This game is without a doubt, my favourite in the XIII trilogy.

This game made me fall in love with the XIII trilogy after a difficult and rocky first playthrough of the first game.

The gameplay for me is solid - they significantly improve the battle system of XIII, as well as adding the Historia Crux - making the game a little less linear and making it more "chapter based" for lack of a better term.

Noel, Caius and Yeul are all very welcome additions to the cast and I honestly adore them. Caius in particular is a fantastic villain in my opinion, and Liam O Brien does a perfect voice for him. I recognise the story for this game isn't exactly "well written", but I personally couldn't care less, for me it was not only entertaining, but emotional, and really made me care for Serah in particular. The box art for this game is of course misleading - this game is Serah's story, and while Lightning does play a part in it, she is absent for the majority of the game.

The ending is truly crushing but delicious, and gets you super hyped for Lightning Returns.

Final Fantasy XIII was a lot of things but it wasn’t uninteresting. XIII-2 technically does a lot of things better as a video game. It’s far less linear, the combat mechanics are available right from the start, you can explore areas without constant combat encounters, talk to NPCs, side quests etc. On paper this is a far better experience. Sometimes it is for sure a better game, but in the end I reflected on my experience and found it to stick with me far less than XIII.

XIII-2 is pretty good. It retains the amazing paradigm system, but rarely did combat encounters require me to problem solve as often as XIII. The level design is more open but the timeline system makes the levels feel completely disconnected. The story is kind of easier to grasp early on, but I miss the high concepts of XIII. XIII was interesting to dissect and learn about the story despite its low focus on world building. Somehow XIII-2 feels less like a cohesive world. The lower budget is also incredibly obvious. It feels more like a filler episode at times than a direct sequel. I do really like Noel as a character though. Despite his loose presence, Caius was a relatively cool villain as well.

Everything here would probably make for a far superior final fantasy game but it’s lower budget and polish really held it back. It’s a texture thing (a general feeling type of texture - not a literal visual textures thing). Stuff like the environments, character models, UI design etc just felt like a massive step down. That’s not a huge problem; I dig the Ps2 vibe this game has. It has the vibe of a lost ps2 gem. It’s not a hidden gem though, it’s a sequel to a massive final fantasy game. I think that association is what holds it back for many. It’s not that it’s a bad game necessarily, it has a lot of aspects that would make a fantastic game. Yet even for me it’s hard to look past what it came from and see it as something fully unique.

I do want to point out the ending chunk of the game though. I loved it. Without spoiling it there’s a point where the story finally clicks with me, but it came after a long period of what felt like meandering around a bunch of levels collecting items. It comes around and wins me over a bit though. The ending is so shockingly dour and upsetting and I love that. Clearly it was that way to lead into Lightning Returns, but I respect that they went that direction. It’s great stuff!

I enjoyed my time with XIII-2. It was an attempt at a new original story with mostly new characters which is really cool. It varied gameplay far more often and strayed from becoming too repetitive. It has the Crazy Chocobo song. It’s fun! It was pretty short too which helped a lot. People always said this game was way better than XIII because it directly addressed the criticisms of XIII and designed a game around that. It was an apology of a game. Personally something about that made it less interesting to me. XIII radiates confidence in what it is even if it’s not always great. I’m not even sure if XIII is a better game overall. XIII-2 felt ashamed of XIII and just wanted to make fans happy. It succeeded in some areas and had a lot of decent original ideas of its own, but my conclusion with these 2 games is that XIII-2 may be a better game on paper, but XIII is the game I end up having more respect and admiration for despite its glaring issues.

I finished this out way back in the day, but I thought for some reason I'd write a review to a game that I think has been unfairly judged both when it came out and over the years. I played this through when I was beating all of the numbered Final Fantasy games back to back, and I gotta say that it was a breath of fresh air compared to 12 and 13, with a story that might be simple in comparison to those, but because of it being stripped down they were able to improve the mechanics and actually introduce a villain with some presence and a goal. These games were always made in part by their villain, and just the fact that Caius existed and his goal was relayed to the player put him far above any villain from 12 or 13. I also just really liked the atmosphere and music(the soundtrack is electronic, ethereal, and still bumps occasionally. Listening to it in part inspired this review), I felt like it had a really original tone and some creative ideas i.e. the location where the sky appeared to be more land. The fan service with Ultros and Gilgamesh also filled my heart with glee, and the two characters the game sticks you with are actually likable for once. Would have made the Moogle less obnoxious but at least you can chuck him like a football. All and all I still think this was the best main FF game since 10 when it came out, and my enjoyment while playing it still rivals 15.

In conclusion, it was the one saving grace to come out of this whole trilogy. I like the cheeky tone of Lightning Returns too, but ironically for the most part.

I thought this was ok when it first came out, but I've replayed it a bunch of times since then & it may actually be one of my favs in the whole series. I rarely have the stamina to replay JRPGs but this is just the perfect length, the perfect vibe.

The story is written episodically - mostly light-hearted with a more serious arc simmering in the background. The battle system is a refined version of the fast-paced one from FF13, with added monster catching. It's not super challenging (until you hit the coliseum at least), the emphasis being more on exploration & puzzle-solving this time.

SPOILERS:
The plot is about time travel - not just using it as a device but quite often actually about it, exploring different tropes, types of paradox, etc. It also ends on a cliffhanger, naturally, being the middle game in a trilogy. If you're weak & baby-like you may take issue with these things. But it's Good Actually.

This game was the step up and sequel in my opinion to the first of the three FFXIII games. But this time while you may see Lightning on this cover you don't have control over her.... You have control over her more bubbly and positive sister Serah Farron! Who isn't a hardened soldier but a teacher and all around just sweet person. But due to a LOT of events which I shall not delve into which will spoil but also maybe lead to some confusion if you played the first game... Yeah. The best way to put it is there will be some timey-wimey BS on the way. Despite that being the angle of this game though, the battle system is fun and this creature capturing is a nice little addition to the game. I love that it now takes both of our protagonists dying now instead of before where whoever was the one YOU the player had control over, meant game over if they died. Yeah this game was a bit easier but with all the DLC and everything that it had attached to it. You have a lot to play with especially those bosses that are from previous FF games. But back on topic to keep this short, I like this game much more than the first for numerous reasons. I enjoy this soundtrack and i consider it one of the best to be in a Final Fantasy. Gameplay is great. The story is a mess and that is something that I can admit having played this through a few times myself. Let's let it be known though. If you can make it through FFXIII then this is the next logical step but rest assured this game is fun!