Great lets see it it can keep this up

Apparently a professional novelist was hired to pen the story for FF13-2. whether it will be good or not who knows. but based on the last trailer we saw i think the story will be endless cutscenes based on unrealistic characters having non sensical discussions with each other. this is why FF13 was compared to a soap opera. everything about the story was so painful to watch.

the dialogue was worst than a Saturday morning cartoon show, "hold on baby your heros on the way". the story regurgated the same plot points over and over again. its was so boring listening to Lightning complain about her life again and again. it was so boring listening to the same damn thing again and again; "its our focus Serah said so". and the story was terrible. the characters were unrealistic and the venacular killed any sense of believability in the character relationships.

i was absolutley exhausted the day FF13 came out. usually even when your exhausted you keep playing a game into the early hours of the morining like say 2AM. i was playing FF13 at about 7PM and i was at Lake Bresha when my eyes kept shutting and eventually i feel asleep. the game was so boring my brain involentarily shut down. even remembering that first 15 hours is causing me to feel sleepy.

the game wasnt fun to play for the first 15 hours, and i dont think monster cataching or mutliple dialogue trees are going to fix that. exploration could remediate some of those problems, but i'm not interested in FF until Sqaure announced FF15 with the other production team developing.

I have an odd feeling Toriyama is still doing the dialogue, which was the problem with the first game.  Like Nojima(Or whoever worked on the story) wrote an amazing story/world, but then the characters started talking.  But the game itself looks solid.  I'm still probably not gonna get it until next year when it's 20 dollars, just cause of what I have to play through right now.  Though, I might cave, even though the writing/design was bad in that first game, I quite enjoyed the combat system (Even though it's a button mash fest).

i'm really not sure about Nojima, i cant believe he had nothing to do with the atrocious repititivness of "its our focus Serah said so". we'll have to wait and see what happens. all depends on the reviews and the fan reaction for me. it wasnt just the way they talked, it was the way Lightning walked and her poisture. i was playing Heavenly Sword recently and the realism of Nariko's body animation is incredible. because they used real body motion-capture, etc things like that. for Lightning she walks bizzare and stands bizzare because thats what middle aged men think young western gamers find attractive and interesting about a young female leading character.

if you compare something like FF13 to Heavenly Sword, you can see the developers (Ninja Theory) decided to use a woman for a more powerful story. in FF13 Lightning is used to be a "female version of Cloud". there was nothing interesting about her frequent menopauses, it was rather annoying actully. the battle system was also flawed for the first 15 hours. in a dungeon theres about 2 different enemies, each enemy is fought about 10 times. each battle is exactly the same to the last one, switch to Ravager, Commando, etc. it was the same battle played out 20 times in a row walking in a straight line. battles consumed a lot of time during the first 15 hours because your restricted to 2 characters. outside of battles the story was so unbearable your body involentarily shuts down.

point is they might have improved a lot about this game, but an FF is about the story. sadly i believe without Sakaguchi these current developers have no idea how to write a believable or compelling story. i'm sure FF13-2 will prove that point. just like FF8, FF10-2, FF Advent Children, and FF13 did.

Disagree with you there as it's my favourite story out of the lot.  But anyways, the problem is Toriyama.  Like Final Fantasy X's story was fantastic and I don't think Sakaguchi had any input to it, what with him leaving the company and all (Shortly after).  I mean; Kitase had huge parts to the stories for Final Fantasy 6-8+10, but just reading his interviews lately, it sounds like he has his head up his ass so far, it's like he's living in a world where he can do no wrong.  Which is the real problem with Final Fantasy right now; Kitase, Toriyama, and Wada live in a bubble.

Fair enough, i dont feel the need to argue about it; but there were some discrepancies some fans were displeased with, such as the main villain only presented in the last hour of the game (FF8). and i think Sakaguhci had some involvement in FF10s story; i'm not sure about how much involvment but i think he listed as producer or something like that. in my opinion he was critical to the success of the title.

i agree with what you say is the problem. which is why i wont be getting this, i doubt i'll get it even at £10/$20. i dont so much blame Wada to be honest, i think despite what people think of him. hes actully a really good buisness man; okay he knows nothing about games, but hes not supposed to, he runs the companies finanaces and i think he does a really good job tbh.

I'm not gonna argue about his business sense, cause Square is somehow posting a profit and Square is a huge company, I'd even argue as big as Activision or EA. They post losses, he posts profits.  But on the creative side of things; I think he's stuck in the same bubble Kitase and Toriyama are in.  Which wouldn't be a bad thing if Wada didn't allocate resources and stuff.  Like I feel Wada is a bitch to Kitase and Toriyama, cause let's face it, Toriyama shouldn't be anywhere near a pen and paper or game.  I mean, considering the game's dev time, Toriyam screwed up bad.  Story is subjectional, but I should be able to skip all cutscenes in a game and enjoy a game for what it is.  Final Fantasy XIII is just boring, though I'm enjoying the end game, but that's more of the "One more level, one more level" mentality (Which was capped throughout the entire game).

I'm not going to argue about FF8, some love, some dont. there are things i dont like about it. but its fair enough if you do.

i think Wada has been on there arses recently, hes told Kitase that he wants a new game from him every 2 years. which means that FF13s prolonged development cycle will never happen again. at the same time i think he will start to crack down on them including Toriyama if FF13-2 dosent deliever on the expectations of the fans. and i think Wada has done well in aquiring Deus Ex and Tomb Raider and i think hes definitly the right type of man to lead the company.

they have brought in a professional novelist for the story of FF13-2, so it means they couldve listened to the fans on that level. but the execution is key. like i mentioned before about Heavenly Sword, its how you pace cutscenes, how believable are the characters your presenting to the fans. how realistic is the vernacular they speak in.

personally i feel FF13 has its moments, theres very rare moments where it really shines as an FF game, and other points where it feels like a complete rejection of everything RPGs stand for. i think even if they fix the linear thing for the sequel, its really about the story and the characters. theres a scene in the new trailer where Noel shouts at Snow after hes saved Noel and Serah. and the whole thing feels like a complete rehash of FF13s cutscenes. where characters cant have rational conversations with one another like they do in other games. the characters need to have arguments with each other to make the game interesting. sadly this is what i think is a misconception from middle aged developers completely out of tune with the way young behave in the real world. its not enjoyable to watch, it dosent make the characters relatable and it just stinks of a soap opera rather than an epic gaming experience.

I'll give it a try. But only rent sadly. I dont trust Square Enix at all.