9inchsamurai

@rockin
JRPGs were originally just dungeon crawlers anyway, and to this day Dragon Quest is still primarily developing their games down that same "style" of JRPG. "Traditional JRPG" is a really nebulous term.

Someone needs to discuss the difference between having a good story and having good storytelling (aka narrative). Video games in general don't need a "good story" and can get by just fine on great storytelling.

SC2 might have had a shit ton of single-player content, but it really pissed me off a lot. I think its "adventure mode" or whatever it was called caused me to actually damage my controller for the first time ever.

@Electrium
Well, FFX-2 still has hands down the best battle system in the series. You see, in that game you could actually control every character AND it was in real-time. Now imagine if XIII's battle system had everything X-2 also offered like chaining attacks together to delay enemy actions (which they could also do to you), and getting certain bonuses by changing Paradigms in certain orders. The ATB gauge was really underutilized because it really didn't matter what order you picked your commands in and the only really tricky thing you did was attack before your bar was completely full (sometimes). Before XIII came out the developers said they wanted the battle system to be more action-oriented than ever, but really the only action-y part is having to change Paradigms at the drop of a hat. If they actually looked back at X-2 they could have easily come up with some great battle system ideas to keep XIII action-packed.

What they should have spent more time on was making the battle system more interesting. Once you grasp the basic concept of breaks and which paradigms are the best in certain situations, there's literally nothing left to figure out. They could have done so much more with the battle system in a sequel, but from what I played of the demo the only thing they added is a "Change Leader" option (which should have been in the first game anyway) and the monsters (which at least have those limit break things). Sure people wanted NPCs, towns, and mini-games, but it would have been a better use of their time to make the battle system more fun considering they already had that element in place in XIII.

Adding dozens of towns and hundreds of NPCs doesn't matter if the story veers into nonsensical anime-dribble - I'd expect stuff like that from a Tales game but Final Fantasy stories have always been easier to swallow than their more anime-inspired brethren (mostly because they tone down the fantasybabble).

@(Unverified) I'd really enjoy reading your analysis as to how the stylistic differences aren't as complex as one would think, because I'm a staunch believer in the opposite.

If only the weekly JRPG articles went this in-depth in their analysis...

Awesome! I just noticed this article and it's right when I'm really starting to get into fighting games, like, for real this time >.> I don't even have a cheapo stick to use, so my execution using one is absolute gutter trash.

This article doesn't really express why this trilogy is worth playing. Just saying.

Making the battle system like Paper Mario is the most natural thing they could have possible done with this game. Good stuff.