Final Fantasy XIII-2

[Strangelove]

were people complaining about the metal cactuars?

Spoiler

i guess they didn't see the jumbo metal cactuars. those are awesome

From the gameplay vidoes I've seen, the historiacrux theme drives my up the wall, I don't know how much I can handle the TIMEANDSPACETIMEANDSPACEANDTIME chanting. I hope they somehow dumb down sound of the lyrics when we play.

It takes about a minute and a half for that part of the song to kick in. So unless you're hanging around on the Historia Crux screen for a long time and not just jumping to a new gate straight away, I don't think you will be hearing much of it.

And some tracks work better in game. The Lake Bresha rap is lol, but while playing the demo it was actually pretty good. Now that I think about it, did they eliminate the vocal parts in the game or something, or just for the English version.

It was just in the English version that they took away the vocals (though why only that song and not any of the others is strange).

 

[Arianna]

Don't forget the guys talking too much. ... the commenters never shut the fuck up. that made me wanting to kick something.

I know. I was about the write something like that on the chat.

I mean, I appreciate you taping your play and letting all the rest of the world who's interested in seeing it do so, but...

Please... SHUT UP!!!

Well, with one of the Japanese Twitch threads I watched. Sorry for the confusion.

I wasn't able to get to the IGN stream done yesterday.

were people complaining about the metal cactuars?

Are there different sizes of metal cactuars? I've only seen the gigantic one in one of the game-play adverts or streams. What are they called?

 

[Fangu]

I played the demo today. Woooo!

Took me 1,5 hours to finish. My initial thoughts: Gamewise, it's an updated version of XIII. Really, the battle system is faster, the maps are less linear and more awesome, the moogle clock is a brilliant take on random encounters, the puzzles are a fresh breath, the upgrading is more complex; all in all, I am super pleased with the gameplay. The 'monsters in your party' I wasn't expecting to be that much fun, but it is.

Storywise, well. I guess it's okay. It's Final Fantasy. It's interesting enough. Noel is cool, though. And Serah is okay too. Chocolina is hilarious. I think Chocolina and Mog was the two things me and bf and our friend found the most amusing. We were sitting there going "KUUPPOOOO!!!" and then making all sorts of hilarious sex jokes about everything involving those two. It was entertaining.

All in all: Yeah. I'm excited for the game now. XIII had a lot of story - XIII-2 is really just a good game to play. And after all, the strategies and battles are the most interesting about a FF game IMO. So I think I will enjoy it, and I'll go get it on Friday when it comes to the shops.

 

[Strangelove]

Are there different sizes of metal cactuars? I've only seen the gigantic one in one of the game-play adverts or streams. What are they called?

I don't remember the naming conventions for Cactuars in English now and cba looking them up, but there's only two metal ones. The regular size Metal Cactuar (メタルサボテンダ&#12540 and the big Metal Jumbo Cactus (メタルジャンボサボテ&#12531.

He has a moustache.

Though there's like half a dozen other kinds as well

 

[Splintered]

I've never seen anyone recruit the gigantic metal cactaur, is he obtainable?

I hope he is. And I hope I can name him Mustachio.

 

[Strangelove]

He is. He's a rare encounter, but at least with the proper fragment skills he shows up frequently and with a decent level he's not too hard to beat (three attackers using Ruin takes him down pretty quickly).

That said, I still haven't managed to get him. I don't know if monsters have some kind of secret value influencing the chances of getting their crystal or if the difficulty setting effects it (though I'm usually on normal) or something. Some I got straight away, and others it has taken ages and I still haven't gotten them. (Omega, I fought over half a dozen times on normal and easy and still haven't gotten him. Which doesn't give me much hope for DLC Lightning.)

I wish you could get more monsters using Moogle Throwing, honestly. Finding rare/MT-only ones is nice, but getting some normal ones wouldn't go amiss.

 

[Kikki]

I can't wait for this game! I preordered it so hopefully I'll get it on Friday which means I'll had Friday, Sat, Sun and Monday completely free to play it

Oh, this has probably been answered already but I'm too lazy to look but what benefits are there from having a previous XIII save file?

 

[Tifabelle]

Why you get to play friday? D:

I have to wait until tuesday

also, sami remind me tuesday that I have to go to best buy to pick it up

 

[Strangelove]

Oh, this has probably been answered already but I'm too lazy to look but what benefits are there from having a previous XIII save file?

- Theme Sami mentioned (a darkened version of this image of Lightning: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/File:FFXIII-2_Lightning.jpg )
- 'Eternal Crystal' (name possibly different in the English name): what this does exactly was a bit of a mystery before, as least as far as I could find out, but it possibly affects the odds at the Xanadu casino?
- certain monster decoration item (little masks of Lightning and Serah)

Not sure if there is anything else. I think you get them just for having a save of FFXIII, even if you didn't finish the game?

 

[Tifabelle]

- certain monster decoration item (little masks of Lightning and Serah)

HAHAHA OMG WHY XD

 

[Strangelove]

Aha, I knew it was a picture of Light, but I forgot which one it was. I LOVE that picture ;_; Have you gotten most of the themes yet?

I think I have two left (IIRC there's five spaces; I have that Light one, Noel and Serah's)

OMG THOSE MASKS. I MUST HAVE THEM. I

I went to look for a picture of them, this is the Light one on Omega:
http://kyou-memomemo.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-12-23

There are other versions of those two that I think you can get normally in the game, but they're in an old-fashioned pixel style instead of that smoother one. (There's also a Mog pixely one, but I haven't gotten a higher quality one for that so I don't know if it exists as another bonus.)

The bonuses are only little things, since they didn't want to put people who didn't play the original at a big disadvantage.

unlike not knowing the background of the entire story or anything like that

 

[Aqua]

I must have those masks. And they will never not be on.

 

[ForceStealer]

GT's review. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-hd-final-fantasy/726284

This is why I like GT's reviews the best out of all the big name reviewers. Regardless of what they score, you really do get to see a lot, and they're usually good at focusing on what people really want to know about it.

In this case, how it compares to XIII's missteps, and the review deals almost solely with that. It definitely told me the most about the game out of anything else I've seen, so you should definitely watch it if you're still curious.

While I'm still not sure when I'll get around to it, this review probably made me more certain that I will play it at some point.

 

[OneWingedDemon]

I hope Yahtzee reviews this game

 

[Splintered]

GT's review. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/re...fantasy/726284

This is why I like GT's reviews the best out of all the big name reviewers. Regardless of what they score, you really do get to see a lot, and they're usually good at focusing on what people really want to know about it.

In this case, how it compares to XIII's missteps, and the review deals almost solely with that. It definitely told me the most about the game out of anything else I've seen, so you should definitely watch it if you're still curious.

While I'm still not sure when I'll get around to it, this review probably made me more certain that I will play it at some point.

I love GT, it's my favorite gaming/review site. They went surprisingly easy on the story, but I have a feeling that they like storytelling (aka, no datalog, no random jargon) better than actual plot so I guess it makes sense.

 

[OneWingedDemon]

http://www.rpgsite.net/reviews/349-final-fantasy-xiii2-import-review <-- I found this a good, in-depth review too. Bonus points for mentioning the actual story of a fucking rpg which most other review sites are glossing over. Granted, I don't agree with its score

Also, from what I have heard from voice acting, Noel's is again the only one who doesn't make me cringe. He actually sounds pretty cool. He is looking like the only saving grace. Here's to hoping the inevitable 13-3 uses just him and forgets about the pink-haired ones.

 

[Catherine]

The collector's edition looks beautiful I can't I hope someone does a Crystal edition unboxing soon too though.

I can't believe it's only 5 days away for me, omg.

 

[Splintered]

Also, from what I have heard from voice acting, Noel's is again the only one who doesn't make me cringe.

Really? Not trying to be overly praisey and contradicting, but I couldn't disagree with you more. With the exception of Vanille (who was terrible) and Yaag Rosch (who I don't know why sounds like a muppet, he's voiced by Zevran and I know he's got talent), I thought the voice cast was one of the amazing things about it. Jack Fletcher is a demigod of a voice director.

Serah/Laura Bailey's is one of the more well liked female va's or something, she's got an impressive amount of characters under her. Hell, she can pull of Serah AND Cloud of Darkness and that's kinda amazing.

I dunno, but all of the criticisms that FFXIII deserves, I always though Voice acting wasn't one of them. Hell I thought the fact that they had so many talented voices is the reasons half the scenes with overly melodramatic cheesiness was pulled off as well as it did. There's no way I can see the Snow/Hope confrontation going down if it wasn't for the fact that Troy Baker is A+ at everything- I'm glad he's getting all of these roles in Bioshock Infinite and Catherina. ;___;<3

 

[Catherine]

Laura Bailey is one of the most recognized VA's in not only the video game industry, but the animation industry in general. She's extremely versatile and I can understand if someone doesn't like her tone of voice for a certain character, but 'she makes me cringe'? I just.

I'm not even going to.

 

[Aqua]

Laura Bailey is one of the most recognized VA's in not only the video game industry, but the animation industry in general. She's extremely versatile and I can understand if someone doesn't like her tone of voice for a certain character, but 'she makes me cringe'? I just.

I'm not even going to.

Frankly I can't say enough good things about Laura Bailey. She does fantastic work in all her roles.

As for all the other voice actors, there may have been a few hit and misses (VERY FEW), but you can always tell when a VA likes or loves their role or not. It comes through. And frankly, all these VAs seemed to have a lot of fun with their characters.

 

[Catherine]

Honestly, I think EVERYONE in the FFXIII cast did a fantastic job. Yes, including Vanille's VA. I've seen some interviews, and the girl KNOWS a lot of people think her voice is annoying, but that's just how the directors wanted it to be. Plus, there's a reason behind her cheery, loud attitude.

I just
Ugh :/

 

[Aqua]

Honestly, I think EVERYONE in the FFXIII cast did a fantastic job. Yes, including Vanille's VA. I've seen some interviews, and the girl KNOWS a lot of people think her voice is annoying, but that's just how the directors wanted it to be. Plus, there's a reason behind her cheery, loud attitude.

I just
Ugh :/

Yeah a lot of people forget that. I was kinda meh on Vanille's voice acting the first time around but my second playthrough I grew quite fond of it.

As for the minor voice acting discrepancies I was referring to, I was personally talking about some of the NPCs XD As cute/sad as the little boy and his father looking for each other was in Palumpolum, the voice acting on the father's side was kinda bad, haha.

 

[OneWingedDemon]

I'm really not that well versed in my VAs so I'm not throwing out their credentials. And frankly, I dun care for their history. I'm only going by the demo and various videos of the English one here. I just find Serah's voice and manner of speaking to be too much of an anime cliche tbh. I don't like her Serah? Sorry if you think she can do no wrong. Granted, the material prolly doesn't help Bailey

I believe you need to take a seat.

sorry bb

 

[Catherine]

... You know what, let's just pretend this never happened and keep talking to each other about how close the game is. You know, the people who are actually interested in it and stuff.

SO YEAH 5 DAYS LEFT FOR ME WEEE

 

[OneWingedDemon]

You know, the people who are actually interested in it and stuff.

OK, mah bad. I didn't know this was the FFXIII-2 fanclub, I'll make sure to come back only when I have something to squee over.

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