Final Fantasy XIII-2

To say I’m having mixed feelings about Final Fantasy XIII-2 would be an understatement. It seems like they took the fans criticisms to heart, and brought back some of the staples that many people loved about Final Fantasy games in the past. Sounds good right?

I know I was in the minority when I said that I didn’t mind the corridors in Final Fantasy 13, the story was compelling enough to encourage me to push forward. My playthrough was 50 hours without the need to dilute the experience with aimless exploration. What appears to have happened is that they bring back exploring by way of hiding fragments within various sandboxes. You don’t explore a world at all, you explore small segments of a world and you can select which segment you want to explore via the ‘Historia Crux’. The Historia Crux feels like a Super Mario world map, as you get through areas you unlock new ones to explore. Here’s the thing, this is not the type of exploration that Final Fantasy is known for, it’s kind of a joke. I’m sure later in the game when it makes sense to revisit some of these areas because they have changed due to your actions it might be a little more engaging but as it stands now I feel this ‘addition’ has taken away my primary motivation in FF games, that is to say the story suffers.

While there is an over arching story that has Serah searching through time to find her sister, each of the areas in the Historia Crux feels like its own episode. Like any piece of episodic content, there will be good and bad parts, but in many cases you’re left with one piece of information to advance, or flesh out the over arching story. The problem with this in my mind is that the sub-plots here feels like most of these are insignificant or forgettable so far. I’m still early on so maybe this will improve with time but there isn’t a ton of motivation for me in this game.

There have been some neat changes to the paradigm combat system, first is the fact that you only have 2 characters to develop, to fill out the group however you get to add 3 monsters to your deck. Each monster has 1 of the classes assigned to them, so you get a little bit more control over which classes are available to you, provided that you have monsters of the type you’re looking for. Monsters are levelled up via the crystarium system just like the character, however instead of earning CP, they progress by using specific items that you can find or buy to level. The combat itself feels a little more reactive, or rather, you have less time to react, and it’s more about watching the opponents animations, it’s sort of neat but I’m not totally used to it yet.

I’m not going to talk about the Crystarium system at the moment because I don’t really feel like I understand it. Suffice to say it is different from the last game, in that you don’t seem to have separate crystals per class and it isn’t nearly as obvious what you’re getting when you spend your CP in the new system. I hope this makes more sense later but it just feels like clicking buttons at this point.

You know, despite all that, I’m still having some fun here, and I’m going to continue playing, I just unlocked the casino before turning in last night, and it’s just as tiresome as it was in FF7. I’m hopeful that some of this stuff evolves pretty soon though particularly the story.

I was updating my wishlist (in the panel on the right there) and I noticed of how good the next couple months are going to be, and I’m not sure how it is going to play out.

At this point, I more or less spend all of my game time, live on twitch channel, the only exception is if I only have a few minutes, (which at this time I spend with Binding of Isaac, or a turn or two with Total War Shogun 2), and to be honest, I love it, we’ve had some awesome people coming through hanging out and chatting about games it really does provide me with a new vehicle to talk about the games I’m playing, and in most ways it is much better than the blog because it’s interactive, and spontaneous and that’s awesome, but it puts me in a bit of a hard spot when it comes to how I allocate my game time. Most of the time I feel compelled to play something through to completion before moving on to the next thing, and I think next month I may run into issues doing that because I tend to play new releases and this is really the first time since I started casting that I’m going to hit a game that is going to run me into a new release of a game that I’d really like to play where it’s not really possible to get through it.

I have high hopes for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, it seems like an action rpg that hits all the right notes with me, I’m expecting good story, good character development (in terms of ability), and skill based action combat, all in a (seldom used) colorful cartoony setting. It’s a direction I’d like to see some more RPGs go and so I really hope this game does well even if it’s not flawless.

Reckoning will be quick on the heels of a Final Fantasy XIII-2 release that I’ve been waiting for (talking about on my stream a lot). When I finished with FF13 I didn’t feel as though I was done with that world (even after finishing a second playthough of the game on the stream), and despite its well documented shortcomings I enjoyed. It sounds like some of that stuff has been addressed in a not so meaningful way, and they sort of threw some systems on top of it to sate the masses of FF fans who were offended by its last release, but to be honest, I don’t know that I’ve ever hated a final fantasy game (I totally avoided 10-2, that might have been the one that breaks this statement), for me it’s always been the story that pushes me through the many hours of content, and I expect there to be a good story here, but with ‘sequel expectations’ I imagine it will be a little watered downed (this is total speculation on my part, I haven’t heard a thing that actually suggests that is the case).

I recently replayed FF13 on stream to get ready for this release, and there was quite a few viewers that were around for the most of it, I expect some of them will be back for 13-2, and if you’re not one of those people you should be! Come hang out and watch me get my ass kicked

In any case, the point is, I may be doing a little switching between Reckoning and FF13-2 depending on my mood, if it doesn’t work I’ll likely just stick with one and go back aftewards (and probably start over). With any luck I’ll have them both done by the time Mass Effect 3 releases and we won’t have any further issues. On that note, my Mass Effect 2 refresher run is in progress, and will continue tonight! Come on by my twitch channel and hang out!

Hey folks,

Just wanted to pop and drop a note to let you guys know what’s been going on.

Since my last post, I’ve started and finished a Chrono Trigger (the PSN version) playthrough, which I streamed entirely on my twitch.tv channel. That game held up surprisingly well over the years and I had a great time playing (and casting) it. Though I will say this, the PSN version is less than ideal, there is some unexplainable delays when going into/out of combat that were quite annoying especially considering how often you go into and out of combat. Story is great, music is awesome, and the gameplay is classic.. it’s well worth your time if you’re into rpgs and you’ve skipped it or forgot it (like I did).

I started a Darksiders replay, that game is still pretty fun though, if I recall the first half is much better than the last half, so we’ll see if I get through it all again, I’ll likely consider this my ‘refresher run’ for Darksiders 2 which is due out in June.

I’m also continuing my Final Fantasy 13 refresher run, I’ll be pushing pretty hard on this one since 13-2 is out in NA on the 31st. I’m in Chapter 11 at the moment, so I don’t have all that much further to go but I’ve run into some pacing problems that come with skipping all of the sidequests so I spent most of the night last night struggling through encounters which ultimately lead to a serious amount of backtracking and grinding.

Tonight will be a bit special though! I’ve got a copy of Rayman Origins scheduled to arrive today so the gf and I may coop cast through some of that tonight assuming that I can get things setup in my living room which I haven’t done before so… Technology permitting, that is the plan. Follow my twitch channel (linked above) to get notified when we go live, I’d guess early this evening (eastern) we’ll get started. Here’s a bit of a preview, I’ve never been so frustrated with her as I was playing Super Mario Bros Wii coop. I assume there will be much face palming and much frustrated grunts and groans and some ‘hurry the eff up’s and some ‘COME ON!’. It should be fun