(POLL) Final Fantasy XIII-2, will you be buying it?

[Runa216]

Zkuq said:

4. There are patterns... You just have to find them, probably by trial and error. But it should be pretty easy to find that organic components increase the exp multiplier but don't give much exp while more advanced components lower the exp multiplier but give tons of exp. It's not as bad as you make it sound but this is something that should definitely be better.

5. I've played the final battle two times without any accessories to protect against death, and I haven't had my party leader killed once by it. In fact, I could probably count the times the death strike killed someone with my fingers (from one hand, mind you). It's an issue but not as big as you say it is.

6. I didn't have a problem with this very often. There were a couple of enemies that had particularly powerful moves but overall, pretty much none of them were unavoidable. There are battles you know you have to be prepared for anything and in such battles, you should always be ready to switch to a defensive/restorative paradigm until you know what to expect. That way, I never had too much trouble with anything.

7. Have we played the same game? Most battles had the chance to turn ugly if I wasn't careful but you can prevent almost all deaths simply by being careful.

Personally I enjoyed how any battle could turn bad, how every encounter could be deadly and how careful I had to be at times. Too often I play games where I have no trouble unless I go completely reckless or where there are only a few boss fights that give me any trouble. It was refreshing to actually die because of my own mistakes.

Your Fallout/Mario examples are totally random. FFXIII doesn't have such moments.

I played the game with a group of 5 people, including myself.  We are all seasoned RPG veterans, and we all had considerable difficulty dealing with this game's battle system.  All of us complained about the same things, we all had issues with paradigm shifting, we all complained that the summon battles were broken, and we all had the end boss kill us multiple times.  I'm not saying it speaks for everyone (we're only 5 people), but when you find a game where your whole RPG crew agrees is shit for the same reasons (5 people who are seasons RPG veterans, I must remind you), then I think it may very well be shit. 

In the last couple generations I've seen gaming go downhill. Not in the "baww, developers aren't creative anymore!" way (though that's becoming more of an issue), but in the way that consumers are getting more and more lax with their standards.  a game with broken mechanics or cheap difficulty or shitty controls tends to not be criticised for this because people are willing to put up with the frustration and cheapness to complete the game, or get the story, or power through to say they beat it.  I dunno, maybe it has really good parts?  All I know is that this form of media is called "gaming", last I checked the "gameplay" section should be the most important.  That is why I refuse to play games that fail at this most basic and most important category.  

But I repeat, I do think that with some tweaks the game could be good, the same way Call of Duty would be great if they changed it so that you didn't instantly die from an unseen assailant in some missions.  I still won't much care for it (I actually didn't like the combat system, but that's a matter of preference not criticism), but if they fix it, I will deem it playable in my eyes and I will be content continuing to support the company.