Note to Square.

[bluestarultor]

Square, I'm really liking Final Fantasy XIII. You're doing great here. But you could be doing even better, and not just on XIII. Here are some friendly suggestions of what you could have done or what you still might do.

On XIII:
- You guys totally missed an opportunity by not including an animal character in there. Something similar to Red XIII. FF XIII, Red XIII, I'm not alone in being disappointed in the lack of a shout-out, especially given the other similarities to FF VII. You COULD still fix this, though. The game is out, but, man, you guys did an awesome job with not even needing an install for the load times. Just adding one in as DLC would net you millions. Many people would buy the character and the space needed on the hard drive would likely be minimal. You don't need to give him or her much story. Look at the DLC characters in Mass Effect. Just the character's presence would make male and female gamers alike squeal in delight. It also would open up another element to summon for. You have fire, ice, lightning, earth, holy, and Bahamut, but you could easily do a water or wind Eidolon. Leviathan could totally go tank or boat, or if you chose wind, nobody really expects to NOT have a new one. If you do want to insert some plot for the character, you could totally do a small "a boy and his dog" thing with Hope. The kid sorely needs more joy in his life. Just introduce the character later in the game, after Fang, so it doesn't conflict with his relationship with Lightning. Heck, if you end up doing that, you could contrast Alexander with Diabolos or Hades or even Ark, which already transforms. Come on, with all the animal experiments in Cocoon, having an animal party member would fit beautifully.
- Byrnhildr is pretty cool, but you could totally have made a car out of Phoenix. Just saying, another possibility to have considered.
- Quake is pretty neat, but it could have hit multiple times.
- Odin not having a lightning resistance while standing in as the lightning summon is not cool. Unless he learns one, but Byrnhildr and Shiva both have resistances to their own elements off the bat. I get he's kind of just half, given Zantetsuken, but geez.

On Versus XIII:
- If you can't put an animal character in XIII as DLC, include one here. You totally could, with the utter lack of info you've given. I get you might want realism, but the animal character wouldn't necessarily have to talk in this case, so much as be an intelligent guard animal of some sort.
- That said, release a bit more info, would you? I get it's nowhere near done, but a small update would be nice on occasion, just to keep people interested.

In general:
- Stop calling it "Libra." It makes no sense. "Scan" worked just fine up until, what, FF X? Later? I know it's always been Libra in Japan, but Scan works better here.
- Make Chrono Brake. If you need an idea to work with, I have a plot, cast, and full intro written out for you. Yes, I want it that badly, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
- You kind of messed up by making some of your stand-by summons into fal'Cie. I can understand Kjata, since it otherwise gets no love, but Carbuncle? Unless you're tossing out all protective and healing summons for the entirety of Fabula Nova Crystalis, that's a loss. I can dig it if you are, but it just seems odd.
- Kjata needs more love. It is by far one of your most unique summons, yet it's only been usable twice.
- Red XIII actually has a huge fan base. I'd put him as probably the best character out of FF VII, yet he only gets one line in Advent Children? His story is far more interesting than the rest of the cast's, is handled better, and has a lot of potential for expansion. I see you recognize this from his cameo in Before Crisis, but the next time you're up for a risk, give him a game. I imagine a platformer might be an interesting take on his search for a mate, allowing him to fully explore the world and find new and interesting stuff/races/beasties that you didn't include in the original game. Think DoC, only with a Materia system closer to VII's or even Crisis Core's, jumping puzzles, and a four-legged hero. Also, get the VA from AC back for it, because he seriously sounded like Red always did in my head, and I've heard the same from others, and it was awesome, regardless. Also, no need to include Cait Sith in this. I know he's a good character, but having him on Red's head wasn't the most popular and it would probably work best to have Red go it alone for his personal mission. Cameo the rest of the cast, to be sure, but show us their lives after the end, the same as this would be Red's life after the end.



I realize this seems like a lot, but it's only eleven points, and most of them are minor suggestions.

Keep up the good work,

Blue

[Amake]

I figure Libra weighs the strengths and weaknesses of an enemy. It's a little more poetic than "Scan", but far from not making sense.

That's all. Give me some months and I'll get a HDTV, a PS3 and then maybe I'll play the game. . .

[Kim]

I guess the main advice I'd have for Square is first: Fire Motomu Toriyama out of a canon and into the sun. Jackass couldn't write his way out of a cardboard box. I mean, jesus christ, before this we had...

FFIX: which easily ranks as one of the series best stories in spite of the wonkiness at the end.

FFX: which is very well done even if some of the characters are sorely underdeveloped.

FFXII: which features well done political intrigue and quite possibly one of the best villains the series has ever seen, not to say it doesn't have its own flaws.

And now we have FFXIII, wherein the cast ranges from unlikable to boring, with one exception. The pacing is atrocious on more levels than I have fingers. The dialogue is melodramatic, and nobody actually fucking talks like these characters do.

You'd think you'd have learned your lesson about letting Toriyama write after X-2 happened, but nooooooooo, you had to give the fucker a main FF title to run into the ground. And now the jackass wants to remake FFVII. I'm not a huge fan of it, but I guarantee you that the story as it was then is a fuck of a lot better than whatever sort of abomination Toriyama would create from it.


Regarding Kingdom Hearts...

God-fucking-dammit, Nomura. Stop making every damn character a clone/past version/future version/heartless/nobody/Les Enfants Terribles of Sora. You exceeded becoming self-parody in this regard, and now every time I find out that this twist is being recycled again and again and again, my interest in that particular Kingdom Hearts title falls through the floor.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Is this thread about Blues' bestiality? Cause I'm not sure why putting animal characters into things is automatically good.
Like Red. Why was he a dog? It served no purpose and was gimmicky and they just wanted a cuddly animal in your party. Lame

[Melfice]

Nanaki may have been a popular character (okay, it is a pretty cool character, I suppose), but really? Do we need an animal party member in every Final Fantasy?

Also, with the realistic direction Versus XIII is headed (Can I term a catch-phrase? Can we call that Real-Fi now? Or maybe Real-Fan? I dunno... yeah, that sucked.) an animal companion of ANY kind would probably stand out sorely. Like... I dunno. Something that really stands out sorely.
A simple dog might work, I suppose (Dragon Age), but still.

[Jagos]

It's like a bandage, it cures everything I guess. O_o

Seriously, from what I've seen of FFXIII, the characters really don't hit their stride until LATE in the game. I'm not a fan of arena battles but it's like you're paying to play someone else's experience with little to no control on what you do.

And with the voice acting coming off as grating to my ears, I can't begin to think a furry character is going to help it out.

[Donomni]

If they make a SUPER SPECIAL EDITION of the game(But replace if with will eventually), it better be DLC outside of Japan, cause we all know it's not fucking coming out of Japan.

[bluestarultor]

Bestiality? Really, Smarty? I really don't know what to say. Oh, wait, yes I do. Fuck you. God. I never thought I'd be saying that to someone like you. I am severely disappointed.

The only reason I suggested including an animal character is because, uh, FF XIII, Red XIII, missed opportunity? They were already pulling a lot from FF7. May as well do something kind of cool and number-based to commemorate it. Really, Versus wouldn't be the best place to do it, but it's still at a point where they could, which is the only reason I mentioned it.

And the only reason I suggested a game for Red is because he's the best character out of FF7. Science fact. I just asked a friend of my brother's and he agrees. That's incontestable proof. :p So long as they're going to keep up with Compilation FF7, they may as well give it a shot. If I'd been talking about FF9, it would have been Vivi. Well, bad example, since there's not much you can do with him if you've seen the ending. The point being that people have put undeserved focus on one of the least interesting characters of the series (Vincent), and Square essentially made up a story for him from nothing to satisfy demand, where it's clear Red has a valid story that deserves better exploration and they've resorted to giving snippets in spin-off titles. If you have a story, tell it.

[Regulus Tera]

Squeenix to Blues: Dude, rendering fur in HD is freaking hard!

[Kerensky287]

Then make it for PSP.