-They jump you right in to the full battle system, so you dont have to play 20 hours to get more than 2 ATB bars and get access to some of the cooler abilities.
-Summons/Eidolons are gone - while I did like the cut scenes involved with them in the first game, and each one being linked to a certain character, I found them pretty much useless during battle, and many of the battles you had to fight to obtain them were more annoying than entertaining or challenging.
-Lack of playable characters. I absolutely hated Hope and Snow in FF13 (as in their attitudes and dialogue), so much that I refused to use them at all except during those stages of the game where you forced to. Still, I think they could have had a few extra characters to choose from (hopefully ones that weren't annoying as fuck) especially considering the limitations you get in your role abilities and the way monster roles work.
-To be honest when I heard that you would be using a monster as the third party member I was really unhappy about this feature. However, after playing around with the way it works, crystarium leveling, certain monsters getting certain built in attributes and many only having access to a small subset of abilities within their class, I think it worked out pretty well and I'm happy with it.
-More open exploration. FF13 didn't open up even a little bit until you hit Gran Pulse, and that was nearly the end of the game, and there wasn't much variety in the activities you could do there.
-Noel and Serah are considerably less annoying than the cast of the original game in general.
Things I dont like:
-The open world exploration makes it very easy to power level yourself too much, and certain monsters are WAY too easy to get them to ridiculously powerful levels. My personal problem was that I grabbed a Circuitron fairly early in the game (one of the early Yashcas Massif areas IIRC), and because he was an "Early Peaker" I maxed out his level the instant I got him. This guy has nearly 700 magic and 3k+ hp, along with an ability to that auto-casts Enthunder at the start of the battle for him against opponents known to be weak to lightning damage, along with Thundara and Thundaga (he doesn't get any other elemental abilities, but because of monster fusion its not hard to obtain all of the -aga spells for him so he becomes a complete beast). This is a point in the game where my characters are barely breaking 1k hp and have maybe 150-200 magic/strength. This Circuitron literally obliterates anything that gets in your way up until about Academia 500AF (which is near the end of the normal game I believe). I'm talking about the battle starting, he casts Thundaga, and insta kills all the enemies before you even have a chance to attack with your other characters. I've somewhat overcome this by simply not leveling Noel and Serah (they each have 250,000+ crystarium points and I'm just going to use them up in chunks as needed, but some kind of mechanic that would point you towards story relevant areas, and better balance around obtainable monsters could have completely avoided this problem.
-Lack of monsters with the MED role. I dislike micromanaging healing, so my hope was to mainly leave that role to monsters. Part of the reason I ended up overleveling myself so much was I was constantly running around trying to find a better healer than the very first one you get, but they seem to be few and far between compared to COM/RAV/SAB/SYN monsters.
-My other gripe is again with the openness of exploration. I got to a certain area (
Archlytte Step
) and thought I had to do a bunch of stuff here to progress the story, but in the end it turned out I just spent a crapload of time powerlevel myself unintentionally, and when I finally returned to the main story line, everything I fight is a joke. Obviously this is my fault, and something that is just an inherent problem in any game that lets you explore openly, but I guess my complaint is that there was no way for me to know I wasn't in a story-specific area while I was doing this.
-The story doesn't really start making sense until pretty late in the story line. I guess there is supposed to be a bit of mystery around whats going on, but
"change the future to get Lightning back and save the world!"
just isn't much development, and I got tired of hearing it over and over for the first 15 hours. At least in FF13 there was constantly development, twists, and changes to the story line as you went through it, even if it was kind of hokey.
-The accessory system is more annoying than it needs to be. I guess this one could be something a lot of people enjoy but I don't have the patience to bother with gathering resources for "delicate" and "durable" accessories and determining the best sets for different encounters. Also, just like many FF games, a vast majority of the accessories have little to zero value except under extreme and unique circumstances.
EDIT: I REALLY despise the "enter a rift and solve a puzzle" elements. They seem out of place (solving an anomaly in time by doing a silly logic puzzle?), and are either too simplistic or incredibly annoying (I'm looking at you pick the numbers around the clock puzzle). I don't dislike the idea of puzzle elements being involved in the game, but they should have been added as mini-games somewhere else in the story (Serendipity maybe?), and a lot more thought should have gone in to them. As it stands they are a real downer in the game and seem like they were added as an afterthought with very little effort put in to their design.
I'm probably missing a few things, this is just stuff off the top of my had. Also, I haven't finished the story line yet or completed all of the extra content.
I guess what I really want is for a bit of a mix between FF13 and FF13-2. I don't want to have to go through a 15 hour tutorial before the real game gets started and the battle system starts to really develop. I want more exploration than there was in FF13 and I want it available earlier in the game, but I don't want it to be spread throughout the game in a way that even if you do decide to do it, you don't accidentally end up so powerful that you could go beat the final boss before you hit the half way mark. I also want there to be an engaging story that unfolds and changes throughout the entire game, rather than these small revelations that only happen every 5 hours. Finally, and I know this will probably never happen in a FF game, but could it please be less anime-like where silly teenagers suddenly get burdened with the responsibility of saving the world and become imbued with demi-god like power over the course of a few days or weeks. I guess Snow from FF13 was supposed to kind of fill that role, being an older and more mature character, but his whole "RAWR IM GONNA SAVE THE WORLD CAUSE I DONT GIVE A FUCK AND I'LL PUNCH ANYTHING TO DEATH WITH MY FISTS" attitude was about as juvenile as it gets and a huge turn off.
TL;DR
All in all a very good game though, and I think a lot of people who didn't like FF13, especially those who couldn't stomach getting past the initial (very long) tutorial phase of the game, should really give this a try. Anyone who enjoyed FF13 even a little bit should really enjoy this one.
I agree with a lot of what you say. Regarding the rift 'puzzle', that has to be the lamest thing FF in a LONG time. I hate those too...
Regardling over-leveling. I actually like that. For folks who just stick to the main story-line, it feels about right. I don't like the recent trend which keeps you on rails through most of the game and then forces you to farm 50+ hours AFTER you finish the game to play the optional hard areas/bosses. It feels like FF VII where us (completist) gamers COULD finish without KotRT, but we all cannot resist. Power-leveling here is similar, and thankfully you can always switch-out your strong creature, or try different paradigms if your current setup is too good. There are always options.
So far, nothing about this game annoys me greatly, and thats a first for a FF game since FFIX!
I agree with a lot of what you say. Regarding the rift 'puzzle', that has to be the lamest thing FF in a LONG time. I hate those too...
Regardling over-leveling. I actually like that. For folks who just stick to the main story-line, it feels about right. I don't like the recent trend which keeps you on rails through most of the game and then forces you to farm 50+ hours AFTER you finish the game to play the optional hard areas/bosses. It feels like FF VII where us (completist) gamers COULD finish without KotRT, but we all cannot resist. Power-leveling here is similar, and thankfully you can always switch-out your strong creature, or try different paradigms if your current setup is too good. There are always options.
So far, nothing about this game annoys me greatly, and thats a first for a FF game since FFIX!
I don't dislike the ability to over level without just grinding a certain area at the end of the game, my gripe is mostly with the ability to "accidentally" over level yourself because its not always immediately obvious which areas are story progression based and which are not. Yes you can switch out to a less powerful monster if you want, but you cant de-level your crystarium (though I guess you could switch out your paradigms so Noel/Serah aren't using their most powerful roles). I dont really like to have to micro manage how powerful my party is so that I'm not just breezing through certain areas without even trying.
I actually enjoy having a fairly set level of power progression as you advance through the game in a fairly linear way, so that you never find yourself too underpowered or overpowered as you progress - i.e. the game is always pitting you against challenging opponents throughout the whole game (linearity also has the benefit of allowing them to build a more coherent and engaging story). I also think that they should be able to add some level of exploration and openness (more than in FF13, but less than in FF13-2) to this without heavily affecting the balance of the game. How would they do this? I don't know, I'm not a game designer, but I hope someone figures it out.
thanks wardawg. i enjoyed ffxiii thoroughly but was not impressed with the ffxiii-2 demo. but based on what you wrote, i think its worth a shot. picking it up tonight. :thumbsup:
As much as I didn't really care for FF8, that card game was simple to understand yet still fun. I got into the PC variants that people made a bit, but I don't think they ever really took off.
EDIT:
I'm considering picking it up, and the Collector's Edition is still available. So, how's the soundtrack? I've admittedly been more of a fan of the OSTs from the older games, but the newer ones have a good song every now and again.
Hmm all this talk makes me tempted to pick the game up. The 5% cash back on Amazon right now with my Chase card makes me even more tempted!
As much as I didn't really care for FF8, that card game was simple to understand yet still fun. I got into the PC variants that people made a bit, but I don't think they ever really took off.
EDIT:
I'm considering picking it up, and the Collector's Edition is still available. So, how's the soundtrack? I've admittedly been more of a fan of the OSTs from the older games, but the newer ones have a good song every now and again.
thanks wardawg. i enjoyed ffxiii thoroughly but was not impressed with the ffxiii-2 demo. but based on what you wrote, i think its worth a shot. picking it up tonight. :thumbsup:
I would say you could read-up on the FFXIII story and still enjoy XIII-2 just fine.
XIII was really hit or miss for most people. If you are a pretty hard-core FF fan, you could get XIII and finish it in <50 hours and get up to speed pretty easily. The toughest part of the game is the initial 20-25 hours linear 'grind'. The last half of the game was much better.
I just finished getting to 1000 GS on FF XIII, so that's good to hear. It was an enjoyable game, once I got past the "not like other FF" aspect. Now to wait for 2 to come down in price.
I just finished getting to 1000 GS on FF XIII, so that's good to hear. It was an enjoyable game, once I got past the "not like other FF" aspect. Now to wait for 2 to come down in price.
Haven't finished yet, but seems to be a similar length. However, it doesn't seem to have the issue where you need to 'finish' the game before you can actually finish it. That means you probably can be completely done with the game after you complete the story (I think). If you skip a lot of the optional stuff, folks are saying you could beat it in less than 40 hours. Maybe even less than 30 for a experienced gamer looking to just power-through.
I will probably invest a decent amount of time into leveling-up some creatures, racing chocobos, and just having fun getting extra stuff. I usually budget about 80 hours for a FF game. Beyond that, I usually get a little bored (like getting multiple master materia in FF VII). There are diminishing gains at some point.
I would say the length is probably longer than FF13. The main story line in FF13 is longer than the main story line in FF13-2, but there is a lot more optional stuff to do in FF13-2 and you can re-do a lot of different parts of the story to see different outcomes to your actions. Not just multiple endings to the main story (which do exist), but some areas for instance have really hard monsters that in the normal course of the story you do something to "weaken" them so you can actually kill them and progress, but you can reset that area later when you are stronger and just kill the monster at its full power.
Then theres things like the casino games, chocobo racing, capturing and leveling and experimenting with monster companions, finding all the special accessories and weapons and the secret abilities they unlock, etc.
After about 20 hours I am finally getting I to the game and the story. The only part that jam disliking is the clock mini game. I have thought about writing a program to solve them for me.
After about 20 hours I am finally getting I to the game and the story. The only part that jam disliking is the clock mini game. I have thought about writing a program to solve them for me.
I finished the game, all fragments except the "Full Bestiary" one. I couldn't be bothered with that!. 75 hrs total play, was level capped for the last 5 hours due to trying to raise enough money to do the "tape down R1" technique for the slots. The time puzzles I had to write on a piece of paper, pause, and solve by hand. They were annoying, but OK. They were not as annoying as the "connect the dots" one in my opinion.
Some notes: Game play dynamics were enjoyable. I lost track of 70 hrs no problem. I usually lose interest at that length of time (never finished FF9 or X-2 due to this). Music was pretty decent, some tracks I can do without, the female vocals fit the environment, and the symphonics are nicely done. The main drag of the game was the ending. I thought it was a cheap cop-out.
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