S-E feels the backlash from FFXIII with FFXIII-2 sales.Follow

SO different from mashing X to set up each party member to attack the random mooks you encounter in earlier FF games.

Who knows, Binding of Issac didn't sell that much compared to x game but it was still a damn fun game, so sales don't always reflect quality, it just reflects that people are still heavily influenced by past experience whether good or bad, especially with today's gamers.

XIII-2 is a ton better than XIII and if you liked XIII you'll like XIII-2 even more as it's a completely different view of things and trying for multiple ending is always a good thing to have in an RPG.

Hopefully it's not one of the many convention demos they showed off because it really doesn't show off the game play that well lol.

I don't know if I'm a "Hater", but I was a die-hard FF fan until 13. It was REALLY disappointing. That being said, I just played about an hour of the demo, and have had more fun than the entire time I played FF XIII.

The combat system is pretty similar, and the addition of the monster makes it deeper.

Good times so far!

As a hater, as I think I stated in this thread, I like the demo.

To reiterate, I hated XIII because of many reasons, the usual: linearity, way too long tutorial that didn't teach anything, and the fact that (at its core) it didn't feel like a Final Fantasy. There were no mini-games in the classical sense, I couldn't grind early in the game and nothing seemed to mean anything. Graphics and music (baring a couple of songs 'chocobo theme') were great though. Again I could write and defend a thesis why the game was so bad.

The demo fixes most of the 'mechanical' things. There are people to talk to; the world feels alive (even if it's an illusion). The battles seem a bit more fun and manageable from XIII (and this is with the tutorial turned off). Voice acting seems OK, and the story at least in the demo, seems to be written OK. Music and graphics here (despite the rapping) is good.

So as a game I would have given XIII a 6 and this demo an 8. As Final Fantasies go I would have given XIII a 4 because it deviated so far and so badly from what I believe the core game should be. This demo I think would be around a 6 or 7.

Of course this series is becoming way to JP for my tastes and SE needs to work on their Westernization like they did with XII (I'm talking about the dialog, and not Vaan's chest) to really get back my vote.

Will I buy this game? Maybe, when it hits the bargain bin.

I just want a Final Fantasy to feel like FF6 again, where I have my pick of 15 unique characters to save the world with. Eh.

Yeah, I just downloaded FF V on my PS3, and it's pretty funny how the translation goes on some things.

That being said, I don't really see what the whole urge to go back to the "good old days" is all about. People complain about the button mashing in FFXIII, but guess what? In FF V unless you're fighting a boss, I'm pretty much just holding down the "X" button on my controller to have my party "Fight" everything any way. In fact, I wish I could put the "Earth" command of a Geomancer in the same place as "Fight". Then, I wouldn't even have to lift my finger during a fight :P.

Oh, and the paradigm system? All I'm doing in FF V is trying to set up my party so that I can burn through a fight as fast as possible. I line up a "Paradigm" of jobs for normal fights, and a different one for bosses. Being able to basically swap jobs in the middle of a fight in FF XIII makes it even more fun, and actually rewards you for getting through a fight in the most efficient way possible.

On top of all that, there's some ridiculous conventions that have been done away with. I don't have to nearly resurrect my entire party after a hard fight, I don't have to make multiple saves in case I get stuck, and I can see what effect equipment will have on my party before equipping it.

Then there's this whole "linearity" complaint. FF V locks you into only being able to access specific areas in a VERY linear fashion by restricting your mode of transport, whether it be a black chocobo, a ship, or an airship.

So, after playing FF V, and then comparing it against FF XIII, I have come to the conclusing that SE tried to give us exactly what we asked for, but may have missed the mark. After just playing through the demo for FF XIII-2, I'd say we got exactly what we asked for.

I think nostalgia may have darkened my vision a bit, and I'm guessing others as well.

Edit to add: I haven't played FF VI yet, but it's next :)

Edited, Jan 11th 2012 6:29pm by LebargeX

Edited, Jan 11th 2012 6:35pm by LebargeX

Sorry, FFXIV has English and Japanese voice acting.

omg didn't know I could get FF V and FFVI on my PSP. Welp, guess I better go get a 20 dollar card after werk today... I can pick up 6 and maybe 7 and then I will have 1-9.

So I tried the 13-2 demo and found that while in combat I was still unable to control all characters. It was one of the many problems I had with 13. Case in point: I was in a fight and needed healing, switched to med and got one cure then for the next 3 full gauges they just stood there and did nothing they did not even heal me to full.
The game has not changed and for me it's not worth a purchase.

You need to know how to use the system, of the many flaws XIII had... this is not one, the battle mechanics are one of the best things in the game and XIII-2 improves things for those of us who liked XIII and IMO answers (if not solves) all the complaints others had (with the exception of turn based full party control). The system is quick and efficient, and the new system rewards your skill in using the Shift functionality efficiently. You have to experiment with your setups.

If that's the ONLY reason you don't like the demo you either do not want to like the game (and never will), or you didn't try hard enough to experiment (very minimal effort).

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, I just think if this is the one thing holding you back that you need to do some minimal research and re-attack it.

Funny how that works eh? :p

I've always likened tutorials to the way Robert Jordan wrote his books... The first few books in the WoT series were great, the further you get in the series the longer the re-familiarzation crap goes... until the point where it feels like 60% of the book was "tutorial". Alot of games recently are suffering from this phenomenom... FFXIII was just the most obvious and lengthy of them.

Did you take out Atlas without weakening him first? Other than that I couldn't ever see a need for a Sentinel in the demo, since switching to COM/MED/MED worked just as well.

I absolutely abhor the music, much like I hated most of FFXIII's music. Aside from the battle theme, which you heard all the damn time, none of the rest of the OST stuck in terms of lasting impressions. The demo seems to follow in this weak aspect.

Battle's more 'fluid', shifting's a hell of a lot faster (none of that moronic "cutscene" at the start of every battle for a new shift), and working on a 5 star is actually rewarding this time (yay more/better loot!) but more difficult to achieve. FFXIII needed a SEN/MED/MED, COM/RAV/RAV, SAB/SYN/MED and you were literally set for 5 starring everything outside of Mark #64, so actually needing to put some effort into battles is enjoyable.

Not too happy with Noel's attire if only because (and this will probably be story-related later on) those pants means he either doesn't know what pants are or has a two foot wang -- and both prospects are frightening. Serah's voice isn't as syrupy as her few moments in FFXIII and Noel's is neutral and pleasant to listen to. Mog's like injecting honey directly into my veins but that's the whole point.

Looks like we'll have both turn-in and auto-complete quests in the game, which are nice. Hidden chests needing to be found gives some send of exploration and even in the little 'town' we saw I was impressed. If the rest of the game continues in this vein it'll be cool to see the many possible 'endings' it touted and seeing what going back and altering a decision can cause.

Being able to choose to grind a bit or do a hardmode-style run in terms of the CP growth is awesome. Monster leveling from the demo was a good teaser and already my damned OCD is itching.

Chocobolina can DIAF.

I hope they get it right by the time they release it last month.

LOL, obvs.

If you ignore Famitsu and Dengeki, maybe.

Edited, Jan 13th 2012 10:47pm by lolgaxe

Even though I haven't used these forums in awhile, pretty sure people rated down false info or people just flatout not liking you.

If you ignore the major magazines in Japan, yeah it didn't get good reviews, just like Skyrim isn't a perfect game, however major magazines in Japan gave XIII-2 a perfect score or near perfect score, if that's not doing well in reviews then I guess doing "well" varies from person to person.

Yeah like I said, you gotta try the demo yourself to really see, it's something that you really can't go on player feedback, because if I went on player feedback alone, all I can expect from Skyrim is doing summersaults while riding a horse and arrow to the knee jokes, and if I went on critic reviews all I'll expect is a game of absolute perfection..thus I had to try it for myself lol.

It's for the PS3 and 360.

I can't read any Japanese, so I wasn't able to get involved in the official reviews from gaming magazines here. But some of my friends here that are Japanese and have played it says it wasn't really that good. other than the key points I pointed out in my previous post.

I hope it is better than XIII. And I hope it isn't to linear this time. But we will see.

I'm surprised they can do that, I had thought that SE did not own the IP for Xenogears anymore after the development team moved to Monolith. Though I suppose they did specifically mention that Xenosaga was not a sequel because of company IP issues, so I guess they probably did not take the Xeno IP with them.

What the fu...

Nevermind you were trolling, even though skyrim has many flaws it scored a perfect score in Famitsu.

Skyrim was, is, and will be a better game than FFXIII-2 will ever be so what's your point ?

Also Square has 3 perfect games on famitsu how are they unbiased towards SE ?

Perfect in definately subjective. I'm still gonna go with Bethesda's TES series as being perfect in the storyline department though :P for now :)

I just hope SE gets back on the ball on being a power house with the stories...I really really loved FFVII-FFX's stories...then after that it just went down hill for me :( Makes me a sad sad fan.

Yeah, I thought the main story for Skyrim was pretty lame, as well as the thieve's guild. The companions was sort of interesting, and so was the dark brotherhood. There's also a pretty crazy one about "The Butcher", but I won't spoil it.

Eh! I meant Biased instead of Unbiased, also Skyrim is better than FFXIII :/

SE JRPG? -10 cool points
non-SE JRPG? +15 cool points