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Trailer:
WARNING: This is a pretty big spoiler for those whom still haven't finished FFXIII!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPMbyyNRQ-Q
Thoughts? I personally am looking much more forward to versus XIII than this, but.. This does catch my attention.. Certainly looks like some interesting stuff happened after the end of XIII.
Wow, a sequel to arguably the most hated Final Fantasy in the series? Not the way i would go, Enix.
Ill be paying for this. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Quiji
om nom
I hope they go the same way as Final Fantasy X-2, with crazy dancing girls. Huge success. Amazing.
Meh...
Personally, I want it. XIII wasn't the best game ever I know, but I did enjoy it for what it was.. And from the looks of this trailer? Seems like some interesting crap happened after the ending.. (Besides, anyone in the retro crowd already knows what fun I've been having with XIII lately.. I intend to have just as much fun with this game..)
Too bad I can't actually watch the trailer yet. :wacko: Oh well, and I didn't mean I personally didn't like FFXIII, just as a general populace. But I know how mad people get at generalities. :wacko:
Oh I know.. I thought XIII had a pretty solid battle-system though myself.. It was a lot more fun to me than a lot of the previous battle-systems anyway, and required a certain degree of strategy and skill toward the latter part of the game. It definitely wasn't a perfect game, but it was certainly a gorgeous game, and a fun enough one for me I thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quiji
Few sequels make the steep enough departure that this games needs from XIII for it to warrant a purchase from myself.
for most people, final fantasy x-2 was a disapointment. idk maybe they went backwards this time, made 13 crappy but made the sequal better, but from what i have seen, they never make sequals as great as the first one. persona 3 and 4 dont count! lol
Persona 2: IS > Persona (God how I loved Innocent Sin..)Quote:
Originally Posted by garrendesares
But I dunno, I'll never understand all the XIII hate really.. It wasn't perfect or extraordinary, but it was a solid game I thought. Regardless of what XIII was though, XIII-2 could be damn near anything else, so we'll just have to wait and see.. Story-wise though, I'm very curious what happened here.. Seems like this game is going in a very different direction from XIII in regards to the plot.
lol, i was going to get aigoto for the psp but i decided that my pokemon was worth more lol.
What's this? I don't even...
I've said it before, "FFXIII was good in it's own right, but it just wasn't 'Final Fantasy' to me." So yeah, I'll probably check this out when it comes out.
If it wasn't branded with Final Fantasy, especially after XII, people wouldn't hate it. XIII was an experiment. It's obviously different from any game in existence in every aspect, and people hate change in a generally pretty conservative series. I was actually surprised people loved XII (but seriously, how could you hate it?). Everyone will admit, the production quality is amazing. It has some good mythology, and the characters, except for Vanille and Snow... and Hope, are pretty good. Story is a little weird to some, but I guess that's why they're making a sequel. :wacko:Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
The main sticking point is the linearity and combat. This is one of the most linear 'RPG', if you even call it that, in existence. The combat is pretty obvious, you only control one character, like XII, but it has a much worse AI system compared to Gambits of XII. And since you can basically blindly use auto, while occasionally switching Paradigms, it often referred as simplistic. Not the system it runs on, but the user interaction.
IMO, Enix really should of just named it something else, you wouldn't even know any difference since barely any of the recurring monsters make an appearance in this game (behemoth? That's all I can think of). The mythology it created is so different from any other Final Fantasy, basically the main point is that it's different. Name it something else, no one cares, brand it with Final Fantasy, everyone rages.
There are actually quite a few FF creatures in the game. Behemoth, Cactaur, Tonberry, Bombs, Flans, Sahagin, Goblins (Albeit they looked nothing like any traditional FF Goblin), Ochu, Chocobo, and.. Probably more. The Eidolons are also based off FF summons, Odin, Shiva, Alexander, Bahamut.. And of course the whole crystal theme, not to mention all the spells themselves. :sa-P:Quote:
Originally Posted by Quiji
There are a lot more FF references in this game than people seem to want to notice.. Mind you, I don't so much disagree with what else you were trying to say there, I just think this game was as much an FF as any other. It WAS different though, and definitely an experiment, but every FF in some respect or another is different anyway.. I tend to take every installment in the series on its own, and I think that's what most people should try and do.
Most of the spells are in most RPGs, but I will admit I forgot the Eidolons. :P
Many of them are, yea. But they're specifically named in the FF convention, and at least a few are pretty unique to the series so I think it still counts. :sa-P:
This.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
And I think treating FFI through X excluding VIII like FFXII and XIII (XI, XIV doesn't count) is a little unfair. Or rather, a sort of misrepresentation.
I-III are clones of each other, IV-V have the same basic graphics and gameplay while adding little things here or there to make them different from each other. VII is groundbreaking at the time but has the same basic FF structure, although FFIX also went back to being like FFVII. X added a cool leveling system and was fairly different from the others, but you could still tell it originated from Final Fantasy if you didn't know the title. FFVIII is far different from any of the others, as well as FFXII and XIII. So yes, I would agree to a degree that some of them should be treated as their own game, but not all of them. In fact, not the majority of them. 8 of them are generally the same, I would only distinguish 3 from the 11 titles as original.
*shrugs* They all have different stories and quirks. The earlier games in particular are a lot more similar to one another than these days, yea. But I dunno, I try to be unbiased with everything. My policy has always been that way, I strive to treat things individually for what they are. That's just me though, I realize.
Maybe I'm being a little infatuated with this. :P
Each to his own opinions, etc. :wacko:
Well I tend to agree with what you were saying if it helps any. While I think it felt FF enough for me, I like what you said about XIII. And I know what you're saying about the earlier games too, and don't necessarily disagree there either. I'm just weird is all, that's what it boils down to. :sa-P:
I've tried my absolute utmost to like Final Fantasy XIII, and the end result for me is that I still haven't managed to finish it. I heartily dislike the game, and think it's one of the most graphically beautiful disappointments I've ever seen.
To me, the game looks absolutely stunningly beautiful, but has little in the way of substance. I realise that many people disagree with me, but I refuse to be swept into the "Eh, he thinks it's not like old FF, burn him" crowd. I dislike Final Fantasy XIII, but for a very large variety of reasons. I'll grant you that I think it probably would've fared better without Final Fantasy as its title, but that's not MY opinion.
The Battle System to me is remarkably irritating. I never feel like I have a very good grip on my characters. Being unable to control two of 'em doesn't help towards that.
The music - eh, I liked some themes, disliked others, but wasn't overly impressed. Music, however, is VERY much a matter of preference and personal opinion, so I'm not going to bash the game there.
The story - well, I find I could only grasp the details behind it if I read the encyclopaedia data codex. Sorry, but if I have to refer to an appendix for background details, sure. If I have to refer to it to understand the MAIN STORY, the appendix suddenly becomes the story, and the game merely a way to unlock more parts of the appendix. I feel like I have bloody appendicitis already. (Sorry, I really couldn't resist that one :P).
Character-wise... well, I liked Sazh. :P I just can't take the characters seriously with their names. Sorry, but "Lightning", "Snow", "Hope", "Fang", and "Vanille"? The only one with a normal name is Sazh fer crying out loud. Yes, I know FF7 had Cloud and FF8 had Squall, but at least the others had marginally normal names. Their characterisation didn't feel very ironed out, and very standard to me.
That's of course how I feel about the game. There are many points of view, but I simply feel it's a fairly bad piece of work, and as such, I find Square choosing to build a full franchise around it (rather like what they did to the most succesful of their Final Fantasies, part VII) a very odd decision, given the amount of hate the game gets. It has many people who love it, but it also has quite a large crowd who singularly dislike the game a great deal.
Damnit, I turned a post into a rant on FF13 again, didn't I? Oh well.
Perhaps it's nitpicky of
EDIT: Last bit got munched, for some reason. Let me try this again. :P
Perhaps it's nitpicky of me to point out all the flaws that others overlook and not focus on the good, but that's just it to me. The only good part in the game to me is the graphics. It looks astonishingly pretty. The other things just sorta... well, broke the game for me. I tried to like it, and even nearly completed it. But I just can't force myself to play the rest of it.
(Incidentally, these aren't even all the reasons why I dislike it. I held back, for a change :P)
I'd rather not turn this into a thread debating whether XIII was a good game or not, I'd be much more interested speculating with others about what they think happened after the end of XIII that led to.. whatever it is we see (saw rather, thanks for taking the trailer down SE) in this trailer.. but eh.. I dunno. As Quiji said, to each their own opinion.
Fair enough. I tend to rant on things I feel strongly about too easily, sorry about that. (Try starting a Command & Conquer 4 thread, you'll most likely see sparks fly :P). Frankly, there's a lot of oddity about the trailer. It appears Lightning is pulling a Yuna as in FFX-2, as has been noted before (though I for one will be extremely pleased if it doesn't start with a concert starring Lightning, oddly :P), and it almost looks as if time has been turned back a few hundred years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
I'll admit I've become curious about the game now, but I'll be VERY critical before I decide to buy it or not.
Oh don't be sorry, twas your feelings and you are most entitled to a rant every now and then, as we all are!
Though yeah.. I have a few suspicions as to what is going on actually..
Spoiler warning:
Kind of defeats the whole point of a series, don't you think?Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
Hell, for the most part, I think they keep calling most of the game's Final Fantasy because of the difficulties in acquiring a trademark for alternative titles... That and the added publicity/devoted fan base/money of just slapping on the same ubiquitous title.
I honestly think there are at least 4 different "series" in FF (Not going to make the "Not so Final" Joke).
Bastardization of a series FTW.
That was sort of my point, it's not really a series in my eyes, and as such I try not to compare them to one another.. A couple of direct sequels and the revisiting of a few worlds aside, the entire "series" is essentially a string of unique games that share nothing in common except mechanics (which lately itself hasn't held too true) and recurring themes. (Chocobos, Moogles, etc)Quote:
Originally Posted by VeganZombie
Each game has a unique universe, a unique world, a unique setting (for the most part), and a new cast of characters. The definition of a series in the true sense, indicates a continual story of some kind.. It can have a change in its setting or an entirely new cast sure, but generally a series doesn't consist of a string of titles that take place in entirely different and unrelated worlds\universes. This is why I take each game as their own thing, as opposed to trying to measure them up to one another.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
That implies some continuation (and a tradtional series), and connotes more than just creatures and mechanics, at least for me. Just sayin'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
TOTHEPOINT:
Ok, I agree... and that is more or less what I said in the second part of my post, just elaborated and extrapolated... Or am I missing something? Seriously, I can be obtuse at times.
This is something that happens a lot in game-land, as it were, and I rather suspect that Square-Enix (Squaresoft back then, of course) started the trend. Breath of Fire does the same. Although one could theoretically argue that II is a direct sequel to I (some hints are dropped that you play a long time into the future of part I), but the worlds and stories are so vastly different that it's hard to argue coherently. BoF has some more 'always returning' things though. The main character named Ryu, with a female love interest named Nina, usually a princess of an airy place (yay Windia :P), the recurring theme of dragons, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
Final Fantasy just circumvented the issue by naming any direct sequels that take place in the same setting and world (roman numeral)-2 or more, as evidenced by Final Fantasy X-2, and now XIII-2.
What is completely certain, in other words, is that XIII-2 will take place in the same world and setting as XIII, but with a new storyline, involving Lightning in what almost looks like the role of a Royal Knight or something similar. (I dunno, that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that trailer).
i hope your exempting smt, smt persona and some others..... though some of the persona's are the same ones from final fantasy so i will give that to you. but the spells are different. star ocean and final fantasy were destined to be made by the same creators on that note.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quiji
Well pointing out that I said installment is just arguing the semantics of it. Yes it's marketed and thought of by most as a series, that doesn't mean that it actually is in any traditional sense of the word though. The English language is pretty limited when it comes to describing things sometimes, if you'd rather suggest a different word for me by all means..Quote:
Originally Posted by VeganZombie
And yes, I think we essentially were agreeing there. I feel the FF name is more used as a means of advertisement than anything else. Quite a few of the games in this "series" could have gone by entirely different names and stood just as well on their own, which Quiji himself pointed out earlier in regards to XIII specifically. I "disputed" (I actually said i agreed with what he was trying to say) that at the time with Quiji though only because the entire "series" does share recurring themes and the subject matter at the time was that it wasn't very "FF" because it lacked in that regard, and as far as those themes go I felt XIII deserved the FF name (in my honest opinion) as much as any other title in the "series" did.
That very loose shared connection of recurring themes (and until recently, mechanics) is the only thing that's really keeping it a "series" by any sensible means. I don't really want to go into a debate about this further though, that's not what this thread was about. I'd rather move this to an entirely different thread if the discussion is that important rather than clutter this one, honestly.
More than one game series has done this too, yea. I treat them in much the same respect as well though. I keep an unbiased view and respect\love\hate each game in its own right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lasharus
Final Fantasy has always been one to try to experiment. As such, most of their games are usually polarizing. In a series that is bound to be different, you can't really judge a game by the title. People criticized 12 for basically playing on it's own with it's gambit system. With 13, You can't control the characters (though you can control the main's actions), but instead you control the tide and strategy. Where as in most games you control the actions, the paradigm system is grouped into roles. I think it works sometimes, and other times it doesn't.
I at first didn't like 12, but I have been more fond of it recently and one thing about 13 struck me as weird. In 12, enemies would chase you a good distance. Since most were feral and not actually antagonistic against you (they're hungry) it felt realistic. In 13, enemies who were sent to hunt you directly had a very small zone that they would chase you around in. Walk out of the zone and they would go on their way and patrol, ignoring the ones who they were sent to capture or kill. The system would almost punish you for trying to go without auto-battle.
Some battles were more luck based as well so it felt like fake difficulty. Battles felt tedious and unrewarding with cp and gil so after you finish the game the only thing to do is grind. At one point in the game you can fight a set of enemies for around 600 CP and once you leave that spot the battles become longer and reward you 120 CP instead. If the game weas less linear that wouldn't usually be a problem since you could just return to grind, but not in 13. Another spot occurs in the end where you can get 32000 CP for a 2 minute fight and if you move on, you can never return so it's not that there is grinding, it's that it wants you to grind in only a couple spots to make up the time for the game and if you don't grind, then the game punishes you. Don't have enough max HP? You should have spent a couple more hours fighting the same set of enemies. Now you have to fight longer battles for 10 hours instead.
10 is the second most linear game, but it rewarded you better for fighting. When I would arrive at a new area I would battle and raise my character's sphere level by anywhere from 2 to 5. After that I would beat any enemies as I continued. Grinding never took longer than 30 minutes and that is because I get distracted a lot. The game encouraged you to use strategy, but the option to grind is there. In fact jut a little grinding could help you in the long run. Another thing was that the game encouraged you to use more characters. In my training regiment I would use all of the characters since they would all see use in the game. Say if a battle consisted of a lupine, a bird, and a helm type enemy I would beat the two fastest enemies first. The lupine beat by Tidus and the bird by Wakka, then I would cycle the characters and make them defend. After that I would use the last person (kimarhi or Auron, depending on who hasn't moved yet) and beat the last enemy. AP is given to all who participate and it is not divided meaning Auron get's the same whether only he moved or whether all other characters moved.
There are some things I like about 13. My three favorite characters are Snow, Sazh, and Hope. Snow is fairly peppy and the heroic type. Sazh is comical and the father type. Hope starts out a whiny emo (whether that is justified is not the problem), but he eventually cheers up and becomes the pep of the group. But I think most of the time went into making it look pretty and not enough into the story and characters. The battle system could use improvement as well. Another game that was hyped on graphical prowess is 7, but it was a decent game. If they had dedicated at least one of those years spent on making the character's hair look realistic and instead devoted to actually improving the game, then this could have been a hit, but it wasn't. It was a disappointment. I played this and Nier at the same time and I keep coming to the conclusion that Nier has a lot more heart put into it than this and that it was just the better game.
I note it's not just me who tends to revert to discussing what was bad and good about Final Fantasy XIII or earlier games. I suppose it's mostly because there simply is so little to go on for FFXIII-2. All we have is the trailer and the title, the latter of which isn't exactly innovative :P
Once more information comes along, of course, this should become much more interesting again :)
CLARIFICATION:Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
I am aware that most arguments regress into semantics, but that was honestly not my intention.
When you said that each should be considered by itself, that did not make sense to me because a series is one part of a whole. (1+1x=S)
Then you said your point was to say that it was not a series, but this was confusing because you had already stated that each part of the series should be considered different, so how can you be saying it is not a series when you refer to it as a series?
I did not keep harping on it not to make a point, really, but because I assumed I was overlooking something blatant.
All language is inherently limited. Communication itself is innately flawed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
(... But that is just a cop-out.)
Honestly, I have not considered FF a series in years. I consider each game a standalone, no connection or continuation whatsoever.
Not really a "debate" [joke] in the traditional sense.[/joke] Just nit-picking each other's arguments... which actually coincide. :wacko:Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
ONTOPIC:
I put FFXIII down after little more than an hour of total play-time. Didn't like it for various reasons...
I'm one of those people who thinks that everything that was FF culminated in VI, which was the apex of the series. (Didn't like VII, of course. Don't hate it, just thoroughly disappointed by it.)
So I will do what I always do with each new FF game:
Play it at a friend's house for a bit, then make my decision... which is usually not to buy it. But it has happened before. I really liked XII.
On this topic, I am conflicted.
On the one hand, XIII set up a few threads that were really not resolved and there's a few interesting directions they could choose to go in. And I did have a good deal of fun with the game.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd like to see those being resolved with in another FF XIII as it was my line of thought that it'd end up in the other FFXIII's that were being developed. And I'm not sure I'd cal FF XIII an especially great game that I'd be all too happy about getting into again.
As for the whole medieval thing: Keep in mind that the Fal'Cie of Cocoon were the real source of technology, as well as the power source for said technology. The humans were just mooching off it. Pulse was a bit more natural. With Cocoon gone, technology would go back to the dark ages. The whole costume change seems closer to the apparel of Vanille and Fang than Snow or Hope.
And so forth.
There is plenty enough to at least speculate upon right now. I already did a bit of speculation earlier in this thread.. There was also a Famitsu (I think it was Famitsu) snippet today or yesterday that included some interesting little tidbits that alluded to the possibility of time travel being involved. We don't know anything concrete, but I don't think we're devoid of enough information to not at least have some kind of discussion about it.. especially given the many loose ends that weren't tied up in XIII itself. There's a lot of potential here, and I was curious what insight people had on the story and where they'd like to see it go.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lasharus
I don't really care at this point. And I don't appreciate having everything I say picked apart.. It's not very nice, and quite honestly I'm annoyed that you thought it was at all necessary, especially considering that yes our arguments coincide - at least to one degree or another. This thread also wasn't about the semantics or otherwise of whether FF is a series or otherwise.. and I've asked more than once to keep things on topic, that topic being the sequel to FFXIII.Quote:
Originally Posted by VeganZombie
Thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raype
And yeah.. I'm with you on the indifference, I figured a lot of the loose ends in XIII would be elaborated upon in versus XIII or Type-0 (formerly, agito XIII) - but at the same time I dunno.. From looking at what versus XIII is becoming, that game looks much more epic and intense than XIII was.. And if you think about it.. That's not really fair, is it? The main installment of XIII being overshadowed by the side-story title.. Yeah, I'm hoping XIII-2 will expand a good bit on Lightning's chapter.. otherwise I don't think it'll stand out as terribly memorable by comparison to versus XIII.
Also I think you very definitely have a point about the Cocoon Fal'Cie and such.. I was looking at it from a different angle, but I think our conclusions were much the same. Yeah, the new attire looks very much like something from Gran Pulse - not much of a stretch at all when compared to what Vanille or Fang wore.
You make a very good argument as to why the game would, in a way, regress in technology. Though Pulse, too, showed evidence of high technology here and there, most of that was also powered by the Fal'Cie. At this point, it looks very much like the game will be looking at the world after the Fal'Cie, with an as yet unknown threat to it popping up within... oh, say 10 minutes of play :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Raype
As it stands, versus XIII definitely looks like it'll out-do the original, and there is a subtle sort of wrongness to that, definitely. But on the other hand, in my view anything's better than XIII :P. As I said before, I'm certainly curious as to Final Fantasy XIII-2, with some reservations. The hints are there that we're looking at a world regressed in technology, but with a new threat looming on the horizon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krisan Thyme
Bloody damnit, you've managed to get me excited for this.
Should this game turn out to suck, I WILL blame you :P
I've updated the OP with the newly released HD version of the trailer.
SE is apparently STILL taking this trailer down off of YouTube for some reason.. I've updated the link again. If this one gets taken down, screw it, I'll host my own copy of it on a local server and link to that.
Put it on Vimeo, Viddler, or Google Video.