At least mgs cutscenes were decent. Real men's cutscenes. Final fantasy has gone into sparkly prom dress vacuousness Plus you just tap x to fight
http://slickdeals.net/f/3980848-Final-Fantasy-XIII-2-Collector-s-Edition-PS3-Xbox-EB-games-Gamestop-59-99 this and pre-ordering Xenoblade and Last Story... I just don't know!! :/
Very different from FFXIII. The freedom is evident right from the started, already done a side mission of sorts. O and my first control input took no more than 5 minutes so bang goes the 40 minute theory.
So would you say it's better than FF13 from what you've played? One of the main criticisms I've heard of 13 was that the whole thing was on rails. I'm actually not a Final Fantasy hater despite my earlier mocking. FF 3/6 on the SNES is one of my favorite games, and I thought 10 on the PS2 was pretty decent.
The battle system from XIII still exists and is a bit naff but the return of towns and random battles as well as branching paths is immediately noticeable. About 2 hours in and don't feel like I am being led on rails as I was with its predecessor. I find myself using more strategy in the battles than I did in 13 so perhaps it has had a few tweeks.
4 hours have disappeared in no time, so much better than 13. Just got the ability to rewinfd time to solve puzzled which I think may get complicated but we shall see how I get on.
It is time travel based and is OK. The time travelling might not be everyone's cup of tea but it seems to have captured my imagination more than 13 did.
My impressions now that I have spent 10+ hours with this game. Having more freedom for exploration is a massive plus and finding quests/missions from NPC's give you something extra to do. You don't feel like you are being forced down a corridor like you did in FFXIII. The game reminds me in a way of FFX-2 in the way it is set out, you have a mission and you choose which are you need to go to next to get that done. Some people may not like the way this is set up but it has been the same since FFX when you think about it. Once you got the airship you just pointed to where you wanted to go on a list and pressed X. The difference being that you explored everywhere on foot first in FFX. I think the time hopping story means that they didn't really have much choice as you can't exactly stroll from one time period to the next, you find a gate, you jump in and find a new area unlocked in the historia crux. One thing I have noticed that I find a little disappointing is that there isn't a massive amount of different areas. There are probably 11 or 12 different areas but each one has 2, 3 or 4 different time periods. I guess with it being a sequel and not a full blown number they didn't want to put tons of money into creating a whole new world. The battle system is still a bit naff but when I think about it it isn't too different from older FF games. You never really had to do anything other than simply attack and heal in normal battles and it was only boss battles where you had to use some strategy. The boss battles are probably where it is a bit of a let down compared to older games, before you would choose what spells to cast and when, here you just choose a paradigm and let them do the work. The wound system does my head in, all bosses seem to be able to wound you and it means they become a race against time. When an enemy or boss does a wounding attacking you maximum HP drops so normal curing won't ever get you back to full health. Like in FFXIII the boss battles are long and I find myself just winning by the skin of my teeth because my max HP has been dropped down to nearly 100HP by that point. I think there is an item that cures this but I can't remember what it is and it would seem a pain to have to keep using it in battles. So far I have bumped into Snow and Hope but no sign of Sazh and with Vanille and Fang holding up Cocoon I don't expect to see them as you only seem to go forwards in time, not back which is a massive shame. There are 160 fragments to collect so I expect the game to last me little while in that respect but the mini games in the casino didn't seem all that well done. I didn't manage to win anything more than a few coins in god knows how many spins on the slot machines and the chocobo racing seems a lot more complicated than it was in FFVII. The woman who gives you special abilities based on how many fragments you have collected seems a nice idea however. Weapons are definitely easier than they were in FFXIII. You can still collect components to build new ones with different boosts but at the same time you can just buy stronger ones from the shop. Levelling is a lot more basic than it was in FFXIII but you still have to choose which role to put your CP into. Both main characters seem to get different move sets in each role, so Noel might get stronger Wind spells in ravager whereas Sareh gets stronger fire so you have to bare than in mind when fighting enemies weak to certain elements. As my third member I tend to keep Cait Sith as my 3rd party member in all paradigms so that I always have a healer. I tried having a ravager or a commando but I found myself getting my head kicked in quickly, especially if an enemy can wound. I don't think it helps that your defence doesn't seem to increase with levels, just attack and HP so enemies still do the same level of damage, just taking weaker enemies more hits to take you down. You have to do all of your defence stats with accessories and as I haven't increased my slots (chose extra roles and ATB first) I have been at an extra disadvantage to harder enemies such as behemoths so I will keep the healer 100% of the time for now. Overall I am enjoying it, it does seem more addictive than FFXIII was but it is still no FFIV, FFVII or FFIX, I hope to god they go back to a world map with FFXV but somehow I expect them to try something completely new again. EDIT: Just found out there is some Sazh DLC coming out this week and it looks ot be cheap. Gives you a new story to play as Sazh and if you beat it you can add him to your party apparently.