Er, the encounters aren't random at all, and avoidable. In fact, the encounter system rapes 13's due to 13's limitation. You had no weapon swipe like you do in 13-2 which ensures pre-emptive battles, you just...run into them, with its wonky ass controls and shitty camera. Much more, the moogle clock adds tension to the thing. Sometimes monsters will appear, and suddenly leap towards you and you have a second to hit them with your sword.
The encounter system is one of the best improvements over 13.
Pro's:
- No more stupid paradigm shift animation, making paradigm shifting instant.
- Can save/load paradigms.
- Encounter system.
- Quests and mini quests for npc's.
- Towns, branches in paths, and actual forks in the road.
- npc's make the game feel less barren and it's nice to actually learn about the world of 13 without having to resort to a datalog. NPC's are interesting in that they actually do shit, like go sit down or actually react when a monster pops out.
- It's harder to 5 star battles now as far as I can tell.
- Monster hunting isn't SMT or anything but it's fun and adds to the game's depth.
- You don't have to play for 20 fucking hours to customize your guys, and anyone can learn any paradigm, adding a sense of customization and unique-ness to the Sarah and Noel. All of the game's features were featured in this games demo except time travel. If this were 13, it'd take 30 hours to show off all this crap.
- Crystarium in general is much better than 13's.
- Better image quality on 360.
- There seems to be a lot of content. I spent 2-3 hours on this one demo area alone and it was a pretty small-sized area.
- Jesus Christ, the music.
Cons:
- Lower frame rate.
