[PS3,360] Final Fantasy XIII-2

[patsu]

I can't remember what happened in FFXIII ending anymore. Please enlighten !

 

[nightshade]

Apparently they released an Epilogue story when FFXIII international released.

The official Japanese website revealed a web novelization titled Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero -Promise. It contains a series of short stories written by Jun Eishima, leading up to the events depicted in the actual game. The first story is called "Encounter", and it focuses on how Serah Farron became the first Gran Pulse l'Cie on Cocoon for a long time. The second story is called "Stranger", about the moment when Oerba Dia Vanille and Oerba Yun Fang awoke from their crystallized state, and begin adjusting to Cocoon life. The third story, "Family", focuses on Sazh Katzroy and his son, Dajh, detailing how Sazh came to own the Chocobo chick and how Dajh fell into the clutches of the Sanctum. The fourth story, "Search" is about Vanille and Fang's separation, Fang's encounter with Cid Raines, and joining him to locate Vanille. Part five of the novel is entitled "Friends", and it focuses on Hope Estheim's life with his family and friends before his mother's death. The sixth story entitled "Present", involves Snow buying engagement necklaces and Serah finding a birthday present for Lightning. The seventh and final story called "Tomorrow", is about Fang and Vanille preparing to become l'Cie during the War of Transgression, and Vanille getting ready to be Purged to Gran Pulse.

It's in Japanese ofcourse, but this fine guy translated it for the people who can't read Japanese, its nicely written.

Also I kinda like Snow, cause the guy had some serious determination and always spoke from heart, no matter how stupid it sounded.

I can't remember what happened in FFXIII ending anymore. Please enlighten !

Youtube to the rescue

 

[Prophecy2k]

The Story was one of the only things i disliked about FFXIII. Yeah it was linear, but it had it's open sections and these were satisfying. I agree that the open sections and linear ones should be intermixed a LOT better. Go back to the formula used for FFVII or VIII ;-)

I didn't even mind the characters too much... although Vanille's voice acting... errrrghhhhh....!!

To be honest though someone said it in the other thread, since FF games started being voiced the stories and characters lost alot of their magic for me... especially when the english VA are so bad.... (no game should ever have Vanille-bad levels of VA... although SO4 trumps even her).

Anyways i just felt the story of FFXIII was confusing and just not told very well, which wasn't great for how linear and story-focussed the game was.

If they write a story that makes sense and keep Vanille out of this one then it'll automatically be a million miles better than FFXIII for me. So much so that i could even see this one as the true FFXIII and blot the former out of my memory :->

 

[patsu]

Which game will be released first ? FFXIII-2 or FF Versus XIII ?

 

[nightshade]

Oh common you are just saying Vanille's voice acting was bad simply cause of her high pitch voice and the oohs and aahs she made during the combat. No really, the voice acting was fine, and something that went with her character....the english voice acting of FFXIII pretty much trumps the Japanese voice acting (its so boring to hear them and so archetypical, I can draw comparison and show the similarity with every other Japanese media if I were asked to do so).

Have you heard Vanille's Japanese voice acting ? or Hope's Japanese voice acting ? Have a look at that and then tell me if its the voice acting that's to be blamed here or simply the script.

 

[tuna]

I like Vanilla in the Jap version. She is so sweet and nice...

 

[nightshade]

Yea but its the same with English version, only that we are so familiar with the language that its easy to point it out and get annoyed. I infact liked her

 

[Xenus]

Indeed Vanille never bothered me. I was far more annoyed by Hope and that wasn't due to VA but the way his character was written.

 

[Bigduo209]

Well I loved FFXIII. It was my definitive goty last year, so I'm quite excited about FFXIII-2. I do share your scepticism regardless, because I also happen to own a copy of FFX-2, a game I thought was rather dreadful. The short development cycle on the other hand doesn't worry me too much. I'm not expecting a new game here, just more of what I loved about XIII. Besides, last year's Assassin's Creed Brotherhood was made in a single year as well, and it turned out phenomenal.

To be fair, Ubisoft had most of their studios from different locations working on Brotherhood to get it out that quickly.

As far as I know Square-Enix doesn't have that many studios or that kind of management style to get out a game that fast. If anything we're talking about a lot of reused content never released (which they said) and we're FFXIII's team working some serious overtime.

I didn't really find XIII to be great game, but it's hard to say how many improvements (if any) they've made from the previous game.

 

[patsu]

Which game will be released first ? FFXIII-2 or FF Versus XIII ?

Based on Dengeki interview here:
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/01/24/flying_get_d_style/

FFXIII-2 should be released this year and Versus III next year.

More FFXIII-2 details:

Dengeki PlayStation has a two page spread on final Fantasy XIII-2 this week, complete with a one page interview with producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Motomu Toriyama. Here's a bit of what they say:

* XIII-2's story begins in Gran Pulse after the ending of XIII.
* The story will feel like it expands out from the after story that was included in the booklet with Xbox 360's Final Fantasy XIII International.
* Outside of Lightning, other characters will appear in the game in unexpected forms. Some will see major changes.
* XIII-2 is a full sequel. You'll learn some of the things that took place in the background scenes of XIII.
* The story will be more dark and mysterious than XIII's.
* The story will focus on the goddess Etro.
* The game will not have the pop feel of Final Fantasy X-2 (I think this means no dancing Lightning booooo)
* The battle system will be an evolved form of XIII's ATB system.
* They're listening to opinions both inside and outside of Square Enix and from outside of Japan regarding characters, story and interface.
* There may be a difficulty setting.

 

[patsu]

More details about the Dengeki interview…

Toriyama and Kitase Share Final Fantasy XIII-2 Details:
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/01/26/ffxiii_dengeki/

The purpose for showing this footage, explained Kitase to Dengeki, was to show that FFXIII only dealt with a portion of the mythology, covering such concepts as the fal'Cie and l'Cie. FFXIII did not explain the full breadth of the mythology, however. To better know the whole of the mythology, players will have access to the upcoming Fabula series titles.

…

According to Toriyama, the XIII-2 story will be like taking the afterstory that was written in the bonus booklet that was included with Xbox 360's Final Fantasy XIII and expanding from there. The story kicks of after XIII, in the Gran Pulse world.

The story is a true sequel to XIII and will answer some of the mysteries of what happened in the background in the build up to FFXIII's ending.

…

The two only briefly discussed gameplay. The game's battle system will be a further evolution of FFXIII's ATB (active time battle) system. Because it's a sequel, explained Toriyama, they want to actively use the the experience they gained in making the original to address issues that need to be addressed, and to make areas that are already considered good even better. For XIII-2's development, they've been running tests and listening to opinions from inside and outside the company and even from overseas.

I shudder at the extension of the FFXIII story…

 

[patsu]

For FF fans:
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/06/07/ffxiii_update_and_date/

Square Enix announced today that the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII-2 will see release in December of this year.

The game's official site was also fully opened today. The page now has background music, a section showing off the game's characters, the E3 trailer (with English voices, but Japanese subtitles), a wallpaper download, and the text of the Final Fantasy XIII novel that was included with the Xbox 360 version of FFXIII.

...

Square Enix also announced today that it will be updating the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII with the Easy Mode that was added to last year's Xbox 360 release. This update will be available for free and will arrive alongside the July 21 release of the Ultimate Hits budget version of the PS3 title.

 

[patsu]

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Team Interviewed:
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/06/09/ffxiii_2_team_interview/

Famitsu.com has posted an interview it conducted with Final Fantasy XIII-2 producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Motomu Toriyama at E3. Here's a summary of what the two developers had to say about the upcoming sequel.

...

The original Final Fantasy XIII was very story driven, said Toriyama, meaning the focus was on the story and the story would make the game move in certain ways. Following much feedback from players, they made FFXIII-2 player driven. Players will actively explore and will trigger events with their actions. They're making the game so that there are many choices for players.

...

One of the changes observed in the battle system is that monsters can now be part of your party. This is to allow for more strategic roll gameplay, said Toriyama. Each monster has specific rolls, and by grouping monsters together in different ways, players can create a more personalized experience. Kitase said that the the Paradigm Shift system gives the game the image of battling while switching your decks in a card game.

...

FFXIII-2 will have multiple endings, a first for the series said Toriyama. Famitsu.com's interviewer was extremely shocked by this statement. One of the reasons for including a multi ending system, explained Toriyama, is that when it comes to the world view and serious story development, FFXIII-2 is similar to FFXIII, so they felt that they should show new elements in the gameplay area. He contrasted the changes to the switch from FFX to FFX-2, where the world view and battle system changed considerably.

 

[Xenus]

There is also a trailer and Noel looks to be everything I hoped hope would become. In short duel weidlding badass.

 

[patsu]

The XIII-2 E3 footages are here:
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/06/10/ffxiii_2_footage/

 

[patsu]

Posting in the right thread for XIII-2 now ^_^

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/09/11/ffxiii_2_fan_event/

Final Fantasy XIII-2 director Motomu Toriyama has provided a big hint about when we can expect to hear the game's final release date. During the Q&A session of a fan event held in Tokyo over the weekend, Toriyama was asked by attendees for a more specific date than the currently announced December timeframe. He responded "It will be announced at Tokyo XXXXXX."

The number of Xs in his response -- at least as Famitsu.com transcribed it in its report from the event -- matches the Japanese word for "Game Show" (which is just "Game Show"), so it looks like we'll get the date next week!

...

Other points mentioned in the Q&A session:

...

If you have your XIII save data, you'll get some bonuses in XIII-2.

As previously announced, XIII-2 has a monster raising component. Your characters are built up using a new growth system like the Crystarium system from the original. Your monsters have their own growth system which is similar to this.

You'll find over 150 monster types in the game. They all have unique inputs for performing their special skills, so those who aren't too good with action games can select a monster with simple controls.

...

[Quite a few other tidbits]

 

[SedentaryJourney]

If you have your XIII save data, you'll get some bonuses in XIII-2.

I wish PSN cloud saves were available a year ago. Power surge and YLOD cost me my FFXIII save.

 

[patsu]

See What Hope And Snow Look Like Now In This Final Fantasy XIII-2 Trailer [Update]:
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/09/1...ike-now-in-this-final-fantasy-xiii-2-trailer/

Snow and Hope have both aged since Final Fantasy XIII.

...

TGS trailer:

 

[patsu]

Updated Final Fantasy XIII-2 Build Puts A Chocobo In Your Party:
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/09/1...sy-xiii-2-build-puts-a-chocobo-in-your-party/

Square Enix brought a revised demo of Final Fantasy XIII-2 to Tokyo Game Show. While it took place in the same map, Bresha Ruins, as the E3 build and didn’t have the Historia Crux system working, there were new monsters to play with. Serah, Noel, and an interchangeable monster make a party of three. The monster in your group depends on the Paradigm Shift you select. Pick Cerberus-X to make a chocobo show up and peck rival monsters to death as feathers fly all over the screen.

Monsters, like party members, follow a pattern of attack, but you can control one special attack.

...

 

[nightshade]

Lol Snow, look this is what happens when Nomura isnt incharge of character design.
FFXIII character design were fantastic, everything from their dressing to theor style....this one mostly looks meh as far as costume design goes.Though Hope looks boss, but somehoe Serah (who now has 50% less clothes) looks even younger now.