I decided to buy it since I am almost finished with XIII. For me, XIII is a very good game. I am enjoying it more than X that's for sure. XII was great, the best one I have played (but I only played those three so...).

Invader Zim = AWESOME! Any attempt to disagree will only result in TACO!

http://www.1up.com/news/op-ed-final-fantasy-xiii-2-end-beginning

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/39921/Questioning_the_vision_behind_Final_Fantasy_XIII2.php

I read bits of these, its a very critical look at Toriyama and Wantabte's writing ability.

would Christopher Nolan ever say: "(Time travel) This is more like a characteristic rather than a 'rule,' but, If you change the future, you change the past." it dosent bear thinking about how relaxed their ethos is to rules in storytelling. did Sakaguchi, Toriyama (Akira) and the other guy ever say this when they created the time travel design in Chrono Trigger...

i dont care if Toriyama or Wantabe need to go on a creative writing course; they have to look at this critically. its fine to have disagree, but there will be no FF series left to save, if this problem is not addressed.

i can understand some disagreements, but these claims are not unfounded. the writing in these games is not as good as when Sakaguchi was in charge. FF8 not included since he wasnt involved in that game, so it does show how this team came from that game into FF10, 10-2, Dirge of Cerberus, The 3rd Birthday and then FF13. (FF10 being the evident exception here because Sakaguchi did produce that game i believe).

it does also show in the juxtaposition of FF12's writing which is done by a completely different team; so by a comparasion i can see that there is a significant difference in the quality of the writing compared to FF13. and FF13-2 is not exempt from these problems according to a lot of reviewers.

At least put SPOILER ALERT!! xD

After 3-4 hours I'm enjoying this game. What a great opening sequence!! The story is fine to me so far. Monster recruting looks promising. Overall I think it has potential to be better than XIII. I rated XIII with a 7.8-7.9 or so, so it was a good game to me which was fun but nothing special.

LMAO, my heart sank until I actually thought about this for a moment!

I think those articles just highlight the disconnect between eastern writing styles & the average western fantasy fans level of comprehension. 13-2's story is far more intensive than 99% of western fantasy tales (including many western fantasy novels) & while XIII-2's story is at a quite standard level of complexity & 'quirkiness' for an eastern tale, it attracts tags like 'convoluted' or 'unfathomable' ot 'too vague/subtle' in the western worlds perception (just like X, XII & XIII did also). The FF series storytelling is maturing. X, X-2 XIII and the XIII's are far more intensive story & lore wise than earlier FF's like VII (which is basically just a modified space marine (or any genetically enhanced super soldier) story & very western styled overall) VI's (I love VI by the way so not hating on the game at all, but the story is not at the same level of intracacy as modern FF's) or IX (basically a disney level of storytelling & again quite western styled). Sakaguchi, while a great developer, made games with stories aimed at a far less mature portion of the eastern gaming market (and consequently greater accessability to those not used to that style of tale worldwide) than the current FF writers are aiming for. This is obviously just my perception of what is happening but having lived in Japan and having (Japanese) friends over there, this is what I personally have seen. Closing thoughts, I'd recommend playing XIII-2 for yourself & see what you think. I Imported it from Japan AND bought the English language version & don't regret either purchase (though I am yet to begin the english version)

I can't comment on XIII-2's story as I've not played it, probably won't, but I've played most the other you mention above. I think your perception on the stories is lost in the main characters and not the underlying story itself. In the games, all main characters start as the player does, a clean slate with little information known and as the story progresses the player and main character learns more about the world and the story within, the main characters don't need to know that information at the start as they've never had too. In VII, it's not about a soldier, it's about 3 parties, one trying to exploit the planet's resources for money, one trying to exploit the planet's resources for power and one party trying to stop both of them, character history behind this is to develop relationships and give more reason to the character's choices and goals.

In the case of XIII, we went into the game knowing little again but the main character knew lots. They started talking about the Purge, I didn't know what that was yet, they did and talked like I did know, they then mentioned Fal'Cie and expected me to know what that was. Then they mention Pulse, a Pulse l'Cie, cocoon, all i can think is 'what?'. These aspects need to be explained in the gameplay, not in datalogs, by this thinking Bugenhagen's speech in VII would have been reduced to a datalog in XIII.

Maybe the underlying aspects of XIII's story flurished as it got going, more developments were explained and the surprises the Fal'Cie did along the way. To me it felt like it tried to be more then it was though, because of my lack of understanding at the start, I lost interest in the story, the reasons why my group of rejects were fighting and just played the game. This is not good story telling.

I haven't finished the entire game yet. I believe i'm at roughly 60-65% but so far I can say that critics are overstating the entire "it's all a paradox thing." While it is true that quite of the few problems in the game are related to this (and rightfully so because it is a game BASED on that). There are PLENTY more twists and turns to be found. I'm currently glued to the screen to see what happens next.

So I actually managed to bag myself a copy of ff13-2 for free =D so thought I would post my thoughts here.

It would be a MUCH better game than FF13.... if it wasn't a sequel to FF13. The weight of that game brings it down unbearably. I am only around a few hours in at the moment but it is ridiculous.

They re-write the ending of the last game and simply begin in an alternate reality without any reasoning given. The bad writing of FF13 has somehow got worse. Characters seem almost schizophrenic. In the space of a few minutes you will have people talking about events/ people as though they have known them their entire life, then suddenly acting like they know nothing about them, then back to knowing everything about them. This is all within one timeline/area as well.

The dialogue is beyond painful. In the space of a few hours I have cringed sooooooooooooo many times. Brilliant dialogue choices such as ''How many years since it fell?'' ''Well it's 3AF so that means it is 3 years'' (AF stands for after fall). ''You need to believe in yourself!''

The writers seemingly are totally unaware of how they wrote the characters in the first game. Snow and Serah were portrayed as madly in love. In this game she refers to him as a 'good friend' and they are apart because........hmmmm

Noel's character and world seem quite interesting however they feel totally shoe horned into the FF13 world.

Why the game wasn't simply a new entry is baffling. It's such a muddled mess with no reason to exist in the 13 world.