FFXIII-2

[Tyrath]

Not to break up the current convo, just thought some people would like to see the scenario ultimania cover:

http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/media/...-2-Artwork.jpg

Pretty neat, a bit low res and some bits are cut off to make a wallpaper though. Serah looks like she has some pretty epic balancing skills, or she's flying.

Still kinda annoyed how much they've pushed Lightning (shes even on the cover) and she gets so little time in the game

[Hyan]

Yeah indeed. Must be a bummer if you happen to be a fan.

Was there any hints of Sazh's whereabouts in the original game?

[Ratatapa]

Also imo old FF are has hard as the new one or as easy

I don't know for you guys but the hardest FF i played was VI (imo for a first run) and i was 10

It's normal that at 10 years old i don't play the same way as now

[Spira]

if you were a main protagonist in the first story, logic dictates that even if you don't play a significant role in the second story, you are still considered central to it somehow.

[Katlan]

Not to break up the current convo, just thought some people would like to see the scenario ultimania cover:

Spoiler: show

http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/media/...-2-Artwork.jpg

Pretty neat, a bit low res and some bits are cut off to make a wallpaper though. Serah looks like she has some pretty epic balancing skills, or she's flying.

Id love that for a wallpaper, but its super low res

Also, isnt Lightning the narrator of the game akin to what Vanille did in the first?

[Jeryhn]

It's because alot enemies (for FF standards) had access to some nasty surprises that could easily turn the tides of the battle in the blink of an eye.

I'm just going to name a few cases:
-Those ninja/bird things that enjoy spamming buffs/debuffs are easy to go unnoticed until it's too late. They only need to get Bravery on one of their friends and deprotect on one of your characters to get them into KO range
-Gatling fucking Gun from those motorcycle things during chapter 7
-PSICOM soldiers during chapter 9. Especially those with that damn bazooka who knocked your party down while their allies massacred you
-The first time Doom was used was a shock because Bart had a lot of HP and was a very offense-oriented boss so I played defensively which was a completely wrong approach
-Eidolons in general other than Shiva (which was a tutorial fight) required good timing because they could punish you badly if you simply spammed stuff

Of course all of the above is true if 1. it's your first playthrough and 2. you don't overgrind but every game is like this anyway.
Overall I was pleased at how regular enemies and bosses alike kept me on my toes during my first playthrough.

Honestly though, how many times did you actually hit the crystarium cap? After chapter 4 I couldn't hit it anymore and I was fighting every single enemy I came across.

I don't really get how you can make these conflicting statements. It sounds like you rushed the game instead of stopping to do any grinding at all, presumably because SE said "oh, you won't have to grind at all while playing our game". Guess what: it wasn't true!

- The ninjabirds are the perfect example of why the player needs to be paying attention to what the enemy is doing over what their own characters are doing, which is the entire point of the auto-battle system. You're supposed to be choosing the targets and using the right paradigm deck to take down groups of enemies, the AI does the rest and pretty effectively at that. The fact that you didn't observe the different monster that was debuffing you and worked to eliminate him first (or even better, you could have used Libra) intentionally makes that fight harder. The auto-battle system isn;t spamming X, it promotes observation.
- Gatling Gun in chapter 7 is likewise a test of observation. It takes an assload of time for one of those cycles to charge the attack. In any RPG, that usually means something big is headed your way, and there's more than enough time to switch to a defensive paradigm to stave off the attack. This chapter was about teaching you how to use Sentinel effectively.
- Bazooka guy is another example of an enemy that should be targeted first. When you're fighting him, you SEE the bazooka and the fact that he's doing nothing the entire fight except just moving around looking to shoot it at you.
- Doom is meant to put pressure on the player, there's no doubt about it. But Bartandelus only uses it, what, 20 minutes into the fight? Sure, all the eidolons use it, but you're not trying to kill an invincible mob during that time, you just have to meet the win condition, and every single eidolon get massive boosts to their gestalt gauges by simply throwing out Dualcasting or Tri-disaster. Shiva isn't applicable to this rule because you can just Sentinel away her attacks and win, and yeah Fang doesn't have Ravager when you're fighting Alexander, but Saboteur increases the chain better than Commando attacks. Yeah, timing is important in these fights, but that's true of every single fight in this game because the auto-battle system changes the way you play.

What it sounds to me is that you never took the time to grind at all, and that's why you had difficulty on your first playthrough. In fact, the most worthwhile grinding you can do happens in chapters 4, 7 and 9 before you get to Pulse because you can force fights with human enemies over and over in those chapters - not because they drop more CP on average than that robot that takes you 5 minutes to kill because it has resistance to both physical and magical attacks, but because they also drop the gil chips that you can sell so you can simultaneously improve your weapons. In truth, doing some effective grinding makes this game as shit-easy as any other RPG on the market. And it doesn't matter that the Crystarium is capped because the CP you generate by grinding for gil more than covers you for the next chapter or two. This allows you to start the next chapter already having met the next cap, which means any CP you generate there will go to yet the next up until most locks are removed at Chapter 10.

The real limitation FFXIII gives you is not through the caps on the Crystarium, but your available party members in whatever segment of the game you're playing in because you have to approach the Paradigm and auto-battle system differently when you have characters that only know specific roles. For instance, when you have only Sazh and Vanille and neither one has COM unlocked. Or in chapter 7 against the flying motorcycles when you actually should use Dualcasting with Snow and Hope instead of the bread-and-butter War & Peace so you can stagger the cycle and prevent Gatling Gun from even charging.

Overall, what FFXIII got absolutely right was the battle system. Sure, you were walking down a hallway for 90% of the time outside of battle, and certainly is a bad design issue, but this is a wholly separate issue from everything you outlined above.

Also, FFXII was an awesome game and honestly would be a good model for a future more "open-world" FF game.

[Appie]

I would try and No Crystarium Run if I had a save file up to GPulse already

Man, Cid did not play nice when I skipped the fights that I could skip and use exp from what I did have to fight, don't want to think of how annoying it would be with no exp used. That's mostly what I leveled stuff for, even in XIII-2, just to make it less annoying, you could win alot of stuff with low level, but it becomes so slow it just isn't fun to me.

While you hardly play Lightning, she is pretty central to the story (Serah looking for her and all). I always consider the JP boxart the standard, not the we need lead character on the cover like a typical american movie poster most of the games did in the US (EU usually got JP boxart). She is displayed with Caius, just like Yuna and Sin on the FFX cover, Cocoon on the XIII cover. So while you don't play her as much like you could in XIII, she is still important to the story.

She narrates about 25% of the stuff btw, the rest is either Serah or Noel (and rarely others too).

[Nevex]

Also, FFXII was an awesome game and honestly would be a good model for a future more "open-world" FF game.

I absolutely agree with this, but then you read shitty comments from people who have never tried a MMORPG before saying crap like "Baaaaaaw it plays like an offline MMORPG! This sucks!".
I really, really hope SE stops attempting to satisfy every single criticism from the fanbase. It hurts more than it helps if you ask me.

[Hyan]

Ohh nice, Limited Nordic edition goes for 43€. Includes Omega, extra clothes for noel and serah plus extra weapons. That should be everything right?

[Kurokikaze]

I would still love to see them go back to their roots and model FFXV after FFIX.

Looking forward to playing this next Tuesday.

[Nevex]

@Hyan
From which site?

[Hyan]

www.vpd.fi it's a finnish site so can't say whether they will ship internationally or not (doesn't look like it). It's tax free, that's why its so cheap lol

[Acturus]

I would still love to see them go back to their roots and model FFXV after FFIX.

Not to attack your comment, but as a sincere inquiry... I've really never understood what FF "roots" are, exactly.

Is it the absence of "futuristic" technology? Is it a search for crystals? Is it the segregated job class assignments?

I've always had a mental checklist of final fantasy elements, and a good final fantasy game to me incorporates those elements. The best ones find new and unique ways to do so. I liked the materia aspect in VII as a variant of crystals, I liked the junctioning component of magic use in VIII. I really like the character classes in IX (reminded me of tactics), and I really liked the mini-games in X as a function of the non-linear quest for better weapons.

XIII was a weak game to me, because of the lack of distraction. Great story, but I could never take a break from it. I think XIII showed me how much fun I tend to have on the most mundane of tasks. Case in point, I am re-playing XII because I never finished it (there were a lot of games I never finished in the 6 years I played FFXI), and I had a lot of fun plowing through the Chops sidequest in Archades.

But I remember being peeved with Squaresoft when it was announced (and I think I've whined about this before on these forums) that FFIX was going back to the roots of the Final Fantasy franchise. I just don't understand what those roots are.

[idklol]

I would still love to see them go back to their roots and model FFXV after FFIX.

One thing particular i'd like to see is a world map and vehicles to get about it. Was so awesome when you unlock an airship and you get to fly about anywhere you please. Never had as much fun in FFX onwards where you just picked a destination and instantly arrived there. An open world FF would be awesome!

Makes me wonder too wether we will see any FF's after FFXIII-2 on the current gen consoles. Hopefully if it does prove to be the case it opens up a lot more design options for SE. XIII was pretty but limited for the most part. When i see cool things in the background i wanna head out there and explore it.

[Uzor]

Oh; Sweet. It releases earlier than I thought in Sweden. I just found out that it releases February 1st in Sweden. In the rest of Europe it gets released on the 3rd >.O

http://www.webhallen.com/spel/playst...nordic_edition
http://www.game.se/acatalog/Final_Fa...station_3.html
http://www.game.co.uk/en/final-fanta...ntasy%20xiii-2

I wonder why it got changed for Sweden? All major retailers have changed their date from 3rd to 1st here.

[Hyan]

Oh; Sweet. It releases earlier than I thought in Sweden. I just found out that it releases February 1st in Sweden. In the rest of Europe it gets released on the 3rd >.O

Feb. 1st here too.

Not to attack your comment, but as a sincere inquiry... I've really never understood what FF "roots" are, exactly.

Medieval chibis?

[Burningthought]

[Uzor]

So it's Scandinavia that gets it on the 1st? Interesting; Why the special treatment for Nordic countries? Not that I mind; it's just curious

[Trocian]

So it's Scandinavia that gets it on the 1st? Interesting; Why the special treatment for Nordic countries? Not that I mind; it's just curious

Shhh. If people talk about it it'll get discovered as a mistake and taken away from us!

[Uzor]

Then why would they have changed the date from 3rd to 1st? >.O

But you're right, better keep it on the down-low