Malaki-LEGEND.sys

I think if they would have just sped up the text, eliminated the constant reminders of what item you picked up, and hell added an option to not have Fi pop up every bloody moment, this wouldn't have been an issue. That said I thought Fi's character at times was endearing.

While you're definitely controlling the aggregate and that's a huge part of it, even then you aren't going to be using auto-battle that much if you want to maintain high combat efficiency. If you leave your synergists and sabateurs on auto for example, they're just going to cycle through different debuffs, when for the sake of speed(the system is ALL about speed), you're gonna want to prioritize certain buffs on certain characters, and while attacking, the AI is going to alternate between physical and magical attacks, which is pretty slow. Hell in addition to hidden evasion stats, there are bloody hitboxes in this game! When enemies jump around, you can outright miss them with your physical attacks if they move out of the way far enough, while magic will never have that problem. With FFXIII-2 however, now you can switch characters mid-battle whenever you want, so if you want to load up a string of abilities on Serah, switch to Noel and do the same for him, you have that level of micromanagement. In addition to knowing how to "buffer" roles and perform accurate ATB refreshes, there is plenty of stuff keeping combat fresh, fast, and very deliberate. Auto-battle is really just there to let people breath a little and enjoy shit going crazy on the screen.

So I've neglected to create a Final Fantasy XIII-2 thread being that A) I didn't want to allow the chance for spoiling the game to exist and Given the general response to the previous entry in the series(which I thought was great), I didn't think anyone would particularly mind its absence. That being said, I've just recently completed the game with about half of the content fully explored and 2 of the 9 possible endings. I can safely say that this game fixes many of the "problems" with the original, and feels pretty great. The basic premise of the game is the ability to travel through time and alternate dimensions not unlike the Chrono series, although you're pretty much free to explore this mechanic from nearly the beginning of the game. You'll spend time trying to find all the alternate time gates, bouncing through time, reversing time, and expanding the story as you see fit. It's a much more free-form experience than the first, which is a bit disorienting ironically. They've kept the general battle system, but added a few features like being able to fine tune the targeting of certain paradigms, the ability to save paradigm decks and the ability to change party members mid-battle. This of course not mentioning the monster-taming mechanic, which lets you add monsters of different types, demeanor, abilities, etc. to your strategy. The Crystarium has also undergone a few changes, such as one path which you'll share with all available combat roles, which adds a level of strategy to your choice in leveling. The story itself does a lot of character and world building, and I hear that SE has a prequel novel out and a sequel in the works in addition to a video series recapping the first game from the perspective of several side characters(Rygdea and Vosch) from the first game. It seems like SE is trying to take the Fabula Nova Crysalis and Lightning even farther, and I for one look forward to incoming story DLC and hopefully a sequel. The story of the game centers around Serah, Lightning's younger sister, and Noel Kreiss, the last human alive from 700 years in the future, trying to basically prevent said future from occuring. They really did well with the characterization I thought, as Serah went from a "damsel in distress" side character to a developed and resolute character I could care about. I'd also have to say that the main villain is probably one of the better FF villains I've seen thus far(think Sephiroth, but more focused and less stupid). This series(FFXIII) has really helped me see what I look for in games and how I see them. People were originally wailing on FFXIII and now Skyward Sword as games being too linear. I however felt that while the games were pretty much directed, it allowed for a tighter gameplay experience and cohesive story telling(I won't deny FFXIII had problems though). While I can't make a claim on gameplay in Skyrim, I can say from my experience in WRPGs that whenever a dev says "non-linear playground", I hear "we don't have the slightest idea on how to create an interesting and cohesive experience, so here are a bunch of fetch quests", and that to me is vexing in addition to a slightly drab aesthetic, so hurry Final Fantasy. Also Relevant:

Shit, if you guys wanna wait 'til after June, I might be able to make it as my first OCR meetup ever since I'll be moving to Illinois after graduation.

Ugh... I'm gonna have to wait a bit to grab the game, as grabbin' the CE for FFXIII-2(which is excellent) and the guide set me back a bit. Hope everyone's havin' a good ol' time. Also thread title changed.

There are actually a lot of people that liked Twilight Princess over Wind Waker. The way I see it personally, it felt like a realization of what they were trying to achieve with Ocarina of Time in terms of gameplay. It just felt more fun to play than Wind Waker. The game's entirety also had a much darker, tragic, and foreboding edge(in contrast with the dissonance, discord, and oddity of Majora's Mask) than Wind Waker which I appreciated, and Hyrule felt huge, whereas the Great Sea(and Skyward Sword's Skyrealm) was all about sailing around an extremely sparse area with a few points of interest extremely spread out from each other.

That sounds reasonable. I think what makes Wind Waker stumble as one of my favorites is the fact that there are so few dungeons in the first place among a few other things I can't quite put my finger on. The art style admittedly made me apprehensive(like the rest of the internet), but once I saw it in action I thought it was pretty great. The items also didn't feel particularly compelling to me either. I will agree though that the final battle with Ganon was a pretty epic set piece however, and you do sort of sympathize with him on some level. I dunno... The game just doesn't do it for me on the same level as a few other entries. I'd have to say that I was much more partial to Majora's Mask, Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, and the GB/GBC entries myself. On the subject of music however, does anyone else think that several parts of the ending themes in Skyward Sword made it sound like they were gonna play some Link to The Past music, specifically the and themes? Personally I would have LOVED to hear both of those orchestrated.Hell, those are two themes that I always curse Zelda concerts for not including...

Why do people like Wind Waker so much again? Not that it isn't great. It's just that I can think of better entries in the series than that entire trilogy as a whole.

You and everyone who doesn't post on the official forums. The people with the most voice are all FFXIophiles instead of people who'd actually like to see new ideas be iterated on. At any rate, patch 1.21 looks mighty fine, and hopefully it'll add the cohesion to make everything feel connected and important(and fun). I'm fine with the late February date though. It gives me plenty of time for FFXIII-2, Resident Evil Revelations and school. Plus it's right around my birthday.

After going through the game for a second time, I can pretty much reaffirm most of what I felt after completing it the first time. Game is wonderful, however there are inconsistencies when you place it alongside the other games in the series. For starters, the game was billed as one that would explain the origins of the Master Sword, which outside of a lazy explanation, didn't really do much of that except assemble it like Lego blocks. I was expecting us to be able to see it being forged right then and there not unlike the Vampire Killer in Castlevania Lament of Innocence. I also feel that with all the different characters they introduced such as Hylia and Demise, that the game is like its own spin-off. Is there just one goddess? What about Farore, Din, and Nayru?Where DID Ganondorf and the Gerudo come from? I was expecting the game to set a lot of pieces up, but no dice. I half expected Demise(or who I thought would be Ganon) to possess Groose halfway into the game, or that the "past" would have a more modern setting given the technology present in Lanaryu. Of course I should have known that Nintendo would paint the plot by numbers. Oh well, still a fun game by any measure.

This is still the best thing ever.

I don't plan on buying the Circle Pad Pro though. As I mentioned before, the game is still perfectly playable without it.

Also RE-related and thus important. I was actually ready to pay 50 bucks after the demo.

Well Nintendo, it's about damn time.

I love this.

As one Gundam fan to another, you should have taken the terrible second season of Gundam 00 as a warning that they were gonna ruin the movie.

And that anime culture is turning into Moe and Shounen Jump garbage.

The most tossed around statistic is that the average age of a person who plays video games is around 35 years of age. This statistic is misleading in that it might lead people to assume that these are a bunch of 35-year-olds who picked up video games for the first time instead of people who just grew up gaming. Games are still too "comic book" in their scope of audience, and until games "mature", the stereotypes are going to persist.

I've always said AKs speak louder than words.

He also did the score for Haibane Renmei, which had wonderful music.

Well this is certainly escalating in a not-so-good way.

It would be so unbelievably awesome on the Square-Enix side of E3 if in addition to Bravely Default(name change, please), Kingdom Hearts 3DS, and Theatrhythm, we'd get to hear something on potential 3DS remakes for FFV and/or FFVI, and maybe something regarding a spiritual sequel(or actual sequel) to The World Ends With You for the 3DS.

I thought the song was an endearing earworm, you sonuvabitch. I'm afraid to go near a K-On movie. I'll admit I liked the first season since they actually tried to include the music part of being in a highschool band, but while it already had a fair share of moe, they dialed it up to 11 while removing any of the interesting parts in the second season. Part of a recurring trend.

For easy aiming and movement without a circle pad pro, just use the gyroscope for aiming and the circle pad will default to strafing movement. Works like a charm. To me adds more sense of immersion, which in a survival horror game should be critical.