SpecDotSign

@louiedog said:

The Best Buy outlet has a refurb 250 GB slim right now for $150. If you don't have much cash right now buy that, get your free month of Gold when you register an account on the system, and then buy a year of Gold for $40 (if you even want it) when it goes on sale in the next 4-6 weeks as it often does. Add a used/sale Kinect for $100 or less when one becomes available, again only if you want it. It's a much better deal and you'll really be glad you have that hard drive. I wouldn't worry about the refurb's 90 day warranty aspect. With the heating problem solved if anything goes wrong it's likely to be in the first month or after a few years.

Hmm. I think I may jump on this. My 60GB 360 died last summer and I've missed out on all those great XBLA games (the only reason I owned a 360 in the first place). Thanks for the tip!

@iAmJohn: Sunset Park my man. Next Level Arcade is where they moved to. How Alex didn't mention that is beyond me.

Asura's Wrath. That game is so good.

Valkyria for me. That game is so awesome.

I'm glad the patch has helped. I haven't gone back since I got the Platinum Trophy pre 1.4 (I suffered. A LOT). Hopefully it'll run smoother for the upcoming DLC. Still, shame on Bethesda for this blunder.

@Moncole said:

Capcom loves your money

I literally lol'ed at this comment. Good one! :)

@Sooty said:

No they don't, they loved Persona 4, if you make a good JRPG (something Square Enix can't do) then they'll give it a fair shot.

They really do. They quick looked my 2008 goty Valkryria Chronicles and they even quick looked my 2010 goty Nier. Sure they could cover the better jrpgs of this gen. The problem with that is that most of the "good" jrpgs are on PSP and DS, and let's be honest, the whole GB crew aren't akin to handheld gaming. They want everything on xbla (that was a joke on their preferences).

I was excited for XIII, as I was with every Final Fantasy announcement. Even with the long wait, the "now it's on 360 and will be marketed as a 360 only title in the west" and even the fact that they announced 3 games all at once knowing that a collection of games in a universe is a dumb idea (Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Ivalice Alliance and what they did with Final Fantasy IV), but then after Final Fantasy XIII comes out to *gasp* mixed reviews and just straight up hate from some fans S-E decides to announce XIII-2...what?

Now, I have my theories as to why S-E went ahead and started work on XIII-2, but that's not the point. The point is that instead of giving their developers so much freedom, S-E should have cracked down on their asses sooner than later. Final Fantasy XIII felt like such a polished rush job, and they pulled off one of my greatest RPG pet peeves: the old final boss switch-a-roo.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is supposed to be sooo much better than XIII. From what I've played, it's not. It's like they took all the cool stuff from some games that people love and just sucked at it.

Collecting monsters, time travel, puzzles, a customizable character load out and non-linearity. Sounds awesome! Except the monster design is ass, the time travel feels convoluted, the puzzles do not belong there, the crystarium is the WORST way to level up in all of Final Fantasy (yes, even worse than the License Board in FF XII, but eff you FF XII is amazing) and the "towns" are so dull and lifeless. But hey, at least they tried making another Golden Saucer...

A lot of people praised FF XIII for its battle system and to this day I still don't understand why. It's not fun. XIII-2's isn't much better, but at least we can switch the party leader... -___-

And finally, the music...What happened? Like for realsies....what happened...

I am one of the few people who champion Final Fantasy XII as being a logical progression in the series. Everything from the story to the battle system was so involved (even towards the mid-ending of the game where it was apparent where Matsuno had taken his leave). Final Fantasy XIII is a regression of the series in my eyes and XIII-2 doesn't alleviate that, it only tried to fix the problems people had with the first game.

As a developer, I'm still confident in what Square-Enix has to offer. From what I've read from Japanese previews and reviews of Type-0, it seems to be what the next Final Fantasy game should have been and also looks like a more realized world than what Final Fantasy VIII offered, which is not a bad thing at all. As for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, well, I enjoy the battle system of Kingdom Hearts, and what little they've shown of the story and reading the translation of the latest trailer, it certainly seems darker and more focused on the characters instead of the usual 'rah rah, let's save the world' stuff.

After those two games...well XIV v2.0 looks okay? I dunno. I think they need Yasumi Matsuno back.

/rant off. If y'all haven't noticed, I'm bitter and bothered by what S-E has done with FF XIII and XIII-2. It's been my favorite franchise since FF IV.

The five greatest rappers of all time:

Dylan

Dylan

Dylan

Dylan

Dylan

Because he spits hot fire.

@mutha3: I trumpet FF 12 as much I can. I really like its characters and Ivalice in general, and found the Judges to be a woefully underused element of that. But all the same I feel the narrative loses its footing a bit as the game progresses. Not that is surprising when you consider its problems during development and the needless pandering to focus groups by including new characters, which by their very nature feel unnecessary and tacked on.

As a whole though it does feel like a concept album, it bucked most trends of FF at the time and was probably a little to cavalier for its own good. Before its time man, before its god-damned time! Definitely underrated.

This. ALL of this.