Final Fantasy XIII-2 ~

[Krisan Thyme]

That implies some continuation (and a tradtional series), and connotes more than just creatures and mechanics, at least for me. Just sayin'.

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..

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.

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.

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.

[Alan Heer]

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.

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

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

Once more information comes along, of course, this should become much more interesting again

[VeganZombie]

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.

CLARIFICATION:
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.

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.

All language is inherently limited. Communication itself is innately flawed.
(... 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.

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.

Not really a "debate" [joke] in the traditional sense.[/joke] Just nit-picking each other's arguments... which actually coincide.



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.

[Raype]

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.

[Krisan Thyme]

Once more information comes along, of course, this should become much more interesting again

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.

CLARIFICATION:
*snip*

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.

On this topic..

Thank you.
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.

[Dr. Ivo Robotnik]

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.

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

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.

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 . 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.

Bloody damnit, you've managed to get me excited for this.

Should this game turn out to suck, I WILL blame you

[Krisan Thyme]

I've updated the OP with the newly released HD version of the trailer.

[Krisan Thyme]

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.

[Colamisu]

Put it on Vimeo, Viddler, or Google Video.

[crusher]

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.

I saw that the trailer was posted by SE on the PlayStation EU blog. Watched it yesterday. However, today, the trailer is gone. What are they thinking?