Final Fantasy

Well, you don't need to side with New Yevon to get 100%; I just wanted to get all the GGs in the game, which would only take one playthrough if I didn't want 100%. For some reason, my guide always told me to get the Mascot dressphere, I couldn't get an Episode Complete! in Bevelle; I had to have Episode Concluded, or something crazy like that. But, even if it's frustrating, I'm still working towards it. Turns out I needed to beat that Becklem guy at Gunner's Gauntlet, too, which I'd never bothered to do. XD

Hmm, let me look up his name!
I believe it's Hashman, from the 90th floor in the Ridorana Cataract. Right before you get to fight Gabranth.

The highest I've ever gotten is 97%! And Ifrit, if you side with New Yevon with the sphere in Chapter 2, the highest you can get is the 99%.

Oh, yeah, I know you can get 100% story completion in one playthrough (I did), but you basically need a guide to do it. The majority of people are gonna need a guide because there's no hints or anything on how to do it. Fair enough, it can be good replay value for different things to happen in the story, like if you choose New Yevon over the other, etc, but you should still be able to achieve 100% story without having to start a new game, especially when you're on something infuriating as 99.9! That's when it becomes crap replay value; it's not fun forcing yourself through a game like that again just to go speak to someone at a certain point in time, then playing all the way through to view the secret ending.

Sorry to drag on that a little much. I just think it's poor design lol.

Hmm, was that a secret boss? I don't remember too much about FFXII's bosses as I only played it the once. Did enjoy it very much though.

New info on FFXIII-2 recently but a bit of spoilers so won't share. Easy enough to find online if you're bothered. I wish I could blackout on the game, but just can't help myself. Hype level goes up the more I see (even if I am worried about how much Lightning gameplay there'll be and the monsters in your battle party). Looks really impressive now.

Looks gorgeous, I do wish I had a PS3 sometimes, maybe I should get one for Christmas, then get FF XIII and then XIII-2 next year.

Do it. End of.

Whoa, Square have registered FFXIII-3.com

http://whois.domaintools.com/finalfantasyxiii-3.com

I'm actually happy with this.

So I'm guessing they might be planning a Final Fantasy XIII trilogy box set in the future.

I was thinking of getting Ico HD collection since both Ico and SoTC on PS2 cost £18 and upwards these days. Apparently the controls for Ico aren't brilliant.

Aren't brilliant on PS2 or 3? I'll pick them up on PS3 eventually too.

Yeah, the Game trailers review knocked back both for the controls since the PS3 version is just a port in HD, nothing besides that has changed.

Hmmm... I wonder if they really do make a XIII-3 if it would get a Wii U version? Square went out of there way to be more multiplatform friendly this gen with FF XIII on the 360 and they loooove to port stuff. A Final fantasy XIII trilogy set on the next Nintendo console would be BOSS.

Not to mention it would really look good to the "hardcore gamer" crowd that Nintendo wants to get back. Besides, There hasn't been a proper numbered Final Fantasy entry on a Nintendo console since 6 and that was back in like, 1994.

I can definitely see it happening. They've said it would be about 2 years between XIII games. XIII-1 was 2009/10, XIII-2 is 2011/12, XIII-3 would be 2013/14. So I mean, I can see XIII-1 and 2 coming to Wii U in the first year as ports perhaps, and then the third eventually coming out at the same time as it comes for the other consoles.

A sort of XIII Trilogy pack would probably end up coming for all three consoles in the end.

There's supposed to be multiple endings in XIII-2, so it will be interesting to see the path XIII-3 goes down.

Oh lord.

FFX HD confirmed for both PS3 and Vita.

My life is almost complete.

I was kind of hoping for a FFX/XII collection. But X alone is cool too

It's to tie in with FFX's 10th anniversary. I expected a compilation of X, X-2 and XII too, but I think the good thing about doing FFX alone, at least first of all, is potentially they can put a lot of focus on making everything truly remastered. Not just a lick of HD paint, but really sort everything: widescreen for not just the game, but CG scenes too, maybe remaster the music, etc. I really don't want them to just make it a shoddy HD upgrade. If they're only doing FFX right now, then really do it properly, like the game deserves.

Course, you could argue that they could milk the series for more money by releasing each one separate. Although I doubt they'd release X-2 on its own. I'm just excited for X right now.

Would be great to have this in handheld form, but I'll be getting this on the PS3 for sure.

I want FFX-2 HD as well.

See? Square Enix looooves to port stuff!
This is great news. I never had a ps2 and never got to play FFX so I might pick this up eventually.

Is it just me, or are there others thinking the PS Vita may end up having one of the strongest launch title line-up of any system?

Possibly, though FFX won't be one of them.

Wonder if Square will add anything besides the HD upgrade?

Edit; Breaking news!

FFXIII-2's release dates;
15/12 Japan
31/1 USA/Asia
3/2 Europe

Not too much of a wait it seems!

( Edited 15.09.2011 04:05 by Phoenixus )

Nice console.

Read that date as 2nd of March and thought fucking hell. Then realised it's 3rd of Feb! Not too bad. Time to book holiday ;]

XIII's good so far, I'm a bit stuck on Odin but I think I'll figure it out, There's a gigantic amount of cutscenes, but I like the story. I find Vanille's voice a bit annoying because she sounds like a full grown woman trying to sound childish, but I can look past that.

Odin was a bit of a shitbag the first time around for me too.

I had the same opinion about Vanille. It's one of those voices again where you wonder why the hell can't we have believable voices in video games. But, after learning that the Japanese Square guys wanted Vanille's English voice to sound the same as the Japanese one, I began to enjoy her more for some reason. The fact she's supposed to sound like that made me tolerate her more, as strange as it might sound. Plus, the game's about fantasy, so stranger voices could be considered normal. But obviously the constant orgasms she has does become apparent XD

Glad you like the story anyway!

How you liking the battle system?
Who's your fave character so far?
Do you like Light?
What characters/paradigms do you like using the most?

Always curious to hear people's opinions on this game I love so much!

( Edited 16.09.2011 17:15 by Azuardo )

Got past Odin, was easy after using Supersoldier then using War & Peace then Slash & Burn or Duelcast.

I like the battle system, but don't like all of a sudden finding the leader's dead and I have to start from a save point, but it's not the only RPG that does it and if I get the strategy right, it never happens. Sometimes I accidentally switch Paradigms when I actually want to use an item, but that's just me, I'm sure I'll get used to it.

My favourite characters are Snow, Sazh and Light in that order, I think Snow's awesome I'm going to save everyone with my bare hand's attitude is pretty cool, and he's quite good in battle, even though he hasn't appeared much before.

Sazh is portrayed really well, he shows he's the oldest in the group from how he reacts to things and I like his will to keep going.

I like Lightning, she's serious but not overly serious, she's a strong woman (even though she's only 21), and I like strong women. she's the best character in battle and I actually like using Odin.

Vanille's really good in battle, I like her attitude in the story although she's really squeaky. Most of the time she sounds Australian, but then she does an American accent for certain words, but I ignore that. I usually use her as the Medic or Ravager.

Hope's sort of a douche, I see where he's coming from with what he saw happen as opposed to what really happened, but he's only just started to step up to the situation with Lightning. He's best as a Ravager in battle, although I do use all of his roles.

Since I'm forced to use certain characters at the moment, I can't say which combination I like the most, although the Paradigm I like using the most is Slash & Burn, I like using it because the Commando user keeps the Stagger bar going slow while the Ravager build it up, and when it's 3 characters I user Diversity.

I like building up the Crystariums, I've got Lightning at Level 2 Commando and Hope at Level 2 Ravager, with the others not far behind, I think it's better than FF XII's License board in some ways, because it keeps things simple and you don't have to constantly buy Magic. Plus the Upgradable weapon and armour system's pretty good although I don't like having to take ages switching from the shops to the upgrade part of the computers, they could've made it a bit more streamlined.

So yeah, overall it's a great game so far, seems like every 100 metres there's a cutscene, but that doesn't matter, I still like the story and the characters are believable enough, and atleast the cutscenes are skip-able, I'd have hated constantly seeing Odins and Shiva's cutscenes over and over after dying.

You only restart from the point of the battle you died at, which really isn't so bad, and a nice feature in an RPG, saving you from redoing tons of scenes/sections again. I also like the vast number of save points you come across, but XIII-2 goes one better by allowing save anywhere. I hadn't really realised it before but the XIII games have really upped the standards of console RPGs in that regard and should be in all games of this type.

You'll probably like Vanille a lot more in the end. If anything, she has the biggest character development of them all, and she was originally supposed to be the main character of the game. You'll see why eventually. Her VA is Australian, but at first I thought Vanille was English. In time I realised certain Aussie accents are very much a mold of English and American. Others aren't so American sounding, like Fang.

Agree on Hope. As the player knows the truth, it's a bit annoying to watch Hope's side of things sometimes, but it's a good part of the game when he plucks up his courage.

The level up and weapon systems are clearly much more streamlined in this FF than previous. Only having weapons and accessories, and levelling up on set paths make it really simple to do.

You might want to check out the link in my sig. It's the prologue to the game and the epilogue (so obvs read that one after beating it). But I'd actually suggest beating the game first, then reading the prologue, then maybe beating it again. I didn't know about the prologue the first time, and after reading it, it made me want to play the game again. I understood so much more second time through, and gained a much better appreciation of the characters and the story. A lot of stuff is revealed through the prologue that I'm surprised was never in the game. But that's how it is. Up to you really, but I would highly suggest reading it if you want to appreciate the story more. Quite a read though, so might take a few days to get through.

I played for 5 hours straight today, I'm on the rescue mission to get Vanille and Sazh, I really like the Lightning/Fang/Hope combo, it's really effective switching to Diversity when there's loads of enemies and then to relentless assault when I can handle it.

Yeah I ended up using that team for pretty much the rest of the game on my first play too. I think most people do. Covers pretty much everything.

Where you up to now, Stu? Wanna hear your thoughts on the game so far!

FFXIII-2 TGS 2011 Trailer
Spoilers, so don't watch if you ain't beat XIII. Held off not watching it myself for a few days, but then gave in. I haven't been reading up too much like before. It's starting to sound and look extremely good now, so I'm content with what I've seen and can probably back off safely knowing this is gonna be a damn good game.

Couple of new pointers from the game:
- you can change your leader in battle any time
- it's not game over if your leader dies

Again, the only things bothering me now are that it looks like it's strictly a Noel/Serah in battles affair, with monster helpers as your 3rd character, and the questionable amount of Lightning gameplay. Seeing as they have been pushing the game with tons of Lightning art and trailers, I'm hoping there's plenty of Light play in the game, but I'm unsure (and probably will stay that way till I play it myself). I'm hoping it's about half and half and that you all hook up in the final third of the game or something, along with other XIII characters.

Also, XIII-2 will have DLC:

Serah’s story will have downloadable content. Producer Yoshinori Kitase said at Tokyo Game Show they are making downloadable costumes, monsters, and weapons for Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Cutscenes are in real time, so you'll see costume change effects during scenes. Nice! At least there's the possibility that if there isn't enough Lightning story, they could always add more. I'm a sucker, so I'll buy. What's the betting costumes from the first game will be DLC too? Obvs.

( Edited 22.09.2011 09:28 by Azuardo )