Go play Crisis Core...the last amazing Final Fantasy game we've received from Square that wasn't a remake of an already great game

It's taken them more than a year to develop it, as production isn't over yet.  Plus, the fact that the game is set in the same world as XIII, obviously, it allows them to re-use game assets. Which means that the production could go much faster than XIII, which had to be built from the ground up after they spent years building their Crystal Tool Engine.  

Website lag created this double post.

Final Fantasy XII production started in 2001 and was released on 2006 in Japan. Shortly after Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings follow-up was released in 2007 for the DS 1 year after the release of the original.

For FF XIII, think about when the sequel was first decided upon. Every Final Fantasy title takes a few years to develop and produce. Square Enix will try to have Final Fantasy XIII-2 out by the end of 2011, which only a one-year gap.

So how long did they know they'd create a sequel? thats why i'm saying it is like a last ditch effort to make fans happy, and I'm not going to expect much from it.

FF XII went through many production problems that prior games didn't get. So I don't think you should take this one as an example. Would you concider the PS era Final Fantasy games disapointing, considering the fact that they were released so close to each others? VIII was released 2 years after VII and IX was released 1 year 5 months after VIII. Add X to the mix and that one got released roughly a year and a month after IX. Now, hardly anyone would argue that all those titles aren't quality ones, no matter what complaints you may have for their art styles, settings or battle systems.

You could argue that those titles weren't produced entirely by the same teams, and I would give you that. But XIII-2 is a sequel. It uses roughly the same battle system as XIII, only slightly updated. It's set in the same world as XIII, meaning they don't have to recreate everything from scratch. They are more familiar with their Engine, and of course, S-E is one big ass company compared even to when they were producing FF VII through X.

Now, as far as I'm aware of, from the interviews I read about it, they decided to go for a sequel as soon as production for XIII was complete. Which means that they will have been working on the sequel for nearly 2 years if the title is finally released in december of this year in Japan (XIII was released on December 17, 2009 in Japan). So yeah, no matter how you spin it, the game will have been in production for about the same amount of time as the majority of the most beloved titles in the series.  

One thing I will agree with you though.  Keep your expectations low.  Not because I think the product will be sub-par, as I think it will end up being better than XIII, but because if you expect too much out of a product, you more often than not end up being disappointed. 

I havent played a bad main series final fantasy.........lol i mean lots of people like them a few seem to keep buying them despite the fact that they didnt like past iterations. also ff13 was a good game but it lacked certain things yea, but thats what ff13-2 is for lol.

I agree with some of what you said, but then some i dont lol. Also whats with people always wantng to explore peoples houses in rpgs i mean thats fun but its not exactly an evolution. A lot of you guys want stuff similar to the old final fantasy well i want a huge advancement of those features. Like instead  of characters just walking into peoples houses,maybe theirs a different way of going about it like picking the lock or waiting til the person leaves their house and then sneakng in. Why should an entire town have their doors unlocked and why are there treasure chest laying about in a house?Idk just seems weird to me.Interacting with with bookshelves is fun? .You say tales, eternal sonata and lost odyssey have more in common with old final fantasy's and your kinda right and in a sense its a good thing, but then again its not. The rpg genre is my favorite but if youre gonna shit on ff 13 for being to linear shit on lost odyssey(which i love)  for not really doing much different than what was done 15 years ago. if lost odyssey was ff13 it would have been a great typical final fantasy in how certain things were done. Not the story and characters of course more the system. I just want a change more than rpgs acting like they did in the 90's. yes i want open worlds and towns, but i want it done in new ways not replications of the same designs. Hopefully 13-2, versus,tales, star ocean etc and some other jrpgs can evolve instead of living up to peoples snes fantasies though istill love the series lol. Pew pew.

I didn't like Eternal Sonata.

But yeah, Lost Odyssey and Tales games are the go-to games for old-school FF fans.

However, my favorite JRPG this gen is and probably will always be Valkyria Chronicles.

I'm still a big fan of the CGI videos , but bring back the old school turn based combat and level system. FF13 there was no point to the stores, weapons, items, gold and this needs to change aswell.

XIII released Dec 2009 in Japan and work probably started just after it shipped so given the currently scheduled Dec 2011 release date for XIII-2 that is almost 2 years of development for a game that reuses many assets and the design work that was already put into XIII, while using the same game engine. Considering that they don't have to wait for a couple years for the engine and world to be designed 2 years isn't that short a dev cycle considering XIII's 5 years including the early work done on the PS2.