Final Fantasy XIII-2 - "Toriyama Waifu Chronicles"

[madammina]

No word if it's Pulse, Cocoon, or both?

I am glad the party is reappearing, at least in some capacity.

[White-Light]

No word if it's Pulse, Cocoon, or both?

I am glad the party is reappearing, at least in some capacity.

Well if we are learning more about what happened in the background of FF13 I would guess both possibly, but this is just a guess of course.

I would hate it if they didn't appear in some form in the game.
Will it be most characters or just a select few we will see?

[madammina]

(checks old info)

It just says "old characters" not necessarily the cast. But as the Cast was pretty much the only people we dealt with...

[White-Light]

True
But then again ugh barthandelus may somehow make some strange return -_- or some of the minor characters like team Nora or something

[madammina]

Hope and his dad please. ^_^ I would like to see them fully make up.

[Faris]

I really hope there is a party again. Hopefully with some new characters to replace some of the original cast.

[The Reaver]

The argument that the battle system is bad because it has "auto-battle" in it [this is not your argument but one I see leveled against this game that I wanted to bring up here] and therefore it's fighting the battles for you is a moot point. When you select this option, you are adding commands pertinent to your Paradigm to your ATB bar. It does this because of the frantic pace that some battles can reach, and I think that stocking commands manually during certain battles would be FAR more annoying than hitting X to reload your commands in the ATB. Just because it's called auto-battle doesn't mean it's automatically doing the fight for you. You're still choosing commands and you're still choosing your targets. THIS IS NOT AUTO-BATTLE. Unfortunately, I think the poor nomenclature used by Square-Enix North America is to blame for some of this feeling, while the rest is just haters gonna hate.

I'm not seeing your argument here. "Auto-battle" fits the description perfectly because the game picks the best commands for you, so the only tactics involved really are switching Paradigms. That isn't to say that the game doesn't require you to pick and choose commands at points (as a Ravager, Thunder is the fastest spell that casts, so it's usually better to fill your ATB bar with Thunders rather than use Auto-Battle), but Auto-Battle puts the game on easymode for the vast majority of the game. I also agree that it would be annoying to have to select commands every turn would be annoying, but the Repeat button makes that way easier.

Anyway, since XIII-2 is supposed to have an "evolved" battle system, what do you guys think they'll "evolve?" Here are some of my ideas:

• Enemies could be able to Stagger allies. Considering defensive maneuvers would therefore be significantly more important.
• The magic system was ridiculously bland. Most of the first-tier spells (Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, etc.) did the EXACT same thing, and the only reason you'd use one over the other is to cover weaknesses and resistances. Would be cool if they came up with more unique KH-style magic (like they could make Aero do damage around your character instead of being a projectile). On that note, I think the TP bar should be expanded and used more for unique character-based special abilities so that it works more like a mana bar in other games.
• I really wish they had put more emphasis on positioning in XIII. There were several AoE attacks in the game that you (or enemies) could avoid if you were far enough away from the impact point (for example, you can avoid Barthandelus's laser if you stand far enough to the side when he fires it), but you had no control over the placement of your leader, so trying to avoid those attacks was pointless. I think it would be cool if you could spend a whole ATB bar to move your party around. The way it would work is that you'd have Move as a fifth command (in addition to Auto-Battle, Abilities, Techniques, and Items), you'd pick the character you want to move, and the game goes into a top-down view where you can select where to move to. When the character's ATB bar is full, they move to the place you selected.
• In conjunction with the above, KH-style QTEs might work well. For example, if the boss is about to use a particular attack, you'd be able to press a button to trigger a short cinematic, after which the boss would be stunned briefly for you to chip away at its health. The QTEs could also depend on positioning (i.e., you can only use it if you're behind the boss and the boss uses the attack).

Those were some of my ideas. They're probably pretty bad and would never make it into the actual game, but whatever.

[White-Light]

Hope and his dad please. ^_^ I would like to see them fully make up.

Yes this ^ so much, I love hope and want to see the two of them together again.
Was it ever confirmed his dad is still alive though?

[madammina]

Apparently, yes. But he didn't appear in the ending.

[Theart]

I am glad the party is reappearing, at least in some capacity.

I myself have mixed feelings about it, personally. Lightning and Fang were both my two favorite characters of the main protagonists, and while Snow and Sazh were pretty cool, I hated Hope and Vanille to no end. Hope admittedly redeemed himself in the later parts of the game, but he's Number Three on the Top Ten Dorks of 2010 in this month's Game Informer for good reason (and I mean that in a bad way) In fact, here's the caption on him in the list.

A boomerang?! Of all the cool weapons in Final Fantasy XIII- guns, swords, gunswords- why does Hope choose a boomerang? Because he's an idiot, that's why. You can't expect much more from a twerp whose only forms of self-expression are whining and crying.

Now, again Hope DID redeem himself towards the end of the game, but I couldn't stand him for most of the game, and I flat-out hated Vanille from beginning to end. And I recall hating her more and more as time went on... -_-

[White-Light]

Well thats good. It would have been horrible for Hope to lose both his parents in such a short time. This just means they have to appear in some form hopefully.

[madammina]

I myself have mixed feelings about it, personally. Lightning and Fang were both my two favorite characters of the main protagonists, and while Snow and Sazh were pretty cool, I hated Hope and Vanille to no end. Hope admittedly redeemed himself in the later parts of the game, but he's Number Three on the Top Ten Dorks of 2010 in this month's Game Informer for good reason (and I mean that in a bad way) In fact, here's the caption on him in the list.



Now, again Hope DID redeem himself towards the end of the game, but I couldn't stand him for most of the game, and I flat-out hated Vanille from beginning to end. And I recall hating her more and more as time went on... -_-

Don't worry, I didn't like Vanille either. And I do have (some) defense of Hope, but I don't want this thread to devolve into a Pro Hope/Anti Hope deal.

[Theart]

Don't worry, I didn't like Vanille either. And I do have (some) defense of Hope, but I don't want this thread to devolve into a Pro Hope/Anti Hope deal.

Vanille was the worst character in the game, by far. -_-

As for Hope, it'd REALLY depend on how he's used in XIII-2, for me. If it's a repeat of what we saw in most of XIII? I'll forever hate him. If it's a continuation and development of that brief awesomeness we saw towards the end of the game? Then I'll be a fan of Hope. ^_^

[loke13]

Because he's an idiot, that's why. You can't expect much more from a twerp whose only forms of self-expression are whining and crying.

This comment pissed me of when I saw it.

And Hope's whining is justified no matter what anyone says the kid saw his mother die and then is almost immediately branded a fugitive and is being hunted down by his own government and is forced to join up with a group of strange people. His attitude towards Snow is also sensible in his interaction towards Hope especially when he saw that Snow (apparently) didn't give two freaks about getting his mom killed and the rest of the people.
I know that f I saw the man who I thought was responsible for my mom's death walking around happy as freak spouting off how great of a hero he was i'd want to tear his throat out. But still he gets over it and I like the more mature motivational Hope better.

[madammina]

(Plus, he should be better. Part of the issues was him yanked out of his peaceful life, watches his mother die in front of him, branded as a L'Cie (meaning everyone hates him now for no special reason), has a focus or turns to crystal (so he now has to worry about dying or... being whatever Ceith's are) and save the world. Oh, and while the guy who he thinks kills his mother makes a few cracks about it.

(note: hasn't beaten XIII yet. Copy is back home while I'm at school. I'll work on it at break)

Peaceful: Should be back to some extent. Not perfect, but better then XIII. Plus he has his dad.
Mom: Obviously still some work, but has a support system now.
L'Cie: Done, to some extent. I don't know if he'll be called back, but he shouldn't worry about that. Plus, people should be somewhat greatful.(and he can hide his brand)
Save the world: Done
Snow: Got over his issues.

I won't say he's perfect, but most of the issues resolved themselves.

(Plus, now he can get proper weapons training! Come on, you know that Boomerang was meant to be a toy up until the whole "Become a L'Cie" deal kicked in)

edit: Written before I saw Loke's comment.