Final Fantasy XIII-2

[F4LL3N]

I have about 75 hours up, and I'm just trying to finish some of the side stuff. It's shaping up to be one of my favorite games.

Spoiler

There's going to be a sequel, possibly XIII-3. At the end, it's got a 'to be continued.'

In my opinion, it's got a great plot and story, great characters and dialogue, great SFX and music, great visuals. There's plenty of side things to do; puzzles, quests, collecting monsters. It's not perfect, but it's still a good game if you can get over the auto-battle system.

If you could disable the ATB system/auto-battle and play normal turn based combat, that would have been great. Some hack n slash areas would have went down well also.

My other major complaint is the character progression could be better.

I loved Caius' motivation (the villain), I thought that was quite unique. Anyway, I don't understand the hate. Although I did love XIII too.

 

[Launcelot111]

I just beat FF XIII-2 last weekend, working on the sidequests/extra bosses now. Each game's (XIII and XIII-2) story has plenty of merit but is seriously flawed in other ways. Like in XIII, I liked the falcie rulers providing life but bending people to their will to suit their needs. I liked most of the characters (Hope and Snow not so much, but everyone else was just fine with me). The side characters were weak, but whatever. The one thing that ground my gears was the whole Ragnarok angle, which came out of absolute nowhere and which I still don't understand at all. In FF XIII-2, I liked the time traveling and seeing the world be rebuilt and thriving post-fall. Their idea of time travel was different than most games/movies/etc, but it was for the most part fine (their parallel universes were stupid if there's only supposed to be one timeline). The whole Caius/Etro/Yeul thing was weak. Caius could have been cool, but he was so melodramatic and over-designed, and the Etro thing was a bit of a copout, seeing as the falcie were the supreme beings, and then suddenly there's some thing that trumps them but dies by proxy with little effort? Yeul was a cool idea but the base of all the crappiness. The ending is terrible, that goes without saying

For the combat, I'm still on the fence after two games. I like the speed and the flash and the fact that you have to choose roles and consider how they fit. I don't feel like the enemy design corresponds well to that system though. So many enemies are just "hit them til they break, them hit them more." If each battle starts fresh so you can focus on tactics rather than survival, then make tactics more important. Auto battle isn't always viable, but it shouldn't be viable as often as it is. Even then, the only two ways to stagger are ravager and saboteur, and saboteur is situational, and so you're stuck with ravager, and different elemental spells aren't significantly different, so why not auto battle your ravager? Moreover, so many enemies are just meat shields, like they have no real chance of killing you if you're paying a modicum of attention, but they take like a full minute of wailing on them to kill one (especially some of the cieth from XIII). The best fights take solid reaction and planning, but they're few and far between. One last thing- if you're going to have AOE spells, then have some way to move your characters or enemies to change the target zone (ala XII).

The linearity of XIII is real but overhyped. FFX wasn't much less of a hallway if you think about it. XII-2 didn't do much to change the lack of towns, and the talking NPCs weren't very inspiring. The quests in both were pretty weak- XIII dull monster hunts and XIII-2 fetch quests.

All in all, I like the games, but of all the Final Fantasies I've played, I won't think less of anyone for hating these two especially. There's a lot of room for improvement

 

[Ryotknife]

Every FF game has its issues.

Seven tries too hard, and takes too long to get going.

Eight had the 2nd worst combat in the series, and a pointlessly emo protagonist.

Nine was too happy for its own good, removing seriousness.

Ten had some linearity.

Ten-Two had a massively pointless story.

Twelve had 2/6 of the roster be entirely useless. Replace Vaan and Penelo with a potted plant, and the story wouldn't change an inch.

Thirteen was a festering shitpool the likes of which I have never seen. Worst combat in series history. Most linear in series history. ZERO PLOT EXPOSITION. Did I mention that the combat (the thing you do most) is the WORST IN SERIES HISTORY. Yes you "can" do more, but where was the motivation when auto-battle works in 95% of situations?

The thing is, I liked 7, liked 8, thought 9 was okay, Loved 10, liked 10-2, Liked 12. DESPISED 13.

... the fighting system is the same in FF 7, 8, and 9. 13 is almost the same only adding staggering paradigm shifts which in a sense was present in FFX (and replacing standard attack with an auto attack function)

why do you blame the game that you can't stop using the auto-battle button?

every finalfantasy except FF X-2 and FF XIII-2 is extremely linear
sure you can choose to go different places but the story progresses only ever one way.

sidequests are in every FF in FF XIII are they only late in the game as is the same with freedom of locations

actually FF XIII has exposition but it's subtle. The first 20 minutes are prologue and exposition also basically a tutorial the only fault I can really see with that is that it should be AT MOST 5 minutes long.


EDIT: forgot the paradigm system

I don't think you played 7, 8 or 9 if you think the fighting system was the same...

7 used the Materia system, allowing you to set up what you wanted to use in battle, how strong to make it, and if you wanted extra abilities on top. This allowed you to set your party's combat how you liked it.

8 used the Junction system, where you used magic to customize stats and elemental and status bonuses. It was an awful system, mostly because it made everything short of attack, limit break, and occasionally summon worthless, since magic was so weak, and so needed for everything.

Side quests start in 7 as early as when you exit Midgar (6 hours) Side Quests in 8 start as soon as you finish the SeeD test (4 hours) Side Quests in 10 start as soon as you leave Luca (14 hours average). Side quests start in 12 at almost the beginning (1:31 if you skip cutscenes). Side quests in 13? 21 hours in.

I blame the game because if the commands the game would do for you matter as much as your own, something in fundamentally wrong. I could set up my paradigms for a combo chain, but it doesn't give any real advantage 95% of the time, doesn't speed up the battle (actually slows it down), doesn't give any reward or even sign that it's the right thing to do, it's pointless busy work.

in 13-2, i mostly used manual commands because the auto battle commands are chosen extremely poorly (group of bunched up enemies....lets use single attacks!)

and out of all of the FF games, 13 and 13-2 have the best combat system by far (in my opinion) as it actually makes you think and requires quick reflexes. FF12 eventually plays by itself to the point where you dont even need to input any commands whatsoever. FF8 system was terribad, 7 was at least interesting, 9 was mediocre.

and i was disappointed by the story in 13-2 because i was expecting a complex storyline since it involves time travel and paradoxes like Chrono Trigger and the Legacy of Kain series. Hell, the Soul Reaver series storyline constantly blows your mind. Compared to those two games, the story in FF13 is easy and straight forward.

Quick reflexes? You mean press auto-command? Because I was halfway through Chapter 10 (17 hours in) before I needed to change my paradigms once. I never got to the "open" section of the game because I got too bored. There was nothing interesting or fun about the combat. Yeah, I COULD change my paradigms, and do an extra 5% damage, but why would I want to, when it doesn't give any tangible reward, doesn't end battles quicker, or contribute to my character in any way?

considering most bosses have say...2 million hp and your standard autoattack does 2k, auto attacking is not a viable option past chapter 5.

well, i suppose you could do medic + two dps and last awhile, but i dont think 3 hour boss fights would be a fun experience.

in FF13, you need modifiers to do enough damage to dent their massive hp pool via debuffs, buffs, exploiting elemental weaknesses, etc. please name a single FF combat system where you have to constant keep in mind these things? none? i rest my case.

extra 5% damage? try an extra 15x damage, oftentimes you can get a 20-25x extra damage.

im pretty sure you never played the game at this point. never using paradigm shift by chapter 10 and only 17 hours in?

the autoattack to victory lasts until MAYBE chapter 5. no other FF combat system has me on the edge of my seat like 13 does, constantly analyzing the situation every few seconds and making snap decisions. oftentimes ill change paradigms 4 times in a 10 second window. in some boss fights im inputting actions more often than in fighting games or in action rpgs like star ocean.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Oh and I have to add, there is no fucking way FFX is anywhere near as bad as FF13.

That's like debating whether getting kicked in the face or the groin is worse, in my opinion; one may or may not suck worse than the other, but you're better off just avoiding either, honestly.

Why, no, Final Fantasy X wasn't my cup of tea, actually. Why do you ask?

Just a wild guess here, but have you seen Spoony's review of FFX?

Nah. Not a fan of their work.

 

[DoubleU12]

Oh and I have to add, there is no fucking way FFX is anywhere near as bad as FF13.

That's like debating whether getting kicked in the face or the groin is worse, in my opinion; one may or may not suck worse than the other, but you're better off just avoiding either, honestly.

Well, that's possibly true, but there is definitely a distinction. FF13 is definitely the worst of the two, by a large margin.

I agree. Personally I liked 10 and 12 but it doesn't surprise me to hear that others didn't care for the games. `~`

 

[DoubleU12]

So just because you don't like a game series anymore, you hope it doesn't sell well so the series ends?...wow, no comment. By that logic, I hope Half-Life 3 doesn't come out because I didn't really enjoy HL2.

The game was vastly superior to 13, too bad people didn't give this game a chance, I thought it was really good (13 blew chunks) Because 13 was one of the most disappointing games of all time (bar Duke Nukem Forever) people didn't play 13-2 understandably, I didn't like 13 but I played this (borrowed from my sister who had borrowed it from another friend who received it from his boyfriend) and I was surprised at how much I was enjoying it (Anomaly puzzles except the floor one sucked balls)

The FF bandwagon hate is beginning to outweigh the people who actually hate the games for their faults, not because hating SE is popular.

I would have given it a better chance if any of my friends or anyone who's opinion I respect had told me it was worth playing. It sounds from most of the people who have posted that 13-2 was an improvement over the origianl and I assume that's actually a given. In my mind I find it hard to make a game that's worse or equal to 13. I don't want Final Fantasy to die because I didn't like Final Fantasy 13. I either want SquareEnix to take it seriously or let it die before they drown the poor series in repeatedly bad games.

If a game series used to make great games but in it's ladder made poor forgettable games then no one will remember the games that are good and that's a shame.

Every game in recent memory that's connected to Final Fantasy has been quite underwhelming and 13 was just simply bad. I've heard 14 was unplayable as well, and both of the recently Crystal Chronicls games were poor as well (Though not comparing it to FF, I did like the DS version by it's own merit.)

Remember how amazing Final Fantasy 9 was, how it started all cute and carefree but quickly turned emotional and touching. That game's story was definitly my favorite of all games.

And I don't know about you guys but I was addicted to 12 fighting system for a long time. I agree the story was.... man what? ~?! but I at least enjoyed playing the battles which made up for the long annoying traveling and who cares storyline, but I liked how fighting was in that game so cool, ok. Yeah this game has a lot of faults but whatever at least I can play it.

And as a side note does anyone agree with me that Vaan accepted that identicle twin story a little too quickly. The guy was suspected of killing his brother and he just says. "No, it was my twin brother no one knows about." Yeah it turned out he was telling the truth but they don't show or mention this twin til near the end of the game. I didn't trust him the WHOLE game til this supposed twin was revealed. XD

Final Fantasy had none of that. The gameplay was never interesting and the story never clicked even a little. No interesting characters outside the playable 5 were ever seen after 2 cut scenes and of the 5 playable characters Afro was comedy relief. Hope was a hateful jerk to everyone, Pyr..Pir...the happy girl wasn't important, just a tag along. So that left Lightning and Snow.

I hated Hope, even before the crisis or whatever he was cold and hateful to even his mother... god kid just shut up and enjoy the stupid fireworks! XD Then he was cold and hateful the whole game. Cool consistant at least. Then for no reason him and Snow were buddies. Wait wha? What the hell changed. Ok, he forgives him but why is he all happy, jolly cute kid now? Ugh...

***SPOILER***

At some point, long after I realized that I was only playing for storyline cuz there is no gameplay and the battle system is uninteresting I started skipping cut scenes cuz I learned I could and it was when I skipped a cut scene I assumed was unimportant that suddenly some lady I never seen or heard of before this point joined my party and I realized I didn't care. That was when I knew I had officialy had no enjoyment in the game. I sold it, watched the ending on youtube said "Oh cool, Afro man's son and pink haired girl are alive and those 2 girls whose names escape me die, everything worke out for the best for everyone, wonderful. The end."

***END SPOILER***

So anyway... That's why I want Final Fantasy to die. I want the series to die on a good note with fond memories. If they make Final Fantasy 15 and 16 and they both are terrible then the series will die anyway cuz no one will care anymore but it will also leave the series with a kind of.... negative feel to it, few people will remember the old games by then except old farts who remember the PlayStation 1 like our grandfathers remember the Nintendo.

To be fair though, at least we have the SuperNes and Playstation, these new kids have PS3 and 360 as their system for back in their day. I definitly say we win XD haha!