Hidden side quests. Riiiight. They'll be so hidden, you'll swear they're not there at all!

New scans from GameInformer mag
http://gamenyusu.com/component/content/article/8-all-news/872-final-fantasy-xiii-2-gameinformer-scans.html

Click on the link above for more scans

@Bolded 1

You've described every FF I've played except FF4. I've played FF7,8,9 recently and found attack works on normal enemies for most of the game (even in some bosses it works with a cure here n there)...now I'm not mashing x in these games as the battle system is slow....its delayed mashing of x though. In FF8 using just GF's literally got me past every single normal enemy (for most of the game) and even most bosses (for a good part of the game) as long as I threw in the cure in here n there. In FF10 once you know what enemy type needs who even that gets monotonous on normal enemies.....but the bosses in the game were of course very strategic. My point is every FF has a monotonous battle system, But I was never bored with all those battle systems either (except FF9's which I never enjoyed that much). Now I honestly do not remember FF12 enough to be able to re-comment on its battle system but I remember liking it the second time I played the game, I think.

In FF4 I seem to remember normal enemies being very tough mid way through the game. Sure you may find FF13 easy, I do too (the story part anyway before someone mentions I only killed my first adamantoise yesterday) but there were loads of complaints about its difficulty in Japan which led to the addition of Easy mode. I hope this doesn't mean XIII-2 is even easier...but apparently there is a difficulty setting.

@Bolded 2

I found that to be true till sometime in chapter 9, then in chapter 10 it became clear to me the AI on Saboteur and Synergist wasn't working efficiently (it gave hope bravery before the magic up thing and other such small things....gave enemy that I'm attacking with magic the debuff that helps if your attacking with a commando etc). So basically I decided to make someone of those classes my party leader whenever I needed them to be used and then do the commands manually for those classes....this helped me finish the battle far more quickly than I would have by doing auto battle in those classes or just sticking to rav/rav/com and doing it slowly. It depends on how you want to make the system work for you.....my aim was usually I wanna get the most out of it and see how versatile it is and it really shone through making it my fav battle system ever. 

Are there any story spoilers? I've seen the pics in the scans but not read them.

Haven't read them to be honest. I, too, don't want to spoil the game. It's been spoiled enough for me so far.

Won't read it either then, I am already worried about the quality of the story as it is, best not to let spoilers ruin anything further.

I am hesitant on seeing trailers too as they ruin the best scenes and have spoilers, but I don't know how I can resist seeing trailer at the same time.

Yes you're absolutely right Darth, but here's the problem with Final Fantasy XIII, which makes it worse than the other games; the game isn't balanced.  When properly balanced the combat system is very good, second to Final Fantasy X to me (Though Final Fantasy X had this same problem, but I feel it's overall more strategic).  Now what do I mean by game balance?  Up until Pulse you level up very quickly and the enemies don't change until a boss fight, you're essentially fighting the same enemies for roughly 2 hours at a time and by the 20 minute mark of those long grinds you've leveled up to a point where, two ravagers and a commando, will give you the fastest kill.  This is the same on Pulse, but it's a bit more balanced (The enemies on Pulse are so below me at this point of my endgame that 3 commandos will give me the fastest kill.)  The only real enemies that make you switch over to a sabatour are the sei'th, juggernauts and King Behemoth.  But even then combat becomes two situations; buff yourself and cripple your enemies, then switch over to a ravager setup to stagger, then commando away, or buff and cripple, then switch to commando for the quick kill.  Combat doesn't really get utilized until end game when you're going on the harder hunts, but for the rest of the game it's just not balanced and the auto-command really dumbs the combat down for 80% of the game.

I agree with roughly 80% of your post as I loved the combat from chapter 3 not from later in the game, I don't get your balance bit completely though as I found many enemies in chapters required different startegies to get that 5 star or to complete the battle in fast time (I found this happened in Chapter 6), I think the linearity made these issues of balance more severe though.

Since I don't understand what you mean by balance mention how you think that can be improved in FFXIII-2, then I'll know what you mean exactly. What do you think adding monsters in could do to the battle system, a previewer said each monster has a specific ability (like poison, some debuff, some big elemental attack etc).....so it seems like some micromanagement elements are being added, but the system of FFXIII was based around macromanagement of a team in a fast paced environment....I don't know how they can combine the two unless they want us to lose a battle, realise what has been done wrong and then change the monster in the party...but thats weird. They were hesitant to reveal the minor changes they said that've happened to the system until TGs.

I see no solution regarding auto battle as battles are so fast you need to have it on unless you know exactly what commands you need to pick (which I did when I was controlling sab/syn).....with the speed of the battles auto battle pretty much will stay on though a journalist found that in the settings menu on the XIII-2 demo the battle speed had 3 settings and auto battle could be turned off....but I don't know what speed setting is how fast. 

serah looks so sexy in that new look and lighting reminds of an angel +_+

I'll try my best to explain :D.  Alright you're saying you have to strategize to get 5 stars or get through battles fastest.  And yes you are correct.  BUT I can get 3 stars and get through most battles maybe 10 seconds slower than you by just button mashing X with a 2x Ravager and Commando setup.  But what I was talking about with the game's balance is essentially your levels.  The only reason why I can get through 80% of the game's battles with 2x Ravager and Commando setup and do it relatively quickly is because I'm at a really higher level than the enemies I'm fighting.  Quite a bit higher too.  That's where the game's balance falls apart, it takes roughly a half hour to level up to the point of me not having to care about strategy and it takes about 2 hours for the enemies to get swapped out with stronger enemies (Where you have to start strategizing again).  That's the game's problem, they didn't balance the grind sessions to always keep you balanced against the enemies.  So your essentially button mashing auto command until a boss (Who rapes you quite candidly I might add) and abit after the boss.  As I said before it's a bit different on Pulse cause they sky rocketted the enemie's difficulty as soon as you land, but it doesn't change the fact that after an hour or so you'll plow through everything that isn't a Behemoth and it takes atleast 5 hours to get to chapter 12, so you're back to button mashing X for a few hours.  Like there are enemies that require strategy regardless of level, but they're only a hand full.  How they can solve that in the new game is quite easy, don't have hour long grind sessions without changing enemies inbetween cutscenes.