this is also the timing for the Luminous tech demo, so it should be usable by then.

Fall 2013:
-FFXIII-3 release on current gen.
-More resources move to FFXV.

Fall 2014:
-FFXV release on next-gen.
-Development on FFXV-# series starts and continues on for a while to save on assets and time.
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
I am actually a little surprised they never went this route. At least with FFX-2, you had a clash of ideologies and policies regarding how the world should be run, and which people and factions should be included in deciding these things.

Throwing the fact that the Cocoon people were babied by the Cocoon fal'Cie all their lives and never really had to do things on their own before, you'd think that they'd have difficulty establishing a well-organized civilization as a result. Notice how strongly these people felt about being supported by the Cocoon fal'Cie in both Eden and Palumporum--you'd think that there'd be a lot of conflicts along the way to establishing order and government.
I too thought that they would at least go with the FFX-2 route and expand on the world of Pulse and the challenges faced by the Cocoonians... Instead we get this. With areas that still feel stagey, leading to a disconnected sense of the world. And a myopic look at what happens after XIII.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Personally, I hope they leave XIII alone... no more sequels or spin-offs. The characters and world were not that interesting to begin with, in my opinion.

I thought the characters and world were potentially interesting.... on paper. But I agree, the way they've handled them, I simply don't care anymore. They should move on.

The beauty of FF was that there was the chance to start fresh with every entry..... but with the last decade of direct sequels and "polymorphic content", we are at constant risk of getting lost in one mediocre world of content :/
 
The beauty of FF was that there was the chance to start fresh with every entry..... but with the last decade of direct sequels and "polymorphic content", we are at constant risk of getting lost in one mediocre world of content :/

Who knows, maybe a completely different team is on FF15. I'd rather that goofy goober Toriyama stay on side stuff anyway.
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
As far as changes go... they really changed a lot of names/terms that were already in English in the Japanese version...

It's odd.
 
This is kind of random, but has a scenario writer ever become a game director? I was just thinking of alternatives to Toriyama, other than Kitase, Nomura, Ito, and the FF Type 0 guy/gal. Then I thought of Kazushige Nojima (sp?), and that'd be interesting for him to direct.
 
Excited to see the impressions on this from the people who enjoyed XIII.

I very much enjoyed XIII but I'm on the fence about this one. Looking forward to hearing what those of you have to say and maybe I'll pick it up down the road.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Who knows, maybe a completely different team is on FF15. I'd rather that goofy goober Toriyama stay on side stuff anyway.

Oh god... I hope so. I remember the announcement of XII really being a breath of fresh air after the pop-anime stylings of FFX and Kingdom Hearts. We're certainly at that point now. I want to see something very different.

As far as changes go... they really changed a lot of names/terms that were already in English in the Japanese version...

It's odd.

That's what I was saying in a post a few pages back: a lot of this "localization" is completely arbitrary. It has nothing to do with the "differing tastes of the western audience". It's a combination of Japanese execs overestimating the "differing western audience" (what's the opposite of orientalism? Westernism?), and the western employees justifying their localization positions by making all kinds of changes.

And, I think a lot of it is fuelled by the expectation of creating International versions to sell later. Yeah, the Japanese text will revert to how it was before, but you know they have some sort of mandate now to makes all kinds of tweaks and produce a brand new overseas version that they can repackage later for the home audience.

It's really not needed. Disney doesn't tweak their movies for the international audience.... neither should Square Enix tweak their products. I really dislike it. The people who like those products will like them for what they are.... changing it is watering down the punch.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
As far as changes go... they really changed a lot of names/terms that were already in English in the Japanese version...

It's odd.
Were the original English terms in the Japanese version naturally English-sounding?

Does it seem like they made the changes in an effort to make cosmetic and more "appealing" terms rather than creating naturally-flowing English lexical items?
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
Were the original English terms in the Japanese version naturally English-sounding?

Does it seem like they made the changes in an effort to make cosmetic and more "appealing" terms rather than creating naturally-flowing English lexical items?

They were perfectly fine imo. For example there is a dragon you fight... in the Japanese version its name is Marduke... in the English they changed it to Faery or something like that... another example, demi fal'Cie -> proto fal'Cie.
 
Yup. In an alternate world, the Cocoon/Pulse setting could have been amazing.

Maybe I'm crazy but I recall reading an interview with the devs early in 13's development that sold the game as more of an open-world. They made it sound like the player could travel between Pulse and Cocoon at will, with Pulse focusing more on side-stuff and Cocoon advancing the plot. A more open approach like that would have been great.

Unrelated to plot but I thought it was worth mentioning.

I need to find that interview. I know I'm not
that
crazy.
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
I still remember when the development team was speaking of a revolutionary way of handling quests design in that game. "You'll not anymore just pass by town to a dungeon, than back solving the quest and starting a new one..." – I passed years in forums quoting this. What they did exacly? They completely removed dungeons, quests and side-contents. That was so LOL. I really think the Crystal Tools were the problems back there, they had so much little time in the end to dedicate to the game that ended up completely different from what they really wanted to do.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Maybe I'm crazy but I recall reading an interview with the devs early in 13's development that sold the game as more of an open-world. They made it sound like the player could travel between Pulse and Cocoon at will, with Pulse focusing more on side-stuff and Cocoon advancing the plot. A more open approach like that would have been great.

Unrelated to plot but I thought it was worth mentioning.

I need to find that interview. I know I'm not
that
crazy.

It's quite possible. If the interview was from early in development, then the game proper was surely not developed until much later.

XIII was a legendary case where most of the development was spent on game engine and assets. They announced it 4 years before it came out, but it really wasn't built as an actual game until 1.5 years before it came out.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
They were perfectly fine imo. For example there is a dragon you fight... in the Japanese version its name is Marduke... in the English they changed it to Faery or something like that... another example, demi fal'Cie -> proto fal'Cie.
So basically cosmetic (ie: for little reason)?

That's weird. Marduk is the name of a Babylonian god. Faery/Faerie is from western European folklore. Uhhh...

Demi fal'Cie -> Proto fal'Cie messes with the meaning of that phrase, doesn't it? Demi- usually means 'half' (ie: half the power), and not having the same power as the deities which it's compared to (thus it's a lesser deity). Proto- means 'before' or 'first' (which is the literal meaning), signifying that there's going to be a version or evolution after it.

And "proto-" is Greek in origin (πρωτο), so they can't use the "it's Latinate and it'll fit with the FNC" excuse! "Demi-" is actually Latin in origin, lol (from dimidium, -i).
 

Tizoc

Member
Will be getting the game tomorrow along with SC5 =D
Gonna try and trade in some games to lower the price to under 100 dollars hehe.

So any tips (non spoiler of course) I should take note of?
 

RS4-

Member
Yes, but it will be a while before you can get it.

How so? I'm at the "last boss" or what I assume is pretty darn close to the end lol.

Any tips would be appreciated!

Will be getting the game tomorrow along with SC5 =D
Gonna try and trade in some games to lower the price to under 100 dollars hehe.

So any tips (non spoiler of course) I should take note of?

Capture a pulse soldier asap. Makes the game so much easier.
 

Zoe

Member
How so? I'm at the "last boss" or what I assume is pretty darn close to the end lol.

Any tips would be appreciated!

It's one of the fragment skills. Go talk to the lady in Xanadu (or whatever it's called in English) if you haven't already.

I didn't get most of my fragment skills until after attempting the final level.
 

RS4-

Member
It's one of the fragment skills. Go talk to the lady in Xanadu (or whatever it's called in English) if you haven't already.

I didn't get most of my fragment skills until after attempting the final level.

Ahh ok thanks! You're right, should take me a while to get the fragment skills.
 

Blizzje

Member
Have any online UK shops broken the street date by any chance? The wait is killing me haha. Hope the Crystal Edition gets here in one piece.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I'm starting to feel impatient! LOL. *shrug* I might have my share of criticisms about it, but I'm pretty excited to get a new FF.

I just remembered that I have a paper due and two exams to write next Monday, so I guess I won't be putting as much time into XIII-2 on the weekend as I had originally intended. Ah well.
 

Nohar

Member
It seems that the game was delivered in France : some shops are starting to put the game on display (in Nantes at least). I'm just hoping that the shop where I ordered it will have it by tomorrow.
 

Ricker

Member
Tomorrow people! The wait is finally over. :) Negative stuff aside about the game, I'm excited!

Yep, me also,seems like forever since I played a new JRPG on the PS360 and I liked the demo...I saw a placeholder box at a rental place and it said 3 GB install though on the PS3? is it mandatory?
 
Top Bottom