Final Fantasy XIII-2

[Tarvis]

I agree, it was a very fun demo. The battle system is more action rpg than normal, but I liked how you could switch between different classes at will. I hope leveling up increases how much ATB you got or whatever it was so you could keep going without switching as much as you have to.

Also looks like they increased Lightning's boobs size for mass appeal. Kinda makes me want to finish FFX13-2 though.

 

[Joe]

There's a Cloud Strife costume but I'm pretty sure it's only a pre-order bonus in NA. Oh well I'm sure they'll release it as DLC. For way too much money.

 

[Tarvis]

I preordered.

 

[Lulu]

andrew said the 13-3 looked so dumb that he turned it out within 3 minutes. lmao

 

[Tarvis]

lmao. 3 minutes into that demo and you still got 5 minutes left of cutscene to go.

I started up FFXIII-2 again (ugh) as you can see from my sig. The dialogue is so atrocious - or maybe more so the voice acting - every other sentence is someone crying about SOMETHING. Put in about 10 hours so far just because I played it all day yesterday trying to get through it as fast as possible. The gameplay is alright, but I find it mostly tedious. Staggering enemies to do any sort of damage gets to be annoying pretty quick.

Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 have one of the most convoluted story lines I've ever tried to understand. With FFXIII-2 jumping around all over the place via the time travel and changing the future and past makes it even worse. I got the gist of it from wiki anyways, but trying to follow it through game is hell. Also apparent BOOBAGES everywhere in this game, not a bad thing but obviously trying to increase them sales.

Also moogles shouldn't talk beyond their normal noises.

 

[Joe]

Told you. NOEL CAN WE CHANGE THE FUTU-shut the fuck up!

Also I skipped the cutscenes for the demo 'cause I just wanted to see how the gameplay is.

I still can't believe what a huge step backwards 13 was from 12 in terms of the quality of the dialogue and voice acting. I mean, I like 13 a lot, but it's got that anime dialogue for realsies. 12 had (for the most part) absolutely fantastic writing and acting. The language was more like Victorian English (helped by the fact that most of the actors sound British).

 

[Tarvis]

If SE would release it again on a modern console, I would play the shit out of FF12. I never gave it a fair chance since it came out after I had a HD TV and on ps2 it looks like absolute garbage.

Actually, now that I think about it, I bet it wouldn't look too bad on this 19" lcd I got. Maybe I hook that shit up and finally beat that game too.

 

[Joe]

Yeah, maybe you should!

When you say "finish" though does that mean keep playing from a save you started 7 years ago? Might as well just start again

 

[Tarvis]

Completely starting over is only way to go

 

[Joe]

What are your thoughts on spending 2-3 hours doing some kinda cheat-y grinding near the start to become massively overleveled and make the game super easy?

 

[Tarvis]

That's why I have gameshark/codebreaker for ps2.

 

[Tarvis]

So I hooked up my PS2 to that GAEMS Vanguard last night, besides it being a real pain in the ass because the GAEMS thing only accepts HDMI input so I have to hook up a svideo -> converter box for it, it looks really good as far as PS2 games go although the screen is a little off center.

But that PS2 noise. It's just a loud droning noise that makes me think I'm going crazy. I think this was main reason I never played that PS2. So I instead decided to order a PS2 slim since it was 40 bucks on eBay. Maybe when that comes, I can mod it and play a bunch of PS2 games I never got the chance too.

 

[Joe]

Sounds like a plan!

 

[Tarvis]

Well I just beat FFXIII-2, and I will say the story gets a little bit better by the end. I kinda take back what I said about the moogle's voice actor as I kinda grew to sort of like it. I thought Caius is one of the better villains in the franchise, but that might be because he has the best voice actor in the game I think. The voice acting overall was pretty good I suppose, just the dialogue (mostly from Serah) was pretty cheesy.

Lots of crap thrown in to seemingly hint at a nod towards FF7. I even though Caius's theme was sort of a one winged angel inspired song. I guess I'll go ahead and 100% the game, but that ending is just wat. Glad I see it now with 10 days to go for the sequel because otherwise that would be an awful thing to end on.

Even still the story is pretty damn confusing.

 

[Joe]

Yeah I did like Caius and his theme song. And the triple bahamut thing he did was neat.

 

[Lulu]

I still don't think Moogles should talk. Besides saying 'Kupo!'

 

[Tarvis]

So I couldn't get PS2 to work on portable TV thing yesterday (???), so I hooked up to big TV and god does it look horrible. Going from FF13-2 to FF12 so soon after is like shell-shock, but thank god I had component cables for PS3 that work on PS2. Also I made it as far as getting Vaan's first hunt thing before falling asleep and getting eaten by a T-REX. So yeah, so far it's pretty boring. I get slightly annoyed having to press X every time to switch to another enemy, mostly because I forget and get my ass beat before I remember.

 

[Joe]

Yeah the beginning is slow. Plow through the first couple hours.

 

[Joe]

So Travis says Lightning Returns is, and I quote, "awful". Discuss!

 

[Tarvis]

Let me further expand. I think my original review was hasty.

The whole time limit thing bugged the shit out of me although I loved it in Majora's Mask. The difference is in Majora's Mask, you are free to restart the days anytime you want, but in Lightning Returns, you get a set amount of time and that's it. At the end of the time limit, you advance to the end of the game - or so I assume. Also every morning at 6am, no matter what you are doing, you are taken out of it and warped back to the central "hub" so to speak which sucks.

Now to say why I was hasty. Basically in the game you are given a set amount of "EP" points which you can use to heal yourself or teleport around or whatever. One of the abilities allows you to stop time altogether (although NPCs still move around and such). Which is awesome, but you only start with like 6 EP and each use of that time stopper is 1 EP. You can earn EP back by defeating enemies (but it's like 0.2-0.4 per regular enemy encounter - and there isn't a whole-whole lot of enemies around in most parts of the game). The ability itself I would say lasts two minutes? I'm not sure, maybe three minutes. If you kill enough enemies during this time (the ability timer doesn't count during cutscenes or battles) then effectively you can use it forever. Eventually you upgrade and can hold more EP than 6 too.

Well to backtrack, I said fuck that time limit shit and hacked my save to give me 99 EP so I can stop time as much as I want. Which I did. That said, I'm now on day 5 of 13, and I've completed all of the main quests it gives you, I think all the "prayer" quests which are just fetch quests, and about 80% of the sidequests. So yeah, my original reaction was too hasty as really there is plenty of time to do everything even without cheating. My bad. There are some sidequests that take a few days to complete, but the main quests could mostly be beaten within a few days easily without using the time stopper and I don't even think you need to complete all the side quests to get the "bonus" ending. (I think 40?)

The other thing is that there is really only 5 levels in the entire game. You have the main hub, the four "worlds" and that's it. I think there is a bonus dungeon if you complete so many sidequests, and then there is the final dungeon. Pretty shitty for a FF game. But hey, you are free to go wherever you want when you want, so people got their wish in terms of the game not being linear.

Overall, the gameplay is good, I love the FF7 DLC because it just whips monster's ass, and SOME aspects of the real time gameplay are kinda neat, but overall I feel like it's a small game even though I've already spent 20 hours in it with still more to do. The many different paradigms or whatever they are called in this one are neat, but really feels like it's meant to show off them boobs as the breast enlargement from past games is noticeable and flaunted to get them sales. Or the game producer is just a big perv, possibly both.

But yeah, it's not really a Final Fantasy game as it feels more like an action game as you can attack, dodge, and block at will. You don't level up per say in the game either. Mostly it's just here a quest, go do it you fucker. Then you might get bonus stats on completion or items/gil.

So far I would give it a 6 out of 10. Caius and his theme(s) are still awesome. Not as bad as I thought it would be, and enough to keep me entertained, but still kind of underwhelming.