It’s not outside the world of reason to follow up on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII. After all SE did plan a whole series of games based within a common mythos and despite XIII ending in such a way that does not lend itself to a sequel (and really, how many times have they done this?), SE brings the world of XIII to life yet again with Final Fantasy XIII-2. Seeking to correct some of the issues that XIII had, XIII-2 is a title that can stand alone and perhaps even top the favorite lists of a few Final Fantasy fans out there.
To say that XIII-2 starts off immediately after XIII is a bit of an understatement. After the end of XIII, Lightning would somehow become a Valkyrie of sorts in Valhalla and would engage in an grand battle with Caius Ballad. Without much to go on as to how everything played out, a young man named Noel Kreiss gets warped to Valhalla during the battle and encounters Lightning. She tells Noel to find and bring back her sister Serah. Meanwhile, Serah is coping with the loss of Lightning, but also been feeling disjointed as she seems to be the only one who remembers the final events of XIII where Lightning approves of her marriage with Snow and everything was all happy. Noel pops up in Serah’s time, tells her that he’s from a future where humanity has ended and he wishes to change the past so that the future can be a brighter one. After some hesitation and some convincing that Noel can take Serah to Lightning, the two set off through the Historia Crux and navigate their way through time to fix the future, find Lightning and go through a journey of self-discovery.
You and every other hero.
As juvenile as this all is, I find the entire premise to be relaxing and above acceptable if you’re not looking for anything that will twist your brain in a knot. Clearly we’re seeing themes that have been established with other SE titles with Chrono Trigger and FFX-2 coming to mind. While emphasis on character background for Noel and Serah are petty at best, the duo-theme is perfect medium for the narrative in FFXIII-2. Instead of focusing on many different characters in FFXIII-2, the spotlight really does not shine too far from Noel and Serah’s little duo team. The big picture, however, is the world itself and the story that is essentially being told with the visuals beyond the written words. Each area and time you land into has its own story to tell and as you play further, alternate timelines present themselves with a different situations looking to either a grim or a brighter outcome.
Then of course there is the overlaying main story of how Noel and Serah changes the future. It isn’t too complicated or convoluted to understand as long as you don’t try to make too much sense of the existing of paradoxes in the timeline and the whole chicken-egg paradox theory. As fun as time travel is, you’re actually just in a central menu hub that will teleport you to an area. Each area could have alternate time variants or even alternate timeline variants. This means that you won’t be finding any sort of interesting bits of changing one small thing in the past to unlock something in the future as each point is locked into its own “fate” if you will. With that said, huge significant changes that you do in the game’s linear story will cause an alternate timeline where an event that occurred or prevented changed the future. This basis becomes the key part of Noel and Serah’s mission in correcting the timeline as there are paradoxes that are occurring all over time that must be corrected to ensure a better future. Each area can be treated as their own little world with its own set of side tasks that you can do and its own contribution to the story.
And of course, things do get much more complicated than at face value as the story progresses as Caius does get involved to attempt to stop Noel and Serah among other things. Nothing that will completely twist your arm off but for those that aren’t to keen to having to decrypting complicated stories and having to read between the lines, I feel that XIII-2 does the job just right to keep people interested without blowing their heads open in shock and amazement. I did not really much care for the backstory of the two main characters and I feel that SE knew where to focus this time around. Noel and Serah aren’t complex characters by any means and you’ll realize this when it dips into the whole “do I really exist” area few times. Despite that, I never felt that the simplicity of the two to harm the overall presentation of the story.
A fine balance of seriousness and humor makes for a pleasant ride.
The introduction of Mog as the third wheel to this team duo is an interesting one. While he functions as Serah’s main weapon when he transforms before battle, he also acts as a nice break of the seriousness that goes on in XIII-2. Sure, I can see how he can be annoying but honestly I just thought he was pretty damn cool for a character that acts as only comic relief. Though, Mog can actually be used to find hidden items and lends himself to the open exploration of the worlds in XIII-2. He can ping the area around you and locate hidden items or can be thrown at item containers that would normally be unreachable. At first I was a bit worried that Mog as a companion character would destroy an otherwise serious and grim story into a sugary mess of sweet and cuteness. Turns out that he is a nice balance that complements the overlaying theme.
In the end of it all, I never felt that Noel and Serah were boring or annoying. As cliché as their personalities were, what I felt wasn’t deep character development but deep partnership development. The generic JRPG hero with a goal to be stronger and a girl becoming a woman is probably the most overused pair in any JRPG. However, putting the two together and focusing only on the two as playable characters is not something that I’ve seen done so well before because there is always a third person or a huge party in other stories. SE makes it a point where united they are a force to be reckoned with but will fall apart if separated. This shows in both how fragile they are in the story and just how easily you can die in battle if one character falls. Especially when dealing with Caius whose motives aren’t too far’fetched like most Final Fantasy villains. He definitely gets my vote for being such a fantastic villain that really bends the concept of being morally right or wrong.
This shouldn't surprise anyone who has played FFXIII before.
Speaking of battles, XIII-2 retains one aspect that most enjoyed from XIII and that’s the robust battle system with the Paradigm System. To those unfamiliar with the Paradigm System, it is a system that lets you switch between preset roles and abilities during the middle of battle. This is also coupled with a chaining system that allows you to stagger an enemy mob to deal more damage. By switching roles, you can setup situations to build up chains, deal massive damage, maintain a defensive resting position or whatever combination that you can think of. During certain boss fights, there will be these segments called Cinematic Actions which are essentially quick-time events where you have to hit a button or a command in a timely fashion to avoid damage or to land the finishing blow on an enemy. These do come with rewards for flawless execution and heck, these little segments are pretty cool to look at.
XIII-2 added a feature that is akin to any monster raising RPG where your third party slot is occupied by a monster that you have tamed. Each of these monsters have their own set of abilities and their own paradigm class. You will be able to assign up to three monsters in your paradigm presents and they can be leveled up as well. Another addition they bring to the battle are Feral Link abilities. Each monsters has their own and you gain access to these abilities by charging a meter much like any old limit break mechanic. This brings another dimension to battles as you can use these abilities to get a quick emergency heal off or continue a stagger chain that would have otherwise be broken off if no attacks were incoming fast enough. Taming monsters is a seamless endeavor as killing a tameable monster will randomly give you the monster for you to use after the battle ends.
Being able to activate abilities like this on command helps so much.
Random battles are back again but with its own twist. Monsters do not wander around the field on their own and instead will suddenly appear when you’re walking in a monster infested area. From there, a “Mog Clock” starts counting down and you have the option to engage the enemy by hitting them (preemptive strike), touching them (normal) or attempt to run away. Attempting to run away will clear away the monsters if you distance yourself far enough. Fail to engage or to run away fast enough for the Mog Clock and you will be forced into battle where you will be restricted from retrying after dying. Dying without retrying basically requires you to load the last save point. Thankfully one huge improvement in XIII-2 is being able to save at virtually anywhere at any time. For those forgetful people, the game will automatically save at key points during the story and will save the game every time you go back to the Historia Crux.
The Crystarium leveling system makes a return in XIII-2 but with some changes. You are no longer capped based on the progress of your story and you can have access to all six class roles right from the get go as long as you fulfill leveling requirements, none of them being steep in the slightest. Maxing out at least one class before the end of the main story is probable with being able to max out everything very possible post-game. There isn’t much in customization as it is managing towards what class do you want to specialize first in as you’re progressing through the game. Noel and Serah level in the same manner as in XIII in that you’re rewarded Crystogen at the end of each battle. Monsters in your party are leveled with items that can be found on monsters or from the store.
The graphics took a small bit of a visual hit but even then still retains its ability to captivate the player with its world. The engined used in XIII was meant to static camera positioning and maintained its frame rate well. XIII-2 opts for a free-movement camera and would often slowdown in places with a lot of things going on in the background. The details look less sharp compared to XIII but unless you’re really hard-on for pushing the graphics processor in your console to the extremes, most likely you won’t care enough to allow it to distract you from the other finer points of this sequel. You will still be impressed with what SE will shove into your eyes.
The soundtrack will be a hit or miss for some people but it definitely strays away from what you would hear from a typical Final Fantasy soundtrack. It ranges from really heavy themes that could be described as FFX’s Otherworld on steroids and incidental tracks that fit the emotional moments just right. Never did I feel it to be out of place but purists might be complaining about the death metal soundtrack that plays when you ride a specific Chocobo later in the game. For me, it feels just right. There’s no cheesiness except for probably two tracks that I can think of off the top of my head.
Being able to save anywhere should be a damn standard by now.
XIII-2 is a rather short game for a JRPG with my completion time nearing 18 hours. While a few fights are a bit challenging, most of them can be defeated with ease using the proper paradigm setups. Running into the last final bits of the game is a bit of a drag as there was one long sequence of item fetching that felt really out of place and probably would have been a good place to introduce more story. Though in hindsight maybe it was best that the main story ended as soon as it did. Adding anything more to the main plot would just overstay its welcome. Thankfully there’s plenty of things to do for the perfectionist as there are still worlds unexplored and the Historia Crux’s ability to temporary reset time lets you replay events and unfold them again. You will need to do this if you want everything as there are also “Paradox Endings” that occur if certain events play out in a specific way. These endings along with various other events in the game are prompted by these Live Trigger events where a question is proposed to you and requiring a response from up to four potential answers. Some of these will reward you items, some of these will lead to some comical outcomes and yes, some of these will reward you with a paradox ending. There is no real New Game + as again the Crux’s ability to reset time on top of most Paradox Endings only appearing after you beat the game pretty much eliminates the need to have a NG+.
Final Verdict:
All in all, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is one that hit me in all the right ways. Noel and Serah might not be the most interesting set of people and the 20 hour main story with a great handful of fallacies with time travel might be enough to drive people away. However, with a fast paced battle system, a large world to explore, a smorgasbord of side content and a simple tale of time travelers and fate changers, I can’t say I’m disappointed with what I’ve consumed from XIII-2. Given that my stay with the original Final Fantasy XIII has been a less than sub par experience, I can easily say that this offbeat Final Fantasy sequel has gone in a direction that held on to me from the beginning and wouldn’t let go even past the end. The ending also doesn’t give closure to the story. If XIII-2 is any sign of how they used XIII’s fan feedback, I’ll be all ready to accept a Final Fantasy XIII-3 if it comes to that.
This review of Final Fantasy XIII-2 is based on a Playstation 3 review copy given for free by Square Enix. Total time spent completing the main story is about 18 hours with several hours put into the post-game content. None of the DLC has been rated in this review. The Xbox 360 version may have slight graphical differences but otherwise should be the same experience.
Hanh "MogKnight" Nguyen is owner and Editor-in-Chief of The Mog Blog. A fan of pushing buttons and making things happen. He has recently been seen going around random GameStops to slowly rebuild his Dynasty Warriors collection.
