Set three years after the conclusion of Final Fantasy XII and the supposed disappearance of Lightning, Vanille and Fang, Final Fantasy XIII-2 shows Lightning depicted as a valkyrie, battling a mysterious figure named Caius (who seems like some sort of Harbinger of Chaos) in Valhalla. During the battle, a mysterious youth named Noel Kreiss drops in and is sent by Lightning back to the current time to find Serah, Lightning’s sister. Noel is apparently from a future 700 years after Serah’s time, and has been desperately searching for a way to fix his decimated time period. Noel and Serah make up the protagonist duo to the game, and set off on a journey, which covers a ridiculous time span and has the players travelling through multiple time periods depicting the tenuous struggle of surviving between the Cocoon and Gran Pulse.
Overall, Serah is trying to ‘jump’ to meet Lightning in Valhalla and discover the whereabouts of her beau, Snow, while Noel is looking to see if there are any clues for saving his future. Along the way, the pair must solve a variety of anomalies that seem to have appeared out of place in each time period that they visit. However, the overall execution of the story probably isn't handled as well as could have been. Of course, it was never going to be more than the typically anime-inspired affair, and creditibly, does have its memorable moments. However, there really isn't enough memorable progression across time, or enough of a change in the characters to reflect it. Having only the two protagonists, neither of who can really steal the show, doesn't allow for the anyone to really take control of the things. There are ways to fiddle with the ending, but it will still disappoint some...
If you don't like them, tough. You're stuck with them!
As a direct sequel, players who haven’t experienced XIII would be left out… but the developers have added a ‘Beginner’s Primer’, which actually turns out to be an excellent and concise summary of the previous title. That way, new players aren’t totally left out with what happened before and who the reintroduced characters are. It's just a shame that it all comes across as incidental. Otherwise, one of the major thorns from Final Fantasy XIII was the 20 hour corridor that players were forced down at the 'start' of the game. Well, most will probably be relieved to hear that XIII-2 expands out of the confines of the corridors into a more traditional structure across environments that actually have scope for choice and exploration.
The battle system, for all intents and purposes, is still pretty similar to its predecessor. However, the system does seem like it has been sped up, which actually works pretty well, as the battles are quick and often require your full and undivided attention. You'll be snapping through the battles much faster than you did in the previous title. So taking this in addition to the game breaking out of the corridors, you have a game that doesn't have as much of a grind as its predecessor. Despite this though, most of the battles that you'll face in the game will have you breezing through fairly proficiently, unless you're totally lax about it.
Some other additions include quick time for boss battles, which are referred to as Cinematic Action events. These are mainly attached to dealing extra damage and end-of-battle bonuses, so they won’t directly affect your results in the battle but they worked reasonably well and kept the player on their toes. Furthermore, you will be able to acquire monsters to battle alongside you, and form new sets of Paradigm combinations, referred to as ‘Paradigm Packs’. This actually works pretty well, and if put together properly, will solidify your combinations for each Paradigm - which as players from before will know are vital to success in battle - as well as adding something of a Pokémon element to the game.
Don't I know you from some place?
The game progression doesn’t have to be entirely linear this time. There is no overworld, but instead you'll often come back to a menu that controls each of the time periods that you can enter. Once you open the time portals in each time period, you’ll be allowed to head back and explore worlds that you didn’t fully explore before, possibly restarting them if you really want to fix up how you did things. Each has secrets, discoveries and some extra story as you revisit them. There probably is one fetch quest too many though, and the inclusion of the chocobo as a faster means of transport is quaint but doesn’t always seem that necessary.
Given the more freeform approach, enemies are now somewhat random. When they appear, you will have till the ‘Mog Clock’ strikes red to make your choice of action; you can either strike it to initiate to battle or try to run away. If you strike quickly enough, you’ll start off with a bonus, such as a better stagger. If you are too slow or fail to run away, you will start at a disadvantage. Furthermore, as you go along solving problems across time, you’ll come across ‘Temporal Rifts’ that act like giant puzzles. Solving these will help resolves issues within a particular time period. Most of the other additions and improvements to the game are more of the ‘under the hood variety’, such as differences to the levelling systems and the additions of costumes and what not, which actually put more choice back into the hands of the player and makes things more flexible.
As much as you wish there were some better interface features such as a history log, what’s there will have players occupied and you’re given a brief re-run of events when you get back into the game. Otherwise, the general consensus so far is that you'll be completing the game somewhere around the 30 hour mark just to get to the end, but that's not including all the extra and 'good' stuff that you can get up to. Overall though, aside from somewhat dropping the ball with the whole time travel premise and despite being a superior game, Final Fantasy XIII-2 lacks that endearing factor that comes from a comprehensive package that screams unbridled class. Fans will enjoy it more, but it's a package that still leaves a little more to be desired.
Taller, faster, better, stronger.
Graphically, the game is very difficult to reproach from the cut scenes, which are immaculately directed and choreographed, but maybe too lengthy for some. Opening up the game itself has been a little bit of a challenge, as there are some areas that look like they could have used a bit of extra attention. But regardless of this, it's still a visual and stylistic achievement that purports flair and excellence. Of course, it's not to everyone's taste but it still manages to make great use of its scope. In a nod to Western RPGs, you have some dialogue choices but regardless, what the characters say is usually... rather typical of the JRPG dubbing effort, even if it is at the higher end. The soundtrack has been injected with more vocal soundtracks and will actually make for good listening for fans.
It's great to see that Square Enix actually decided to listen and take into account the feedback for Final Fantasy XIII-2, and they have without a doubt created a superior game to its predecessor. The battle system is quicker, and there are is a lot more scope for choice and exploration. You're let off the training wheels much earlier and the player will be much better off for it. Fans of JRPGs and those still interested in Final Fantasy after XIII will definitely want to check it out. It's just a shame though, that the time travelling shenanigans, characters and scope weren't realised as well as they could have been. If early indications are anything to go by though, Square Enix has left room for another chance at improvement...
.
. He barely touched on the gameplay except for this; "Oh, yeah, the battle is really good but I can exploit the game which means it sucks!!!1!".
Loading...
