Board 8 > I will say it again: FFXIII-2 is amazing. Start to finish.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Everything about it just reminds me of why I liked FF so much before. XIII almost went there for me, but it was missing something.

FFXIII-2 has it alllllllllllllllllllll

:D

if I hate 13 will I hate 13-2

Not quite as good as 13 but still amazing, most likely my GotY unless Ni No Kuni comes out this year.

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even the plot is amazing?

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same here since i cant even beat FF13 i wont even bother playing FF13 x 2

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"if I hate 13 will I hate 13-2"

depends on why you hated ffxiii, really. It shares elements of xiii, but takes it a lot of different places.

depends why you hated it

Also, I really dug 13-2 up until chapter/episode 6, just... felt like it dragged bigtime.

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From: Weakupedia | #004
even the plot is amazing?

amazingly bad

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I disliked the characters, story, corridors, battle system, and general gameplay

Well you might like 13-2, then

The characters are mostly new, different than they were before, or ones who previously didn't get much time.

The story is horrible.

The "corridors" issue is not present, and the game is non-linear

The battle system is largely unchanged

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From: MartinFF7 | #007
depends why you hated it

Also, I really dug 13-2 up until chapter/episode 6, just... felt like it dragged bigtime.

so... the end of the game?

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OmarsComin posted...
if I hate 13 will I hate 13-2

Depends. XIII-2 is immediately more open to the player -- there are no level restrictions, there's much more optional content to mess around with, the battle system is quicker (no animations when Paradigm Shifting), and it makes the world and characters more interesting, or it did for me. It's a return to form for FF, as much as a direct sequel like this can be. It still has some problems, and it doesn't feel like a totally new mainline FF, but it's a very competent game. Enjoyed it a ton.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

Plot is amazingly bad, characters are dull and uninteresting, especially the antagonist. Gameplay is a little better. Monster raising is neat, but ultimately limited. There is always an exact way to raise a monster (the whole process involves feeding them items) with no elements of chance. There are always one or 2 monsters of each type that are clearly the best, with few if any arguments available in favor of the rest of them.

Game is actually just as linear as before mapwise, they just added a bunch of dead end hallways as well as random encounters, so it's actually much worse in that regard, because you're doing a lot of extra walking around for no real reason. There are a lot of sidequests, but many of them require you to jump back and forth between time periods, and the loading times are atrocious for that, just under your average Sonic 06 load screen (but just the load screens when jumping to a new time). A solid 4/5 of these are fetch quests, too. FFXIII-2 is like a checklist of bad ideas overall.

The ending, though, is amazing. Too bad it doesn't actually seem to be the ending, and you're going to have to dish out some cash for the real ending.

Still, overall.....I guess it was OK? I haven't played a jRPG in forever, though (except P4, but that's not fair), and I wouldn't be surprised if Graces/Xenoblade made me wish I had never even looked at XIII-2.

It isn't as good as XIII, not that XIII was great, but it's not really BAD persay, even with all the negatives stacked against it.

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Maps are fine. They're much more in line with your average Square game. They're not wide open spaces like FFXII, but you have room to roam and explore.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

From: tereziWright | #014
Plot is amazingly bad, characters are dull and uninteresting, especially the antagonist.

this is coming from someone that likes the green lantern movie

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Well, the narrative isn't the best, but it's entertaining enough. There were some points that hooked me enough to want to see what happened, though it does start getting excessive with PARADOXES at points.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

From: Leebo86 | #011
The story is horrible.

The "corridors" issue is not present, and the game is non-linear

From: tereziWright | #014
Plot is amazingly bad, characters are dull and uninteresting, especially the antagonist

These two both speak the truth about the game.

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Do you have to play 13 first?

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There's nothing to actually explore. All you're doing is item hunting. Considering the reward is identical, walking in a straight line and picking up items as you go is far more "enjoyable" in this situation. Having an open space is pointless and a waste of time if there's nothing to do in it.

I almost feel like throwing Chocobos everywhere after clearing the story part of an are was SE's admittance to this, as if they knew full well how awfully boring walking around was, and were attempting to throw us a boon.

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I thought XIII's battle system was cool for a while. Then I started to hate it. I got to the point where it wasn't fresh and exciting anymore. It was just an annoyance to follow the exact same patterns repeatedly.

I also thought almost every character was awful. A few of them I just don't mind, but don't really care for. The story was positively not positive.

I didn't care about the linearity, really. I enjoy games with linearity... as long as I enjoy the story... or gameplay.

Even if XIII-2 is much better than XIII, there is no way I will ever give it a chance. Well, if they changed everything about it and killed off all of the returning characters immediately and gave it an entirely new setting and story, I might like it.

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Also Tales of Graces F will blow XIII-2 out of the water, for plot and Character wise IMO.
speaking as someone who knows the plot and has played the wii version and seen the PS3 improvements.

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From: Menji76 | #016
this is coming from someone that likes the green lantern movie

I like it while admitting it's bad. If you want to say you like XIII-2 while admitting that it's a bad game, that's fine. I like plenty of games that I admit are bad.

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From: paperwarior | #019
Do you have to play 13 first?

It would be weird to play it without playing 13. But the story is so bad and disjointed and unrelated to the events of 13, it might not actually matter that much.

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I guess if you need a constant stream of rewards, yeah. XIII-2 was no different from PS1 FFs in its map design and rewards for exploring around. If you just non-stop action, yeah, maybe it won't do it for you, but this is a JRPG.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

I legitimately think it's good.

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I will say this:

Hope is better in this game.

I didn't hate Hope in the first place, but I didn't like him either. I thought he was better than most of the other characters in jRPGs that are meant to fill the same archetype.

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XIII-2 is absolutely not a bad game. It has some issues, for sure, but you don't have to admit "its bad but I like it" or whatever.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

From: ZFS | #028
XIII-2 is absolutely not a bad game

It's not absolutely a good game either.

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It definitely is good, but it won't be for everyone. Typical of Final Fantasy.

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From: ZFS | #025
I guess if you need a constant stream of rewards, yeah. XIII-2 was no different from PS1 FFs in its map design and rewards for exploring around. If you just non-stop action, yeah, maybe it won't do it for you, but this is a JRPG.

It's an issue with jRPGs in general, yes. You're never going to actually find anything that matters by walking around a mostly empty map. Item hunting is not fun. I actually felt like XIII was a step in the right direction for this, it just needed more side content that wasn't all smushed into the last section of the game in general. The maps being corridors wasn't the problem, the game being a corridor was.

I don't need non stop action, I just don't want a complete and total lack of action.

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It should be noted that the story being horrendous doesn't have much impact on me. I expected it to be terrible, and the story segments are usually good for a few laughs (in an unintentional way).

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I thought it was fun. My favorite FF since FFIX. I loved Caius, especially. Thought he was a great villain.

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beside the fact XIII-2 is really bad
TogF hype! for a much better and well designed JRPG.

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From: ZFS | #028
XIII-2 is absolutely not a bad game. It has some issues, for sure, but you don't have to admit "its bad but I like it" or whatever.

I worded that poorly, trying to respond more directly. If you don't have a problem with the game's issues, THAT'S fine. But they are very real issues. They shouldn't be ignored, and people shouldn't forgo mentioning them to people who are curious about the game just because THEY don't have a problem with them.

I love Orphen: Scion or Sorcery, but if some asked "hey, so how is that game?", I'd say the battle system is atrocious and the platforming is embarrassing.

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FFXIII-2 is just great in every way.

The characters are really well done. I like Serah as a protagonist because she's so normal and mature and smart and relatable. She doesn't need flashy powers or a complicated backstory. She's just a girl who wants her family back! The narration really helps you understand her goals and her thoughts. Noel is really interesting too. They put a lot of time into developing his thoughts on Snow and Caius, both of which reflect on his own character. (Because he seems parts of himself in both of them) I think Noel's character was really well done, in that way. Caius is also a great villain because his motivation is more personal and not just "I'm evil, so everyone should die!"

The plot is quite interesting too. The use of time travel is really fun. The quest to find Lightning is a good plot to get the story started, but it gets more interesting when you start to get into all the time travel stuff. You really have to forgive it for not making that much sense, and once you do that, it mostly makes sense. The ideas that are discussed in terms of Yeul and her fate are all very interesting and thought-provoking. And the journey of Hope and the others to help save the world is done quite well too.

Gameplay is a lot of fun. The battle system is just as good as it was in the original, though the random battles are a bit easy, I admit. Still, its no different than other RPGs where you can win by just mashing X...and I admit that's all you really have to do in FF13-2. Still, early on, the battles were okay. Then, I think, you get overleveled. I also don't really like the fact that the game basically uses random encounters. Still, the dungeon design is really nice. Lots of cool things here - The dark area in Yashas Massif, the rotating platforms in Academia, the rotating rooms in Augusta...I also love the little minigames they included. The crystal puzzles, the clock puzzles, etc, were all really fun. They really tried a lot of cool and inovative things with the dungeons, and I'm glad they did, even if I found some things to be a bit annoying. (Waiting 30 seconds at a time for rooms/platforms to rotate was a bit annoying...)

The game also has great voice acting, great music, and of course, great graphics. And more importantly, I just find it really fun. Even if the battles are simple, I love watching them play out, because the graphics are so nice that each battle looks like a choreographed cutscene. Plus, the battle system really is quite unique, and in the few fights where you actually have to do something, it is quite fun.

From: VitalVI | #034
beside the fact XIII-2 is really bad
TogF hype! for a much better and well designed JRPG.

Looking forward to it a lot. Playing P4 late helped stave it off, but there's been a serious good console jRPG doubt. Resonance of Fate had potential, but....I dunno.

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I like the downtime that JRPGs offer. I don't need to be pushing forward all the time; it's good to have the option to go see what's down that path, or out of the way at the other end of the map. I agree linearity wasn't a problem in FFXIII, just the restrictive growth system.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

Tales, yikes. No good, that one.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

I don't see how this could possibly be possible.

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From: ZFS | #039
Tales, yikes. No good, that one.

Defending the story and characters of this game and then "nope"ing Tales is, if I may get a little ruder then I've been trying to be here, "absolutely ****ing ****hive maggots ridiculous"

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It was more about Tales in genera, but yeah, that includes the characters and story! I haven't really gone above and beyond to praise either in XIII-2, though. I like Noel a lot, Serah was good after a few hours, and Caius was interesting, but they aren't 'best ever' or anything.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

What Tales have you played to give you this opinion? Vesperia is one of the best games out there, Graces looks like it should be pretty sharp. They offer a lot more quality than FF has over the last 2 generations including this one.

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Abyss > Graces F > Rebirth > Hearts > Vesperia > rest > Dawn of the new world > Tempest.

For Me.

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Yeah, I played about 5 hours of Vesperia. Couldn't get into it at all.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

the beginning stopped you?
The horrid 3rd part of the game is what made me get bored.
First 2 parts were great.

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From: ZFS | #045
Yeah, I played about 5 hours of Vesperia. Couldn't get into it at all.

You haven't seen any of the good scenes yet. It does take a while to get going (the end of Act 1) but once it does you won't want to stop playing.

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Yeah, it got pretty boring. It didn't help that the party members kept getting worse as they joined.

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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."

5 hours, huh. Hm. Well I guess there's no use arguing with you about that if that's all you've touched.

Vesperia > Abyss > Symphonia > Eternia > DotNW from what I've played, with Vesperia taking the biggest leap by being the 2nd best game ever made.

Yuri Lowell is also easily the best RPG protagonist, but an absurd amount.

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Great game loved 99.6% of it.

**** the clock puzzles and the last minute of the end cutscene.

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