FFXIII-2

[vadre]

Does anyone mind that there's a lot less CG this time round? I'm personally of the opinion that it's a change for the better with less disks and a more consistent experience between the PS3 and Xbox (I'll be playing this one on 360, rather than PS3 like I did for XIII).

Super stoked for this now, no limit on the crystarium is great imo, although I sort of expected it given you have the option of taking Atlus head on. That's pretty early in the game but you must already have had the opportunity to visit a few different time periods etc to level up.

The only thing I could really see being a let down is the length of the story, personally. I'm not too worried about it given that i'll be doing lots of side content on the way, but I like my final fantasies to be sweeping and epic.

[Hyan]

The only thing I could really see being a let down is the length of the story, personally. I'm not too worried about it given that i'll be doing lots of side content on the way, but I like my final fantasies to be sweeping and epic.

Well, considering who is working on the story, this can only be a good thing.

The only sad thing about XIII for me was that their focus was on an aspect of the game that really wasn't that well executed. Now they're focusing on the gameplay, the part which IMO they did very well even with its flaws (flaws that are being taken care of, for the most part). While the shitty story is still there, it's not in your face. Much better.

They can leave the stories of epic proportions to some other team....

[Ayn]

The bigger question is will Lightning have the chance to go all Bright Noa on someone again.

[ArchDizzle]

Also really like the concept of blood damage adding another means of difficulty. I think the length will be fine, esp. with them adding more old school elements in sidequests/mini games (which xiii was severly lacking) and NM's with rare spawn conditions. Really stoked at this point.

[Burningthought]

Does anyone mind that there's a lot less CG this time round? I'm personally of the opinion that it's a change for the better with less disks and a more consistent experience between the PS3 and Xbox (I'll be playing this one on 360, rather than PS3 like I did for XIII).

Super stoked for this now, no limit on the crystarium is great imo, although I sort of expected it given you have the option of taking Atlus head on. That's pretty early in the game but you must already have had the opportunity to visit a few different time periods etc to level up.

The only thing I could really see being a let down is the length of the story, personally. I'm not too worried about it given that i'll be doing lots of side content on the way, but I like my final fantasies to be sweeping and epic.

They might have been able to use a few of the tricks they learned with FFversusXIII to make the models look better without harming performance. I think that's why they decided to do everything in engine. Obviously it probably won't have all the bells and whistles that FFversusXIII's engine has, I mean the new luminous lighting is supposed to be insane, but XIII still looks stylized. Point being is that one of the devs said that the only difference in versusXIII between CG and ingame is the hair.

[Crab_Cake]

Ehh only thing disappointing about all the battle system improvements and being able to change party members if you're stuck with Serah and Noel forever or not.

I said earlier but what would be neat if they featured some new game+ or something (if for story reasons, you're stuck with just two characters this) where you can use any characters from FF13 + FF13-2 too.

Well an example is Valkyrie Profile 2 where you can reobtain all lost characters from earlier in the game

Spoiler: show

Lezard, Dylan, and other characters lost due to storyline reasons or so. Freya could also be obtained in the post game dungeon.

That'd be great of SE if they did that and allowed you to obtain all characters (just for gameplay purposes, ignoring story of course) after new game+.

Obviously though the question is whether or not they'll have time to "import" characters to the new game from the old game (wouldn't it be easy since same engine for the most part and well everything seems to be exactly the same?).

Overall I just need Vanille in my party and in the game!!!!

Anyway all the battle changes are definitely good. As for the story I don't mind at all. Honestly in most games, it doesn't matter what the plot is or if things feel contrived or <insert negative thing here>. Basically (for me) as long as there's likable characters in the game and dialogue, I'll enjoy the story usually.

Though I do dislike stories with time related stuff mainly because it can get really confusing and (if they do it) it complicates things in scenarios where there are an infinite number of a character because there are multiple timelines. Hopefully it won't be too complicated or anything and everything will somehow make sense in the end >.>.

[Uzor]

I hope their supposed "multiple ending" thing is better than the Human Revolution one where you can choose one of four endings...

[Insanecyclone]

[Kaylia]

I don't know why, but FF character design bother me more and more. The only one I like is lightning and her new armor...Everything else is bad.

Does anyone mind that there's a lot less CG this time round? I'm personally of the opinion that it's a change for the better with less disks and a more consistent experience between the PS3 and Xbox (I'll be playing this one on 360, rather than PS3 like I did for XIII).

CGs are just a waste of time on the current console. The game engine is more than enough to create amazing cutscenes that are fun to watch and give a solid story telling experience. Sure, I appreciate the eyes candies as much as everyone, but this is money that is better invested elsewhere (better landscape during the gameplay, longer story..etc)

[Elcura]

CGs are just a waste of time on the current console. The game engine is more than enough to create amazing cutscenes that are fun to watch and give a solid story telling experience. Sure, I appreciate the eyes candies as much as everyone, but this is money that is better invested elsewhere (better landscape during the gameplay, longer story..etc)

MGS did it perfectly too, there's no reason for proper CGI apart from full length movies, besides that, in-game graphics keep things flowing nicely between story and game play.

[Burningthought]

MGS did it perfectly too, there's no reason for proper CGI apart from full length movies, besides that, in-game graphics keep things flowing nicely between story and game play.

I'm not sure I agree with that, I think there's plenty of room for CG if the scene is important enough to the story. I'd rather see that scene in all of its awe than have to compromise the scene because the game engine can't handle the effects and scale.

I don't mind FFXIII-2 having less CG since there's so little difference between the two that you wouldn't really see a real difference.

[Correction]

CGs are just a waste of time on the current console. The game engine is more than enough to create amazing cutscenes that are fun to watch and give a solid story telling experience. Sure, I appreciate the eyes candies as much as everyone, but this is money that is better invested elsewhere (better landscape during the gameplay, longer story..etc)

This isn't even close to true. Uncharted 2 (and presumably 3) makes heavy use of pre-rendered movies that doesn't stray far from in-engine renderings to mask loading times, a strong hint that consoles aren't strong enough yet to give us all the glorious eye-candy we need in real time. At least, not strong enough to give them to us without some tradeoff, be it in performance (i.e. loading times) or in the production pipeline (i.e. spend so much time/money on CG movies that other parts of the game end up short-handed). I agree that cutscenes are overused in what is supposed to be an interactive medium (which is why I lol at the MGS example) but I would not see them done away with in this or any future generation.

I don't trust SE any further than I can throw them to not abuse CGs the way they always have so it doesn't really bother me anymore.

[miokomioko]

There are just a lot of visual effects that are just hundreds of times easier to do in post-production than to try to create and render in real time with an existing video game engine and sprites/whatever.

[Correction]

There are just a lot of visual effects that are just hundreds of times easier to do in post-production than to try to create and render in real time with an existing video game engine and sprites/whatever.

Yeah, sometimes you just want to play with the medium a little. See: Infamous, Killer 7, God of War 3's opening credits.

[ArchDizzle]

Opening movie and ending movie in CG and a couple thrown in during the middle for important cutscenes is enough with how well the in game cutscenes look.

[Hyan]

Quite shitty that the crystarium is unlocked from the start. After the encounters balanced for a specific stat build and party setup in XIII the last thing we need is people grinding their asses off to give you an edge for an encounter you can't beat with the intended build.

But hey, that's what the fans want, so that's how it must be done! Thank you, fans.

[Kiarax]

I'm glad it's all open at the start. Means better customization of your characters (though with only 2 characters now that doesn't really help much) and no bullshit like having to finish the game just to beat optional content. I never even finished XIII because I wanted to clear as many hunts as possible whilst they were still tough as nails. I cleared out most of the Titan Trials but eventually hit a wall of ones that just didn't seem possible without the final crystarium level. Never cared enough to go beat the last boss after that since he looked like a joke from seeing other people do it. This game is finally giving me a reason to go back and finish it I guess. Though I definitely won't be 5 starring all the hunts unless there's some carry over bonus in XIII-2.

[Gokulo]

I think you will be only getting a bonus for a finished game save, nothing else (I hope)

[Hyan]

Means better customization of your characters

Whatever you value more I guess.

I don't want to choose between my party members (cause that means most of them are never getting used) or what weapon I'm going to upgrade 'cause they're all viable. At least the party setting customization happens between monsters so it's not too bad. Not to mention the decreased difficulty which is shitty.

Goes along with the replayability instead of just letting me go back to the optional side stuff directly after beating the game instead of having to go through all the bullshit first.

[Kiarax]

I don't know why you think it means decreased difficulty (for you, at least). If you don't want to grind and overlevel, you don't have to. Where's the problem? Hell, if it works like XIII where you choose when to spend points you can go as far through the game as possible without leveling up in the slightest (and I know multiple people who got up to Pulse doing this in XIII). The game is as hard as you make it, they've gave an easier option for people who are terrible and need to grind, but that doesn't affect you in the slightest. You're complaining about something not even worth mentioning.