The concept of Downloadable Content (DLC) is one that has been holty debated for as long as it has been around. It seems like there is always some new DLC that has people up in arms, and it only gets worse as time passes. Recently there has been a big hubub about the Day 1 DLC attached to Mass Effect 3, and to a lesser extent, the on-disc DLC included in Street Fighter x Tekken. Me personally, I've always been a guy that was on the outside looking in when it comes to DLC. Where Final Fantasy comes into this topic however, is that XIII-2 has thrust me right into the middle of the DLC world, and now I feel like I'm traversing a minefield. I'm not going to lie, this post is largely going to be a rant about Final Fantasy XIII-2, but almost everything I say is very much applicable to a variety of other games as well. While my experiences may be very focused, I feel that there is an important comment on the video game industry that can be taken away from what follows.
For countless years now, it's become the norm among RPGs (in particular JRPGs) that there be some form of post-game content. Sometimes it isn't actually something that occurs after the credits but it's something that is harder than beating the game, and so its usually done after the credits roll. We're talking massive side quests, bonus dungeons and super bosses (or some combination therein), all of which have more or less become an expected part of the genre. Every Final Fantasy game released in the past 15 years has had a post-game in some form or another, and in fact, they have even gone back and added bonus dungeons to pretty much every prior Final Fantasy title via re-releases as well. So with all this in mind, having beaten Final Fantasy XIII-2 and dipped my toe into the "post-game", I thought I would give some initial thoughts. After the break.
