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[Kagari]

Do you still grind turtles?

Nope.

 

[Reveirg]

Wow, haven't been this hyped since Xenoblade last summer. I really can't wait for tomorrow!

 

[Shadow780]

Nope.

Do you need to grind anything for trophies?

 

[Reveirg]

Are any trophies "missable" on the first playthrough?

 

[Kagari]

Do you need to grind anything for trophies?

Casino coins is the only thing.

 

[Zoe]

Are any trophies "missable" on the first playthrough?

You can rewind any area once you get a corresponding item. You're not going to get all trophies without playing the game more than once.

 

[Reveirg]

You can rewind any area once you get a corresponding item. You're not going to get all trophies without playing the game more than once.

But you don't need a New Game+, right? You just have to replay certain areas?

 

[Zoe]

But you don't need a New Game+, right? You just have to replay certain areas?

Right

 

[RS4-]

That was quick. How long did it take you total?

And in spoiler tags (ending spoilers):

Spoiler

What'd you think of the ending?

I'd say 23-24 hours? Didn't do much grinding. By the time I finished, I had less than a third of all the fragments.

Ending (not much)

Spoiler

you should play it

 

[elty]

Is it true that the ending of FF 13-2 said something similar to "To be Continue" and the story does not conclude properly, or is is just some BS?

 

[Dark Schala]

I'd say 23-24 hours? Didn't do much grinding. By the time I finished, I had less than a third of all the fragments.

Ending (not much)

Spoiler

you should play it

Gosh, that sounds like a weekend-and-a-half, then, if I were to speedrun (but then again, I want to use a Noel/Serah party most of the time, so... I guess I won't finish it until sometime during Reading Week. :/).

Spoiler

Haha, I think your comment about the ending says more than enough.

Question: Is it possible to play a lot of the game with Grand Cross turned on, and the normal enemies become difficult as a result, or does the difficulty increase with Grand Cross only happen in certain scenarios? Edit: nevermind, I guess you only get it after the ending.

 

[Dunan]

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 thought the same thing as soon as the rumors of this game started appearing (wasn'tit you who shared the same sentiments?). The potential conflicts between the Cocoonians who can adjust to the new paradigm (sorry) on Cocoon and those who can't; between people who want to explore Pulse and those who are afraid to; new perspectives on religion in a world where "God" literally is dead; the potential philosophical differences and ideological conflicts practically write themselves.

More competent writers could have done so much with this world. I had high hopes for the FNC mythos but not anymore. (Type-0 also ended up turning me off -- the combat was a lot of fun, as were the environments, but one of the central themes underlying the story, namely the fact that (early-game spoiler)

Spoiler

humans cannot remember the existence of anyone who has died

made the humans populating that world so alien and unrelatable that I lost interest in what should have been a fascinating story.

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.

The "localization" is arbitrary and needs to stop. I realize that marketers will always be sticking their snouts into the creative side of game development and translation, but the fact that they're thinking in terms of audiences in specific regions and what those audiences want ("localization") rather than just languages, and creating works that can be enjoyed by anyone who can read the language ("translation") has come to have more negatives than positives. In short, I want to see the translators write for an English-speaking audience, not a Western audience (and certainly not "a Western audience in the year 2012 aged X to Y years and having $Z in disposable income, etc., etc."). Those two overlap, but are not necessarily identical.

I'll concede that sometimes words that are already in English need to be changed just because the Japanese developers mistakenly used them without really understanding them. Sometimes an English word that sounds dull in English soudns exotic in Japanese -- think of the role titles in FF13 -- and thus the translators are justified in choosing more fitting English words for those things. Alexander O. Smith and Joseph Reeder -- yes, I'm going to heap praise on them again -- recognized this very well in VS and FF12. Changing "Downtown" to "Lowtown" was a great choice, and there were many others.

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).

To be fair to the most recent SE translators, they seem to be getting better at recognizing classical and non-English katakana words. Comparing the monster names in the SNES FF3 to the GBA port, it was clear that the new translators knew how to handle the Greek letter upsilon, unlike the much-maligned Ted Woolsey.

Whatever changes they make, I hope they result in a cohesive whole in which terms that are supposed to relate to one another stay that way. Kagari, I'm looking forward to this article!

 

[RS4-]

Even with the ending, I had a good time playing through the game. Sure it has some frustrating areas and some annoying boss fights, but all in all it was fun.

edit - I still didn't do the coliseum or any of the casino stuff yet either.

 

[brandonh83]

When you guys talk about the bad ending, do you just mean the ending, or the entire end game? Does it have a good final dungeon/final boss and a bad ending, or is it just the ending itself that's bad?

 

[RPGCrazied]

Maybe its cause it has no closure and ends with a

Spoiler

cliffhanger?

 

[Zoe]

Does it have a good final dungeon

:lol

 

[Kagari]

When you guys talk about the bad ending, do you just mean the ending, or the entire end game? Does it have a good final dungeon/final boss and a bad ending, or is it just the ending itself that's bad?

There's no "bad ending" in that sense... the ending itself is bad.

 

[Perfo]

edit - I still didn't do the coliseum or any of the casino stuff yet either.

The colosseum is part of the main game or sold through DLCs?

DLC. Only thing in the main game is going in and out of there to get a fragment.

Thanks pal, I'll have my Omega luckily waiting for me there

 

[Zoe]

The colosseum is part of the main game or sold through DLCs?

DLC. Only thing in the main game is going in and out of there to get a fragment.

 

[Shadow780]

DLCs will be available to everyone down the road right?

 

[RPGCrazied]

DLCs will be available to everyone down the road right?

Why would it not be? I'm sure they will be, and over priced. $2.99 for one costume? Don't be surprised.

 

[brandonh83]

There's no "bad ending" in that sense... the ending itself is bad.

if people dislike the ending just because it's a to be continued kind of thing, I'm cool with that as long as its actually continued.

 

[Nohar]

@brandonh83: Alas, there are only two possibilities about the ending : either they develop FFXIII-3, or the "true" ending will be available as DLC. If it's the later case, I think I would be right to call this strategy a scam. Ubisoft did the same thing with the last PoP "epilogue".

 

[PsychoSoldier]

I may be one of the only people for whom this is the case, but hearing that this game is pretty easy actually tipped me over into buying it.

Which is obviously a terrible idea what with KoA coming out next week and all, but maybe I'll be through with both by the time ME3 comes out (lol).

 

[Dark Schala]

I thought the same thing as soon as the rumors of this game started appearing (wasn'tit you who shared the same sentiments?). The potential conflicts between the Cocoonians who can adjust to the new paradigm (sorry) on Cocoon and those who can't; between people who want to explore Pulse and those who are afraid to; new perspectives on religion in a world where "God" literally is dead; the potential philosophical differences and ideological conflicts practically write themselves.

I think it was me. :lol

It truly was because I was expecting something akin to FFX-2 upon seeing how the citizens in both Palumporum and Eden were reacting to being around Pulse l'Cie or having the city around them destroyed and begging for the fal'Cie to save them. Due to this, I felt that they would have a lot of trouble adjusting to life on Pulse, and would argue amongst each other with regards to who among them would rule, what would be the most common ideology, religion, etc... but no, when FFXIII-2 starts, it appears they're all living in a civilized peaceful world with school systems, a proper economy, proper village structure/architecture (which essentially mirrors that of Old Bodhum), etc. All this within 2-3 years after FFXIII? Oh my.

Honestly, they had so many things to focus on, and had an opportunity to expand on this "New World"/conflicting ideologies/establishing civilization/further Pulse exploration concept, and yet they didn't. I do think it's a wasted opportunity in that regard.

More competent writers could have done so much with this world. I had high hopes for the FNC mythos but not anymore. (Type-0 also ended up turning me off -- the combat was a lot of fun, as were the environments, but one of the central themes underlying the story, namely the fact that (early-game spoiler)

Spoiler

humans cannot remember the existence of anyone who has died

made the humans populating that world so alien and unrelatable that I lost interest in what should have been a fascinating story.

Spoiler

That's a damn shame. I thought Type-0 would be different given the warfare present in that world. That revelation kind of takes away from the story for me.

The "localization" is arbitrary and needs to stop. I realize that marketers will always be sticking their snouts into the creative side of game development and translation, but the fact that they're thinking in terms of audiences in specific regions and what those audiences want ("localization") rather than just languages, and creating works that can be enjoyed by anyone who can read the language ("translation") has come to have more negatives than positives.

This. Well-put. I think localizing for the sake of marketing is rather ridiculous.

To be fair to the most recent SE translators, they seem to be getting better at recognizing classical and non-English katakana words. Comparing the monster names in the SNES FF3 to the GBA port, it was clear that the new translators knew how to handle the Greek letter upsilon, unlike the much-maligned Ted Woolsey.

Whatever changes they make, I hope they result in a cohesive whole in which terms that are supposed to relate to one another stay that way. Kagari, I'm looking forward to this article!

LOL, call it nostalgia or whatever, but I'm a bit fond of Woolsey's work, even with some of the poor dialogue/description/enemy name translations here and there. I like how he wrote some of the characters in the games he translated, at least. For example, I'm very fond of the original Chrono Trigger script and the translated dialogue for Kefka. >.>

I concur with your sentiment about the localization changes. I really hope they aren't for the hell of it or for marketing, since that sort of thing irritates me. LOL, I think Kagari's localization change article is the thing I'm looking forward to the most today.

 

[jimmypython]

The colosseum is part of the main game or sold through DLCs?

it's there, but beside a story-related introduction, you cannot do anything without DLC.

like I said in another thread, these things (others include an useless costume change option, a card game dlc teaser in casino) in 13-2 really turned me down a lot...

I probably should not say this but SE should at least hide those parts, pretending they were not planning these contents as DLCs right from the beginning. It would make me feel better.

 

[The Praiseworthy]

SO EXCITED

a brand new FINAL FANTASY experience awaits me... and I don't think I will have another one till the release of Versus.

Going to stay all night playing this now... will be back with full impressions later

 

[Dunan]

I think it was me. :lol

It was indeed: back in the FFXIII-2 "First Screenshots" thread half a year ago, I opined:

I'm the opposite -- I want to actually explore all those amazing places. It wouldn't make sense for every single person on Cocoon to have abandoned their former home and all of its infrastructure and gone down to Pulse, and it would make for good ideological conflict between the group that wants to go down to Pulse, the people who want to make Cocoon a paradise using human hands, the Cocoonians who can't handle not having the fal'Cie around to do everything for them ("When I was your age, son, we didn't have to work for our food, and that's the way we liked it!"), and, I hope, indigenous Pulsians (if they're retconning something, make it this!).

Cocoon was a wonder to travel through, and I kept thinking that at some point we would be able to explore it freely, with more complicated puzzles. That weather-changing device in the Sunleth Waterscape was pitifully underutilized -- I thought for sure that much later in the game we would be back there having to cleverly manipulate the weather in order to catch some monster or access some secret area. I thought the rest of the party would get to see Nautilus. Eden deserved a lot more exploration than what was offered.

I'm not exactly confident about this game being any better than the original, but I'm still hoping. Cocoon had the chance to be one of the most richly-realized worlds in Square history, and they really came up short. Don't let those assets go to waste; let us explore it!

and:

During the game, the fearfulness and seemingly-learned helplessness of the average Cocoonian was striking. You can easily envision all kinds of interesting scenarios for Cocoon now that the fal'Cie are gone and the fear of l'Cie is also gone. That vacuum can go in so many directions -- a charismatic anti-Pulse demagogue whipping up fear in the populace again; native Pulsians who look on infantile Cocoonians with scorn; Pulsians going to Cocoon and being confounded by it; Cocoon utopianists welcoming native Pulsians; level-headed Pulse folk who go up to Cocoon, find themselves much better at running society than the sheeple, and attract hatred from a segment of the populace... who knows?

...and you referred readers to your:

Also correct. FFXIII's town setpieces were begging for more life and a better connection to the player. Running around and listening to some random NPCs say "I want a Carbuncle plushie!" or something to that effect isn't all I want in a game's world-building and tension-building, release and relaxation. The way the towns were organized and the game was set up, you couldn't do much in the towns in the first place, but it would have been nice to (Chapter 12 spoilers)

Spoiler

go back to them after Chapter 12 to see how the assault on Eden affected the other towns. Were the other fal'Cie as zealous as Barthandelus and Orphan, for example? Would the party have to defeat them as well? Were there l'Cie sympathizers? Stuff like that would have made the world-building and player connections to the world a lot better, despite being at the end of the game, imo.

Final Fantasy XIII has a grand, beautiful world that just begs to be explored by the player. The stuff I read in the Datalog about each place was pretty interesting. If only I could have explored what was said in the Datalog as well as going through the main plot. It's unfortunate that the interesting stuff (to me, at least) was relegated to the Datalog.

...and now all I can think of is how amazing it would be if the Matsuno/Ito Vagrant Story/FF12 team were put in charge of a game that could contain these scenarios.

I found that the central change in the world of Type-0 made its inhabitants so different from us that it was hard to even see them as human, but the background of FF13 results in humans that are still relatable even if your first instinct is to see them as coddled children. It would be fun to explore how these people react to suddenly having to "grow up". Who doesn't like a story, for example, about a rich layabout who loses his servants and his pampered lifestyle and then has to discover the ability to make his own way when the going gets tough? It's a popular enough scenario in books and films, and the most satisfying ones have that person emerge stronger for it. It's too bad that this game doesn't go into that, and seemingly has the Cocoonians adjusting to a new life just fine, with no dissent and political machinations and unrest. Maybe in FFXIII-3

Spoiler

after Toriyama is fired for incompetence, lives in a homeless shelter and subsists on donated bread crusts, and then gets rehired after becoming a stronger and more resourceful person thanks to that period of pennilessness

?

 

[K' Dash]

mine is still "shipping soon" from Amazon

 

[neoism]

You can rewind any area once you get a corresponding item. You're not going to get all trophies without playing the game more than once.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

[Dark Schala]

...and now all I can think of is how amazing it would be if the Matsuno/Ito Vagrant Story/FF12 team were put in charge of a game that could contain these scenarios.

I found that the central change in the world of Type-0 made its inhabitants so different from us that it was hard to even see them as human, but the background of FF13 results in humans that are still relatable even if your first instinct is to see them as coddled children. It would be fun to explore how these people react to suddenly having to "grow up". Who doesn't like a story, for example, about a rich layabout who loses his servants and his pampered lifestyle and then has to discover the ability to make his own way when the going gets tough? It's a popular enough scenario in books and films, and the most satisfying ones have that person emerge stronger for it. It's too bad that this game doesn't go into that, and seemingly has the Cocoonians adjusting to a new life just fine, with no dissent and political machinations and unrest. Maybe in FFXIII-3

Spoiler

after Toriyama is fired for incompetence, lives in a homeless shelter and subsists on donated bread crusts, and then gets rehired after becoming a stronger and more resourceful person thanks to that period of pennilessness?

Awwww, poor Toriyama, lol. I just wish they would recognize that his scenario writing isn't very good. At least if a competent writer were in charge of the scenario, things like world-building and expanding upon the world after the crisis would have been dealt with, period. When FFXIII-2's scenario was slowly revealed to us, and after going through the bulk of the narrative of this game, it's just mind-boggling that they essentially threw away the world that they had built in order to orchestrate... what they orchestrated in this game.

Another thing that's too bad is that although the NPCs have three pieces of dialogue each, there are a few of them in the same town who say the same things as each other. Unfortunate.

The idea of a Matsuno-written XIII story tickles my fancy, though. I wonder what he'd do with the universe?

Going back to that thread, Fimbulvetr makes a really good point too:

Wait wait wait.

They've already starting making complex buildings and intricate clothing?

In a society where everyone's stuff was made by robo-gods and the only things they managed to bring with them when Cocoon was destroyed were some guns and airships.
Wat?

I hope there's a good explanation.

Seriously! What the hell?

 

[neoism]

Right

lol never-mind lol I'm ok with that.. Also can you fight the last guy again if you want. I'm probably the only guy that done this. For 13 I beat the last guy then I i didn't watch the ending til I platinumed it.

 

[brandonh83]

mine is still "shipping soon" from Amazon

I don't know how many times I've seen this post on GAF. In every OT someone is like "it still says shipping soon from Amazon"

I mean, it's okay and all, nothing wrong with that, just an observation.

 

[Neki]

I was super excited for this, but then I read some of the reviews and kinda got un-hyped, and now I'm back hyped up. I'm just not sure if I have time to play this, and if I should wait for it to get cheaper. maybe I should be supporting Square Enix though, loool.

 

[Zoe]

lol never-mind lol I'm ok with that.. Also can you fight the last guy again if you want. I'm probably the only guy that done this. For 13 I beat the last guy then I i didn't watch the ending til I platinumed it.

You have to fight him again to 100% the game.

 

[Lothars]

I am pumped, I get to pick up my collectors edition tomorrow along with Soul Calibur V Collectors, I am really looking forward to this. Has anyone seen the bestbuy exclusive book? is it anything special?

 

[UberTag]

I was super excited for this, but then I read some of the reviews and kinda got un-hyped, and now I'm back hyped up. I'm just not sure if I have time to play this, and if I should wait for it to get cheaper. maybe I should be supporting Square Enix though, loool.

Supporting Square Enix is a wonderful idea. Have you purchased Deus Ex: Human Revolution yet?

 

[jorgeton]

Picked up the US CE today. The packaging in quite nice. Firing up the game for the 1st time right now. Have been looking forward to this moment for weeks!

 

[Cheska]

Picked up the US CE today. The packaging in quite nice. Firing up the game for the 1st time right now. Have been looking forward to this moment for weeks!

Was someone selling the game early?

 

[MrDenny]

Is there going to be some free updates to the coliseum?

 

[Wilsongt]

Is there going to be some free updates to the coliseum?

Square-Enix? Free?

georgetakeilaugh.gif

 

[Famassu]

Is there going to be some free updates to the coliseum?

IIRC Omega Weapon was free in Japan for a while (maybe still is?), but won't be forever. Hopefully early adopters will at least get a couple of freebies in the west too.

 

[MrDenny]

Is the coliseum same thing as FFX's monster arena?
I really hoping they don't charge for every battle dlc, should have been a standard feature.

 

[dakkumauji]

Well, another email from Amazon said my CE has shipped~

Guess I get to hound the UPS guy tomorrow.

 

[lastflowers]

Well, another email from Amazon said my CE has shipped~

Guess I get to hound the UPS guy tomorrow.

Same here. Mine better come tomorrow!

Actually, I probably won't be able to put in more than an hour....sooo....this weekend!?

 

[RPGCrazied]

I'm picking up my CE game and CE guide 10AM tomorrow.

 

[demosthenes]

Ugh I cancelled my preorder but the SE hype machine inside me is building. I have SC2 and tax season to keep me busy, why won't this god damn voice shut up.

 

[Thoraxes]

I got my e-mail around 11AM.

I am excited. Tuesdays are my off days!

 

[UberTag]

Maybe in FFXIII-3

Spoiler

after Toriyama is fired for incompetence, lives in a homeless shelter and subsists on donated bread crusts, and then gets rehired after becoming a stronger and more resourceful person thanks to that period of pennilessness

?

I wouldn't count too highly on that. Despite XIII-2's meager sales performance in the fickle Japanese market, I'm currently leaning towards the game being the most successful sales launch for the franchise to date in North America.

In other words, sales numbers will continue to go up as the critical response and storytelling craftsmanship go down. It doesn't help matters that the multiple editions and preorder bonuses are compelling devoted Square Enix diehards to purchase more than one copy of the game in order to get every collectible.

We should expect the next game to be plastered with advertising for XIII-4 and last 10-12 hours. Still twice the length of your annual Call of Duty installment so clearly we're getting our money's worth.

 

[Nista]

Got my CE guide today from Amazon. Have to not tempt myself by reading the whole thing before the game comes tomorrow.