***Final Fantasy XIII-2***

The ending was certainly different than the norm and I have to give credit to Square-Enix for going that route.

Lightning and Snow DLC are released today for XBLA and PSN tomorrow. Cannot wait.
 
Gotta say, Lightning is pretty damn powerful in her Valkyrie form, and the old-school names for her Paradigms are also a nice touch and throwback.

Took me a couple of goes to 5 star both battles in this DLC and in the end, the payoff is great.

What a tease!

I wonder if there would be an announcement at this year's E3.
 
Well only a few weeks to wait :)

I don't think the timing of the DLC has been a coincidence, release the final bits a few weeks befor E3 to build up interest, announce sequel at E3... release later on this year. Definitely sounds plausible to me.

on a side note, I'm playing through FF10 at the moment, and I'm amazed at how 'linear' the game is. I'm near the end of the game and there has been no exploration really. I find it a bit odd that it's so well regarded when it suffers just as much as 13, and in many of the same areas.
 
Demoniser said:
Well only a few weeks to wait :)

I don't think the timing of the DLC has been a coincidence, release the final bits a few weeks befor E3 to build up interest, announce sequel at E3... release later on this year. Definitely sounds plausible to me.

on a side note, I'm playing through FF10 at the moment, and I'm amazed at how 'linear' the game is. I'm near the end of the game and there has been no exploration really. I find it a bit odd that it's so well regarded when it suffers just as much as 13, and in many of the same areas.
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All of the Final Fantasy games have been linear. What they had that this one doesn't is good characters with a lot of depth and a strong story.
 
To be honest when you think about it, I find the whole linearity complaints have only just started in recent years (Especially since more open-world and Western RPG's became more popular) and when you look at the older games back then, it wasn't much of a problem.

FFX was the first of the PS2 era, so it had that "WOW" factor back then, and it also had a strong story to back it up, which I think it still does today.

Personally I want more Final Fantasy's or JRPG's in general to be like what FFXII did. Underneath it is still a linear game, but the massive expansive areas and world can help mask that. Xenoblade Chronicles is the best example of that direction.



Streeteh said:
All of the Final Fantasy games have been linear. What they had that this one doesn't is good characters with a lot of depth and a strong story.
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Lack of any real memorable villians/antagonists is another I would say in recent games too.

Though I think Caius is pretty damn good so far (Even if he is a Kain and Sephiroth love-child :p), but there is still something missing about him.

Makes me wonder how it would have been had he been in the first XIII since his character has been around for a long time. And in a way, he is basically Barthandelus ver.2.
 
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The characters are definitely more memorable this time round, especially Noel and Caius. I found Noel's background story to be pretty tragic tbh, which made his motivations something you could get behind. I mean if you were born just in time to see the end of the world, and only had two other people for company, you'd want to save it in some way. It's still stuck in my head after finishing the game, which usually means it was good.

I wonder how some of the older FF's would fair if they were released today, if they were just given a graphical makeover and overall upgrade to their presentation. I think it's entirely possible that they would get a lesser than hoped for reception, as peoples expectations have evolved in the last few years.

I ordered pre-owned copies of FF10-2, 12 and Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 the other day, so FF12 is on my list of games to complete :). Looking forward to it.
 
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All of the Final Fantasy games have been linear
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FF7 and 12 are linear? you on crack?

yes theres a story so to progress the story you do X mission to forward it......i guess you could call that linear.....did you miss the TON of exploration????

/baffled
 
Surfer said:
FF7 and 12 are linear? you on crack?

yes theres a story so to progress the story you do X mission to forward it......i guess you could call that linear.....did you miss the TON of exploration????

/baffled
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To be fair its true. FF games are linear, you can't just go off and do your own thing. Huge areas are off limits until you progress the storyline, there is a distinct start, middle and end, and the story forces you down a fixed path.

Yes you can go do a few mini quests and play some mini games etc, but for the most parts JRPG's are played as interactive stories, so by definition are linear.

They certainly aren't sandbox games, and they aren't huge open world games like Skyrim and the like.
 
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Surfer said:
FF7 and 12 are linear? you on crack?

yes theres a story so to progress the story you do X mission to forward it......i guess you could call that linear.....did you miss the TON of exploration????

/baffled
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I'd argue FF7 is linear, yes. There is only one trodden path that can be followed, yes there is the odd offshoot to keep you entertained but ultimately you rarely venture far away from the story for long. XII is far less linear than its predecessors yes, but compared to other RPGs its still pretty controlled, the bounty hunting was excellent though i do have to say. Just look at games like Baldur's Gate, where you can spend dozens of hours not even touching the main story or Skyrim where you can essentially ignore the main quest line and still get a good 50 hours of gametime out of it. In FF7 i'd argue that only 10 hours max is actually side-quest stuff.

I didn't miss anything in any Final Fantasy i'd like to believe. FF7 I killed every weapon and bred a gold chocobo, FF12 I killed every bounty apart from Yiazmat (got bored, 12 hour fights aren't my bag) and collected every esper.

But its the more linear approach that makes FF games have such a soft spot in my heart. It allows for stronger character and storyline development than an open world RPG typically would.
 
Got to remember FF7 was out in 1997 i think cant really think of any games from that time that wasnt linear
 
HeX said:
To be fair its true. FF games are linear, you can't just go off and do your own thing. Huge areas are off limits until you progress the storyline, there is a distinct start, middle and end, and the story forces you down a fixed path.

Yes you can go do a few mini quests and play some mini games etc, but for the most parts JRPG's are played as interactive stories, so by definition are linear.

They certainly aren't sandbox games, and they aren't huge open world games like Skyrim and the like.
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Only parts of ff7 were restricted until you advanced the storyline. e.g. golden saucer.
Obviously i can see a difference between a sandbox game e.g. skyrim and FF in terms of linearity but its a scale of linearity not all or nothing "its either linear or its not". I wouldnt call JRPGS interactive stories either...for me that means the gameplay is very minimal which they arent otherwise people wouldnt find them fun to play...


I'd argue FF7 is linear, yes. There is only one trodden path that can be followed, yes there is the odd offshoot to keep you entertained but ultimately you rarely venture far away from the story for long. XII is far less linear than its predecessors yes, but compared to other RPGs its still pretty controlled, the bounty hunting was excellent though i do have to say. Just look at games like Baldur's Gate, where you can spend dozens of hours not even touching the main story or Skyrim where you can essentially ignore the main quest line and still get a good 50 hours of gametime out of it. In FF7 i'd argue that only 10 hours max is actually side-quest stuff.

I didn't miss anything in any Final Fantasy i'd like to believe. FF7 I killed every weapon and bred a gold chocobo, FF12 I killed every bounty apart from Yiazmat (got bored, 12 hour fights aren't my bag) and collected every esper.

But its the more linear approach that makes FF games have such a soft spot in my heart. It allows for stronger character and storyline development than an open world RPG typically would.
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I'm not arguing FF is of the same freedom as Skyrim so not sure why i'm being pummelled around the head with that one... Linearity for me is a scale and sure Skyrim is higher on the scale than FF whilst on another scale...storyline then you could say FF story is tighter and better.

Are we saying that if it isnt of the same level of freedom as Skyrim then it must be linear.....?

For me if there is freedom to explore and do other things than simply follow the main quest in one long corridor then you have some non-linearity.
 
Just completed, very disappointing game. The whole game was super easy then I get to the final chapter and get annihilated by every pack, just wanted to complete this mess so I switched to easy mode, even then last boss took me over 30 min to beat, yes the fight took over 30 min on easy! I can't be bothered to get any of the other ending so I'm done with it. Though ff13 was better than this, where the game felt challenging throughout. Some improvements over ff13 but the time travel and revisiting places drove me crazy. Loosing hope in squareenix.
 
You weren't strong enough if it took you that long to kill the last boss. Simple as that. This should have really been highlighted by the fact you had to drop to Easy mode to even have a chance. You should have gone back and levelled up by doing the other quests/timelines.
 
I bought this on release but have not even opened the packaging yet as I didn't want to start it until I had time to play it properly. For those who have finished it, how long did it take ?
 
I put around 58 hours into it though I did spend a lot of time artefact hunting and levelling even after endgame. Final boss took less than 10 mins on normal though he did kick my arse at first so I went out and levelled a bit before re-trying.

Personally I thought it was an excellent game and I'm really looking forward to Lightning Returns.
 
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