2012
16FEB
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Title: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Platform: 360/PS3
Genre: RPG
Much of my initial demo impression still holds, so I'll make this as mercifully brief as possible. If you want to play an RPG for an engrossing story, interesting characters, and well-thought-out plot, look elsewhere. If you want to play an RPG for a frantic and cool-looking battle system with a strategic slant, lots of OCD number-boosting and monster collecting, and a deliciously teasing grind, then look no further.
Now, I'm not one to bash a Final Fantasy story on instinct. I have a rather high "anime nonsense" toleration rating, but I will say that I have never been more thankful for a "skip cutscenes" option than in XIII-2. The story is the worst of both worlds - it is dull, milquetoast "believe in yourself!" Kingdom Hearts-type nonsense while also being completely impenetrable and hard to follow at the same time. Time travel plots are suspect in general, but a few RPGs have done them surprisingly well. What I'm saying is, XIII-2 is no Chrono Trigger in that regard. Worse yet, your main leads have no personality to speak of - although you can pretend Serah has a personality by choosing all the "comedy option" answers when you get dialog choices. Noel is pretty much hopeless, though. There is no interesting interplay between them, and though they both have a clear objective for their actions, neither is particularly interesting, and there is little growth to be seen. You'd think with just two characters there would be more opportunities to develop them, but no - they're flat right out of the gate, and basically act as a game tokens for wandering around and getting into battles. Also, Mog has got to go. Holy crap. Who thought that was a good idea? He would be passable if he had a voice more like Taupy from Sands of Destruction, but in his present form, I think I'd rather just kill myself.
But the battles! Holy moly! I was a fan of the paradigm system in the first XIII, and it's been tightened considerably - the change sequence is a lot snappier, and I actually find myself using the Sentinel class on occasion. Unfortunately, "trash mob" battles are pretty mindless - you can easily switch to a COM/COM/COM (basically all damage-dealing classes) layout and just wail away on the X button and get five stars so long as there isn't a high-defense "gimmick" enemy who needs to be staggered first. It's still fun to watch, though!
Exploration is a nice step up from the last game. Area maps are generally large and twisty, and contain several blocked-off locations that you are encouraged to come back to later. Okay, so that's kind of a cheap way to bolster the play clock, but at least it's "true to the roots" of the genre. However, the non-linear nature of progression does falter a bit. Sometimes it's hard to figure out where to go next, and you might stumble into a location where the random encounters will annihilate you without warning. Speaking of which... the biggest fight in the game is with the camera, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. When monsters burst onto the scene, you'll often have to sloooowly rotate the thing around so you can see them and line up your pre-emptive strike. And you'll probably miss, anyway. This could have been easily resolved by panning the camera upward while pointing it straight down so you can see everything around you at once. I have no idea why they thought the way it's being handled now was a good idea.
Aesthetics are about as good as you'd expect. The music is very... different. There is a lot of sultry J-Pop this time around (think the music from The Sunleth Waterscape in the first game, but not as cheery). I found myself not hating it, though, as much as forgetting it as soon as the game turned off. The different battle themes are a nice touch, but on a whole are inferior to that from the first game as well. Overall, everything seems to have gone in a brighter, less-sterile, more mainstream and "safer" direction, so make of that what you will.
Hah, I guess I lied when I said this would be brief. Anyway, if you want to play an RPG for the meat, and not the trimmings, you might just enjoy yourself. It's probably good that you don't get emotionally invested anyway, since from what I hear, there is no ending to speak of. However, I like frantically timing combo attacks against the ATB bar, and swapping team roles, and spotting invisible treasure chests, and grinding along the somewhat-less-linear crystarium board, and putting hats on my monsters. So, it works as a game-game, rather than a storytelling device. If you're looking for something that fits that bill, and are burned out on dungeon crawlers and roguelikes, then it might be worth the trip.
Platform: 360/PS3
Genre: RPG
Much of my initial demo impression still holds, so I'll make this as mercifully brief as possible. If you want to play an RPG for an engrossing story, interesting characters, and well-thought-out plot, look elsewhere. If you want to play an RPG for a frantic and cool-looking battle system with a strategic slant, lots of OCD number-boosting and monster collecting, and a deliciously teasing grind, then look no further.
Now, I'm not one to bash a Final Fantasy story on instinct. I have a rather high "anime nonsense" toleration rating, but I will say that I have never been more thankful for a "skip cutscenes" option than in XIII-2. The story is the worst of both worlds - it is dull, milquetoast "believe in yourself!" Kingdom Hearts-type nonsense while also being completely impenetrable and hard to follow at the same time. Time travel plots are suspect in general, but a few RPGs have done them surprisingly well. What I'm saying is, XIII-2 is no Chrono Trigger in that regard. Worse yet, your main leads have no personality to speak of - although you can pretend Serah has a personality by choosing all the "comedy option" answers when you get dialog choices. Noel is pretty much hopeless, though. There is no interesting interplay between them, and though they both have a clear objective for their actions, neither is particularly interesting, and there is little growth to be seen. You'd think with just two characters there would be more opportunities to develop them, but no - they're flat right out of the gate, and basically act as a game tokens for wandering around and getting into battles. Also, Mog has got to go. Holy crap. Who thought that was a good idea? He would be passable if he had a voice more like Taupy from Sands of Destruction, but in his present form, I think I'd rather just kill myself.
But the battles! Holy moly! I was a fan of the paradigm system in the first XIII, and it's been tightened considerably - the change sequence is a lot snappier, and I actually find myself using the Sentinel class on occasion. Unfortunately, "trash mob" battles are pretty mindless - you can easily switch to a COM/COM/COM (basically all damage-dealing classes) layout and just wail away on the X button and get five stars so long as there isn't a high-defense "gimmick" enemy who needs to be staggered first. It's still fun to watch, though!
Exploration is a nice step up from the last game. Area maps are generally large and twisty, and contain several blocked-off locations that you are encouraged to come back to later. Okay, so that's kind of a cheap way to bolster the play clock, but at least it's "true to the roots" of the genre. However, the non-linear nature of progression does falter a bit. Sometimes it's hard to figure out where to go next, and you might stumble into a location where the random encounters will annihilate you without warning. Speaking of which... the biggest fight in the game is with the camera, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. When monsters burst onto the scene, you'll often have to sloooowly rotate the thing around so you can see them and line up your pre-emptive strike. And you'll probably miss, anyway. This could have been easily resolved by panning the camera upward while pointing it straight down so you can see everything around you at once. I have no idea why they thought the way it's being handled now was a good idea.
Aesthetics are about as good as you'd expect. The music is very... different. There is a lot of sultry J-Pop this time around (think the music from The Sunleth Waterscape in the first game, but not as cheery). I found myself not hating it, though, as much as forgetting it as soon as the game turned off. The different battle themes are a nice touch, but on a whole are inferior to that from the first game as well. Overall, everything seems to have gone in a brighter, less-sterile, more mainstream and "safer" direction, so make of that what you will.
Hah, I guess I lied when I said this would be brief. Anyway, if you want to play an RPG for the meat, and not the trimmings, you might just enjoy yourself. It's probably good that you don't get emotionally invested anyway, since from what I hear, there is no ending to speak of. However, I like frantically timing combo attacks against the ATB bar, and swapping team roles, and spotting invisible treasure chests, and grinding along the somewhat-less-linear crystarium board, and putting hats on my monsters. So, it works as a game-game, rather than a storytelling device. If you're looking for something that fits that bill, and are burned out on dungeon crawlers and roguelikes, then it might be worth the trip.