Shinta

@Dionkey Because stopping a 600 meter tanker with one arm, while stabbing himself in the foot to brace himself was totally realistic in MGS4.

@Lucky48 Compared to Metal Gear Solid 4 standards, Rising looks understated and tasteful. Nothing is more over the top than breakdancing with two tanks attached to you with cables while a vampire dodges them. Nothing is more over the top than walking around with a sword in your mouth because you have no arms, while you shoot lightning at people.

Go back and watch the MGS4 Raiden cutscenes again.

meh, and there goes my interest in the game. Oh well.

@Mastrius Paradigm Tune: You can set different behaviors for each job in the menus in between battles. This is like a very simplified gambit system. The example they gave is choosing to have your COM focus on different enemies or the same enemy. In FFXIII, you didn't get this choice and this was dependent on the job combination automatically. There are probably other variations for each job such as setting Synergist to focusing on offense or defense first.

QTE's: You all knew this one.

Feral Link: This is your monster's power move, which varies. Some monsters do an attack, some do a healing move, I'm sure they're all different. And with 150 monsters, I'm sure there's a lot to mess around with. Your monsters can also level in the crystarium tree.

Change Leader: You can change leaders mid-battle. I think this also changes the battle theme.

Blood Damage: Now you can get hit with damage that limits your max HP and cannot be healed. As this accumulates in battles, it encourages you to play efficiently with the paradigm deck so that you can't just hit X and sit on COM/SEN/MED and take your time.

Rankings: The 5 star system increases chances of rare item drops, increases chances of capturing a monster, and you get gil after battles now.

Difficulty: Increased overall. They also added an easy mode so you don't get stuck.

Guest characters: You can have a 4th character join your party as a guest that is controlled by A.I.

Weather: Now weather impacts spells and influences elemental strengths and weaknesses.

@Knives Chau It never played itself if you wanted to get past the first difficult boss. Also, you could turn off auto-battle in the options menu at any time.

As far as XIII-2, it's mostly the same battle system. But they've added blood damage, which is a type of damage that slowly accumulates and cannot be healed, limiting your max life. So, you can't turtle your way through fights and just sit on COM/SEN/MED and beat the fight super slow. You have to use paradigms efficiently. Also, the game is supposedly more difficult and has an easy mode added so people don't get stuck.

@Jennacide Or look at FFXIV Ver. 2.0 for the exact opposite of what you're saying. Or FFXIII-2 being much more open and non-linear. Or how this new, unannounced game has a small team of 35 people instead of the overly large team used for FFXIII that was too big to communicate efficiently.

As far as number 2, that's pretty much all Valve does, so I hope you trash them even more.

@neoand12 After December, every major game they've announced will be out except Versus. Versus will be the focus of their marketing in 2012, with tiny snippets being released in magazines overseas all year, character reveals, summons, gameplay details, etc. They'll show it off at E3. If we're lucky, it'll come out December 2012 in Japan, and 2012/early 2013 in the west.

That's my best guess.

Open world? ugh, I'm scared already ...

@QuantumChemist You're in trouble then. If there's one thing you need for this series, it's patience. 2013, ouch.

I know a certain Japanese celebrity who is also a tournament level Street Fighter player that would be a perfect fit for Poison.