Review: Final Fantasy XIII-2

Final Fantasy XIII-2

PS3 (reviewed), Xbox 360

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix

Release Date: 31 January 2012

JRPGs have suffered this console generation. The heavy hitters in the genre have moved to hand-helds (like Dragon Quest IX) or were met with fan backlash and derision (like Final Fantasy XIII). The problems facing XIII-2 were daunting: the original was blasted for being too linear, not having shops, taking way to long to open up into the larger world, having a weak story/characters (I disagree on this point) and having a battle system that was innovative, but also frustrating. The producer of the game, Yoshinori Kitase, promised to rectify the issues fans raised about the first game and deliver a sequel that not only made apologies for the first game, but expanded and improved on the game. I was worried, but after playing through, I can safely say, “Apology accepted, Square Enix.”

Serah, Mog and Noel traipse through time

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Demo Inbound

I'm looking forward to this demo.  Coming 10 January to US PS3 owners and 11 January to Xbox360 players, SquarEnix has announced a fully-playable demo.  The SquarEnix Blog had a small post about it here.

I was rather excited about this game.  The directors went to pains in multiple interviews to say that fan issues from FFXIII had been heard and everything was fixed.  There has been the addition of towns, shops, more side-quests and less linear-hallways to run down.  That sounds good.

Where, for me, it started to go south was when gameplay was really shown.  It looks to be a shorter game, with an emphasis on New Game + stuff.  While that may be fine, the core mechanic of capturing monsters caught me off guard.  I'm not sure if I want a Poke-Fantasy game, but that may surprise me.  The other downer has been the music.  Normally, I love the music in any Final Fantasy game, but some of these tracks...well....

The chocobo theme (a boss encounter)

At any rate, check out the trailer below.  I'm going to get the demo next week and see if this game floats my boat.

News Roundup: 18 December 2011

Last news update before Christmas!  And with that comes one last plea for those of you who can to donate to Child's Play!  A few stories after the jump.  It's mostly quiet as we head into the Holiday Week, but come January, it all picks back up!  Have a great week, everyone!