What is wrong with Turn-Based Combat?

[Mirage]

There is some interesting data you can extrapolate from sequel sales, for sure. FFX sold 8 million copies, and 5 million out of those 8 million customers thought FFX-2 was worth getting. If they had hated the first game, I would assume they would not be interested in the sequel.

FF13 sold about 7.5 million. FF13-2 sold less than 3 million. LR of course, sold less than 1.5M.


What this tells me is that a lot more of those who bought FFX enhjoyed their experience compared to those who bought FFXIII.


To compare: Mass Effect sold 3.5 million copies. Mass Effect 2 sold 3.5 million copies across the two platforms ME1 was released on, then an additional 1.5 million on PS3.

edit: to clarify, these statistics do not include re-releases and trilogy collections, such as the ME Trilogy pack for PS3, or the FFX/X-2 re-release on PS3 and Vita.

[Forsaken Lover]

That's an interesting observation. Of course it need not be said that sales aren't everything. Metal Gear Solid 2 sold much better than Metal Gear Solid 3 but ask ten people which was a better game and 11 of them will tell you Snake Eater was better.

The funny thing here is that all I heard when XIII-2 was released was praise for how it fixed all the problems of XIII yet sales dropped off even more. It's perplexing.

[Fynn]

It's not, really, even if you consider the MGS thing (though I have not played this series yet, so I can't comment indetail), but it's like Mirage said. People who didn't like XIII, didn't buy XIII-2. A part of them may have been swayed by the changes they said they made, true, but the rest would give it a pass. Then some of those like XIII-2 enough to play LR. But looks like a lot of them were just done with the series by that point.

[Forsaken Lover]

Maybe they were like me and were just put off by smurfin' Lightning. I mean, I sort f like XIII and I really liked XIII-2 but I dreaded getting LR because it's a one character RPG and it's with my absolute least favorite character in the entire FFXIII universe.

I know "Lightning is so cool!" being forced down our throats annoys more than just me.

[Mirage]

That's an interesting observation. Of course it need not be said that sales aren't everything. Metal Gear Solid 2 sold much better than Metal Gear Solid 3 but ask ten people which was a better game and 11 of them will tell you Snake Eater was better.

The funny thing here is that all I heard when XIII-2 was released was praise for how it fixed all the problems of XIII yet sales dropped off even more. It's perplexing.

Well, the MGS situation isn't as similar, because FF 10 and 13 are both the first installments on a new generation, and their sequels are both direct chronological sequels. MGS 2 and 3 are both on PS2, and the events of 3 do not take place after, or depend on the events in 2. There are overarching themes and and some degree of continuity in the Metal Gear universe, but they're not nearly as tightly connected as FFX/X2, FF13/13-2 and ME1/2.

[Forsaken Lover]

Yeah but who knew that when they bought MGS3? I know people who still thoughti twas Solid Snake in the game.

I'm not disagreeing with your point. Sales going down after MGS2 is more of what you said for XIII because people were disappointed by both games and thus didn't care about the next installment.

Also I would think ME3 has the most sales of the trilogy since it's coming off 2, the absolute best ME game.

[Mirage]

It's the best, but these games aren't the kind of games that people just jump straight into without playing them in order. At least I would never do that, or recommend it to people wanting to get into it.

Also was there ever any confusion over when MGS3 was gonna take place? I know people were fooled into thinking Snake was the main playable character in 2, but I never thought it was gonna be that guy in 3. It took place in the 60s, and solid snake existing before he was born would have been an impossibility.