Talk:Final Fantasy XIII-2/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mark Arsten (talk · contribs) 19:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

• Ok, looks interesting. I'll pick up the review. More comments to follow within the next few days. Generally it looks fine, I have a few small concerns about some confusing parts though. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Lead

• "it is a direct sequel to the 2010 role playing game, Final Fantasy XIII, the thirteenth major installment in the Final Fantasy series. The game includes modified features from the previous game" It's somewhat ambiguous which game is being referred to as "The game".
• "Final Fantasy XIII-2 received highly positive reviews from Japanese critics, and generally positive reviews from Western video game journalists, who praised the gameplay, lack of linearity and graphics, but criticized the story as weak and confusing." I'd suggest breaking this into two sentences.

Gameplay

• I'd suggest trying to avoid the singular "they" in this section.
• "The game world is divided up into multiple regions and times, and includes both different regions at the same time and the same region at different times." Is there a more clear way to put this?
• "by foot or by chocobo." might want to briefly note what a chocobo is.

Combat system

• "which continually refills to a set maximum number of slots" Does something determine how quickly it refills or does it just refill at the same rate, i.e. in real time.
• "The game has both normal and easy modes." Seems like a kinda random place to note this.
• "and if too much time passes before combat begins the player is restricted from restarting the battle during combat" So you can generally restart each battle?
• "Each enemy has a meter, called a Chain Gauge, consisting of a percentage starting at 100 which increases when the enemy is struck by attacks or spells." Just so we're clear, it starts at 100% and then goes higher when they're attacked?
• "Attacks by different roles have different effects" When reading through I was confused as to what "roles" are at this point.
• "some raise the chain by a larger amount while others give the player longer before the Chain Gauge resets" By resets, you mean drops back to 100%, right?
• So the challenge with the Chain Gauge is to bring it up the the percent that causes "Staggered" before it resets? I think I understand now, but I found this paragraph somewhat confusing.
• "Unlike in Final Fantasy XIII, the player cannot summon Eidolons to fight." What is an "Eidolon"?
  • Clarified that an Eidolon is a summoned monster, and also the reason why they are not available in this title. ProfessorTofty (talk) 00:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Plot

• "a team of six people stopped the two worlds from being destroyed by the fal'Cie of Cocoon" What is the "fal'Cie"?
• "Due to the fall of Cocoon and the collapse of its government" ... "Over the course of the game, a scientific body called the Academy eventually becomes a technocratic government." This happened in the last game, right? I'm a little unclear about that.
• "The two main playable characters are Serah Farron, Lightning's sister" A bit confusing, we don't know who Lightning is at this point.
• "a young man originally from 700 years in the future" relative to what? 3 AF?
• "and willingly became a l'Cie to accomplish his goal" What's that?
• "an Academy member and survivor of the Purge." What's the Purge?
• I'm not sure if there's an easy way to explain, but what do they do to "resolve the paradox"?
• "Noel claims that this takes place around 400 AF, and devastates the human population as well as the world, resulting in the extinction of the species by his own time." So Noel isn't human? What is he?
• "Resolving the paradox, Noel and Serah travel to an alternate Academia." What time is this?
• "and risks death every time she changes the future.[15][10]" Refs should be in ascending numerical order.
• "In the full ending, Lightning is seen in crystal stasis on the throne of Etro's temple." Is there more than one ending?
  • There are multiple endings, and what was written there was not correct. The Lightning in stasis sequence is always shown in the main ending. The secret ending involves the antagonist Caius Ballad and Yeul. I have corrected / added to the information. The remainder of the "endings" are separate from the main ending and are called "Paradox Endings." They trigger bonus scenes that show optional pathways in time, but due to the effect of the Historia Crux, after viewing such an ending, the player is returned to the Historia Crux to continue gameplay, as if the ending never happened. ProfessorTofty (talk) 00:15, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:50, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Development

• "According to Toriyama, with Vanille and Fang gone and Cocoon fallen, there was no way for the new story to be totally peaceful, while Kitase remarked that the story was intended to have the serious feel of a true numbered entry in the Final Fantasy series." & "The story for XIII-2 was structured differently than for XIII, as a series of smaller "pieces of drama" rather than one overarching story piece, and relying less on unfamiliar concepts and terms such as "l'Cie" and "fal'Cie"". Kind of long, might want to break these up.

Music

• There some repetition of "compose" in this section.

Reception

• "Parker praised the game's "smart, engaging mechanics" and the "novel structure" of the gameplay, and Joe Juba of Game Informer said that the changes to Final Fantasy XIII's battle system made it his favorite Final Fantasy battle system yet, and that the gameplay was "phenomenal"." & "VanOrd agreed that the combat was fun, though he found it to be too easy; the Edge review, which was harsher on the game than most others, also found it to be too easy, which combined with what they saw as poor subquests and lazy environment design made the gameplay uninteresting." & "VanOrd was less negative towards the characters and story than most others, but still described the characters as good but not great, focusing on the less interesting characters of Noel and Sarah over Lightning and Caius, and said that the story was "semi-coherent" and missed several emotional notes, particularly in the first half of the game." Kind of long, might want to break these up.
• Make sure you have a citation after every sentence with a direct quote.
• Is there any more you can say about the difference between Japanese and North American reviews? i.e. Why its reception in Japan was much better.

• Got nothing for you on this one; just a matter of taste, I suppose, but I don't have a source. Anecdotally, though, Japanese reviewers seem willing to happily put up with the most absurd storytelling without docking points in a review where non-Japanese reviewers aren't, but I don't have an RS for that. --PresN 00:35, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. Japan can be an interesting place. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:50, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Sequel

• " In late August 2012, a new teaser site was unveiled in preparation for the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Event, titled "A Storm Gathers", teasing" Some repetition here (teaser ... teasing)

• Alright! Thanks so much for reviewing, it's quite a long article to slog through. I think between me and ProtoDrake we've gotten everything above this comment taken care of. --PresN 22:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, sounds good. I'll take another read through it soon. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:50, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Second pass

• Ok, just took a second pass over the article. It looks like most issues have been taken care of, but here are a few more small comments:
• "Monsters do not freely roam the map like in Final Fantasy XI to XIII, but instead they randomly appear as in previous Final Fantasy games." Might want to give the range of Final Fantasy games instead of saying "previous Final Fantasy games".
• There some repetition of "battle" in the "Combat system" section, it would be nice if that could be cut down on.
• "there are around 150 different monsters available to be collected" Different types of monsters? Or only 150 total monsters?
• "but can also perform a feral link attack" Should this be hyphenated?
• " fifth best-selling 2011 game in Japan" Should double check that the hyphen is in the right part here.
• "Square Enix registered the domain name FinalFantasy13-2game.com..." Did they ever use the site or did they just register it?

• It forwards to the official site(s), but they didn't use it specifically- they were just domain-name squatting so that no one else would take it. --PresN 19:25, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

• "Initially, the design for the game called for Serah to travel alone with Mog" Who is Mog?
• "The moogle was designed by Toshitaka Matsuda." Might want to explain what a moogle is.
• There's some repetition of "making it the" in "Reception"
• I wonder if the music's reception would be best mentioned in the Music section? Mark Arsten (talk) 19:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

• Traditionally its not, even in GAs and FAs- trying to keep the game's reception all together, rather than music's in the music section, gameplay in the gameplay section, etc. --PresN 19:25, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

• Images are all fine.
• No dabs, no dead links. Actually, the andriasang.com links aren't working for me right now. Not sure if their site's down or what. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:59, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• Andriasang closed shop a few months ago- the website is supposed to stick around, just not have new news posted, but it's been going up and down ever since. That reminds me- I need to archive all the links. --PresN 19:25, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not totally familiar with which sites are reliable sources and which aren't. The ones I wonder about here are andriasang.com, RPG Site, The Penny Arcade Report., and RPGFan. Have these been discussed before?

• I've used RPGFan and Andriasang in FAs before (Final Fantasy XIII), PAR is listed at the video games reliable sources page based on the individual reliability of its editor/writers, and RPG Site doesn't seem to have a discussion anywhere, so I've replaced it with VG247, which I used in that same FA, though I had to lose the sales number for it. --PresN 19:25, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

• Also, I think you should add English translations of the titles of the Japanese articles, if you can. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
• You mention in the infobox and a template at the bottom that it's part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy series, but that's not mentioned in the text at all. Might want to add that in. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• All of the second wave should be done between Protodrake and myself; I've commented inline where warranted. --PresN 19:25, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

• Alright, the second wave of fixes look good. I'm happy to pass this now. Thanks to everyone who helped on the review! Mark Arsten (talk) 19:01, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• Spotchecks: checked 46, 50b, 51c, 58, 60, and 61--no issues found. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:01, 15 March 2013 (UTC)