The responses in this thread are pretty funny. If only someone would develop a satire meter already.

What?

I believe you're confusing what a spin-off is and what a sequel is about.

FFXIII, FFvXIII, FFXIII type-0. Each one of these games have started production at the sametime. The three games have very little in common. While they share a title, they will each tell a different story with different characters. The only similarity they share are the mythos that involves the crystal, and the gods. As crystals play an important role in all three stories, the Fabula Nova Crystallis (New Tale of the Crystal) games are designed to echo the original themes of the franchise, while simultaneously taking it in a different world.

The whiny emo kid who matures- *cough* Tidus *cough*

the Stereotypical Black comedian who's just hiding his sorrow about losing his kid- *cough* Barret Wallace *cough*

  the hero who learns the hard way that being a hero is hard- *cough* Cloud Strife *cough* *cough* Squall Leonhart *cough* *cough* Vaan *cough*

Mysterious badass turns out to be a heartless bitch - *cough* Scarlet *cough*

  kooky spice turns out to be more than she appears- *cough* Yuffie Kisaragi *cough* *cough* Rikku *cough* *cough* Eiko Carol *cough*

 and the main character is just a cloud wannabe "I was in the military until they clashed with my values, so I went rogue."- That's the point, Lightning is meant to be a female counterpart to Cloud.

So, tell me again, in effect, you are trashing the entire Final Fantasy series, due to the fact that characters similar to these have all appeared, some even multiple times, in past Final Fantasy games. Huh.

As for my thoughts on the game itself, well, see Griffin's.

Go die in a hole.

Do I want to walk through this?

Or this?

It will be the direct sequel to the best JRPG of this gen. How couldn't you be excited ?

I'm sure it will be as excellent as FFXIII already was.

They're making a Blue Dragon 2?

I was going to say Tales of Vesperia, but that works as well. 

I'm just excited its even coming out, With Atelier Meruru and Stacking (and at a long shot hyperdimension neptunia) being the only games that interest me in the first half of this year it will be good to have something to offset the dullness being dished out on the new game (non remake) front for the year.

and Meruru is a gamble, its not even out yet, but I can't imagine it will be bad

On the other hand this years release schedule so far is making the remakes look awfully good

Looks like this game, Tomb Raider and FF type 0 will be the only intended (non lack-of-games-boredom induced) 2nd half purchases for me, should be 3 top quality games though (provided the new TR doesn't "accidentally" become a shooter).

XIII-2 will be a day one purchase for sure, and I already expect it to be my game of the year (being that I loved XIII and I am a major FF fan)

No No No...

1 - Tidus was not JUST a whiny emo kid (he wasn't even that).  He was a famous person growing up in the shadow of his more famous father.  he had to deal with his father/son issues while also dealing with the realities of this new world and he actually changed thanks to the events of the game.  There was multiple levels there.  Hope literally was that whiny brat who misinterpreted something, was whiny and emo about it for most of the game, until the time came to act, he had to mature and realize it wasn'tworth it.  that was the FULL EXTENT of the character, whereas Tidus was Freud's dream. 

2 - Barret had LOADS of history with the other characters as well as the villains.  he has REASONS for being the way he was, and you often see through to how tortured he REALLY is.  With Sazh, you see him being silly and kooky, but you find out he's only tagging along becuase his son was taken.  While I agree Barret may not be the deepest character, he's leagues deeper than Sazh. 

3 - I won't even bother with all the subtle nuances about Cloud, his past, his identity issues, his rivalries and cold nature.  Squall was a moody teenager who, through the events of the game, actually CHANGED.  the people in your party, his rivals, and eventual loves actually changed him greatly.  snow was just a generic wannabe hero who realizes that *gasp* bein a hero is hard!  I honestly can't think of more to say about him.  I could write a whole essay on Cloud or Squall.  Vaan was admittedly boring as hell, though.  Vaan was Aladdin in Star Wars Episode 1.  I loved that game for its setting, story, combat, and explorative gameplay, not the characters. 

4 - ... Not even gonna bother anymore.  The point is that all Final Fantasy games had characters that had deep and wide development arcs, intricate backstory, and personal motives.  While some were simple on the surface (Barrett, Vaan), they actually had depth and backstories.  When I can sum up an entire character ark for Lighting or Sazh or Snow in a single paragraph, that's not deep. Hell, I just finished Final FantasyIV for the first time, and EVERY character had a disctinct reason to help you, there was a connecting theme, there were relationships and backstories to explore.  Hell, even Tidus, a universally loathed character, had more depth than ALL of the characters in XIII combined.  I could write an essay on any character from VI.  

while there's no denying I may just be biased becuase I LOATHED XIII, the fact is that I spent 45 hours of my life trying to like it.  every step of the way I wanted to remind myself how AWESOME it was becuase I've been such a longtime fan of the series and I certainly didn't want to become 'that guy' who hates something irrationally.  Much as I hoped and tried to force myself to like XIII, The characters were BORING as sin.  There was nothing interesting or memorable about any of them, even the costume design was as generic as it gets.  

I wish I had a different opinion than this, I hate hating games, but there were no redeeming values in the game, especially not the characters.  the world and the lore was supposedly really deep and I found it somewhat interesting, but I'm not reading an in-game history textbook to learn about it all.  that's not a good game,  that's not even a good book.  Every previous FF game was able to make me care about the characters and get involved, there's no excuse why this one does not.  they have some of the best writers and some of the best skilled people working in the gaming industry, this was a joke.