My replay of Final Fantasy XIII earlier this year dismantled my long standing prejudices against it while affirming my belief that it is a deeply inconsistent piece of art where all of its creative intent, a lean, character focused narrative set against the backdrop of a rich and vast cosmology, crashed against the walls of the Crystal engine and a rush to release a complete product. Floating player pathways over gorgeous environments that you never really interact with outside of Gran Pulse. A world that excluding the six protagonists and some codex entries is dead and non-existent. Besides the character work and battle system every component of Final Fantasy XIII reveals the title's deep inconsistency.

Replaying Final Fantasy XIII-2 not long after likewise has dissuaded me from seeing it as a 'return to form' that rejects its predecessor and instead treating with it as conversant with its predecessor. Whereas XIII's were unintentional, I believe XIII-2 embraces inconsistency as its central throughline in ways that make its similar constraints a real thematic strength.

The environments are more open but fundamentally they are still largely dead and incoherent spaces devoid of people (outside of Caius and the two leads) and lived in places. This sense of unreality lends an essential texture to the unraveling of time and space and gradual destruction of the Fabula Nova Crystalis cosmology. The central progression conceit, non linear travel through time portal, serves to disunify and break up the world in contrast to say Chrono Trigger's goal to achieve the opposite. The cited goal of resolving paradoxes is a pyrrhic task in which new ones are often created and the Antagonist(s) own comments on Serah and Noel's time travel foreshadows the game's conclusion. Whilst each individual area is more times often than not, annoying in terms of level design, the ways in which they are accessed is deeply thrilling and mysterious. Its been so long since I last played that I had the pleasure of wondering where I'd end up next when finding time-gates and making the boundary between mandatory and optional content ambiguous gives a nice sense of wonder to everything you find.

That it does that whilst retaining most of XIII's strength made this a very pleasant replay for me. The narrative is more concise and to the point having only two protagonists and a fun and charismatic antagonist who is consistently present. And collecting XIII's baroque flavor of FF monsters is the perfect addition to XIII's excellent battle system. I guess what slightly dampens all this is that it while it inherited XIII's strengths, it still inherited some of its weaknesses. It was made with less people on less time using an engine that was difficult to work with. Load times are frequently long and a combination of invisible spaces and sluggish movement make the act of traversal annoying and even worse when too frequest random encounters and back and forth sidequests are thrown into the mix.

I really loved Final Fantasy XIII-2's ending back then and even now I see it as emblematic of its greatest strengths. The most bleak and sincerely tragic conclusion of any Final Fantasy game underscored by a relatively happy vocal theme. Consistently inconsistent.

Pues superando todas mis expectativas y rompiendo con todo lo que el primero me llegó a hacer odiar... Sí, lo recomiendo mucho. No sólo porque arregla LITERALMENTE todo lo que hace mal el primero, sino que hay una cantidad de guiños y referencias a la saga maravillosos. Se nota que es un juego hecho para los fans que tanto se cabrearon y criticaron FFXIII. Te explican mucho mejor la historia, no sólo la que añaden en este juego, sino que también la que no te dejaron clara del anterior. Se tratan todos y cada uno de los puntos de la trama, de los personajes y no se deja absolutamente nada sin explicar, excepto, obviamente, lo que se quiere dejar para la tercera parte.

Serah se gana el amor de todos por su carisma y por ser una Vanille bien ejecutada, dado que no es extremadamente optimista, infantil, no. El personaje mantiene un equilibrio entre la seriedad que debe de tener ante el movidón en el que se ha metido y su personalidad dulce, cariñosa y dicharachera. Noel es un gran complemento para Serah, se complementan bastante bien por lo mucho que distan sus personalidades y formas de actuar, al principio parece un Squal, pero poco a poco vamos viendo lo muy traumado que está el pobre y las ganas que tiene de arreglar todo y, sobretodo, de proteger a Serah a diferencia de su nefasto esposo Snow. Además de que la presencia de Caius está muy bien llevada, haciendo apariciones estelares o dejándonos ver todo lo que está trastocando las cosas. Me recuerda bastante a cómo llevaron las cosas con Golbez en FFIV, lo resuelven de una manera muy eficiente. Y personajes como Hope, que en el primer juego era insoportable, en este lo transforman en un verdadero crack, dirigiendo la Academia y ayudando constantemente a salvar el mundo. No quiero olvidarme de Yeul, que con tan sólo su mero diseño ya nos deja claro que es fantástica, pero que desarrollan de manera muy discreta y es un personaje muy fresco y que le viene genial a la trama.

El sistema de combate es el mismo pero llevado un paso más allá. Los personajes pueden avanzar desde el principio por el rol que quieras y es a raíz de ir avanzando por el Cristarium cuando es más caro subir de nivel y no por acercarnos al final de la ruta del rol. Por ejemplo, en mi partida, Noel desde muy temprano en el juego fue nivel 99 de Castigador y Serah 99 de Fulminador, y poco a poco fui subiendo el resto de oficios. Es una reinterpretación muy acertada, porque da muchísima más libertad al jugador sin necesidad de hacerle farmear como un verdadero animal. Sin mencionar la inclusión de la Mesnada, de los tres puestos de combate uno será cedido a los monstruos que vayamos capturando a lo largo de la aventura, cada uno con su rol específico, y les haremos crecer con nosotros mejorando también sus propios cristarium.

La banda sonora le da mil vueltas a la del original, que ya era buena de por sí, creando temas diferentes más dinámicos, con mezcla de géneros, usando los antiguos en situaciones específicas... Diría que es lo que más me ha sorprendido del título, pero es que Final Fantasy SIEMPRE ha tenido buena música, no es ninguna sorpresa.

¡El mundo es un mundo! ¡Se acabaron los pasillos! Obviamente hay alguna sección o mapa muy pasillero pero, independientemente de ello, se sienten extremadamente vivos y activos. La exploración es muy importante, no sólo para conseguir los cofres repartidos, sino que las mecánicas introducidas con el moguri nos incitan a buscar aún más tesoros y los dichosos fragmentos maestros para poder activar los portales temporales. Además, hay una gran cantidad de misiones y contenido secundario que nos ofrecerán un final secreto y unas cuantas horas más de diversión, como en Xanadú, donde puedes volverte ludópata en las tragaperras o en las carreras de Chocobos.

Es un juego bastante bien ejecutado en todos los sentidos, si le tengo que sacar una pega, es que la versión de steam tiene serios problemas de rendimiento y que tuve que meterle un archivo para que directamente no se me cerrase el juego sin venir a cuento. También le critico el salto ingente de dificultad JUSTO ANTES del Jefe Final. He ido todo el juego sin ningún tipo de dificultad, superando casi todos los bosses y enemigos, y fue llegar a esa zona y PAM EN TU CARA, TIRA A DARTE UNAS VUELTAS Y CONSEGUIR MÁS COSAS. Pero he de decir que, debido a ello, descubrí unas cosillas que me había dejado sin hacer e hicieron que el juego me gustase muchísimo más. No tenía intención de jugar Lightning Returns pero... Tras la buena impresión de XIII-2 es muy probable que lo haga

I do NOT recommend playing the game on PC. Too much of a hassle to get it working properly.

I am not a 13 hater and I thoroughly enjoyed the first game. However, this game is objectively better than its predecessor in just about every way. I will list some pros and cons tbh:

Pros:
- Better story (not inherently confusing imo)
- The ending's twist is kinda cool.
- The story recaps are a good addition.
- Serah and Noel are neat protagonists
- Caius is really cool. Prob the best thing about the game
- Being able to switch between Serah and Noel in combat is cool (Combat is better in general)
- 13-2's OST is amazing. Probably one of the best soundtracks in the entire FF series.

Cons:
- World design is still a bit linear even if some areas are more spacious.
- The game's difficulty is p much on autopilot until you reach the end of the game where it gets much harder.
- Having the game's "true" ending as DLC is funny. Note: PC has every DLC minus like costumes.
- Not really huge on the game's side quests.
- The presentation feels somewhat cheap? I think if you play the game, you'll kinda see what I mean.
- PC port is ass

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.

Idk maybe i might come back to this but i just feel like this game is not needed. 13 ended perfectly fine and didnt need a sequel. The pc port also sucks ass so bad, why is my game constantly dropping frames. I also think the main 2 characters kinda suck. Serah is a nothing character that is too kind and is benevolent. She has no real emotions or motives, she just kinda mopes around but then acts all nice that it comes off kinda uncanny valley in a way. In the first game, she wasnt around much so it was fine but now that she is the main focus, she struggles to fill the main lead role. Noel is kinda interesting, but i feel like i wouldve enjoyed the game more if we started as him in his time. When he just sits there explaining it all to you, it makes you think "wow, that wouldve been interesting and a good way to make me care for this character". The QTEs are unnecessary. Also the live trigger comments are weird, why am i choosing what these characters are saying? Noel and Serah are not blank slate characters like Joker from Persona 5. They have their own personalites so why am i choosing their motives or responses. In particular, noel asks serah why she just kept waiting for snow and then the game prompts me for a response. I DONT FUCKING KNOW, ASK HER. I also dont care for the monster collecting thing, they did that in world of final fantasy and idk why square keeps trying to make pokemon. I rather prefer 13 giving me the characters with their role restrictions because it makes it fun to swap out your party. In 13, you shouldnt be using the same exact party for every fight, unless you get to far late game where everything is maxed out. 13-2 is the same 2 guys then some random schmuck you found off the street, which is kinda lame. Maybe i might come back to play this in the future but i just dont really want to or care to play this right now.