FFXIII-2

[Correction]

Legit question here (I seriously don't know the answer, so I'm not trying to be sarcastic): Do many (any?) other games provide the option to change voice-over languages? Assassin's Creed comes to mind as a recent game that I know is available in many languages, but I never cared to check if they let you pick between languages.

Most games by NIS (Disgaea, etc) have this option.
Castlevania DS games had this option.
Lost Oddysey had this option (lol four discs).

But it's rare otherwise. SE has never done it and never will.

[Elrina]

The latest PS3 release of Star Ocean did actually have an option for Japanese audio, and SE had actually said (I believe in 2009 at some point) that they had the space available to do it for XIII on the PS3. I remember it being asked directly in an interview and SE responding with something like "It's definitely a possibility, thanks to the space granted by Blu-Ray. Do you think people would be interested in this?" There was a follow up response heavily in favor and they said something like "We'll look into the possibility."

Far as I remember, it was a while after it was confirmed the NA PS3 release would not have the Japanese audio that I first read about the MS/360 policies that more than likely prevented the possibility even if SE had been willing to entertain it (which is also probably a partial reason why SE doesn't bother entertaining the notion more often, because most of the time it's not something they could do anyway).

From what I understand, the reason the Star Ocean release was able to have it and additional content is because 360 initially had an exclusive on it in NA. So maybe they could release the PS3 version a week or two later and include it, but it would probably cannibalize a lot of the sales on the platform from people who didn't want to wait and didn't care about Japanese audio.

Just another example of stupid shit that bogs down cool options and features.

[Elcura]

I vaguely recall there being that option for Vanquish and maybe Bayonetta. Valkyrie Profile 2 as well, White Knight Chronicles, Atelier games (though I think those are NIS too?), Eternal Sonata, Resonance of Fate, maybe Valkyria Chronicles as well.

I don't tend to play with JP language tracks so my memory is hazy at best.

[Crab_Cake]

40/40 from famitsu if that means anything to you, 13 was 39/40 btw.

Without the SE bias that translates to 8/10-10/10 (it's hard to tell. If only they could go over 40/40 then we'd know for sure). On the plus side it means FFXIII-2 can join the 40/40 club...!

While I like Famitsu, a lot of their scores are inflated regarding SE games - you have to subtract -1 or -2 for each 1-10 scale.

(Though Famitsu does have its limits - They gave Dirge of Cerberus a 28/40.)

Personally I only see 10/10 material as something you can't see vastly improved (reasonably that is) or if in the process of improving (through updates) but Famitsu hands them out every other week.

Also their 4 reviewers thing seems like a gimmick considering how rare it is for one reviewer to rate anything with more than 1 point difference than the other reviewers.

Of course I hope I am wrong and FFXIII-2 really 10/10 x4 material (hint - Vanille is in it and she is being awesome in it. Famitsu better be rating it because of that or else... I'll be sadden ).

Most games by NIS (Disgaea, etc) have this option.
Castlevania DS games had this option.
Lost Oddysey had this option (lol four discs).

But it's rare otherwise. SE has never done it and never will.

They did it for The Last Remnant PC version . Though I'm sure they'll probably do it on the 8th gen consoles. Reason they didn't do it for FFXIII is because of Xbox 360's space limitations (they want to make the two versions of the game as similar as possible). They not only have to include the audio files but have to include two versions of prerendered cutscenes (for lip syncing) and more.

[Alkar]

The PS3 version of FFXIII was already way better than the Xbox port. This time it's probably different because they're using real time cutscenes but I'm expecting them to compress the game like crazy.
While the SE name probably inflates scores of their big titles I think the same applies to titles like Skyrim. Unlike FFXIII though, Skyrim was praised and given perfect scores by Famitsu and western media while having a critical issue that apparently can't be solved. Zelda also has a bug that can corrupt your save file but at least it's avoidable and doesn't depend on how big your save file is.
And before people jump in here defending Skyrim I'm not saying it's a bad game but you can't hand out 10/10 scores to a game that can become unplayable a few hours in. At least I'm glad someone is lowering the PS3 scores because of that.
We'll see if XIII-2 is worthy of this 40/40 but I'm 100% sure I'll enjoy it next month.

[brand]

Can anyone translate the review? It should be here: http://hokanko-alt.ldblog.jp/archives/67139783.html

It's essentially a condense of a longer article (18pg article, in fact) from what it says at the start. Combination creator comments and 4 person review.

Director's comment: different than the last time, instead of being dragged through the story, the idea was to use a player driven concept. Whatever order the player chooses to play in, they are free to decide. There are treasures hidden around, and the people who like to search for things in RPGs will get that. Others who prefer the story aspect can also choose to run straight through the game. DLC is planned to increase play, but information to come.

Art Director: Speaks about Valhalla as a concept. Lightning is presented as the force of a goddess. The armor, the summons were all meant to show how different they are to the original world, and to give a sense of what this world is like. Because of the distinctions of taste, it opened up new concepts of work and artistic design.

Producer: Basically chats up the game. never before seen treasures, places to go, unbeaten bosses, and giving it away might get him in trouble.

Other comment only has one line about Chocolina.

The review isn't full text. Clear time is about 40 hours, full content should go over 100.

I don't have time to translate each of the review comments right now, but they basically praise the game's aesthetics, it's generally good distinctions from the previous game, monsters as party members will have mixed feelings for certain people, but they found it enjoyable, battles have a good variance of degree of difficulty (and are generally fun), two of them made a point to mention multiple endings as a big replay value, etc etc. There really isn't a bad comment about the game, but again its an excerpt, and well, they labeled it as full marks, so I guess they wouldn't speak to any dissatisfaction.

It closes with recommendations to buy by each reviewer.

[Nevex]

Well the reviewers did say that Serah and Noel being the only playable characters for most of the game is potentially going to annoy some fans and I'm sure this will be by far the most criticized aspect of the game.
However I don't think that if FFXIII-2 is indeed that good the overall score should be lowered because of this.

[miokomioko]

If a score was lowered because you could only actively use Noel/Serah, that would be a score of personal taste and/or self-inflicted storyline expectations and not the actual game itself. Either way, if that's the most criticized aspect of the game, it must be pretty damn good.

Right now, my biggest criticism on the game that I can see is the fucking horrible vendor-specific preorder DLC bullshit.

[Alkar]

If a score was lowered because you could only actively use Noel/Serah, that would be a score of personal taste and/or self-inflicted storyline expectations and not the actual game itself. Either way, if that's the most criticized aspect of the game, it must be pretty damn good.

Right now, my biggest criticism on the game that I can see is the fucking horrible vendor-specific preorder DLC bullshit.

Yes this is the worst part. Thankfully I don't have to deal with this BS.

[Uzor]

Well the reviewers did say that Serah and Noel being the only playable characters for most of the game is potentially going to annoy some fans and I'm sure this will be by far the most criticized aspect of the game.
However I don't think that if FFXIII-2 is indeed that good the overall score should be lowered because of this.

I don't see how that is an issue. I mean, even with 10 playable characters, people stick to the same 3 unless forced to play with others.

[Hyan]

I don't see how that is an issue. I mean, even with 10 playable characters, people stick to the same 3 unless forced to play with others.

Which is kind of shitty in itself if you don't want to choose and if the rest of the cast doesn't have shared progression. It's not as bad with having monsters to choose from tho.

[RPGTyrant]

Soundtrack disk 4 samples posted, along with a video of some gameplay and the composers talking a bit, without subtitles. Listening right now and enjoying it so far, very chill.
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/s...fabula/ff13-2/

[Nevex]

Nice, they managed to sneak a Blinded By Light/Lightning's theme rearrangement in.
It's the third last selectable track.

[Ratatapa]

Here is the original translatation of the game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q23Hf...eature=related

[Spira]

Nice, they managed to sneak a Blinded By Light/Lightning's theme rearrangement in.
It's the third last selectable track.

its not the only one..
the 4th last previewable track is Lightnings Theme.. which is lightnings theme yea..

the last preview track also uses a melody lifted from Prelude of FF13 theme

[Minions]

Got this game on preorder, I have no doubt SE will make this one better than XIII (which I didn't think is as bad as other people say); SE Seems to be learning that they can't be arrogant constantly, and not listen to other people/their fans. I think FF14 failing has had the best impact on the company yet.

[vadre]

I agree, if they can keep paying attention to what their customers want like this FF15 really could pull the series back on track (I doubt FF13-2 will do it despite potentially being really good because of the stigma attached by the online community to FF13).

[Kaslo]

I agree, if they can keep paying attention to what their customers want like this FF15 really could pull the series back on track (I doubt FF13-2 will do it despite potentially being really good because of the stigma attached by the online community to FF13).

When did the series go off track? SE is never going to be able to please everyone, and there are large groups of fans for every game in the series (and I'm not counting XI and XIV obviously)

[vadre]

When did the series go off track? SE is never going to be able to please everyone, and there are large groups of fans for every game in the series (and I'm not counting XI and XIV obviously)

Well I suppose it's pretty subjective, but I'd say (and I don't think I'd be alone) that they've been reluctant in the past to listen to their playerbase and shape new entries based around their opinions (I.e. going from XII to XIII and pretty much presenting the complete opposite in terms of strengths and weaknesses). I get that these games are worked on by different teams in a staggered way, but that's not to say they shouldn't be learning from each other's mistakes based on feedback they receive. The difference between XIII-2 and XIII is so remarkable that it gives me hope that this will be the case for future entries.

I enjoyed XIII, but it definitely strayed a lot from what I consider as positive factors in final fantasy games, and XIII-2 is doing a lot to remedy that.

But yeah, subjective.

Edit: I don't really get the 'not counting XIV' thing, it's a numbered entry and should be treated as such in my opinion, and V1.0 was pretty much the embodiment of this issue (even pre-1.0)

[Appie]

He says he doesn't count XIV AND XI, most likely because they are MMO's and while they have the main number, they are still sorta "out of the box" of the regular FF. They got the story like normal FF's, but otherwise are pretty different compared to offline FF's. With offline FF's story is like 70% of the game and 30% endgame at best? FF MMO's (going for FFXI at least) it's like 30% story and 70% endgame what people do? And it still has the "omg we have to pay money monthly" stigma to it which some FF players simply do not want, so they don't count them for their "FF collection".

But as pointed out, thank fuck they are a numbered entry in the series so they know how much they fucked up on their main franchise with XIV and adjusted their ways somewhat since then.