Sabo

Don't think so. Probably put under protective custody and all traces of his existence have been deleted.

SK :bow:

999.

Fuck your briefcase. I got your damn framed picture, I used your stupid screw driver to release the photo, I inspected the photo to find the numbers, I found the paper with the symbols that link to the numbers, I found the blue and red keys and used them on the blue and red briefcases, I put in the FUCKIN' numbers from the FUCKIN' photo on your FUCKIN' briefcase lock and the stupid briefcase doesn't want to open. Fuck your briefcase. Bring on the water.

lmfao despite being the first puzzle that was easily one of the hardest in the game, at least for me.

I think it was for me too.

I honestly don't know what the hell I am suppose to do. I matched the numbers up with the symbols and input the red numbers into the red briefcase and the blue numbers into the blue briefcase. Searched the room over a hundred times, there's no clues left. I input the numbers in as many different ways I could think of, the briefcases just don't open. So fuck it, I'll play something else.

when all else fails just look up a faq :] you're missing out if you're just gonna give up there

I could but that just seems like it goes against the spirit of the game, as silly as that is to say. The whole point of the game is to put you into situations where you can only survive off your own wits. Using an FAQ for this type of game just bothers me, I'd rather admit I got stumped and gave up.

999.

Fuck your briefcase. I got your damn framed picture, I used your stupid screw driver to release the photo, I inspected the photo to find the numbers, I found the paper with the symbols that link to the numbers, I found the blue and red keys and used them on the blue and red briefcases, I put in the FUCKIN' numbers from the FUCKIN' photo on your FUCKIN' briefcase lock and the stupid briefcase doesn't want to open. Fuck your briefcase. Bring on the water.

lmfao despite being the first puzzle that was easily one of the hardest in the game, at least for me.

I think it was for me too.

I honestly don't know what the hell I am suppose to do. I matched the numbers up with the symbols and input the red numbers into the red briefcase and the blue numbers into the blue briefcase. Searched the room over a hundred times, there's no clues left. I input the numbers in as many different ways I could think of, the briefcases just don't open. So fuck it, I'll play something else.

999. Fuck your briefcase. I got your damn framed picture, I used your stupid screw driver to release the photo, I inspected the photo to find the numbers, I found the paper with the symbols that link to the numbers, I found the blue and red keys and used them on the blue and red briefcases, I put in the FUCKIN' numbers from the FUCKIN' photo on your FUCKIN' briefcase lock and the stupid briefcase doesn't want to open. Fuck your briefcase. Bring on the water.

You will never be my navigator.

The whole tear collecting thing was such pointless filler. Thankfully you only have to do it three times but this shouldn't of been in the game in the first place.

Couldn't disagree more with Max as a character.

"Man, I'll probably fuck shit up this time."

"I always mess up."

"I messed up."

"Damn, I suck."

Dude was so one dimensional and annoying.

Emo Payne.

Yuck, yuck, yuck, see what I did there.

Xenosaga Ep. 2.

Fuck me, the combat in this game is so slow. A standard battle can take upwards of five minutes to get through.

I think I might just youtube the rest of this game and jump straight to Ep. 3.

lmfao

Around the last 3rd of the game encounters are the length of boss battles that can take 15mins. I shit you not.

I like 2 a little bit more than one. One takes too long to get going, establishing the characters, settings, terminology and motives. Episode 2 expects the player to know those things already so its a lot more better paced. Its also a lot more polished then one and you can notice the severe increase in production values. But ai dios mio the length of some of those battles makes you want to stop and take an intermission.

3 pretty much slaughters both a million times over at EVERYTHING.

I can see the intentions behind the combat system. I appreciate the fact they're trying to make the game more than just Deathblow/Tech Attack spam. I also appreciate that Ether attacks are actually useful in this game. The Zones concept is a neat idea as well.

My problem with the game's combat though is it requires too much prep work before you can finally start the battle. You basically have to stock for your first 12 turns, then figure out the enemy's zone, and then finally break the enemy so you can unload on them with a combo which will hopefully kill them. If it does kill them then you get to repeat the process all over again because there are other enemies to deal with.

Battles are just needlessly drawn out, they really should've figured out a way to streamline it all.

Playing some Darksiders. It's pretty good. The traversal is a heap of shit, however.

Yea, they really should've gave you the horse a lot sooner. By the time you get it you're like, "Thanks... but this would've been nice to have like 10 hours ago".

Xenosaga Ep. 2. Fuck me, the combat in this game is so slow. A standard battle can take upwards of five minutes to get through. I think I might just youtube the rest of this game and jump straight to Ep. 3.

Gravity Rush (Vita) and Ys Origins (Steam/PC)

how's origins? im grabbing it soon.

It's awesome! Very beautiful and solid game so far. I'm having some graphic and framerate issues though because the game isn't recognizing my graphics card properly on my laptop. I'll have to play with the settings a bit. :(

Well, finished Xenosaga Ep. 1.

...

So once again we end up with a pretty one dimensional combat system much like Xenogears was plagued with. However, the new additions and tweaks did help prevent it from becoming too uninteresting and boring. There's some nice ideas in here but they just need to balance everything out so these ideas can really shine. I'll be jumping into Xenosaga Ep II so hopefully I'll see some improvements.

I get the feeling the use of that isn't in the good way.

Well, finished Xenosaga Ep. 1.

The dungeons in Xenosaga are very bland to be honest. To make things worse there is no music in the background during these segments so the only audio you'll hear is the sound of your characters foot steps. The layouts of the dungeons are also very simple, it's a straight path for the most part with an alternate path scattered here and there that'll lead to a chest. Prowling along these paths are enemies. There are no random encounters in this game, instead you see enemies on the field and you initiate combat by coming into contact with them. Sometimes you may find an explosive object on the field that you can set off as a trap when an enemy is near it. If you trigger the battle after you set off the trap then you'll begin the battle with an advantage and depending on the type of trap it was you'll get different advantages. These traps aren't exactly common though so they really don't play that much of a factor.

The combat in Xenosaga is a bit different from Xenogears but it kind of uses the same template. There are tweaks and additions made but some of the same problems I had with Xenogears are present in Xenosaga although they're not as bothersome.

The combat system is this game is Turn Based instead of being an ATB system like Xenogears. You have your turn window displayed in the bottom corner of the screen but the turn order given isn't set in stone. Next to the turn window is the Event Slot. The Event Slot is an interesting dynamic because you can get different bonus effects depending on the active Event. There are four Event Slots:

Critical Rate Up -Higher chance to score a Critical Hit

Boost Gauge Up -Boost gauge fills up twice the amount as normal

Point Bonus -Killing an enemy on this Event being active rewards the player with more Points (Points are used to upgrade your characters skills, stats and abilities)

Then a blank slot with no effect at all.

This Event Slot constantly changes after each turn is taken in that exact order. Enemies can also take advantage of the Event Slot so you're going to want to keep a constant eye on the turn window and pay attention to the Event Slot.

Earlier I said the turn order isn't set in stone and that's because you can manipulate the turn order with a gameplay feature called Boosting (enemies can also Boost as well so keep that in mind). When you attack an enemy the Boost gauge will fill up. Each character has their own Boost gauge and you can store up to three Boosts. Boosting is a skill that's going to become necessary as you get deeper into the game. It's also a skill that breaks the game if you fully exploit it. A character can only Boost if they're not listed in the current turn order, if they're not listed then the character can Boost which effectively allows them to cut in line and take the next immediate turn. As long as a character isn't listed in the turn order then you can Boost another character to take the next turn after the previously Boosted character. This is where it becomes easy to exploit the system, if you max everyone's Boost gauge you can actually get twelve turns in a row which will make even the hardest boss fights a complete walk in the park. You can even get more turns than that if you plan around the Boost Gauge Up Event Slot although it's not even close to being necessary, twelve turns in a row is more than enough to dominate anything in this game.

As for the means of attacking you have Normal Attacks, Tech Attacks and Ether Attacks. You'll pretty much never use Normal Attacks because Tech Attacks/Ether Attacks will be your One-Two Punch (although you'll mostly be relying on One punch).

Tech Attacks replace the Deathblows from Xenogears and they behave a bit differently than Deathblows did. For starters, you can upgrade your Tech Attacks in this game to make them stronger with Tech Points. Tech Attacks are much faster to execute as well, you're not forced to sit through long attacking animations like you had to endure with Deathblows. You also don't have access to all of them at all times like you did with Deathblows, instead you have to assign them to a blank Tech Slot in order for them to be used. Tech Attacks come in two flavors- Near and Far. You have six slots to assign Tech Attacks to, two slots are for Far attacks only and the rest are for Near. Each slot also has it's own pre-set button combo displayed next to it. This is starting to sound a bit more complicated than it actually is but it's really simple. For example, say I wanted to assign KOS-MOS's R-Cannon to be an active Tech Attack.

Since R-Cannon is a Far Tech Attack I can only assign it to a Far Tech Slot. Next to the Far Tech Slot you'll see a button combo displayed. In order to use this attack in combat I'd have to do the button combo I assigned R-Cannon to.

Because of the way Tech Attacks work in this game there are no longer long combos to memorize like you had to do in Xenogears. Since you can also upgrade your Tech Attacks the latest ones won't make the previous ones obsolete like what happened to Deathblows in Xenogears. Tech Attacks are still just as dominating as Deathblows were however, I will even say with the ability to upgrade them they become even more dominating.

Ether Attacks are unfortunately just not as good for offensive means when compared to Tech Attacks. You'll mostly be using the White magic type Ethers and the occasional buff type. There is one interesting thing about Ethers though and that's the ability to use Ether Points to teach other characters. Every character in this game has their own Ether tree with their own unique Ethers to learn. You can use Ether Points to teach characters how to use an Ether from another character's Ether tree. This is really useful and you'll want to teach certain Ethers to as many characters as possible (for example- the all powerful Boost Ether, an Ether that immediately fills the Boost Gauge one level). It's just a shame all of the offensive Ether attacks just aren't as powerful as Tech Attacks are, even in the late game when you learn the more powerful offensive Ether attacks they still don't match up to your upgraded Tech Attacks.

So once again we end up with a pretty one dimensional combat system much like Xenogears was plagued with. However, the new additions and tweaks did help prevent it from becoming too uninteresting and boring. There's some nice ideas in here but they just need to balance everything out so these ideas can really shine. I'll be jumping into Xenosaga Ep II so hopefully I'll see some improvements.

I liked Infamous 1 more than Infamous 2. That's not to say Infamous 2 is a bad game because it isn't, just not as good as the first one.

So I've been pacing myself through FF XII and I still can't stand the game. However, if I play in small chunks at a time I can at least tolerate it long enough to where I can make some progress through the main story quest. Speaking of the story, Ashe is a textbook example of why women would make terrible leaders. Dumb bitch... Peeking at a random guide I am now a bit past the halfway point. Just a bit... past... the halfway point.... Lord, give me strength...

I can't do it. I can't fuckin do it anymore. I tried, I really tried to like FF XII but I just can't do it. There is just too much grinding required for this game. It's too damn tedious and the game gives you nothing to help motivate you to grit your teeth through it all. This is fuckin' maddening, I seriously think this game has took a large chunk of my sanity and I'll never see it again.

Everything requires grinding. Want to use a new armor set or weapon? Grind for License Points. 95% of the enemies in this game gives you 1 LP after it dies so you're going to have to kill a lot of them to get the necessary LP you need to buy the license for that new armor set and weapon. Oh, but wait, you've got to have gil to buy those new things, don't you? Go grind for loot. Hey, hey, hey, not so fast- getting loot is not that simple. After you kill an enemy there is a chance that they might drop loot and the loot they do drop might not be worth much so make sure you get a lot of it. Got yourself a lot of it and sold it? Good. Now get your new equipment that is going to be quickly outdated by the time you finish the next dungeon and unfortunately for you, the next town most likely won't have that next tier of equipment for you so you're just going to have to grind out some levels for the time being. Enemies don't give much experience though so you're going to have to kill a lot of them to gain a level. Don't worry, the next tier of equipment is going to be there eventually and when it does appear it's going to be a lot more expensive so you might as well start grinding for that loot now to be prepared for that. Look on the bright side, soon the equipment is going to start getting so incredibly expensive you literally won't be able to afford to keep all your characters up to date with the latest gear and weapons so just focus on three characters and shelf the rest.

Sir, what if I focus on the wrong three characters and the characters I needed to focus on are now severely under leveled? Not a problem. You see, there is no such thing as character individuality in this game, they are all exactly the same. Oh sure, the License Board can create a very convincing illusion that characters should be built to do specific things or serve a distinct role but the truth of the matter is all of their base stats are damn near equal all across the board so they can all do everything. None of them excel at any task over another so just have them learn it all. It's common sense stuff really.

With that out the way you can now proceed to set your Gambits and watch your team battle without even the slightest need of your input. Yes, that's right, the game can literally play itself. Pssht, who the hell pops in a game to actually play a game? No one wants to feel engaged in the combat. that sounds pretty close to sounding fun. That's a silly idea. real fun is having the game do everything for you.

How could anyone enjoy this game?

How could anyone actually like this game?

How could anyone even consider this to be anything but an AWFUL game?

These are questions that will haunt what little is left of my sanity.

Gamefly just sent out Final Fantasy XII so it should be here Saturday.

I tried to play the game when it first released and only got like 3 hours into the game before I just gave up on it. This time I'm going to give it an honest shot though so I was just wondering if there are any general gameplay advice or what not I should know before I start. I know the combat is kind of MMO inspired but the thing is I've never touched an MMO in my life.

be precise in what final fantasy you are talking about. always. i thought we had a gamer onboard

Gamefly just sent out Final Fantasy XII so it should be here Saturday. I tried to play the game when it first released and only got like 3 hours into the game before I just gave up on it. This time I'm going to give it an honest shot though so I was just wondering if there are any general gameplay advice or what not I should know before I start. I know the combat is kind of MMO inspired but the thing is I've never touched an MMO in my life.

Every now and then I like to play an old game, usually it's an old favorite but this time I decided to sit down and actually play through Xenogears. I got the game when it first came out but never did beat it because I got stuck on Disc 2 and couldn't figure out what I needed to do. Finally after so many years, I can say that I have played Xenogears from start to finish and I can honestly say this game is.... Garbage. Absolute garbage. I don't know where to begin, I have so much ammo to work with I'm deciding if I should just stick to the main points or if I should just go all out and rip this game to shreds. If you're a fan of this game then you might want to avoid reading this inevitable wall of text. Alright, first of all, maybe it's because I'm like way too late in experiencing the game but I honestly feel this is one of the worst JRPGs I've ever played, For all the praise this game gets I have to wonder if these same people would still feel the same way if they played the game again today. I don't think they would, the flaws in this game are too large and hard to ignore. Before anyone says it, no, a good game really isn't effected by time. If the game is designed well then it will age well. Xenogears is not one of those games. Not. Even. Close. Let's start with the part of the game that seems to get the most attention- the story. In short, it's downright terrible. First of all, the plot unfolds painfully slow. It took about 15 hours before it really started to go anywhere. My problem with the story though is everything was so damn cryptic and convoluted it just alienated me. I had no clue what the fuck these characters were even talking about half the time and anyone who claims they did is a liar. The game goes out of it's way to make sure it's making things as vague as possible, probably in a attempt to pull you into it's mystery but what actually happened instead was me being pushed out, scratching my head in confusion. The game doesn't let up with this approach to it's story telling either, as I got further into the game I was forcing myself to pay attention in the hopes that eventually the game is going to start making sense. And it did. Eventually. However, there was another problem and that problem being it happens all on the second Disc (more on this later) and the explanations for everything was just so stupid I found a new appreciation for the shit that passes for a story in FF XIII. This story is so bloated with ridiculously outlandish bullshit I have no clue how anyone could look past it's vile stench and actually say the story is good. It's not. I can appreciate some of the themes that were put into this game but the way it all fit together and the way the story is presented is just awful. Simply awful. The plot of the story isn't even helped by the cast of characters going through it either, if anything it just suffers more so. Fei is the biggest emo bitch I've seen in a video game in a while and you're stuck with this razor loving loser because he is the main character. His supporting cast is just as bad as he is. Citan is the first you'll meet and is seriously an asshole, he never fails to miss the chance to prove how much of an asshole he can be either. Elly will come shortly after and starts off somewhat interesting but then becomes your typical archetype for a main female character. She will at least disappear for moments at a time so fortunately you won't have to deal with her much until later in the game, then you'll wish she would just disappear again because she starts to become a large focus for the story from that point on. You'll then get mixed up with an obnoxious idiot named Bart who is followed by a crew of people who are even dumber than he is because they're actually following him. This dude lacks common sense, plain and simple. Then there's some beast guy who I don't really remember much about because he fades into the background shortly after he joins with you. A bit later you'll meet Billy who isn't that bad and is probably the only character in the game that didn't make me face palm. Oh wait... there was that segment where he finds out the truth about his organization and then all of his daddy issues- You know what? I take back what I said. He's just as bad as the rest of the group. Then we have... umm...Hang on, I know there's other characters but I can't remember them... OH! Then there's some fat rabbit creature, a bible knocking loli, a loli with a giant mech, and finally a test tube loli just to complete the set. There's a shit load of other characters that won't be in your party but it would take too long to go through them all so I won't bother because I want to jump onto another subject and move away from anything related to the world of this game. So lets move on to the gameplay. The combat system is busted beyond belief. FF VIII gets a lot of hate for it's combat system but this game's system is even worse yet no one mentions this. All the systems for the combat system are just poorly designed with no semblance of balance in sight. There are even mechanics to the system that will go completely untouched through the entirety of the game. What we end up with is a completely one dimensional combat system. There is no reason to use anything other than Deathblows. They straight up dominate the game and make everything else useless. Sure, you get magic spells but they pale in comparison to the power of Deathblows and Deathblows only get more powerful as you progress in the game so there's no reason to ever think about using a different approach. How the developers were able to NOT notice the problem with this to begin with is beyond me. Later on in the game though the developers must've finally realized they made Deathblows too good so instead of balancing them they instead take the lazy way out and start introducing enemies that can one shot a character and some enemies who will counter Deathblows. However, these things do little to discourage you from spamming them so these just end up being annoyances. Another problem with the Deathblows is having to sit through their animations as you just watch your character pummel the enemy to death. The first couple times you see the animation it's pretty cool, afterwords though you'll start wishing you could skip the animation like you can skip the summon animations in FF. This starts to become a serious issue when you combine it with the next problem- an INSANELY high enemy encounter rate. OMG the enemy encounter rate is this game is so high. You barely take two steps and BLAM! Battle. Approach a door- Battle. Door's opening- Battle. Walk through door- Battle. Take two steps-Battle. Finish a battle- Battle. In a battle? FUCK YOU, BATTLE IN A BATTLE, BITCH! Ok. that last one doesn't happen but it might as well. Point is the enemy encounter rate is ridiculous and I wouldn't be surprised if people have quit this game for this reason alone. It makes traversing through dungeons and trying to figure out the puzzles a complete pain in the ass. This also makes the issues with the combat system even more apparent because you're going to be spending A LOT of time with it. The encounter rate is so high you end up being over leveled very early in the game and only continue to get more and more powerful. Don't expect this game to challenge you, the game is making damn sure each of your characters are going to end up being one man armies well before the halfway point of the game. And now we come to my biggest issue with this game- the second disc. This is insulting. You spend all of disc one putting up with this games contrived bullshit and how does the game reward you for your patience? By making you spend the majority of your time reading text. There is very little gameplay in disc two. You don't get to experience first hand all the key moments the game has been building up to, instead you watch everything unfold on the sidelines as a character sits in a chair and explains what's happening while screenshots appear in the background. These sequences are also long, we're talking 30 minutes at a time just reading text with very minimal gameplay involved. The reading wouldn't of been so bad if what I was reading was good but nope, it was shit. The game was finally explaining everything and I just couldn't believe it, the answers to all the mysteries were just so stupid I was disgusted, it seemed like the writers were pulling shit out of their asses to have it all make sense. Just when I think the game couldn't stoop any lower it surprised me yet again with another retarded explanation. One dumb revelation after another and with each new one discovered I was hating myself more and more for even allowing this game to waste my time. Once I saw the ending approaching I didn't even hesitate, I straight up blazed through the rest of the game. Was it for anticipation to see how everything was going to end and get some closure? HELL NO! I was hauling ass for the credits. Those fuckin' beautiful, glorious credits.

Finished Radiant Historia. The story was good, I'm usually not one to care for the whole 'raging war' like stories because they tend to get a little too political for my tastes but this game does it well. I especially liked how it constantly let you see all sides of the story from each sides perspective, it kept me interested because you were seeing everyone's motives and plans in this war. The characters were solid and they each played their part well. I liked how they all remained focused on the task at hand, they are after all in the middle of a war but character development does suffer a bit because of this but they had a job to do and they stayed focused on it. Combat system is great. It can be as simple or as deep as you want it to be and it'll still stay fun no matter which way I wanted to play. This game proves there's still plenty of life left for a turn based combat system if you're willing to experiment with new ideas and such. My only problem with the system is you can easily start exploiting it once you get all party members but this tends to happen with JRPGs in general so it's not that big of a deal. Still though, I would've liked the game to be a bit more challenging but oh well, still had fun playing regardless. The real draw of the game though is the alternate time lines dynamic. Dare I say it pulls it off just as well as Chrono Trigger, in some instances even better. Sure the game could've done more with this but what is here is still really good and encouraged me to go out and hunt for side quests. I found myself looking forward to doing the side quests more than proceeding with the main quest most of the time. Unlike most games the rewards you get from completing side quests are usually worth it so you have that added incentive to complete them. Not to mention some of the side quests will lead to new revelations that change the ending. With all that being said I'd have to honestly say that Radiant Historia is easily the best JRPG I've played in years. I actually feel bad for not playing it sooner.

Captain America: Super Soldier. I got suckered into trying it out because I was told it's a lot like Batman Arkham Asylum. In a way it is, just minus the being good part. The combat sucks, the enemy variety is severely lacking, there is way too much collectibles (this shit is everywhere), the platforming is very automated, the voice acting borders on decent to just plain bad, the story is a snore, the music is forgettable, the frame rate is everywhere, etc. About the only thing the game has going for it is the level design. It's actually not that bad. Not great but it's not bad. Oh and it's an easy game to get all the Achievements/Trophies.

FF has had some pretty stupid and annoying mini-games in the past but XIII-2 takes the cake with this bullshit slot machine. The guy who designed this mini-game needs to have a sledgehammer introduced to his shins.

Beat FF XIII-2 and I honestly didn't care for it. Toriyama is a fuckin joke. The story is just straight up nonsense and the ending is disgusting because it made everything up to it pointless. I'm shocked they actually managed to make the story worse than FF XIII's story. The game uses the whole time travel thing as an excuse to have the most stupidest shit going on and the game insults your intelligence because it expects you to not notice how none of it makes sense and instead just go "TIME PARADOX". To give you an idea of how stupid it can get there was a point in the game were a boss had an "artefact" (an object that allows time travel) in it's stomach which was allowing it to suck in other monsters. These monsters that were getting sucked in would then join with another monster in a completely different place and time era. I'm not making this up, this literally happens in the game and I wish I could say this was the only retarded thing that happens in the game but this shit is everywhere. Oh, I got another one: "If you change the future, you change the past". I wasn't expecting much out of the story but really? REALLY?! As for the gameplay, I actually think there's a lot of step backs from FF XIII particularly when it comes to the combat system. Say what you want about the linearity of the level design during the first 2/3 of FF XIII but I honestly think the combat system was at it's BEST during that time. For one, you had limited paradigms role per character. Secondly, there was a level cap for each area that prevented you from being over leveled. Thirdly, you were constantly switching between different characters who would in turn have their own limited paradigm roles to work with. Finally, the game rarely gave you a full party- the majority of the time you only had access to two characters. All of this had the effect of making the battles interesting because you were limited in what you could do so you had to really think during battles and set up your paradigms accordingly. Once you got to Pulse the game stopped placing restrictions on you which caused the combat system to get stale quickly IMO because it became too easy from that point on. There was no more thinking required, with the way this combat system is designed I honestly think it plays better when there are restrictions on what you can and can't do. Now in XIII-2 you get a limited amount of roles at the start of the game but you quickly learn new roles within a couple hours. I learned the majority of the skills for each role for both characters well before I even hit the halfway point of the game. The combat is just really easy in this game from start to finish and requires very little thinking, you can just autopilot straight through the game. As for the level design, it's better but I actually don't think it's that much better than XIII's. Sure, in XIII you were always on a linear path but you were going places in that game. The world felt huge but you were unfortunately stuck on a thin path just begging to go out and explore it. The one thing the linearity did give you though was a sense of progression in XIII. A slow and tedious sense of progression but progression nonetheless. You were going to all kinds of different places and seeing different things in that game. In XIII-2 they removed the straight line and instead give you like 10 areas (small areas too might I add) to explore. Bresha Ruins, Yascha Massif, Oerba, Augusta Tower, Academia, Archylte Steppes and Sunleth Waterscape are the main areas you're going to go to. There are a couple other minor areas but the bulk of the game is spent in the areas mentioned. You'll visit these areas during different time eras but the layouts of the places don't really change much. To top it off there just isn't anything interesting to do in these areas. Yea, there are side quests but they're just standard shit you'd expect to see and have done in other games several times before. They had a chance to do something really cool and interesting with the time travel mechanic (like Chrono Trigger) but don't even come close to tapping into that potential. So ultimately the world in XIII-2 just feels really small with nothing really fun to do in it. I can go into other areas but this post is long enough. So just to wrap things up: Is the game good? No. Is the game bad? No. It's just average.

Umm... I think I just fucked myself over. I accidentally reset the New Bodhum Gate so I had to playthrough everything again but when I got past the part where you meet Hope the game won't let me access the next gate to continue the game. I can only go to New Bodhum, Bresha Ruins and Yaschas Massif. I can see the two other gates but when I select them they do nothing. Am I going to have to restart?

Currently playing FF XIII-2 and to quote HurricaneMike, "WTF is going on in this game?" I even played the first game and I'm just like "Wait... what? I don't even- You know what, fuck it. I'm not even trying to figure this shit out".

finished binary domain. was awesome. probably the best TPS i've played since the original gears.

Spelled vanquish wrong

i haven't played it yet

Best TPS this gen.

finally got around to playing the BD demo. awesome. It's like vanquish in many ways but the biggest addition (besides general game flow and voice commands) is the upgrade system. Vanquish needed it hard.

Vanquish did have an upgrade system, it just wasn't the standard system though. It was more like old school Contra style upgrade system. I dug it.