Final Fantasy XIII-2

[Kobato]

No Hope yet. I is very disappointed, sad and depressed.

Oh. I is very serious about wanting Hope here. Tiff isn't the only one that has 'strange taste in characters '.

 

[Glaurung]

^I also want a grown-up Hope. Now we are three

 

[ForceStealer]

Hey may not be a playable character, but I'm sure everyone will make an appearance at some point.

This, where Serah is just randomly singled out and gets the line "you can fight, can't you?" Sends a different message to me then Hope and Tidus. She earns the sword because she's just a fighter like that.

Your ability to deduce that this is what happens from a few screenshots is pretty impressive. We have no idea what circumstances are going to lead to her fighting. We already learned that this is years later despite her unchanged appearance. If she spent that entire time training, would that be acceptable?

 

[Tifabelle]

^I also want a grown-up Hope.

17 years old is not grown up



And I don't get why it would be acceptable for Tidus and not Serah. Because he's an athlete? Being good at one sport doesn't make you good in another. I wouldn't expect a baseball player to be able to wield a sword as well as a nerd that's had practice with a fake lightsaber.

Of course this is assuming Serah hasn't had any training in the past 'x' number of years. I just don't see the big deal anyway. People with no prior experience are thrust into battle all the time in video games (and movies for that matter).

And what Aaron said. If they are starting at Level 1, then there is a progression of skill.

 

[Roger]

Hey may not be a playable character, but I'm sure everyone will make an appearance at some point.



Your ability to deduce that this is what happens from a few screenshots is pretty impressive. We have no idea what circumstances are going to lead to her fighting. We already learned that this is years later despite her unchanged appearance. If she spent that entire time training, would that be acceptable?

Yes, I did said it wasn't a outright retcon, but it does mean we can scratch one of the main things we knew of Serah's character prior to this off the list on her first appearance, and that list was kinda short to begin with.

With a pretty unexplored character like Serah getting a main character role now (with the only people she ever interacted with probably absent 90% of the time), the claim that they threw out everything of her character save that she's Lightning's sister to fit the main character role is easily made. And while I don't want to be that guy, I'm just saying: SE isn't doing themselves any favors with this introduction.

 

[Tifabelle]

Yes, I did said it wasn't a outright retcon, but it does mean we can scratch one of the main things we knew of Serah's character prior to this off the list on her first appearance, and that list was kinda short to begin with.

What? That she wasn't a fighter? or that she had no battle experience? That she was sweet?

And besides, people can grow and change, or learn new things? Or is it that she can't be nice and sweet and a little naive, and still know how to wield a sword?

With a pretty unexplored character like Serah getting a main character role now (with the only people she ever interacted with probably absent 90% of the time), the claim that they threw out everything of her character save that she's Lightning's sister to fit the main character role is easily made. And while I don't want to be that guy, I'm just saying: SE isn't doing themselves any favors with this introduction.

I don't see how you can claim they've thrown out what we know of her! We have no idea of anything in this new game. And we barely knew anything of her anyway, which you readily admit.

 

[Glaurung]

17 years old is not grown up

Somehow I got my numbers mixed and really believed that five years had gone by and he was at least 19 or 20. My bad




Anyway, and to the rest of people, they said "some years", not a specific number. Stop making assumptions until they say something more in the E3 (IF they say something more, that is).

 

[Tifabelle]

I don't know how many years are in between. I wasn't claiming to know. I wasn't making an assumption. I was teasing; it was just a joke.

19 or 20 is still young. You know what, nevermind.

 

[ForceStealer]

Considering every sequel in the history of ever takes place 2 years later, I'll be surprised if its a different number.

No really, why do so many sequels take place two years later?

 

[Glaurung]

I don't know how many years are in between. I wasn't claiming to know. I wasn't making an assumption. I was teasing; it was just a joke.

Ah! My second paragraph wasn't aimed at you. Sorry! I'll correct it right now!

 

[Tifabelle]

Ah! My second paragraph wasn't aimed at you. Sorry! I'll correct it right now!

lol, no worries, no worries!

It wouldn't be the first time my humor has gone wrong


As for 2 years, I guess 2 is enough time for people to have gotten over previous events, but not so far into the future that people are old and gray.

 

[Roger]

What? That she wasn't a fighter? or that she had no battle experience? That she was sweet?

And besides, people can grow and change, or learn new things? Or is it that she can't be nice and sweet and a little naive, and still know how to wield a sword?

To pretty much repeat the exact same thing I said in the post you are replying to, I am NOT saying it CAN'T happen. But we don't see it happen. We are reintroduced to her, a few years later, as a fighter. Anyone can change. Cloud can shave his head and take up lawnmoving in less then two years, doesn't make it a good idea. We have a thread here about people complaining that Tifa cut the endpart of her hair.

Here we have the frail university student that the two main characters of the originating game made their lives purpose to shelter be introduced quite Snowless with the line "you can fight, can't you?".

If we are going to use a character who the things we know off can be counted on one hand, can we start out with these things remaining intact?

Is that so much to ask for? And if the few things about this character are unusable, then, as has been said earlier, just create someone new.

[I don't see how you can claim they've thrown out what we know of her! We have no idea of anything in this new game. And we barely knew anything of her anyway, which you readily admit.

Can you PLEASE just READ the text you are quoting? I'm saying that claim will be easily made, not that I'm making it right now. I'm just saying, they aren't off to a good start.

 

[Dana Scully]

Regarding the whole Serah-fighting thing: tbf, they are living on Pulse, which is a lot more dangerous than Cocoon ever was. It could very well be that a lot of people have learned to defend themselves out of necessity.

Anyways, I wouldn't count it as a retcon; the fact is, she's had several years in which to gain new abilities. It's in no way illogical that she could have gained at least some basic skills in that time - I just hope they explain where her skills came from, even if it's just in a throwaway line.

 

[Tifabelle]

To pretty much repeat the exact same thing I said in the post you are replying to, I am NOT saying it CAN'T happen. But we don't see it happen. We are reintroduced to her, a few years later, as a fighter.

Dude. We've only seen a couple screenshots. You're assuming that we aren't going to see it. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I'm not denying that it's likely they'll give some half-fast explanation, but is it really something to start hating SE over? There are plenty of reasons to hate them already, we don't need to go digging up reasons on games we literally know nothing about.

If we are going to use a character who the things we know off can be counted on one hand, can we start out with these things remaining intact?

I don't understand what has changed with Serah from what we know in the first game. The fact that she is holding a sword? I really don't understand, and I'm genuinely trying.

Can you PLEASE just READ the text you are quoting? I'm saying that claim will be easily made, not that I'm making it right now. I'm just saying, they aren't off to a good start.

Listen, I'm not looking to start an argument or get rude. But can you please read what you are writing? Why are you positing a claim if it's not the stance that you take? Or you're suggesting a claim that is based on future information that hasn't come out yet? Which despite you saying you aren't making said claim, you are agreeing that the claim will have merit when you say "they aren't off to a good start". And even if that's not how you feel, the claim is baseless (or at the very least has an incredibly weak foundation). That's all I'm saying.

 

[ForceStealer]

Regarding the whole Serah-fighting thing: tbf, they are living on Pulse, which is a lot more dangerous than Cocoon ever was. It could very well be that a lot of people have learned to defend themselves out of necessity.

Anyways, I wouldn't count it as a retcon; the fact is, she's had several years in which to gain new abilities. It's in no way illogical that she could have gained at least some basic skills in that time - I just hope they explain where her skills came from, even if it's just in a throwaway line.

Well, for one thing, she was a l'Cie which would have given her some abilities right off the bat. Also, maybe the answer to "You can fight, can't you?" is "No." and she has to learn?

 

[Max Payne]

Are you seriously saying people don't gain competence at activities by repeatedly practising at them?

Are you seriously saying that any out of shape fool can pick up a weapon, and use it over and over again and become really good with it?

Because that's fucking fantasy nonsense. You can pick up a gun, and it doesn't matter many times you shoot with it, without proper instruction you will never be a competent soldier. There's so much more to combat than just swinging a sword or pulling a trigger. It takes training, proper instruction, and skill.

Someone who just picked up a weapon and started using it will never be as good as someone who has been trained in form, technique, combat tactics, battlefield observations, weapons strategy, so on. You can't just pick up a fucking weapon and jump into a battlefield and survive. It's retarded.

If she's learning from this Noel guy as they go, that's another thing. As long as her incompetence is obvious.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Are you seriously saying that any out of shape fool can pick up a weapon, and use it over and over again and become really good with it?

Because that's fucking fantasy nonsense. You can pick up a gun, and it doesn't matter many times you shoot with it, without proper instruction you will never be a competent soldier. There's so much more to combat than just swinging a sword or pulling a trigger. It takes training, proper instruction, and skill.

Someone who just picked up a weapon and started using it will never be as good as someone who has been trained in form, technique, combat tactics, battlefield observations, weapons strategy, so on. You can't just pick up a fucking weapon and jump into a battlefield and survive. It's retarded.

If she's learning from this Noel guy as they go, that's another thing. As long as her incompetence is obvious.

Pretty much every RPG that has an incompetent fighter ever also has more experienced fighters in the party. The idea that they wouldn't be getting instruction from the more experienced party members as the story progresses is absolutely absurd. If they don't have anyone giving them instruction, then yeah, the idea that they could become an expert swordsman is fairly absurd, but I'm not aware of any games where that crap happens. Certainly it's the case in FFX and FFXIII-2 that there are people to give Tidus/Serah training.

 

[OneWingedDemon]

It's not that Serah can't learn to fight. It's that she's a character the previous game pointed out time and time again that's not in any way, shape or form, a fighter. There is no doubt she has never even hit someone except her dumbass boyfriend. She wanted to be a teacher, FFS.

And now she's a fighter in the next game. Sure, they're going to have an explanation, but at this point Serah may as well just be a new character because nothing that we learned of her is any long true. It makes no sense based on what we know of her character.

And I'm not holding my breath when it comes to characterization or that we're going to get a much better explanation than we did with Yuna. But even then, at least she went through all of FFX fighting.

But then I have no faith in this game as a whole and I already think it's going to be shit, so

 

[Ⓐaron]

Two years can change people a lot. Which isn't to say that it'll necessarily be handled well, given how poorly Yuna's transformation in X-2 was handled, but the idea that someone could go from wouldn't-hurt-a-fly to wanting to learn how to fight is not even remotely unthinkable if the right circumstances interfere with their life.

 

[ForceStealer]

^You mean circumstances like being thrown into an untamed world that has run wild with dangerous wildlife for 500 years?

I guarantee you that if they made up a new character there would be a pretty large contingent of people shouting "Bawwww, why make up some new shitty character instead of using the ones we already don't know a lot about like Serah and NORA!?"

So I'm gonna file this under damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't.

 

[Max Payne]

Two years can change people a lot. Which isn't to say that it'll necessarily be handled well, given how poorly Yuna's transformation in X-2 was handled, but the idea that someone could go from wouldn't-hurt-a-fly to wanting to learn how to fight is not even remotely unthinkable if the right circumstances interfere with their life.

Learning how to fight from someone =/= just picking up a weapon and taking down monsters and soldiers like a pro

 

[Ⓐaron]

Learning how to fight from someone =/= just picking up a weapon and taking down monsters and soldiers like a pro

No shit. But just because they don't show people sparring with party members and shit in between battles doesn't mean it can't be assumed to happen.

^You mean circumstances like being thrown into an untamed world that has run wild with dangerous wildlife for 500 years?

Yeah that would do it

 

[Max Payne]

Pretty much every RPG that has an incompetent fighter ever also has more experienced fighters in the party. The idea that they wouldn't be getting instruction from the more experienced party members as the story progresses is absolutely absurd. If they don't have anyone giving them instruction, then yeah, the idea that they could become an expert swordsman is fairly absurd, but I'm not aware of any games where that crap happens. Certainly it's the case in FFX and FFXIII-2 that there are people to give Tidus/Serah training.

Do you have some fucking context here that I don't?

I see some bone thin bitch picking up a sword and suddenly being a fighter with no context at all. That's what I see here. Even if you're learning as you go, you're still gonna be a shit fighter. You will not be able to just suddenly be a boss. It's not acceptable, and even less so for someone like SERAH. MS SAVE ME.

I'm going to echo one OWD said too. Fuck sake you people go from suspension of disbelief to throwing it out the window.

 

[ForceStealer]

How are you people seeing all this from like 5 screenshots?

And even if you have somehow divined how this game will be set up. That whole picking up a sword and suddenly being a fighter is exactly what Tidus did. Hell, he couldn't even LIFT the sword seconds before using it. Yes, I saw you say that "just because it happened before doesn't mean its okay," but I have NEVER seen you or anyone else complain about that bit from FFX.

 

[Max Payne]

No shit. But just because they don't show people sparring with party members and shit in between battles doesn't mean it can't be assumed to happen.

Yeah let me assume shit with no context at all derp derp.

We knew Tidus was learning from his friends in FFX, he had several people deliberately looking after him and making sure he was getting by.

Do you know something here I don't? Because I'm commenting on what I see here.