Final Fantasy X-3 is happening and it just sounds weird

[LightspeedJack]

Wow I suck at using forums.

 

[LightspeedJack]

Frankly the whole things does sound snooker loopy, but I'm not going to knock a return to this universe. For all the talks of "doing such and such makes story point Y worthless" well it wasn't worthless, getting rid of Sin (subtle Religious subtext is subtle) had quite a few years of presumed peace on earth. By extension does this also make World War 1 pointless because world War 2 happened?

It's a bit more like if Kaiser Wilhelm from World War I returned for a Round 2 as the Kaiser Cyborg. Which, by the way, would've made history that bit more interesting. Of course the Eternal Calm wouldn't last forever, but it shouldn't be Sin + Yu Yevon really.

The problem with both Sin (and Tidus) coming back is that their death was part of an arc. For Tidus, he was the one who decided that sacrifice was not worth it anymore, and his whole arc was to be the outsider who matured into a hero; weirdly, he teaches others not to be so willing to sacrifice by, er, sacrificing himself. It's very bittersweet and, whether it was enjoyable or not, a solid arc that ends tragically.

Similarly, Sin's whole thing is that it is supposedly the Undefeatable. While that should give it the golden ticket to come back to the theme park whenever it damn pleases, it almost does the opposite; defeating it forever becomes one of the sole goals of the game because it's all anyone talks about for about 40 hours. Sin is stripped of its Immortality status and kicked in its giant face throughout the course of the plot; it's even revealed that Sin was never the real true power. After all that build-up, fight and pay-off, I'd say bringing Sin back is as desperate as bringing Tidus back. It's comic-book deaths, not necessarily invalidating everything you felt about their first arc, but now dragging a completed piece into new territory after it's finished, so that anything that comes after that will be marred by a pointless resurrection and the niggling feeling that they shouldn't be there.

At the end of the day it's a fictional universe and they can do what they want with it, ANYTHING they want. Which means they can pull characters back from the dead if they have to, but they will both be missing the meaning that they had the first time around.

Wow you really nicely explained exactly how I feel about this whole story. Going down the path they're going for this third game invalidates everything that happened before and just makes it feel pointless.

I guess you could say the same for bringing Tidus back in FFX-2 but I could kind of forgive it 1. because it was an optional ending, most people that played would have got the ending where he doesn't come back and 2. at the very end of X you see Tidus wake up and swim towards the surface, suggesting that he may still be able to exist in Spira after all.

 

[00slash00]

X-2 isn't actually quite as bad as it sounds. It's problem is more about what people were expecting than about what it is, if you don't come into it with those expectations then it's actually pretty fun for what it is.

Fun is the important word. FFX is one of my favourite all time games, FFX-2 isn't, but it doesn't try to be either. It's meant to be a fun epilogue that you can play enjoy and forget*

*If you do ever play it and then like it enough that you want to play it again somehow (there's a lot of branching choices this time around), look up a game guide. Tidus' storyline only gets resolved if you read one and deliberately try to get it. It involves random button mashing in an unmarked place in two particular moments over the whole game

See my problem with X-2 was actually that I didn't find it fun. I enjoyed the silly cutscenes between the characters and I enjoy changing outfits as much as the next girl, plus I loved the concept of what happens to the world after they suddenly have peace after knowing noting but conflict and terror their whole lives. What I really hated about the game was that in order to get the real ending you had to do everything right. I guess the idea was that you were supposed to play through the game multiple times to get the real ending but I just remember sitting there with GameFAQs open and feeling really stressed out about not doing something perfectly, because then I wouldn't get the final/happy ending. I got halfway through the game before I decided the game was bringing me more stress than fun. I have since watched all the endings online so with the HD version, maybe I'll enjoy it more because I won't be worried about finding out how it ends.

Honestly, even though 10 was my favorite Final Fantasy game in the series, I feel like they should just stop making direct sequels to Final Fantasy games. They never seem to go well. 10-2 isn't exactly a fan favorite and even though I loved 13 (I know I'm not in the majority there) I was let down by 13-2 and thought the sequel felt kind of forced and really only served to make the overall story more confusing. Apparently two seconds after the final cutscene of 13, Lightning falls in to a black hole and travels through time...okay, kinda felt like everything was wrapped up but sure, we can just throw in another conflict out of nowhere

 

[BrotherRool]

See my problem with X-2 was actually that I didn't find it fun. I enjoyed the silly cutscenes between the characters and I enjoy changing outfits as much as the next girl, plus I loved the concept of what happens to the world after they suddenly have peace after knowing noting but conflict and terror their whole lives. What I really hated about the game was that in order to get the real ending you had to do everything right. I guess the idea was that you were supposed to play through the game multiple times to get the real ending but I just remember sitting there with GameFAQs open and feeling really stressed out about not doing something perfectly, because then I wouldn't get the final/happy ending. I got halfway through the game before I decided the game was bringing me more stress than fun. I have since watched all the endings online so with the HD version, maybe I'll enjoy it more because I won't be worried about finding out how it ends.

Honestly, even though 10 was my favorite Final Fantasy game in the series, I feel like they should just stop making direct sequels to Final Fantasy games. They never seem to go well. 10-2 isn't exactly a fan favorite and even though I loved 13 (I know I'm not in the majority there) I was let down by 13-2 and thought the sequel felt kind of forced and really only served to make the overall story more confusing. Apparently two seconds after the final cutscene of 13, Lightning falls in to a black hole and travels through time...okay, kinda felt like everything was wrapped up but sure, we can just throw in another conflict out of nowhere

X-2 is definitely a lot better when you just choose the things you want to do (and then play through it twice, and only use a guide on the second time) because there's actually a lot of variance in how things turn out. I guess if I were to play it now, when I don't have the time to sink 120 hours into a game it would be worse, but in that case playing it once however you want and then watching the 100% ending on youtube is probably a pretty good idea. You don't gain much by 'earning' it in the game because the criteria are all pretty arbitrary.

Thinking back to some of those timed segments, and the areas you had to revisit at very particular times (and that whistle-blowing!) I can totally understand why it'd become too stressful to be fun.

I'm kind of glad you sad that about XIII-2, because I enjoyed XIII as well, yet despite on paper FFXIII-2 being the better game (open environments, time travel mechanics, more varied combat, a consistent villain), I actually ended up disliking it to the point where I couldn't even bring myself to finish it.

...although I'm probably still interested in FFXIII-3, I do like Lightning as a character.

I wouldn't mind them doing these sequels, as long as they were spinning them off to some non-core dev team. If they want to write a self-contained story and then milk some more money out of it with silly asset-saving epilogue stories, that doesn't bother as long as it isn't interfering with their next main series title.

 

[krazykidd]

A prequel following the only interesting characters (Auron, Braska and Jecht) would be fantastic. A sequel following the parade of bland, vapid dipshits starring in X-2 would be a disaster of X-2 proportions. Pretty much the only thing X-2 got "right" was the combat, the rest was droll, tedious, boring, grindy or just downright annoying... like every line of spoken dialog delivered by any character anywhere in the game. They even fucked up Blitzball, turning an almost-interesting and certainly engaging RPG soccer minigame into Football Manager 2002. Snore.

Pretty much the only times I woke up from my daze while playing X-2 was when Gippal, Nooj or Baralai were around, because they were roughly twenty times more interesting than Yunsnore, Rikzzz, and pain. Hell, a X-2 featuring those three as the main cast would have been great, with political elements and rallying support from their communities to vie for power over Spira instead of 3 herpderps trying to find a hunky boy in their day off from shopping for more clothes. God that game was terrible.

I haven't played FF X-2 yet as the wide spread condemnation has put me off. That and I dont want to play as Rikku.

I would only recommend it if you wanted to play a parody of Final Fantasy. It has some of the characters from a good game, in the same setting as the good game, but pretty much nothing else is good. The dialog is both over the top outrageous and hilariously stupid, poorly delivered from a variety of B-list voice actors. The writing is terrible, the story goes nowhere and has no resolution, the (many) minigames are all less engaging than Blitzball or even Triple Triad, but luckily you don't have to play them much (although, iirc, you still have to get a "perfect" time on each of the timed ones in order to get a 100% completion).

There are snippets of a good game buried in the pile of shlock. You get occasional cutscenes of more interesting characters doing more interesting things, but you quickly return to the parade of silliness and mundane bullshit following the 3 dipshits on their quest to get more dresses. And the 100% completion I mentioned? It's utterly insane. I mean, I'm a person that would struggle to do a 100% completion in an actually good game - but in this pile of trash, it was just the final joke icing on a cake made entirely of laughter.

You have to talk to every NPC in the game, you have to complete every minigame with the best result, you have to get every dress and sphere grid in the game, and the game is split into 5 acts, requiring you to return to each area multiple times, a single fuckup anywhere on the journey easily leading to a missed 100%, which you don't "see coming" until you get to chapter 5 and the game says oh, fuck you, you weren't following the guide closely enough, so no 100% for you.

Basically comparing the openings is all you need to do. X opens with a badass underwater soccer game getting interrupted by a giant monster blasting the entire city with laser beams, all to a death metal track playing in the background... while X-2 opens with the stuttering summoner herpderp doing a pop concert while herpderps 2 and 3 watch. And you learn quickly that it wasn't even Yuna, so that takes even more meaning out of the intro. What a pile of shit.

This is the funniest thing i read all day. And i completly agree. You said exactly what i think in a better way i ever could. Out of curiosity, what did you think of the coin minigame?

 

[white_wolf]

I'm not surprised about the radio drama Japan loves that stuff really I got the Saiyuki radio drama and I only understand about 1% of it!

Now moving on to the rest of OPs post:

I haven't played FFX in a long time but I thought when they made the deal it was an iffy one anyway they thought it would be a 50/50 as to weather or not sin would come back. And SPOILERS FOR SKYRIM - the only reason they defeated the main dragon either time was to send the darn thing into another realm sin as far I as I recall is the samething it just goes into a new realm of time and space (aka a second world) so really him looping back around into her time could always rehappen lore wise.

Her dumping Tidus however is a big thing. I personally hate the guy but the entire point of X-2 was to get him (since I never finished the game I'll assume she gets her man but I do know it went into the whole stupid we're reincarnated lovers plot line)So being she went through awhole nother game to get her man unless its something huge they better devote a huge amount of time into a very very good series of reasons why they broke up and he's dating some else because right now it just looks to me like the Fem lead must be single for our male players trope and that's a crappy trope.


Ok just now got to the bomb part....that can't be it really? As far as sexual content not being in FF did you forget the playboy bunny species? They had and entire species of playboy knockoffs! and half the outfits in X-2 should've been at the strip club, oh and Cloud cross dressing in 7 if you get picked you're nearly getting molested.

 

[go-10]

VI-2
VII-2
IX-2
Tactics 2

all of those are far better options than X-3

 

[Mangod]

VI-2
VII-2
IX-2
Tactics 2

all of those are far better options than X-3

Did any of the Final Fantasy games even need a direct sequel? IX, for exampel, was pretty much done-and-closed by the time credits rolled; there's no room for a direct sequel. Unless they go the Aliens: Conceited Marketing route, and just handwave some opening for there to be a sequel.

"Sir, the Sulaco was reported last seen over Fury-161. How is it back over this planet?"

?Lieutenant Reid, thanks for the interruption. We don?t know how that boat got back here."

... Yeah, no. If you have to resort to that in order to squeeze a sequel out of a game, I'd rather you not make a sequel at all.

 

[Captain Sunshine]

VI-2
VII-2
IX-2
Tactics 2

all of those are far better options than X-3

Interesting choices. Sadly they still have an open ending for FFVII, in terms of that Genesis crap that happened at the end of Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core. Though hopefully that got shot down.. they said the 'Compilation of FFVII' would last a decade at the time of that announcement, thankfully that's all gone quiet. And technically Tactics is part of the Ivalice series already, though War of the Lions is amazing and I'd love a sequel with similar gameplay and tone.

IX was wrapped up though, or at least the main characters all got enough of a conclusion (minus poor Freya and Amarant who got forgotten about for most of the game).

Wow you really nicely explained exactly how I feel about this whole story. Going down the path they're going for this third game invalidates everything that happened before and just makes it feel pointless.

I guess you could say the same for bringing Tidus back in FFX-2 but I could kind of forgive it 1. because it was an optional ending, most people that played would have got the ending where he doesn't come back and 2. at the very end of X you see Tidus wake up and swim towards the surface, suggesting that he may still be able to exist in Spira after all.

I actually agree, for some reason by tagging on Tidus' revival at the end it was sort of... less offensive? Of course I think that's one of those deaths that's done so well it should've stayed that way, but it was like the bonus Kingdom Hearts movies, something cool to see that isn't all that connected to the story you just saw. I only ever saw the X-2 proper ending on YouTube and never got it myself, it was such a hassle.

 

[lapan]

snip

I agree with most of this, though i could still get some fun out of the coin minigame.
What probably kind of saved the game for me was Vegnagun, i liked the concept of an organ powered mech.

 

[Neta]

Final Fantasy X-2 is one of my all-time favourite games ever. I didn't really care for Final Fantasy X, so I hope that X-3 will be more like a sequel to X-2 rather than a second sequel to X.

I like it because it's just plain old FUN.

 

[go-10]

Did any of the Final Fantasy games even need a direct sequel? IX, for exampel, was pretty much done-and-closed by the time credits rolled; there's no room for a direct sequel. Unless they go the Aliens: Conceited Marketing route, and just handwave some opening for there to be a sequel.

"Sir, the Sulaco was reported last seen over Fury-161. How is it back over this planet?"

"Lieutenant Reid, thanks for the interruption. We don't know how that boat got back here."

... Yeah, no. If you have to resort to that in order to squeeze a sequel out of a game, I'd rather you not make a sequel at all.

IX was wrapped up though, or at least the main characters all got enough of a conclusion (minus poor Freya and Amarant who got forgotten about for most of the game).

why would it be so hard for another kingdom to start growing in power through usage of dark arts and begins conquering the land and that's where they meet with Alexandria and this being a war between kings Zidanne sends out his best units to gather information here's where the main character Beatrix forms a small unit to infiltrate the enemy kingdom and discover the truth behind the sudden rise in power of this kingdom and here's where she travels to neighboring villages and as she gets closer she mets other warriors that are also suffering because of the current state of things and join her in her quest

OR

just tell the story of how Beatrix came from humble beginnings and became the fabled knight that she is

there's no need to resurrect Kuja or Necron

 

[Lightknight]

It's also more because it probably doesn't cost as much to port the PS2 Final Fantasy games, in their International forms to the PS3, than the PS1 and NES-SNES ones.
Hell there's a mod for Final Fantasy VII's PC one that completely redoes all the models in the game to be more HD and not look like Polygon Man. XD

Porting is FAR easier with games that require less processing power. Easier to emulate and such.

But it shouldn't be hard to do that. They'd make a lot of money at it and it'd be wise to release a super HD/touched up version of FFVII before releasing a sequel (entirely unnecessary sequels are something I despise, I'm only including the option in relation to the topic of the thread) or an entirely redone version of the game.