FFXIII-2 inevitably got a 40/40 from famitsu.

[KnifeyMcStaberson]

only 40/40? i think it deserves at least 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000/10

 

[SonicWaffle]

an awful game more deserving of 25/40

And that's where you lost me. An awful game is not a 25/40. Get out.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

We're all just too happy to have our own personal biases confirmed by reviews, which in my opinion is part of the reason game scores on average are so very high nowadays. If I think Skyrim is an amazing game (which, naturally, I do) and some reviewer gives it a perfect score, then in a twisted way I feel better about my purchase. As if I need someone else's approval before I can really enjoy a game. On the flip side, if I love a game and a reviewer pans it, the temptation to lash out and tell them they don't know what they're talking about is strong. I don't do it of course, since I'm not (always) that much of a tool, but it's a fundamental of a lot of people's personalities that they like it when people agree with them. Especially when those people are professionals whose opinions are listened to.

I recognise this about myself, but recognising it doesn't mean I can stop reacting to having my biases confirmed. If I see a game I love being given the credit I think it is due, it still makes me happy. Humans are weird.

 

[KnifeyMcStaberson]

only 40/40? i think it deserves at least 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000/10

mind you this review is completely unbiased and involves no actual knowledge of the game.

 

[DaisukeVulgar]

People who still complain about FFXIII being 'too linear' need to look at FFX. Would you call it linear? Probably not, however; surprise, surprise, it is. The only thing that took away that feeling is that you could CHOOSE where to start on the linear path in one place, but regardless of this choice, you'd still have to follow the set path afterwards. If FFXIII had an airship system (not like the originals where you could pretty much land anywhere hospitable), so many people would have had no problem with the story. In fact, the changing between sets of characters helped to lessen the feeling, if anything.

I played some FFXIII-2 at October Expo, and it was an enjoyable experience. I believe they have improved upon it, even the battles. I still prefer XII's battle system, but beggars can't be choosers.

 

[Alphonse_Lamperouge]

finally, sanity on the internet. 12 was amazing, as good as my personal favorite, 8. i was truly hoping that 13 would follow the same mold....instead we got HOPE and the PARADIGM SYSTEM

I've noticed a very interesting pattern - People that love 12 invariably love 8. I personally think that these are people that don't actually like RPGs, rather the weird, westernese blobs that 8 and 12 are. No offence =p

none taken. although here i was thinking that i DID like RPG's, but i must be mistaken. truth be told i like ALL of the FF series, and have completed almost every one of them....with the exception of 13. i even played the horrible, horrible MMO's Squeenix brought out. but as you pointed out i dont like RPG's... think of all that time wasted

i would counter and say that those that dislike 8 and 12 just aren't very good at RPG's...and should stick to the likes of FF Mystic Quest.

 

[dimensional]

XIII was merely cutscenes, corridors and combat, self-admittedly inspired by call of duty's cinematic linearity.

Ok, I've been wondering this for a while and I just HAVE to ask, Final Fantasy 10 was roughly the same as you've described FF 13 to be, but that's almost universally considered to be one of the last truly great Final Fantasies yet. So my question is this: What's FF 10 got that FF 13 doesn't?

Personally, I think FF 13 is pretty good, I love it's characters, story, and battle system, it's right up there with FF 10 in my opinion.

I agree I dont think the criticism of it just being corridors and combat is well thought out look at Persona 4 (or 3) All of the gameplay is corridors and combat (ok fishing aside) and when you are not doing that you are just constantly listening to dialogue that you have limited control over as for exploration there is none and yet it is usually lauded as a near masterpiece (which I agree with).
Mass effect 2 same thing go down corridor fight things go to some hub limited talking options rinse and repeat but people dont complain about that same with Diablo and god knows how many other games.

I actually had the same problems with XIII as I had with XII in that they dont actually get going until you are at the end game which is understandably a problem but XIII had the edge for me in that at least it looked nice and the characters could at least emote some feeling in me admittedly it was usually dislike (especially snow and hope) but that was more than XII`s cast managed with the exception of Balthier and Basch none of them even had a personality.

As for XIII-2 I will wait until its out before making a decision it is quite possible I wont get it on release but that is more due to personal circumstance and it could turn out great or it could be a complete mess.

WRPG does not equal greatness, JRPG does not mean it is poor and likewise the reverse is true.

As for the perfect score by famitsu I honestly couldnt care less many reviews I agree with and many I dont they are just opinions not facts.

 

[F4LL3N]

FFXIII haters have the same problem CoD haters had (before it became uncool to hate CoD)... Their arguments are nonsensical and flawed in nearly every way imaginable.

I'll go out on a limb here and say 96% of all games ever created are linear. Yet FFXIII is the WORSE game ever for it. Great argument you have there.

"JRPGs are stagnant!" ...FFXIII innovated too much. Awesome argument you have there.

"FFXIII isn't even a game." Yet you play it... Contraception?

"I play games for their storylines..." FFXIII had TOO much story!1!!one!!two!

"All you press is auto-battle!" I'm sorry, you mustn't have understood the concept of the Paradigm system.

The game has been out for nearly a year and I still haven't heard a decent argument against it. The whole anti-FFXIII movement is one big copy paste.

I won't even get into the characters. Because obviously every game developer should be recreating the same copy-paste muscle bound dickhead with absolutely no personality or individuality. It would be the morally right thing to do, imo.

Btw, I can't wait for FFXIII-2. Whether it got 40/40 or 2/40.

EDIT: At the very least, I've forgotten one.

"$60 for a 5 hour campaign is borderline evil!" ...FFXIII's intro is TOO long. Oh no, an 8 hour intro. I hate when companies give me too much value for money. I truly do.

 

[TheLastSamurai14]

I liked FF-XIII enough to platinum it but I can see where all the hate came from. And going by the trailers (Which are never a good thing to go by) and the news stories XIII-2 looks like I'll be wasting my weekends on it.

A bit sad I haven't seen Fang in any trailers yet.

If you platinumed the game, you know what happened to her. And you know how long that's going to be in effect. It's a shame, but it had to happen.

OT: I liked XIII as well, and I'm really excited for XIII-2. Seeing Serah grow into a fighter is interesting, and I'm excited for the changes they've made to the battle system.

One question: Did they make this one more open than XIII? Surely they must have learned from their mistakes.

 

[krazykidd]

Famitsu awarded FFXIII-2 a 40/40 [http://gamingeverything.com/12567/famitsu-review-scores-126/]

It was inevitable because they awarded a 39/40 to FFXIII which was an awful game more deserving of 25/40, so any slighty improvement would take it up to 40/40. From what I've read, they've done more than a slight improvement, they've really changed the entire game design philosophy. XIII was merely cutscenes, corridors and combat, self-admittedly inspired by call of duty's cinematic linearity. XIII-2 brings back the multi-layered interactivity and adventure that made the series so popular.

But, it may still be a pretty bad game by WRPG standards. The minigames may not be well integrated or interesting. You only have 2 characters. It's filled with QTEs. Battles are still using the god-awful paradigm system. Time travel & monster capturing could be interesting or horrible. The less said about the childish nonsensical narrative and world the better.

Mass Effect 2 (91 -> 96), Assassins Creed 2 (81 -> 90), Uncharted 2 (88 -> 96) and some other games have shown this phenomenon of a flawed new IP which reduces the flaws in the sequel and gets a much higher review score as a result. Will western reviewers feel compelled to do the same with XIII-2?

They have a quandary. Do they compare it with the games it is similar to (flawed but deep games e.g. yakuza 3, alpha protocol) and review accordingly (so ~70%), or do they review it compared with what score they gave FFXIII (so ~100%)? The new features may well bring *more* flaws with them, and western reviewers love to over-rate shallow flawless games and under-rate complex flawed games. Readers have become very irascible to any review score they disagree with lately, it will be controversial whatever score they give it and they have an impossible job. I predict it will get 85% on metacritic, the same as X-2.

Does the perfect score make you hyped? It's in some great company and it's bound to at least be worth playing for it's uniqueness and jrpg charm.

Dude eveything you said was opinionated . FFXIII was not a bad game , it was different . And people hate change , thats it . Some people liked it some people hate it . And why the hell would you compare Jrpgs to Wrpgs( i bolded the part where you said that) . The westerners do their thing , the japanese do theirs , if you don't like it don't buy it. Don't say it's appauling because it's different.

I for one liked it , it was very fast paced and story oriented . The reason it was so linear is because the main characters are wanted criminals . The paradigme system required you to be somewhat strategic, because you could easily die if you didn't think ahead . But to attack a game because you didn't like it is ridiculous. I really do wonder where you get the gaul to think that your opinion is truth .

Some games are sandbox like skyrim , others are linear . Different strokes for different folks . You are entitles to your opinion , and you have the right to hate the game . But you really should humble yourself a tad bit , because you come of as a completly spoiled gamer who thinks thats his opinion matters above all others.

 

[NickCaligo42]

I'm gonna disagree too, FF13 was a good game. Not the best in the series by a long way but certainly around the middle. I thought the linearity was just the result of all those people bitching about FF12 being too awesome for them to handle and getting lost everywhere.

Actually, the reason for the linearity is that FF13 was built in roughly six months and the developers were making up the story and mechanics as they went along in a mad rush to get it built. You think I'm joking, but this shit's in the post-mortem for the game.

For the first several years of production they had no story written and no gameplay even nailed down on paper, because the team couldn't agree on anything. The trailer from 2006 was just a proof-of-concept mock-up showing roughly what they were shooting for--no reason Lightning was on the train, they just thought it looked cool. They went so long without getting anything done that they took a break to make The Last Remnant, mainly because the engine wasn't going to be ready any time soon. This was due to all the new projects being announced and constant demands being put on the programming team to get it ready for every other game Square was loading into the pipeline.

It wasn't until late 2009 when they released the demo that they actually had anything... and then that first 20 minutes of the game ended up being all they had done at the time. They made the decision to develop the game on the very strict linear path because that made it very easy for them to just make shit up and glue stuff to it on the fly. That's why about 90% of the actual story is flashbacks, and why shit seems to come out of nowhere all the time.

13-2, as a project, has a couple of advantages that the original didn't have, being that the original was a complete disaster... but still the same crackpot director and crackpot game systems, and the new stuff looks very... arbitrary. Time will tell whether it's halfway decent, but I'm not expecting much good to come of it.

 

[AbstractStream]

I don't agree with the perfect score because that's just damn near impossible (then again, it's Famitsu people), but I liked FFXIII so I'm gonna go ahead and play FFXIII-2. I, for one, also liked the paradigm system. No complaints there.

WHY DOES NO ONE CARE FOR THE STORY??????????????.

EDIT: how can people love Versus if they know next to nothing about it?

I care for the story man. I still care. And as for Versus, most of it is just the hype right about now but there is some info out there. Square also released a gameplay video at E3 if I remember correctly.

 

[Slitzkin]

Ahh, Final Fantasy; so many hours I have put into this series. Though truth be told I have not been moved by a Final Fantasy since X. The vibrant characters, the design and the music seemed to have died with the end of X.

SQUENIX IS DEVIATING FROM THE FORMULA TOO MUCH AND I'M AFRAID OF NEW THINGS AND CHANGE.