Final Fantasy XIII-2 Announced 152
An anonymous reader writes "Square-Enix has announced Final Fantasy XIII-2 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. According to Gamespot, 'The newly christened Final Fantasy XIII-2 continues the adventures of Lightning and her team of RPG vagabonds in a brand new adventure, utilizing the long-in-development engine (and, probably, some of the art assets) that powered the original game. And because Square doesn't have to spend all of that extra time developing the engine, players won’t have to wait nearly as long to get their hands on this newest iteration of the game. According to Square Enix, Final Fantasy XIII-2 (which, in case you haven't guessed, is a game title that is just as terrible to type out as it is to say with your mouth) is on track for release in Japan this year. [The game] should be available in English-speaking territories by "next winter."'"
OMG I hope it's as good as X-2! (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's wait and see (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two possible interpretations for this. The first, and kindest explanation, is that they have realised that they created some interesting fiction for FF13, but that they badly mishandled the game in general. They now want another stab at telling a story in the game-world they created, but with the game done better this time and with a proper ending to the story.
I could live with that. FF13 actually has a very decent plot for most of its duration (certainly the darkest of the FF-series plots, darker even than 6). The problem is that the gameplay is terrible and that they write themselves into a corner with the story at the end, such that they can only resolve it through a massive deus ex machina which doesn't fit with any of the narrative they'd built to that point. If they want to take another stab at the game world and do it right this time, then I'm ok with that.
If, on the other hand, they're just panicking about Square-Enix's currently precarious financial position and looking for a quick and easy cash-cow that they can pull together with unused assets from the original game (remember, they apparently created enough artwork to make a game twice as long as what they eventually released), then I'm a bit more skeptical. I am not playing another game which amounts to running down a corridor for 25 hours doing identical trash fights, breaking out into a small square room for a couple of hours, and then going back to the corridor for a final 5 hour slog.
Square-Enix have lost the plot badly during this console generation. They were masterful with the PS2 (I still think Kingdom Hearts 2 was the best game ever released for that platform), but these days, they seem to make a bunch of shovelware low-budget titles and to completely mishandle their big-budget ones. They said for FF13 that it just wasn't practical to do towns and sidequests on the current hardware generation, due to development costs. I hate to break it to them, but Mistwalker had already done it with Blue Dragon and (in particular) Lost Odyssey, the latter of which leaves FF13 in the dust.
Somebody really needs to go around S-E's offices with a hammer and smash all of their DS, PSP and Wii devkits. The company was at its best in previous cycles when its focus was on developing games for the upper-end hardware. They need to rebuild their focus on the 360, PS3 (and PC) and actually show us that they're still capable of that.
Re:OMG I hope it's as good as X-2! (Score:4, Interesting)
You joke, but X-2 was actually pretty good.
It's one of the greatest games of all time according to the Japanese rankings. Now however, it wasn't so popular in the western world.
Re:I'll wait for the Turbo Edition (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the number one thing about XIII that is really awful is it's absurdly linear gameplay; unlike any other FF, there is no "freedom" to do anything other than follow a single path through the zones - you can't even take two routes to the same place.
At one point, the tutorial mentions that since you only have two party members, you should avoid tougher fights and come back when you're back up to three party members. Of course, being FFXIII, you can't ever backtrack to that point, and you have to fight the tougher monsters to progress anyway.
I'm not really sure what my point is, I guess that I think at one point it was going to be less linear, but they ran out of time or something.
I did actually complete the game, so I'm not really expecting anything amazing out of a sequel to it. If anything it more calls for a prequel to explain what actually happened between Cocoon and Pulse. Throughout the game you get this sense that there's this really amazing world here - that you're completely forbidden from seeing.
Final Fantasy VII-2 please (Score:3, Interesting)