Final Fantasy XIII-2: Love it or Hate it

[Fleur]

I don't have any hope for the rest of the series, because of how SE is acting lately. I read up online that they plan to make FF XV a Call of Duty type game... Call of Duty...

You make it sound like FFXV will be a FPS or something. xD

They've never said that. At the most, someone read up on something about Toriyama and his game design philosophy, then spun it while distorting it considerably. It was only Toriyama who once implied that he enjoys using FPS games rather than RPGs as an initial source of inspiration because he wants to make the fights in whatever game he is tasked with directing as flashy and tense as you can. Yeah I know, that doesn't make much sense, but hey, FFXIII is as linear as CoD's campaign!

Someone like Nomura will likely tell Toriyama to stick it somewhere, I would hope. I don't see the franchise heading into the direction of anything being like CoD anytime soon, and I would hope they're not as stupid enough to, considering fan feedback for FFXIII-2 has been considerably more approving than FFXIII in terms of how it plays. At the very most, I suspect they may take big inspirational cues from the Mass Effect games and incorporate elements like a little cover system during combat. The Last Story has already done that.

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Anyway, the above was the only reason why I posted. Otherwise, I have not played the game and I have no intention of playing the game, so you may be pleased to hear that I cannot profess any actual full opinion on this game. I haven't seen enough of the story to tell me whether it can still pleasantly surprise me or not, but so far it's on course to be the weakest story since FFIII or FFV in my opinion.

The whole time travel business so far feels like one enormous, inconsistent mess, and I sure as heck have little intention of getting to the bottom of it all. Then again, I never liked the premise of time travel anyway. The moment I read that FFXIII-2 will be revolved around time travel was the instant moment I knew that I would have issues with the game already.

[Chaos_Theory]

I sign up to this forum just so I could have a place to talk about this game, so here is my testimonial so far.

Spoiler!

So far I am at Augusta Tower. The story is revolved around the Chaos Theory and Butterfly Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory). This mean that a change in your initial condition will cause a chaotic effect in the future. If there no change in a initial condition then there will be no effect. How does this relate to FF XIII-2?

FF XIII was the initial condition. For ages there were just Pulse and Cocoon ruled and ORDERED by the Fal'Cie. 'Order' is a key word because each Fal'Cie had a responsibility, which keep things in order on both Pulse and Cocoon. When the team defeated Orphan and saved Cocoon (supposedly save, which I still don't think they really did) it changed the initial condition condition of FF XIII, which was the order created by the Fal'Cie. With order there is no chaos. Meaning everything is a linear effect (even the game itself is linear). The Fal'Cie had already determined the fate of mankind. With that order destroyed -the butterfly effect is now chaotic. The future has changed.



So now we are at FF XIII-2. There is no order. Everything is chaotic and non-linear (obviously with all the time traveling back and forth through the future and past). The game start with Ciaus and Lightning in an intense battle. Clearly Ciaus want to destroy everything, which was the original fate of mankind. With the ability of time travel now there have been so many paradox created that has cause distortion in just about every time period. Noel is the contradiction that Ciaus has been talking about. Noel is part of reason that everything is now chaotic. Ciaus just want to finish what Orphan didn't do. If Noel would have just died in his time, then butterfly effect would have been completed. But he didn't! He met lightning who was apart of disrupting the butterfly effect originally.

Ciaus is trying to stop Sereh and Noel so he everything will die, but as long as they live the future continues to change and mankind will continue to thrive.

This game is classic Chaos theory and I love it. It relates to me theoretically, mathematically, numerically, psychologically, and quantumly.

"It was said that a flutter from a butterfly's wing can cause a hurricane halfway around the world" -Edward Lorenz

Just remember while you are playing this game think about that pretty butterfly from the Lorenz Attractor (pictured above). Any change you make will cause an effect. I will add more and my thoughts may change as I progress through the game. Love FF XIII-2!

Mod edit: I put in spoiler tags for you. Please remember to use spoiler tags when giving away vital points of the game for those members here who haven't played the game yet. Thank you ~

[UltimaWeapon5]

Simple reasons why FFXIII-2 was better than XIII:

- The story was told a lot better: It kept the storyline contained to finding Caius and saving Lightning. It had plots in between, but they were well explained by the main characters and the datalogs were easier to read (at times) than they were in XIII

- The music stepped up: FFXIII had a decent soundtrack, but XIII-2 has a much more casual and meaningful soundtrack. The themes, of Caius, Yuel, Serah and Noel are all linked to the major pieces, so you have familiar themes running through, as well as very strong and consistant tracks in locations like New Bodhum and Oerba. Reprises of old tracks were well chosen, as they were all memorable songs, and more common final fantasy scales such as that of the prelude can be found if closely listened (see Eclipse to the prelude)

- Freedom: Exploration - that has been managed so well in this game. At times, it could get a little annoying for s new player to be searching between places and to be experimenting with side stories, but it's a lot more fun and challenging progressing into a story where each chapter adds new light and you can find your own way to the next major chapter. A very Kingdom hearts feel to it.

Anyways, I dont want to make this post to long, so i'll check out there

Music, Story, Gameplay. Characters would be in there too, but Serah....Hmmm...Well, i guess she was Okay.....

[L]

to be honest i like and fucking hate the shit out of this game at the same time.

its well enough off, but in desparate need of polishing. like for example; the paradox endings were fun, but every version of academia besides 4XX af needs to go fucking die somewhere.

the game had potential to be much better, it just wasn't given proper attention.

[Maru]

I personally love it. Out of all my games on my PS3 it’s actually one I don’t mind re-playing just for something to do. (Especially since I have everyone beaten in it with all the trophies)


I loved the overall story, especially the time traveling theme to it. I loved Serah’s personality and overall character, though I always liked her in even in XIII when she was just a NPC in the cutscenes. (Though I’ll never understand her attraction to Snow. ) I also really liked how her and Noel interacted with one another in the game.


I can’t say I hate Caius, I actually thought he was a good villain. Plus he had that hardcore song in Acedamie 400AF. Yeul was adorable – though the last DLC has me questioning if she really was the main villain behind everything.


Music was pretty good. Though no judging please, the Chocobo Rodeo was probably one of my favorites just because it made me feel all awesome on a Chocobo. <3 I also really liked Yeul’s Theme and Noel’s.


I didn’t get the unlocking and locking of the gates. Since everyone pretty much said the same things and didn’t really do anything differently. (Especially if you were revisiting – though I guess it does make it easy to play through the story scenes)


Fragments were okay. Though the ones in the Casino were my biggest complain because I hate mini games. The quests were fun, for the most part. I didn’t really hate them. Then I think the worst thing for me was the clock puzzles. T^T


Overall I enjoyed it. It wasn’t really what I was expecting to the XIII sequel but I’ll live with it. As long as they do finish up all the questions they left us with.

[ExcessTarantula]

I loved it. Initially I thought it was a horrific idea, Doing another sequel (I was sorely dissapointed by X-2) But that just goes to show that i should never judge on comparrison (if that made sense).

The storyline was very intricate, Well put together and generally beautiful.
Battlesystem was better put together than on FFXIII, although im still not entirely sure if I like it or not.

Spoiler!

Working with Monster was brilliant!

And finally, Graphically it was stunning (with the neccessary HDMI cable of course, Forget SCART leads, you're just wasting your time).

10/10

[Hliðskjálf]

I haven't finished the game and I'm actually questioning whether I want to or not at this point. Right now I'm searching for the 5 core parts and I've been bored all the way through thus far. Does it pick up any after this point or am I just wasting my time?

[TheRealTrxd]

It's a brilliant game, I feel like it really fulfilled all the potential that XIII contained.

[Pokémaster]

Compared to XIII, XIII-2 was a huge jump up in my opinion. They really took in the flaws of XIII (the linear maps and zero side quests/mini games) and let us really explore and do what we wanted, when we wanted which, I was happy about.(Although--giving us that much freedom confused the hell outta me with the plot) I've always been interested in Serah so i'm glad that it focused on her being the main character in the sequel.

Even though the battling system is the same as it was in XIII, I liked how they incorporated the monster capture option. It's the first Final Fantasy where you can capture about any fiend and have it. I liked how they all had different roles, which gave them uniqueness. I'm really not use to having just two main characters during battle, so these suckers helped.

I like Noel and Serah's partnership. It didn't feel like their friendship was at all forced and there was nothing there romantically just because they are opposite sex. It's quite refreshing just having the two working together in harmony without it feeling like they have to for the sake of it. They always were trying to get things done, to find Lightning. It was just reassuring to me, that they cared about it as I did.


The theme of Time traveling was a neat concept, but it was really difficult to follow. The different gates linking to different times, accomplishing one thing effects the past/future of the other gate and OMGwhatthefuckwhereami? happens xD.

I liked how they developers put a lot of added content to make me kept busy. I could be collecting fragments, fighting optional bosses, doing those dreadful puzzles, gambling, chocobo racing; I could pretty much be doing anything and I enjoyed not being tied down. It just added to the depth of the game itself, and I unlocked the knot plot as well.


The soundtrack was great as well as the graphics. I was very sketchy when they first announced it, but glad I played the game.

[pokemanmdj]

^What PokeMaster said. XIII-2 basically took the flaws of XIII, and made sure the flaws were fixed in the game. Serendipity consisted of mini-games, and had practically nothing to do with the plot at all. The fact that you could go anywhere, and reset so it was like nothing happened was a pretty nice. It gave the player more freedom than in XIII.

The new characters were given a good background, and the story added to Serah's character. In XIII, you didn't learn much about her, but you did know that she was a driving force behind Lightning and Snow's intentions.

And I freaking love the title screen music. All the music is great, but I could just leave it there in the title screen- maybe on the options menu, so the preview clip doesn't play.