The Final Fantasy Thread

[Tuffty]

Here's the trailer already seen from TGS but English dubbed:



And a new trailer from TGS:



From the trailer, you can see that they're going down the same route with XIII-2 by letting an artist be able to sing a song for the game, as Leona Lewis did. Emo fans are just as angry about the decision though But why? Really when you think about it, 'Suteki Da Ne' in FFX is the same thing. As is 'Eyes On Me' in FFVIII. An emotional ballad sung by a pop star. How come those aren't as heavily derided? Same with Utada Hikaru and Kingdom Hearts (though I love Utada's music, so that was a win-win situation for me)

*EDIT*

OH SNAP I DID IT! YEEHHHH! I beat Mission 62 in FFXIII, that's the one where you have to fight 2 Raktavija's at once



Not only that, but I cleared it with 5 stars, despite the fact my characters don't have their ultimate weapons and they aren't fully levelled yet, I haven't even got the max role level on even one of the character's sub classes. Got the Genji Glove as a reward. Pretty freaking sweet! Maybe these end missions on the Titan Trials are easier now the Growth Egg is helping me rack up the CP. One of these days, I'll be brave enough to fight an Adamantoise and win (and it'll be glorious)

[winner]

^ cool job taking those 2 down.

[Tuffty]

Also went on a bit of a game streak last night and beat the main story once again inDissidia Duodecim. Chaos is still a cheap motherfucker.

[winner]

Watched the english despair trailer. Nitpicking, but I really can't accept the english version of the song.
There's nothing wrong with it, but I almost always prefer the original version.
It doesn't really matter, they're normally just played in a romantic CG scene for 2 minutes of the game anyways.

Makes me think. If only all the fight music in FFX-2 had Koda Kumi constantly whispering "what can I do for you".

[Tuffty]

Some more info on XIII-2, including the fact that the 360 version of XIII-2 is all on one disc this time round:

The Xbox 360 version of upcoming Japanese role-playing game Final Fantasy 13-2 comes on one disc, Square Enix has confirmed.

The Xbox 360 version Final Fantasy 13 came on three discs, forcing disc swapping.

Director Motomu Toriyama told Japanese magazine Famitsu (translated by Andriasang) that 13-2 actually has the same amount of volume as 13.

So how has Square Enix squeezed the game onto one Xbox 360 disc? Because the event scenes are real time, Toriyama said. This has the added bonus of event scenes showing your armour changes.

As expected, the PlayStation 3 version of FF13-2 comes on a single Blu-ray disc.

Meanwhile, Famitsu revealed new details on the hotly anticipated game.

13-2 will have quick time events, but apparently if you mess them up you won't suffer a huge penalty. Clearing them grants only subtle benefits.

This time around the Crystarium growth chart does not limit the progress of characters. So, you can make yourself super powerful from the start.

And you can now switch your currently controlled character during battle. Battles do not end when your party leader dies, either.

Battles don't end when the party leader dies?! Thank the lord for that! And some Versus XIII info too:

Final Fantasy head honcho Tetsuya Nomura has moved to reassure fans that spin-off Versus 13 is alive and well despite its Tokyo Game Show no show.

Nomura told Famitsu (translated by Andriasang) that gamers can expect a Final Fantasy like you've never seen before. Bosh.

Nomura recently did a walkthrough of the full world map and checked the game's dungeons and side paths in towns. He was impressed with how expansive everything was.

He revealed the game makes use of the recently announced Luminous next generation engine - for the lighting. For the action portion of the game a Versus 13 specific engine is used.

Explaining this decision, Nomura said Versus 13's lighting is being redone, and the team is using Luminous Engine for this purpose. Versus aims for photo-realism, apparently, so it places greater importance on lighting.

Information on Versus 13, a PlayStation 3 exclusive, has been scarce since its announcement.

In July Nomura said Versus 13 still hadn't entered full production - more than five years after it was first announced.

Versus XIII has to come out at some point already! I think it's definately coming to PS3, they've invested way too much time learning it's infrastructure to change or prepare for the PS4 now. But when?!

[Kid_Alpha]

ADFADFADSFA THE NEW 13-2 TRAILER!!!

I'm so excited~ don't know why not like I can play it either way...

[Tuffty]

That Giant Cactaur is a huge fucking dick ain't he? I also thought I achieved the impossible just recently. Getting the 'Adamant Will' achievement. I was strong enough to go in and use the Summon trick to bring it down, debuff him and then wail on him and I actually did it! I killed my first ever Adamantoise. Only to realise that you don't get the achievement from defeating it, but the Long Gui which is like 10X harder. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Here's another Duodecim vid of mine with Laguna vs Cecil.



What makes this fight great is the events leading up to the EX attack. I  doubt I could have choreographed it any better

[Tuffty]

Never get into an argument, like myself, trying to defend FFXIII's story and how it isn't that bad. It's an exercise in frustration where the same arguments against it are used again and again despite your best efforts to raise counter arguments. Like hitting a fucking brick wall is the best way to describe it.

Ultimately, yes XIII has it's issues, I can understand why some people wouldn't like it as a result. The story has holes, some of the dialogue unbelievably corny and the voice acting can be just as dodgy, but I personally felt that they didn't bother me as much as I thought and enjoyed it regardless. And whisper it to yourself but, those criticisms have been true of FF games for a while now.

[Ayako-Luna]

I don't get that either. D: I know a german Let's Player, who hates FF XIII too... sadly.. The story is really interesting.
OK! I myeelf said too, that I won't tocuh this game because whatever reason but I gave it a try and liked it after all!

[Tuffty]

A bunch of Type-0 info here including the reveal of air combat and RTS elements to the game

So awesome. Hope it gets a Western release

[Ayako-Luna]

Sounds interesting
But still, I don't want it... Dunno why.... It doesn't gives me the feeling that I want this FF game.

[Tuffty]

The worst practice to come out of this generation, now hitting FFXIII-2

Square Enix has revealed what extras US gamers can pick up with a Final Fantasy XIII-2 pre-order.

Hand GameStop your cash and you'll get an alternate costume for Serah, visible throughout the game.

Go with Amazon and you'll get access to a unique coliseum boss battle against Omega, who will then join your party.

Or choose Best Buy and you'll get a hardback novella called Final Fantasy XIII: Episode 1 which ties together the events of XIII and XIII-2.

Details of European pre-orders are yet to be announced but this list should provide some idea of what to expect.

Seems like if you want it all then I'd suggest buying the one that comes with the novella, the other two are bound to be DLC at some point. But yeh, not cool Square Enix. Not cool.

[Tuffty]

Well after dear only knows how many hours of CP farming, I've finally maxed out every characters' Crystarium grid in FFXIII. Now I'd like to think I'm in a good position to take on the remaining missions.

[Tuffty]

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is getting paid download content. But two questions remain: how much, and how much?

Regarding the first how much, producer Yoshinori Kitase told Dengeki PlayStation this week that the game will have a large amount of DLC. As a rough schedule, he said to expect one to two updates every month, each containing multiple items.

As for the other how much, Kitase said that they're not able to speak about the contents' price yet. He promised a good balance between price and the quality that customers will accept.

Square Enix has already announced a few pieces of DLC so far, including costumes, weapons and enemies. Kitase said to expect the content to be more involved than just downloading an item or weapon. The content will also be mixed in with play elements, where you have to defeat a monster in order to get an item, for instance.

Kitase confirmed that the game's downloadable costumes and weapons will show up in event scenes. They're currently making the necessary adjustments to get this working.

Outside of the interview with Kitase and director Motomu Toriyama, the Dengeki story provided a detailed look at the game's "Summon Raid" and "Syncro Drive Gauge" systems.

Summon Raid (I'm not sure if this is the actual English name) involves capturing monsters for use in battle. Here's the general flow of this system:

    During battle, some percentage of your foes will turn to crystal. The percentage is dependent on the monster.
    You can set your Summon Raid with up to three monsters. The monsters have specific roles.
    During battle, as you switch Paradigms, the monsters will automatically swap in and out in accordance with their roles.

Synchro Drive Gauge is a special move system for your monster allies. When you have a monster taking part in battle, it builds up its Synchro Guage. When this builds up all the way, the monster will unleash a powerful special move. These may have quick timer events.

Considering I read that FFXIII-2 has some form of arena combat, I'm willing to bet that these weapons/monsters/costumes etc will be released in packs rather than individually. That way it's easy to slap it on as a new mission in the arena mode which you can go in and try and defeat the new monsters and obtain the weapon as a reward. Sounds neat, but I kinda don't want it to be so difficult that I can't obtain something that I had paid for. I'm sure it won't be as crazy as that though.

[winner]

on that end. I hope these add-ons don't need you to wait till end-game to start.
I love finding rare items/weapons, but most of the time I finish the game and don't actually use said items. Makes them kinda pointless.

[Tuffty]

^ But then you have that issue of balancing the game if you get these powerful items early.

As if Type-0 didn't sound cool enough already, now they've revealed that there's another reason why you should go to New Game+ when you're done with the 40hr campaign. It will tell a different story the second time round.

New FFXIII-2 trailer. After watching this, I'm gonna hold off watching any more until the game's out. I think it shows enough of what I wanna see to get me interested in it. Just don't watch it if you don't want FFXIII ending spoilers right from the very beginning

[Ayako-Luna]

Interesting trailer but still not pleased about it D: They may have many super cool things in the game but it's all the way the same like X-2.........

[Tuffty]

Now this is how you do a Limited Edition, not just that store exclusive pre DLC nonsense.

It didn’t take them long to reveal what we’ll be getting. Today Square released several graphics detailing the different editions Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be released in. The limited and special editions have been named as the Limited Collectors and Crystal Editions, and now we can tell you what you can expect to recieve with them. Both editions have been confirmed for North America and Europe.

Limited Collectors Edition

- A composer selected soundtrack which features several tracks from the game chosen by Hamazu himself.

- An artbook titled “The Art of Final Fantasy XIII-2″ including art from throughout development.

- Six collectible postcards, featuring CG artwork of the games main characters.

- A high definition lenticular artprint featuring Lightning.

Crystal Edition

- The full 4 disc official soundtrack to the game with premium digipack packaging.

- An exclusive Final Fantasy XIII-2 T-shirt, never to be released elsewhere.

- The same artbook, postcards and lenticular print as the Collectors Edition.

Square have also revealed a pre-order pack which includes the DLC insert, the Episode I novella and some collectable art cards. It also comes with an exclusive steelbook case.

The new editions are now available to pre-order from a few stores such as Play.com which is listing the collectors edition at £59.99 and the Crystal Edition at £79.99.

Tempted by the Crystal one for what you get. But I don't know if I'd really wear the t-shirt. And you won't know the quality of the soundtrack til you hear it. I dunno, gotta think on that one. I think the Limited Edition one even sounds good for what it is.

[EternalSkies]

After thinking long and hard about it (okay 3 hours whilst watching a movie with friends and take away) I decided to buy the Crystal Edition.  Preordered it off Game (www.game.co.uk) meaning it comes with the following extras;

Preorder Final Fantasy XIII-2 on Xbox 360 or PS3 and you will receive an exclusive steelbook case, Episode I novella, 3 exclusive art cards and a bonus in-game content pack including:
Recruitable monster battle: Defeat Omega, the famous FINAL FANTASY boss monster, and then have it join your party for further use in the adventure!
Alternate costume for Serah
Alternate costume for Noel

As well as all the stuff in the Crystal Edition. I figured for the extra £20 it was worth the full OST considering how beautiful XIII's was plus a pretty AWESOME looking shirt. I'm ridiculously excited now and cannot wait for this game.

[Asmodai]

That's a pretty nice package. I'm going to have to see what pre-order bonuses there are around here.