Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3) Review

Back to the future.

 

 Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the follow-up to 2010's Final Fantasy XIII, releasing just two years later in 2012. Continuing the story of the first game, it packs new gameplay refinements over its predecessor and stars a new cast. Lightning has mysteriously disappeared and it's up to her sister Serah to journey through time and find her. I'm planning on finally experiencing the XIII trilogy after putting it in the backlog for a while and now it's time to dive into the second part of Lightning's adventure.

 Three years after the events of FFXIII, the world is free from fal'Cie control and humanity has slowly settled in Pulse. However, things aren't all that peaceful when our protagonist Lightning Farron has seemingly disappeared with no one having any recollection of her except for her sister Serah. Worse yet, strange time gates have begun to appear and a time-traveller from the future, Noel Kreiss, comes to tell Serah that Lightning is waiting in a distant land called "Valhalla". Now it's up to Serah along with Noel and Mog the moogle to travel through time and rescue her sister while also battling Caius Ballad, the man behind the time distortions.

Join Serah, Noel, and Mog on a time-travelling adventure.

 Coming off FFXIII, the story is a step-back. Serah getting more screen-time was great and Noel ended up being a pretty likeable character. Even the villain Caius was a lot cooler than the fal'Cie of the previous game despite being stupidly misguided. It's just that the story wasn't as engaging as XIII and the time-travelling aspect gets so convoluted that it's hard to keep track of. Lightning --despite being the core focus of Serah's journey-- is barely here to the point I completely forgot about her until the final chapters. It doesn't help that FFXIII-2 ends on a cliffhanger, so the ending isn't all that fulfilling.

 Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a turn-based RPG where you control Serah and Noel as they travel through time and fix the timeline. New is the Monster capture mechanic where defeated monsters turn to crystals and can act as a third party member. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes (you can recruit a Chocobo!) and have specific classes like a commando, medic, and sentinel. I didn't like it initially, but as I got much more powerful monsters on my team and levelled them up, it turned out to be fun. Core gameplay remains unchanged as you still wait for your turn once the ATB gauge is full and issue commands to characters. The Paradigm system, where you form various class-based load-outs, is much more faster and fun to use. The Crystarium is simplified as well with you getting to level up all classes in the same grid while increasing basic stats. 

The gameplay receives a slew of much-needed upgrades.

 The Historia Crux serves as the hub-world connecting you to levels and letting you travel to different timelines once you advance through the game. You can't travel prior to the events of XIII-2, so you'll mostly be jumping to the present, future, and distant future. Levels also change in each time period with different looks, monsters, and treasure chests. Like many games of its time, XIII-2 introduces Quick-Time Events during boss fights and gameplay where you need to press various buttons to execute finishers, which I could've done without.

 The game incorporates a "Live Trigger System" that offers multiple dialogue choices in cut-scenes where you can know more about a character's thoughts on events and life based on your choices. They don't offer branching paths or alternate endings, so they're mostly for show. There's also puzzle-solving segemnts where you fix time- paradoxes and progress a stage. They were a nice addition and a decent amount of them got tricky later on.

Shifting between timelines was cool and the boss fights were fun.

 My criticisms of XIII have been alleviated with the game introducing more open levels to explore packing towns, NPCs with side-quests, a chatty merchant named Chocolina, and mini-game world called Serendipity where you can participate in chocobo races and win prizes. It took me 27 hrs to beat the story with a couple of side-quests though if you're planning on fully exploring every timeline, collect all monsters, and crystal fragments, then the game will last you a while.

 Just like its predecessor, Final Fantasy XIII-2 visually looks great and the UI gets a refresh. The character models and backgrounds as well as the various levels you explore were all great. The likes of Academia, Bresha Ruins, and Serendipity looked nice and were a treat to explore. I did encounter some performance issues with the frame-rate dipping in some of the heavier fights. The voice-work is good with some neat performances like Serah's and Caius'. The soundtrack was awesome and tracks like the into theme, battle theme, Historia Crux theme, Serendipity's theme, and Oerba's theme were favorites of mine.

Like its predecessor before it, XIII-2 is a great-looking game.

 

 While a great game, Final Fantasy XIII-2 feels like taking one step forward and another back. The gameplay refinements were great but the story wasn't as engaging as XIII's, so it doesn't feel like full improvement. Still, it was a solid adventure overall with the characters being likeable and visuals continuing to impress. Here's hoping the final chapter in Lightning's journey ends with a bang.