What Should they Keep/ What should go?

[nirojan]

This site (among many others) has been very critical about FINAL FANTASY XIII. So as a fan, list the things they should keep and the things that shouldn't grace the sequel! So basically if you were to talk directly to the dev team, what would you tell them?:

What I want to see:
-Keep the Combat System (one of the most intuitive of the series)
-Introduce new characters/ bring back some other characters (ie. like serah)
-Have it end in a way to open up the Fabula Nova Crystallis universe so we actually have a story-relation when playing the Type-series and VERSUS XIII (other than the "vague crystal theme")


What should Change:
-Linearity; seems like FF fans like the illusion of non-linear cities, so give it to them
-Closed maps; Liked what they were doing with the open areas in Pulse. Now they need to do that with Cocoon (ie. open up different districts/ different areas) like how Midgar was in VII.
-Bosses; Make better bosses. More variety and more difficult
-NPCs; SERIOUSLY SQUARE!!!! And not just small banter as we pass them. We should get Full on conversations VOICED!
-Side Quests; Get rid of the floating Cieth stones, introduce NPCs that hand out quests or a hub to get quests!
-Difficulty; ramp up the difficulty earlier in the game. It seems alot people just button-mashed X until they got bored and stopped playing after the first few chapters. It was that easy! I realize they wanted to get people used to the system, but that's a major turn off for the RPG crowd.

Have a lot more, but can't think of @ the moment. Add your thoughts!

[LunarWeaver]

No more "Party leader dies so the game is over" horsecrap would be pretty sweet.

[Dreddz]

Keep the battle system and soundtrack. Change just about everything else.

[DMKA]

- Let me customize my party earlier than the 20 hour mark
- Let me use all my party members during battle
- Let me be able to bring my leader back to life instead of ending the game
- Let the equipment system be somewhat interesting, please
- Let the victory fanfare and prologue/prelude themes be incorporated in some fashion if at all possible
- Let me backtrack
- Let me have at least a few sidequests and towns to waste time in to break the monotony
- Let the cheesy monologues be kept to a minimum

I'd be pretty happy otherwise.

[Roogle]

Have there been any recent announcements about the addition or deletion of features in Final Fantasy XIII-2 yet?

I would love to see the option to change characters in the middle of a battle. I find that to be a great option that adds flexibility to any battle engine.

[DMKA]

Have there been any recent announcements about the addition or deletion of features in Final Fantasy XIII-2 yet?

I would love to see the option to change characters in the middle of a battle. I find that to be a great option that adds flexibility to any battle engine.

I loved the way FFX did it personally. I'd like something similar to that.

[Nebulance]

What should Change:
-NPCs; SERIOUSLY SQUARE!!!! And not just small banter as we pass them. We should get Full on conversations VOICED!
-Side Quests; Get rid of the floating Cieth stones, introduce NPCs that hand out quests or a hub to get quests!


+1!

This bugged the bejeezus out of me -- that I couldn't have any 'real' conversations with anyone! I mean, at least something on the order of FFX -- just the fact that I could get 5-7 lines of fresh dialogue on each character I talked to was really great. Not like in FFXIII, where you had to repeatedly walk into them to get them to react. That was annoying. Interaction through pressing 'X' made a lot more sense.

[magemasher]

I would like to see,

A mini-game or two.

More exploration.

Less save points.

Healing out of battle, so no auto healing after each battle.

I also would like to see Hope's completion of puberty so he doesn't sound/behave like a whining man child.


They should definately keep the battle system.

As ( i assume) the charecters are not fugitives there is no excuse for a linear 2 button game. ff13 could of been amazing so I hope the 2nd helping lives up to potential.

[ShinGundam]

Have there been any recent announcements about the addition or deletion of features in Final Fantasy XIII-2 yet?
1- Toriyama has said that the traveling system has been completely redone, as the team is trying to create a "truly living world, with lots of people living all the way to the far corners of the game."

2-The game is also said to be more fantasy-oriented as opposed to the futuristic feel of its predecessor.

[Hollycat]

mini games. so far only ff13 and ff12 havent had any real mini games (okay twelve had like 2, but those dont count because they were short and lame) and so far those are probably the 2 (console) games that have sold the worst. (Im not counting any of the pre 3d games in this, although ff4, ff5, ff3, had mini games added to later versions)

[nirojan]

mini games. so far only ff13 and ff12 havent had any real mini games (okay twelve had like 2, but those dont count because they were short and lame) and so far those are probably the 2 (console) games that have sold the worst. (Im not counting any of the pre 3d games in this, although ff4, ff5, ff3, had mini games added to later versions)

uhh might wanna check your numbers on that one.

Top 10 Selling Square Enix Games (includes pre-merger Square soft and Enix games)

1. Final Fantasy VII (10 million, includes Final Fantasy VII International)
2. Final Fantasy X (6.6 million)
3. Final Fantasy XIII (6.3 million, Includes ps3&360 versions)
4. Final Fantasy VIII (6 million)
5. Final Fantasy XII (5.6 million approximately: 2.4 million in Japan, 1.7 million in US, 1.1 million in Europe; 5.2 million shipped)
6. Kingdom Hearts (4.68 million approximately: 3.45 million in US, 1.23 million in Japan; 5.9 million shipped)
7. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (4.44 million approximately: 3.6 million in Japan, 410,000 in Europe, 430,000 in North America; 4.7 million shipped)
8. Dragon Warrior VII (4.12 million)
9. Kingdom Hearts II (3.89 million approximately: 2.03 million in US, 1.16 million in Japan, 700,000 in Europe; 4 million shipped)
10. Dragon Warrior III (3.8 million in Japan)

no worries dude, us VIIz are still on top! :)

[Hollycat]

excuse me, I meant to say, went over the worst

[nirojan]

excuse me, I meant to say, went over the worst

You must have grammatical intellect beyond me, because I have no clue what that means lol! Relax, VII is still on top and that's all that matters :D!!

[Hollycat]

I like 9 better, and cc even better

[Slothy]

I can't really think of anything I'd like to see them keep. But they desperately need to get rid of the soundtrack, the linearity, the battle system which is easily the least engaging I've seen in any rpg, and hire someone who knows how to write. They should be off to a good start then if nothing else.

[DMKA]

Like every Final Fantasy game, no matter what they do, no one on EoFF will be admittedly pleased with it except the people who play it a year after it comes out. :p

[Hollycat]

there hasnt been one ff Ive played within a year of its release

[nirojan]

Okay got another one:

-Let us control more vehicles/Moving Fal'Cie!

I mean more than Hope's little tourage with that mech. Controlling the Rolling Fal'Cie or that owl that turns into a plane would be epic!

[WhiteStorm]

I can't really think of anything I'd like to see them keep. But they desperately need to get rid of the soundtrack

Blasphemy! The soundtrack is the only thing that is worth anything in this game. It is epic, flowing and beautiful even when the game itself fails miserably to be so.

[Arylett Dawnsborough]

Welp, I'd keep the music, characters, story, and the battle system. And also, I must be one of the few who liked having my party members chosen for me for most of the game. (Because I really suck at choosing and decisions.) So I'd like for that to be kept as well.

And get rid of the extremely long dungeons. I mean, usually I don't feel fatigued when I play a game for a long amount of time. But to continue going down a corridor forever and ever endlessly... it gets old fast and FFXIII is one of those few games I can't play for more than two hours. So less linearity, yes. And more NPCs as some had said. Back to the old FF tradition of cities with NPCs and also?

BRING BACK THE AIRSHIP.

Seriously. A free-range roaming airship where you can fly across all over the map. The last FF to do that I think was IX, so I'd like to see that again.

On the difficulty, I would like to see them even it out a little more. The game got really tedious and hard for me at around Chapter 10. It's like it jumps up all of a sudden and does not let up. So I'd like for them to make the game get gradually harder instead of the difficulty jumping up all of a sudden and 1,000 CP suddenly barely doing anything to level up your characters. Seriously, it was ridiculous how slow I leveled up when I got to Chapter 10.

Oh and I think they should cut down the size of Gran Pulse and allocate that to Cocoon cities.

[silverjunky]

They should obviously expand the world and available areas to explore, in a much broader way than the first game (which it sounds like they are doing anyway).

They need to completly scrap or update the crystarium leveling system, or at least take away the forced caps on levelling, that was my biggest bugbear, that each chapter you could only level up so far and NO further. It seemed like the game developers were forcing you to the play the game only as they wanted, which for an rpg is appaling.

And also scrap or completly overhaul the weapons/armour levelling thing.

And change the freaking stingy gil thing, this game was like the worlds strictest and meanest bank who would only give you money if you WORKED for it by slaying uber turtles!! And the only way to kill them was to level up a LOT, including your equipment, which is what you wanted the money for in the first place arrgghhh the irrational logic hurts!!!!!

And enough with the forced and completly unbalanced party setups, vanille and sazh, compared with lightning and hope, hello!! The former way underpowered and annoying, the latter too easy.

I could go on but i need to breathe....

[Del Murder]

Yeah, I think replacing the crystarium and weapon upgrade system with something better would be the best change they could make.

I didn't think the music was that bad. Better than XII at least.

[Jiro]

Oh and I think they should cut down the size of Gran Pulse and allocate that to Cocoon cities.

I didn't think Gran Pulse was really that big. It had a couple of areas and then just the huge plain which was so fucking empty that it felt like forever to cross it. I'm pretty sure the one of the desert areas in XII would cover the same amount of area. It's just so open that it looks and feels bigger than it is.

I hate wandering across that freaking plain.