Final Fantasy XIII-2

On a side note I think RPG players have different perspectives of immersion. Some attach themselves to the characters and how they develop, so their dialog, attitude, psychology, decisions and appearance are means of significance. While others immerse themselves in the world, the very environment in the story takes place and the characters traverse. This would involve the ability to speak to numerous NPCs, trek through various locations and landmarks throughout the world and having a bit of lore and background to each and every location and town.

If you'd allow me to take FF7 for example:
Each and every town in the game seemed to have it's own culture and history that made it unique and interesting each time you reached it.
For example, Midgar was the capital of the world, the flagship city of technology and political power. Having unparalleled strength in industry and housing the very corporation you fight against.

Kalm was a small secluded town, content in it's secluded nest near the mountains, making it's own industry of mining independent from Shinra's grasp and corruption.

Nibelheim was a city frozen in time, preserved and upkept to hold it's former peaceful image despite the horrific and tragic events that took place 5 years previously. The awkward and stale tension in the air around the town spoke in volumes.

Rocket Town, a city revolving around a broken promise of a space and air division for Shinra. Rocket town seems to be clinging desperately to that faded dream, while steadily declining in both town moral and economy as well. Many of the townsfolk hold it against Cid due to the launch failure of the rocket, which looms over the town as a daunting reminder of what could have been and what will never be.

I could go on, but things like these stick to my mind, and are just one of the many elements which make a great RPG.
Many of which have been in steep decline over the past 6 years or so.

That's how I always felt. They were always linear, just not a straight line and instead "if you go over here you're gonna get murdered SO you might as well go straight." Only time we really went outside of the main areas was end-game. XIII did the same thing, just with marks rather than random, tedious dungeons. I like the mark system in XII and XIII more than dungeons - they're essentially a large amount of bosses.

You sir make me dissapointed

I was gonna say this! :P

You are my hero <3

X-2 had a wonderful battle system. The story was just fan service trash and its ending brutally violated the ending of X, which is a big factor into why that story was so good.

Yeah which ultimately led to my conclusion that it was a great and fun game, but in terms of my expectations of a full fledged "Final Fantasy" RPG, it failed miserably because it didn't meet nor exceed any of my expectations whatsoever.

Not much new in here but figured I'd throw it up. They have shown that one girl with the short blond hair several times now so I think she may turn out to be one of the party members, also towards the end they point to another returning character. Nothing to tell if it is that character or if they just have the same type of weapon or if they will even join the party.

Just looks like whiny one-liner characters again. Oh boy, I can't wait.

I was hoping Sazh would make a return. I need my fellow brotha ; ;

He could be back since they have said we will see a few characters return, or if not doje (can't remember the spelling) will be. No way the chocobo chick won't make a return visit.

If Hope is back i don't think i'd mind too much. Sure he was bitchy and winey at the start of the game but hes a 13/14 year old kid who just watched his mother (who he was extreamly close with) die. He reacts very much as someone that age would put in his situation would and by the end of the game has grown up alot so I could see him makeing a more likable character this time around.

10 Pages late (so probably interrupting) I just wanted to attack this statement.

Back in "the day", if a game was released on time it was almost guaranteed to be complete toss. I am of the opinion this still rings true, the optimum time for any game release is approximately 6 months after the developer plans to release it.

If it is early (FF14) it'll be toss.

If it is on time, it is still likely to be toss but thanks to the wonders of online consoles, game devs now have the ability to release unfinished games and simply patch up all the bugs they couldn't be bothered to fix in the first couple weeks. Worse than this is when the game is quite good, but infuriatingly short story with downloadable add-ons you have to pay for released within a month to continue the story (this is a huge crock o' shiz that is thoroughly pissing me off about the industry as a whole atm).

If it is ~6 months late, chances are it is late because they aimed high and are having to iron out bugs. Aiming high being a good thing, having all bugs fixed is a good thing. Waiting 6 months while annoying at least builds anticipation, I used to enjoy going to grab a game on release day after looking forward to it for so long.

After this it falls into the "taking too long" category (GT5 anyone?) and when eventually released feels outdated, which in GT5s case was quite literal. The game was basically a PS2 port with some nice textures slapped on some cars/levels.

So, am I stoked about a game that is due to be released the year it is announced? Hell no. I wager they don't even bother to refine the engine. It will likely be content that should have been in 13 to begin with anyway, god knows it needed it.
Being a sequel to what I consider the worst game in the series to date doesn't help either.

:>

Long one this time, some stuff from older trailers and some new stuff.

Edit: seems like what could be considered spoilers or just showing too much so might use caution when watching.

Not chuffed about all the DLC proposed.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Wings of the Goddess

I havn't heard anything about what the DLC actually is aside from them wanting to make sure it's worthwhile... Will be interesting to see what their deffinition of worthwhile is. Hopefully not like north american rpgs seem to go, 5-7$ for 1-2 hours worth of gameplay >.>

It really does sound exactly like WotG, though. It's like they were written by the same person, and that person was sad no one did WotG, so they just rehashed it for FFXIII-2.

there's even a cavernous maw

Yeh I do get a similar vibe from it, though I still need to get wotg finished : (

Some more details about the game systems here

Main points are that there seems to be multiple story paths and it allows you to go back and undo choices you have made and are given much more freedom for exploration. Also talks about the monster pet system a bit and the quick time events in boss battles will apperently have different options to them, if these lead to different out comes or just give different visuals isn't entierly clear. Lastly when you level up your crystathingy you get to select bonuses this time around instead of it just being a plain boost to effectiveness.

I apologize for the necro. : (

Don't apologize for contributing to an existing thread imo!

What the hell happened to moogles?
I mean, this is the third high-def FF title being released, they could do a better job than this.



Though based on dialog, it may or may not be a "toy" moogle, come to life. Still a poor excuse for such a poorly defined Moogle.

Pritty sure its an animated toy moogle or something along those lines yeh. It turns into Serah's weapon so its probably not a normal moogle.

I kinda miss this moogle lol

While the dress-sphere thing was pretty cool, I gave up on X-2 when I had to 'organise a concert'.

lol skip to 8 minutes in:

That part was so stressful xD I pushed them to the side then moved straight.