Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

[Firewind]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

I love Final Fantasy fans. We don't even have any details of the next game and it's already going to be the worst in the series, just like how VIII, IX, X, XI, X-2, XII, XIII and XIV were the worst in the series when they were announced, and were the death knell of Sqeenix and Final Fantasy when released, but suddenly stopped being the worst in the series as soon as the next one was announced.

[Malacite]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

I'm not buying FFXIII-2 period. They bombed that chance after they ruined the original. The battle system was terrible IMO, on top of that the original sound track wasn't even done by the original. Nobou Uematsu was the sole producer of FF's music. The only song(s) I liked were The Vanleth Waterscape and Blinded By Light. They should've kept the battle system from twelve and incorporated that with thirteen, it would've been a beautiful game. On top of that Lightning was pretty much a female Cloud. A candy-ass and a crybaby. (Excuse those who are fans of Cloud) I honestly think Squall was a better character than Cloud period.

Woah, lots of undue hate here. 13 wasn't the best in the series by a longshot but it wasn't that bad. I for one thought the music was fantastic, some of the best in the series. While I agree that it's just not the same without Nobuo, Naoshi Mizuta & Masashi Hamauzu have both been pretty good. Fact is SE got rid of their in-studio music department and now handle it all by contracts because it saves them a lot of money.


The battle system IMO is one of the best they've managed to come up with in quite a while as well. My only gripe with it in all honestly was not being able to issue or prioritize specific commands (i.e. cast Cure on this guy or use buffs if a specific order) otherwise it was fast, fun, and YAY FOR NO MORE MP! The shop system in the game was bad though. Better than 12 (if they ever bring back that shitty Bazaar system heads will roll) but still worse than 8's magazines & finding parts.

And really, are you serious? At what point was Lightning a crybaby?! I didn't care for her that much, but she was anything but a crybaby. Total ball-buster if anything. I think you're confusing her with Hope, unless caring about your only sibling somehow makes you a wuss. I think people are just being overly critical of the series in general now quite frankly, looking for excuses to find fault with the games. They're not perfect, and 13 did have quite few failures (the lack of free-roaming until chapter 10 being a big one) but I just find there's so much vitriol that's completely undeserved towards every game after 6. How about some constructive criticism instead of just more "Cloud/Squall/Lightning is so emo"

Cloud is a little bit more complex than the emo-criers would have you think, but it's tough to put it all together from FFVII alone. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite portrayed this way in Dissidia, which ruined that game for me.

Yeah he is, though I maintain he's little more than a glorified placeholder for Zack and that's why I've grown to abhor him ever since playing Crisis Core. Everything he does up until the lifestream segment towards the end of disc 2 is just basically acting out Zack's part, pretending to be him while not even realizing it. Then I guess what you could call his "real personality" materializes and we see what he's actually like again in DoC and AC - a total putz. I used to find him kinda interesting because of the complexity and split personality crap as a result of his fragmented memories, but CC just made me like Zack so much I wish they'd just retcon the whole fucking game and let him live. He's the better protagonist by a mile.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

I love Final Fantasy fans. We don't even have any details of the next game and it's already going to be the worst in the series, just like how VIII, IX, X, XI, X-2, XII, XIII and XIV were the worst in the series when they were announced, and were the death knell of Sqeenix and Final Fantasy when released, but suddenly stopped being the worst in the series as soon as the next one was announced.

To be honest, I haven't played half of the FF games out there. I was honestly just trolling.

[Firewind]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

As I said above Mal, it's the most recent FF game (if we don't include online FF games) so it will be automatically the worst in the series until XV comes out. FFXIII had it's flaws and it's clearly not the best FF game, but it's far from a bad game as well and I enjoyed it.

It's also clear by the post that he never actually played the game. Lightning only has one emo moment and it's perfectly justified considering her sister just got turned into a giant fucking crystal.

To be honest, I haven't played half of the FF games out there. I was honestly just trolling.

To be honest it was aimed at the people who clearly haven't played [insert FF game here] and just bitch about it on principle of it not being a carbon copy of VI or VII.

[Kailea]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

As I said above Mal, it's the most recent FF game (if we don't include online FF games) so it will be automatically the worst in the series until XV comes out. FFXIII had it's flaws and it's clearly not the best FF game, but it's far from a bad game as well and I enjoyed it.

It's also clear by the post that he never actually played the game. Lightning only has one emo moment and it's perfectly justified considering her sister just got turned into a giant fucking crystal.



To be honest it was aimed at the people who clearly haven't played [insert FF game here] and just bitch about it on principle of it not being a carbon copy of VI or VII.

ok well this will be coming from someone who has played every FF game released.....

FFXIII sucked..... bad. The game was horrible, the only thing that was remotely decent was the story.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

To be honest it was aimed at the people who clearly haven't played [insert FF game here] and just bitch about it on principle of it not being a carbon copy of VI or VII.

Its been that way since FFVII and sadly, thanks to FFVII fanboys, its won't end until the remake is made and the game isn't nearly as good as they remembered it being.

There were fans that insisted the series was on the path to ruin the second Squaresoft traded pixels for polygons. This phase inevitably passed. I knew a guy who wrote dissertations on why Final Fantasy had gone downhill as of VII and VIII, but once FFXII came along with something totally unique, he was a fan all over again.

But naturally, he was dead set against it before he got to play it.

FFVII fans don't want to believe there is an RPG that can surpass it when numerous RPGs of far superior quality - many of them not even of the FF brand - have come to be since then.

The pixel fanboy has more or less grown up and moved on to enjoy other franchises. The FFVII fanboy is only beginning to phase out and be replaced by the Bioware fanboys, whom they believe invented choice in RPGs and if an RPG doesn't have dialog branches or party members to fuck, its obviously an inferior product or "too japanese."

[DakAttack]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

Yeah he is, though I maintain he's little more than a glorified placeholder for Zack and that's why I've grown to abhor him ever since playing Crisis Core. Everything he does up until the lifestream segment towards the end of disc 2 is just basically acting out Zack's part, pretending to be him while not even realizing it. Then I guess what you could call his "real personality" materializes and we see what he's actually like again in DoC and AC - a total putz. I used to find him kinda interesting because of the complexity and split personality crap as a result of his fragmented memories, but CC just made me like Zack so much I wish they'd just retcon the whole fucking game and let him live. He's the better protagonist by a mile.

I think that's exactly what they were going for. He realized he was living his life as Zack, instead of as Cloud. He had no idea how to be Cloud. That, and he was infused with Sephiroth cells, which allowed Sephiroth to control him. After realizing all this, his entire life was basically a big WTF.

---------- Post added at 09:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 PM ----------

ok well this will be coming from someone who has played every FF game released.....

FFXIII sucked..... bad. The game was horrible, the only thing that was remotely decent was the story.

ok well this will be coming from someone who has played Sim Ant

Your opinion is not fact....... bad.

[Armando]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

Cloud became his own person at the end of FFVII. I liked that.

What peeves me is that in the games/works that came afterwards, they continued to paint him as this angsty, quiet, too-cool-to-smile dude (I'm looking at you, Kingdom Hearts.) He wasn't emo to begin with, so it's ridiculous that they make him so angsty after he gets the girl and prevents the planet from blowing up. I expected more out of him in Advent Children.

[DakAttack]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

I think they may have exagerrated his angst, if only to set him apart from the other heroes.

[Balfree]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

he will forever be portrayed as angsty, unless sephiroth disappears once and for all and they finally let him nail tifa and forget all about dead ladies.

how long has it been now? jesus christ cloud, grow a pair.

[DakAttack]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

I bet Cloud has nailed Tifa tons of times. When he yells "SAY MY NAME", he gets angry if she doesn't yell "ZACK".

[Icemage]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

I'd just like to interject here that I think all the hero-worship that Cloud (and Sephiroth for that matter) get is pretty hilarious. Sephiroth is a cardboard cutout, borderline insane psychopath who doesn't really have a lot of credible motives for doing what he does other than being butt-hurt about life not being fair.

Cloud's a moody twit who compensates for his lack of manilness by the size of his sword.

+$0.02


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

Cloud became his own person at the end of FFVII. I liked that.

He did. Too bad it turns out he's just a douche bag with super powers and not even remotely cool. Between his abysmal performances in AC, DoC and CC I just plain hate Cloud now. Ugh and that horrible cry at the end of CC... The JP version was a little better, felt more emotional but it was still bad.

I have to seriously question if his feelings for Aerith were even real - how do we know he wasn't somehow attracted to her vicariously through the acting out of Zack's memories/persona? She was Zack's girl after all. I'm sure on some level he genuinely liked her as himself, but since she died before he recovered his memories and personality it's too hard to say.

[Balfree]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

its not just about him loving her. they definitly shared a special bond which is made more intriguing just because of what you've mentioned, the uncertainty of its meaning.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Nomura confirms first sign of FFXIII-2 hurray!!! ^_^

It was only the development of Aerith's relationship with Zack in Crisis Core that ever made her a meaningful character to me, before Crisis Core she was just a senseless plot device and Sephiroth was a guy turned evil because of one bad day (The Joker's Killing Joke theory). Crisis Core fixed Sephiroth a great deal by not only first humanizing him a great deal, but also showing how his spoiled nature.

Those little details added a lot of sense to his original character, along with the destruction of his most cherished friendships. The way he totally turned his back on the post-Nibelhiem crisis was typical of his selfishness. The knowledge he acquired shortly before that fed his spoiled attitude and the notion he was meant the be a champion, he simply revised whose champion he was. Typical insane villain stuff, revisionist history, but it gave his insanity a bit more weight even if it was the truth at the time and he revises his destiny again in Advent Children, placing it akin to the former role of the Cetra (the search for a promised land, though not directly mentioned).

But the original presentation and even the retcon of the character doesn't hold a candle to Kefka, whose decent into madness had a lot more detail to it. Kefka came from nothing, he was an orphan and he went from being a nobody to the best military and scientific mind in the land. When he chose to allow Cid to be his guniea pig to test out his own theories on deriving magical power from magicite, it was just the start of his undoing. There were long-term effects not even seen from the start and as he began to fall, his pupil, someone he came to have a brother/sister-like relationship with (Celes) rose to the highest ranks and was a successful specimen while his mind was more or less destroyed and he became the conniving, cowardly court mage.

And everything he does over the course of FFVI is to prove that he can fall again. He believes in a rather nihilist and self-fulfilling prophesy that no matter how high you ascend, you will fall and you will fail. He surges back to become a god and even then, its only a matter of time before he's defeated and he knows it. He mocks and challenges the player's concept of hope.

The way FFVII goes about it, its just a very shallow repeat of the concept. It could be due to the fact that graphics were rather limited in how the could express the thematic devices of FFVII. FFVI had a strong Italian theme and Kefka's final boss tiers were twisted mockeries of known renaissance art, ridiculing the hope people put faith into.

To give that kind of depth to Sephiroth, players were forced to dig deep while it was much easier to see with Kefka from the start.

Its a point Square has struggled with since FFVII. While there are a lot of deep concepts to be found in FFVII, FFVIII and FFX, they became too cryptic for the player or just not expressed that well. To have Tidus or Sephiroth more practically defined eight to ten years after their debut is kinda frustrating.

I mean, it really took Dissidia's story to make Tidus seem like more than an guy with daddy issues. There his relationship with Jecht is palatable. His frustration goes beyond the fact that his dad is a big jerk, but that the man he idolized as a child, this indomitable figure was bending his will to another and allowing himself to be used (in this case The Emperor manipulating him instead of Sin/Yu Yevon). That's why Tidus hates his father. Everything he knew his father to be, everything Tidus wanted be, was undone in Jecht.

FFX never got close to getting that eloquent about it.

FFIX, FFXI and FFXII don't really possess these kind of plot fumbles because they don't try to create all this symbolism that were once brought into the stories by Sakaguchi and Uematsu. Its not a strength Kitase or even Nomura have. This is why Nomura thus far has woven stories around things that are more pop culture than deeper culture, and that's not to slight him because he can tap Final Fantasy and Disney and have characters meet that totally fit the situation. He can riff on Star Wars/Samurai movie tropes and even though you know it, its still fun.

Kitase just thinks people want this generic teen anime melodrama rubbish that anime and games once thrived on for years. And when you have games out there like Persona 3 an 4 that take teen drama and make it so realistic and respectable, making it something even adults want to play because it hits closer to home, why is Kitase serving up such inferior, unrealistic characters?

FFIX, FFXI and FFXIV all subscribe to generic hero tropes - in the case of XI and XIV, to be fair, that's to make the player's character feel really important - but they loved these socio-political underpinnings and intrigue woven into the culture of the various nations. It gives players something they can more easily relate to, to see particular nation in the game that might reflect where they live.

FFXII, Vagrant Story, FFT and Tactics Ogre all skew to larger political gaming and corruption, the rise and fall of heroes and history is never quite what it seems, sometimes it really is written by the victors and those in power rather than reflect the way things really unfolded. This again is something people can grasp as in our day-to-day lives we see leaders and a media that are totally out of touch or in plain denial of what's really going on. Its not a kind of storytelling that's fun for everyone because it doesn't always unfold the way people would like it to, but that's kind of the point.

I will beat this point into the ground, but it is time for Kitase to hang it up as writer, director and producer. I'd even take Tanaka in a second for all three roles in a single player FF than Kitase these days. Kitase is out-of-touch with writing, directing and extremely superstitious toward production and development these days.