Author Topic: The Final Fantasy Thread (Read 350001 times)

Tuffty · « **Reply #1240 on:** January 30, 2012, 09:41:48 PM »

Judging from the reviews I've read, there's definately a lot of embarrassment from gaming publications on giving XIII the high scores that they did. I would guess that overall XIII-2 will be marked with a lower score and critics will use XIII as a stick to beat it with, which isn't really fair as anyone can see there's enough content in there to say that is already a better game than XIII. I've read 1UP's review of XIII-2 and half of it is dedicated to analysing XIII's problems in retrospect. IGN was mostly positive yet it got an 8.0, when the same reviewer gave XIII an 8.9.

No opinion has been as infuriating as hearing the 4 Player Podcast talk about the demo though. Brad doesn't like the character designs which is fine, I can understand that. But Nick thinks it's stupid that the Moogle's called Piggy Kitty, when it's not his name! And David is so fucking clueless as usual that he played through the whole demo yet didn't know what a Paradigm was and how it worked. And he's been asked to review it! I get the impression Giant Bomb will be something similar. They have no affinity for covering JRPG's and have ragged on the FF series multiple times already.

Ultimately, it doesn't change my opinion. Can't wait til Fri when I get to play it.

frblckstr1 · « **Reply #1241 on:** February 01, 2012, 07:47:07 PM »

Quote from: frblckstr1 on January 12, 2012, 06:30:53 PM

^ There is a demo??, there is a demo! downloading!

But.. not valid for your region

And now the demo is available for Europe!

Tuffty · « **Reply #1242 on:** February 02, 2012, 01:25:24 AM »

My copy of XIII-2 arrived today!

I will say that for the first hour, you would wonder if they really did make any changes, as it's pretty much non stop fighting mixed in with cutscenes. Cool cutscenes mind you, as the opening fight was pretty epic. But an hour in and you can sense it's opening up. Hell at this stage you have free reign to tweak paradigms how you want and the crystarium is open for you to use. Better than in XIII where that option was given 20hrs in!

Kid_Alpha · « **Reply #1243 on:** February 03, 2012, 10:25:20 PM »

Machima gives FF13-2 a 9/10.

I really wish I could play this game... or at least the demo.

Ayako-Luna · « **Reply #1244 on:** February 04, 2012, 04:45:09 PM »

Thanks to all this FF XIII-2 hype, I got back into FF XIII myself!

~~Still stuck at Chapter 10 but I made a little bit of a progress today! Maybe I'll play later more~~~

Finally got to Chapter 11 and these missions are so awesome! *___* I never got so much CPs in such short time!

frblckstr1 · « **Reply #1245 on:** February 06, 2012, 06:44:57 PM »

I tried, I think I failed or at least the games style fails me.

It looks very good, but the interrupts about every 5 steps during a quest to fight a few advesaries... no. Maybe later but not now.

Tuffty · « **Reply #1246 on:** February 18, 2012, 11:04:13 PM »

I wonder if there's something wrong with me cause everyone who's played it talks about how easy FFXIII-2 is, when I'm finding it quite challenging

The regular fights are ok, but then it gets to the boss battles and its taken me a few times to get it right. I genuinely thought I was getting too overpowered at one point but apparently not cause I'm stuck in the first fight with Caius.

He reminds me of my struggles fighting Cid in FFXIII, except he might be even more annoying considering he can constantly regen his health! Guess I'll need to level up some more.

coachie · « **Reply #1247 on:** February 19, 2012, 08:38:35 PM »

I find it also relatively easy, I remember I had a much harder time in XIII.
That Caius Battle took me also a few tries and when I finally did it, I scarcely survived and I needed double the time (my first zero star rating in this game)

Heal, heal, heal, buff up and de-buff, that's how I somehow did it
My friend was so overlevelled when she got to him that she beat him in 15 s! 15 FREAKING SECONDS!!!!!

Tuffty · « **Reply #1248 on:** February 19, 2012, 10:45:14 PM »

I beat him! And with a 5 star rating too! Was a little more prepared this time round! Trick for me was to use RAV/RAV/SAB to build up the chain meter quickly then switch to COM/COM/SAB to pile the damage on.

Btw, what is the deal with Wild Artefacts? They apparently open crystal gates but I haven't seen one yet? Do they open up places necessary to the story or are they optional places to go to?

How are you finding the game so far coachie? Better than XIII?

EternalSkies · « **Reply #1249 on:** February 20, 2012, 04:41:22 AM »

Quote from: Tuffty on February 19, 2012, 10:45:14 PM

Btw, what is the deal with Wild Artefacts? They apparently open crystal gates but I haven't seen one yet? Do they open up places necessary to the story or are they optional places to go to?

There are 10 Wild Artefacts through the game and they open up gates to MOSTLY optional areas. Later on you need to get 5 out of 7 specific fragments to progress the story and it might be necessary to open some Wild Artefact gates to obtain them. They are mostly optional though.

I'm on 152/160 fragments with Serah and Noel only about 50 levels from being 99 in each class. I aim to platinum this game eventually but for now I'm giving it a break as I played it from release date to Thursday when I finished it.

coachie · « **Reply #1250 on:** February 22, 2012, 11:39:24 AM »

Quote from: Tuffty on February 19, 2012, 10:45:14 PM

How are you finding the game so far coachie? Better than XIII?

I haven't made up my mind yet, there a some things I like, but a lot more that I don't like or just don't care.

I like Noel as a character, I looooooove the Moogle

And I have a weird affinity for Chocolina, I talk to her whereever I see her, just talk, no buying

Things I don't like

- the new Chrystarium (or whatever it's called in the english version)
- NPC's walking in on you while you're having conversations (ok, it can be funny at times, but it also can be a mood killer in story related scenes that are supposed to be dramatic or emotional)
- the voices are too low, the music is too loud and no settings to change it!
- the music... mostly blergh, mostly recycled and XIII's music wasn't so great either
- Mini-Games, what Mini-Games??? Chocobo Racing and Slot Machine in the Casino and the rest you have to buy via DLC, are kidding me S-E???
- as someone who still prefers random encounters in RPG's I find that they totally annoy me in this game!!!

For some reason the fragment hunting doesn't feel as fulfilling to me as I had hoped, no idea why, but I liked doing Cie'th Stone Missions in XIII better.
Can't comment on the story yet, unfortunately I spoiled myself the ending, I hope everything makes halfway sense in the end.
Also I slowly realise that having Lightning and Fang as playable characters was a huge appeal for me in XIII and now without them it's just not the same anymore.

Tuffty · « **Reply #1251 on:** February 23, 2012, 12:42:03 AM »

I can agree with you on some of those points for sure. The criticism of NPC's walking in on you during conversations is funny cause it happens a lot in Skyrim too, so maybe that didn't bother me as much

I do agree that the Crystalarium is disappointing. On paper I thought it sounded great, that you can really customise Noel and Serah into specific characters as how you play it, but it doesn't feel like I am getting more powerful as I unlock each node. +2 RAV, +1 Com? Means nothing to me considering the fights go by so quick that you don't notice. Also the game's not that difficult so it doesn't really matter all that much.

I do like the soundtrack a lot though. I love the fact that there is J-POP, Rock and Jazz in amongst the sweeping orchestra stuff you expect. If nothing else it's a brave move, and I'm all for it.

For me, perhaps the most disappointing thing thus far is the story. The story itself isn't that interesting and I just have no real affinity for Serah or Noel so far. For 10hrs now it's effectively been Serah saying 'I want to find Lightning' and Noel replying with 'We will find Lightning' over and over. Also with lines like:

Quote

We must change the future to save the past!

It just makes it real hard. There's flahes of inspiration now and again with the gorgeous world, but I don't think the world of Pulse is one I would like to return to after this.

But as a game it's better than XIII for sure. Chocobolina is also great

coachie · « **Reply #1252 on:** March 05, 2012, 09:46:46 PM »

^ Good to see I'm not alone in my strange liking of Chocolina

Finished it tonight, HOLY SHIT what an ending!!!!
Guess now I'll have to go more fragment hunting to change history again!

Tuffty · « **Reply #1253 on:** April 05, 2012, 12:10:09 AM »

In what has to be one of the more weirder crossovers, the males of FFXIII-2 (and Lightning) are wearing Prada fashion.

Ayako-Luna · « **Reply #1254 on:** April 05, 2012, 05:42:58 PM »

Ugh.......... no comment! xD

Kid_Alpha · « **Reply #1255 on:** April 12, 2012, 11:32:30 PM »

^O..kay... the only one who looks relatively good is Sazh and that's cause he's already a funky old man.

Lightning just looks like some kind of hipster!cowgirl and everybody else looks like they're gonna go golfing...

Tuffty · « **Reply #1256 on:** April 13, 2012, 12:25:44 AM »

Hope is dressed like Kramer from Seinfeld

There's been a bunch of DLC that's come out for XIII-2 which is cool. One of the coolest I'm sure people here will appreciate is an alternate outfit for Serah, one which was partly designed by Yuko Oshima.

Quote from: Masa on December 15, 2011, 04:50:57 AM

Quote from: Masa on November 10, 2011, 05:30:07 PM
Oshima Yuko’s costume designs to be included in ‘Final Fantasy XIII-2′

Looks pretty awesome!

http://news.walkerplus.com/2011/1215/3/

It's out now and it's free too, so there's no real reason for you not to get it. There are other alternate outfits like the Assasins Creed outfit for Noel and the Normandy armor from Mass Effect for both, but they are all worth actual money. The Colisseum battles you can also buy DLC for sound interesting too. Lightning, Jil Nabaht, Ultros, PuPu and Gilgamesh at the minute. Gilgamesh is typically fourth wall breaking

While we're on the subject of XIII-2, I really can't stand those clock puzzles

coachie · « **Reply #1257 on:** April 13, 2012, 11:37:23 AM »

Quote

While we're on the subject of XIII-2, I really can't stand those clock puzzles

Oh yeah, those clock puzzles are the worst, wait til you have to solve five or six in a row, I was ready to give up the game then

I didn't know that Serah outfit was for free, next time I start the game I will dl it then, but that will be at the time the Lightning Story DLC comes out in May. And this will be the only DLC I will spend actual money on!

Tuffty · « **Reply #1258 on:** April 13, 2012, 12:15:22 PM »

That's what I was on! I was doing the stuff in Oerba 300 and 400AF, when you're looking for Mog's family. It's a testament to how random it is that I spent a good 20 mins trying to solve one, but the immediate two that followed I got on the first try. The truly worst ones though are the ones that change each time you fail meaning you could end up, like me, trying to get past one for a long period of time because the layout of the clock is different each time you retry it. *sigh*

One of the new bits of DLC for FFXIII-2 allows you to face off against Gilgamesh. In the best quality version I could find, here is the awesome version of the classic tune, 'Clash On The Big Bridge' that comes when you fight him. Orchestra crossed with electric guitars crossed with Feudal Japan sounds, I like it.

thatonezombie · « **Reply #1259 on:** April 23, 2012, 01:35:21 AM »

I bought FF6 from the FF Anthology on the PS1. Why? I never played it and it was $10. Why not?