Am I the only one who is really confused about the direction Square Enix decided to go with this? While I'll be the first to admit that I have no real idea about what is going to happen with this, the preliminary announcements don't make a lot of sense to me. With the way FFXIII-2 ended, it made sense for a direct sequel to come out, and I was anticipating it. However, if the game is set in an entirely new universe as the producers are claiming, I have no idea what they could be thinking.
I know Square Enix and the Final Fantasy team have been desperately trying to make Lightning "a female Cloud", as they have said, but I honestly don't see her as an iconic character. She doesn't have any real clear motivations other than the initial one from FFXIII, so it seems as if they decided to shoehorn her into a completely different epic that has little if anything to do with the previous two games other than her presence.
I'm wondering if this means that SE is hard up for merchandising dollars. It's been a while since they had a FF character who could really make merchandise fly off the shelves, and since blockbuster games are a lot more financially risky than they used to be, licensing money might be their way out.
Either way, I'm pretty disappointed with this release, and I say this as someone who genuinely liked the first two games quite a lot (I'm a fan of story and characterization above all else and I quite enjoy deliberately slow pacing, so I think these games are more intended for me and others like me than the virulent anti-XIII group). I think the developers have fallen in love with their own character, and I suspect that this is going to be mediocre at best. What does everyone else think?
I know Square Enix and the Final Fantasy team have been desperately trying to make Lightning "a female Cloud", as they have said, but I honestly don't see her as an iconic character. She doesn't have any real clear motivations other than the initial one from FFXIII, so it seems as if they decided to shoehorn her into a completely different epic that has little if anything to do with the previous two games other than her presence.
I'm wondering if this means that SE is hard up for merchandising dollars. It's been a while since they had a FF character who could really make merchandise fly off the shelves, and since blockbuster games are a lot more financially risky than they used to be, licensing money might be their way out.
Either way, I'm pretty disappointed with this release, and I say this as someone who genuinely liked the first two games quite a lot (I'm a fan of story and characterization above all else and I quite enjoy deliberately slow pacing, so I think these games are more intended for me and others like me than the virulent anti-XIII group). I think the developers have fallen in love with their own character, and I suspect that this is going to be mediocre at best. What does everyone else think?
