Final Fantasy XIII-2 Review

The sort of sweeping changes seen in Final Fantasy XIII-2 aren’t the kind that will drag you in, blind and gleeful, regardless of your long-standing genre allegiances.

That’s because the sweeping changes seen in Final Fantasy XIII-2, while pushing the game away from the path taken by FFXIII, does take this second direct sequel of the franchise into what is still well-worn territory.

You’ll either see it as a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact remains: FFXIII-2 is still very much a JRPG; it’s still the sort of thing that will appeal to fans of the genre and series; it’s still not going to convince those with no standing interest in the genre. 

But then, it was never made for the latter group anyway – this is absolutely fan service done Squenix style.

We pick up the story three years after Final Fantasy XIII left off (SPOILERS): Orphan has been destroyed; the people are no longer under the control of the godlike fal’Cie; Cocoon has been devastated but still stands, supported by the pillar of crystal made of, by and from Fang and Vanille; life is beginning again (SPOILERS END).

But there are differences – Serah, back from her bout as a lump of crystal in the last game and now the lead character, is confused: Lightning was there to greet her when the gang came around from its crystalline slumber on Gran Pulse, but nobody else remembers this – they all think she formed the crystal pillar along with Fang and Vanille.

The time travel concept can be pretty interesting.

Soon enough, a young chap called Noel Kriess turns up (by way of Kingdom Hearts, at least by the look of him) with news that Lightning isn’t now made of crystal and is in fact in a place called Valhalla, naturally. Still with us?

This leads to Serah and Noel traveling through time, changing the future, altering the past and generally dealing with all the fun, contradictions and paradoxes that sort of behaviour comes with. It starts out confusing, it gets a bit more confusing and it takes a while to get your head around the whole thing.

But, while we’d never go so far as to claim it a Huge Success in storytelling, there is intrigue and interest conjured up by Final Fantasy XIII-2’s tale.

Beginning as it does: partway through an ongoing situation, filling in the gaps as you progress, showing you false futures and histories you go on to change – it’s clumsy at times, convoluted at others, but it keeps you interested.

Just as Final Fantasy XIII’s story wasn’t anything to write home about, yet it kept you playing with its relentless pace and drove you forward (usually down corridors), Final Fantasy XIII-2 succeeds somewhat in spite of itself.

You’re not getting Uncharted 3 levels of cutscene glory, you will be sectioned if you claim much of the voice acting is anything other than ‘not terrible at best’ and there’s enough melodrama to fit an entire generation’s worth of teenage diaries. But somehow, some way it doesn’t outstay its welcome; it doesn’t make you not want to carry on playing.

These areas can become a little repetitive.

Of course, this is in a huge part because of the actual game bit. As much as you will be sat for 15-minute spells half-watching the story unfold, there’s the meat of the matter.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a more open game than its ancestor – it’s still decidedly linear, but there’s more freedom to take your time, to double back on yourself and to re-explore previously seen areas than there was last time around.

The time travel system plays up to this, with the Historia Crux (think: level select menu) offering the chance to choose the order in which players approach the game, as well as ‘reset’ the timelines once completed to play through it again and try out different things.

It doesn’t change a huge amount depending on how you play it, so this is more a novelty feature than anything, but it does add at least something to the longevity of the experience. Plus trying to open all of the time gates in each time zone can become quite an addictive endeavour.

This more open approach shouldn’t fool you into thinking Final Fantasy XIII-2 is an open world game – it’s simply home to more explorable areas and less corridors for you to be funneled through.

In fact, from an in-game mechanics standpoint, it’s very much a traditional JRPG – run around a safe town area, explore the dangerous wilderness or a dungeon, solve a few puzzles (mostly on the easier side of things), grind a little bit, beat the boss, move on.

That’s all there, and anybody worried Final Fantasy XIII-2 would take things too far from the Final Fantasy formula should be relieved to know it’s traditional fare, just blended up with a few other factors from Final Fantasy games and the genre as a whole.

Some battles now have QTEs to deal with, which is a little unnecessary.

Those on the other side though, hoping for a progressive take on the franchise and one that truly offers something new… well, they’re not really catered for.

But is it a criticism to say something not made for people of a particular taste isn’t made for people of a particular taste? Probably not.

The battle system is one of the biggest features to remain largely unchanged, and the paradigm system from Final Fantasy XIII fortunately makes a comeback.

It’s a deceptively simple system, offering flowing, smooth tactical choice during every fight – it isn’t always necessary to win, but when it is you realise just how solid a battle system it really is.

One main change is the addition of the ability to capture monsters and have them fight on your side as a third party member. These wee beasties can be upgraded and leveled up, learning new skills as they progress, they can be customised to some extent and combined with other creatures to create a superior version of the original.

It’s a decent extra feature, allowing for a bit more tactical planning in battles – will you bring a battering ram-like chocobo into the fight with you, or stick with the healing techniques of a Cait Sith (not the one from FFVII)?

Once again, it’s deceptively simple – it doesn’t get in the way or demand undue attention, and having a constantly interchangeable third member of your party brings with it a great deal more tactical nuance than with pre-prescribed characters.

Despite our love of all things Moogle, Mog doesn't half get on our nerves.

Another major change is something that we were surprised to find works quite well – Cinematic Action sections (quick-time events) pop up during boss battles and offer a chance to do a bit more damage, finish of a fight in style and pick up a bonus item or two if you’re good enough. They’re not invasive and they’re not overused – it’s still an odd choice to include them, but they’re not entirely unwelcome either.

It’s not all smooth sailing, as you may have gathered. For every change that benefits, or brings something new or interesting to the game, there’s sometimes (not always) another element that diminishes or drags things down to a very staid level.

The Mog Clock, for example, manages to cover both bases – it’s an interesting take on the random battle system, allowing for player skill and awareness to play a part in how they perform in their battles (or how they simply avoid them).

On the other hand and at the basest level, it is simply a reintroduction of random battles – an element we would be happy to see die a miserable death, and something that had disappeared from Final Fantasy XIII.

In fact, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is full of these contradictions – and we don’t just mean the things they keep on talking about in the storyline – like how bringing back the classic Final Fantasy character in Mog is both brilliant (oh how we missed him), and awful (oh how he is one of the most irritating characters known to humanity).

Or like how seeing a concise resolution to the stories of Final Fantasy XIII’s characters is more than welcome, what with the last game offering a fair few vagaries in its ending – but it does mean more genuinely, curl-up-embarrassed-while-you’re-watching-them cutscenes, with acting that would make Pauly Shore (Google him) wince. Does it ruin the game? No. Does it irritate and is it something we wish wasn’t true of the experience? Yep.

Chocobos return and are improved, and even have a betting/races mini-game to play around with.

Then there’s Live Trigger, the dialogue choice system. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the more pointless additions to the game. There is very little need for it, and while it does offer the chance to hear a few nuggets of differing dialogue, it brings nothing of real note to the game and could very easily have been left out with the finished product feeling no ill effect whatsoever.

Even so, there’s no doubt in our minds that Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a welcome addition to the series. It’s refreshing to see a Japanese developer of such heritage, of such tradition, take steps to rectify what were seen as missteps by the company’s fanbase.

It doesn’t set everything back perfectly on track, it doesn’t do anything that will draw in anyone other than existing JRPG fans and it does make a fair few mistakes – but it’s still fun, it’s still good enough to keep you playing for the dozens of hours needed to see one of the multiple endings and it goes some way to making Final Fantasy XIII seem like less of a black sheep in the series’ history.

We do recommend Final Fantasy XIII-2, but it’s not a game that – even with changes across the board – really offers something different in the genre.