FFXIII-2 demo coming to PS3, 360 next week

I sincerely hope for the demo to be good and making a better impression to me then the first game. I wished to love FF13 but it was just so boring that it ranks as the worst FF I have ever played.

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Do people really still care about Final Fantasy?

I certainly do. Recently i started with FF13, and for some reason its keeping me interested. I guess it’s the story and cutscenes and atmosphere. Cause all the gameplay really is, are walking through hallways(basically) and battling, and that’s it. Apparently until i get to one of the last chapters, i heard that is where the game opens up.

Previews say that FFXIII-2 has improved greatly over this. Square-Enix listened to the fans and brought all kinds of stuff back and it now feels very different from FFXIII, i really hope so.

Then you got the upcoming FF Versus XIII, realtime combat FF game. I can’t wait for that one.

I’m trying to not care about Final Fantasy anymore. It’s never going to be as good as when I was a kid on the NES or SNES, or when I was a teenager with the PS1. I’m slowly, begrudgingly, stubbornly letting myself realise that Square Enix (and Tetsuya Nomura in particular) have killed Final Fantasy.

But isn’t that a bit unfair? I’m not the biggest know-it-all of FF games. But except for FF13, all the others were pretty well received by the fans, weren’t they?

I thought FF13 was a pretty poor game. The first half was a long corridor with the occasional ‘press A’ prompt. The 2nd half opened up but just became a very boring trek-to-monsterhunt-and-back.

There was an RPG lurking somewhere in there, trying to get out. I hope they can make FF13-2 a decent game as I still have fond memories of times when FF was good, which was up to FFX.

I’m pretty sure I don’t base my opinions on the state of Final Fantasy on how well everyone else likes it, but I’ll play ball.

To my understanding, and I don’t have numbers in front of me, Final Fantasy has mostly received positive reviews from and has attracted *new* fans. To that effect, the reviews are positive, and a lot of good things are said about the games, especially in the visuals department…and the newer FF games are indeed damn pretty to look at.

The problem is, while the graphics for the older games were great for their day, the fans then didn’t care as much about having something pretty to look at. We wanted a story that kept us coming back and characters that we could feel something for. That sort of things endures far longer than pretty visuals and a flavor-of-the-week pop star single….I still play the old FFs and games like Star Ocean and Chrono Trigger rather often. Decidedly moreso than newer games from Square Enix.

So, the bottom line here that I’m getting at is that while Final Fantasy is still well-liked by newer fans (those that maybe got started on Final Fantasy VII, but probably also later games like Kingdom Hearts), the older fans are starting to get a little bit weary of seeing such a compelling series brought down to a mass produced, phoned-in soap opera for angsty teenagers.

Again, my opinion, so flame on if you want, but there’s no need to.

IMO, 12 was great technically, but suffered from a completely forgettable list of characters (except maybe Balthier and Fran) and a weak storyline. They completely missed a great opportunity for a lot of bad-assery, but the story just never stepped up.

I think a lot of people’s problem is that for the last 10 years, we have yet to see a TRUE Final Fantasy game, akin to the ones of yesteryear.

While I enjoyed XIII, I certainly won’t be playing through it again anytime, ever. But am hopeful that they have indeed rectified all that was wrong with it for XIII-2.

I haven’t lost faith in SQenix entirely, but they need to start doing a lot RIGHT in order to retain their spot on my favourite developers list.

^ that.

Think I better dig up my SNES, in my book FF hasn’t been relevant since then.

how can you so swiftly dismiss VII, VIII, IX, & X!!

Do you like ANY modern games? ; p

Yes I do, forgot to say that FF XII was an exception. Besides, I like almost everything made by tri-Ace.

to be continued

I’m in the camp that hated XII (except for Balthier and Dr. Cid) and liked XIII a lot. That said, I’m not really sold on XIII-2. I liked XIII precisely because of its characters…which we’re not controlling any of this time. Instead we get a Kingdom Hearts extra and Lightning’s little sister. I’m hearing good things, though, about it. It will probably be a last minute decision whether or not I pick this up. A demo, though, will definitely help.

Well i’m considering not continuing my playthrough of FFXIII. I knew that it would have a slow start and alittle ‘boring’ and more of the same, but i am like 5 hours in now and was expecting to be out of this ‘slow start’ soon. Then i read in one review that this ‘hallway’ gameplay continues till chapter 11. While there are 13 chapters, in chapter 11 the world opens up. WTF?!!!! I’m in chapter 5 now, i guess at the ending of chapter 5 now, but come on now. Don’t think i can keep this up, don’t know if its worth it.

@15 Trust us, its not.

Even when it “opens up”, the amount of additional and end-game content is minuscule. Unless you considering grinding the same enemies for 100 hours to get an obscure trophy / achievement a worthwhile expense of your time.

The levelling system is so purely balanced that you can’t even access all of the abilities for every character until you beat the final boss and reload.

Damn, that really doesn’t inviting at all no. All this time i was expecting to be out of this soon and into the big open ‘world’ . I was very very wrong then. The only thing that kept me going on were the cutscenes and the story, which i find really interesting. But SIX more chapters of this, meh….think i’ll just hop onto Youtube and watch all the remaining cutscenes for the story.

FFXIII-2 is around the corner and i’m really interesting in it, because it does certain important things differently compared to XIII. No more hallways and nothing but hallways, there will be towns with NPC’s giving you sidequests, minigames. Monsters that you fight and can then use for yourself in combat, etc. The whole world will be alot more ‘alive’ .

I already wasn’t a huge fan of turn-based battles, and while it’s not exactly turn-based in FFXIII, it neither is real-time, and i do prefer that. So i think i have my answer there…i’ll have a ridiculous amount of battles waiting for me, and for what? Cutscenes? Youtube here i come.

Anyone play the FFXIII-2 demo yet? I’m working for the next 4 hours. Got it downloading as I type.

Doing some reading online (working that is lol) showing much positive response to the demo – good news!