It's hard for me to decide which I hate more as a sequel to an FF game I loved, this or X-2. Both of them manage to do what feels like irreparable damage to the epic tales that their predecessors were.

The entire story is founded on a stupid fucking retcon that cheapens the ending of XIII, and it only gets worse from there. I've watched music videos that have a more coherent plot than whatever this pile of shit is. It hamfists in elements of time travel and parallel worlds that are not a part of the original game's mythos at all, brings in an unwanted and unnecessary character for no apparent reason except as the writer's OC in this fanfiction that somehow gaslit its way to official status. Don't be fucking fooled. It's all a sham: the story is nonsensical, meandering and entirely at odds with all that is good in the world. I absolutely despise stories like these that constantly use big words like 'chronicle paradox' and 'forbidden history' and 'spacetime vortex' in a vain attempt to hide the fact that they absolutely SUCK. They suck in every single one of the multiple universes the writers use as an excuse for their storytelling ineptitude.

I couldn't wait for this game to shut the fuck up, I stopped caring entirely. And true, just like XIII before it, it looks dazzling, the visuals are so good that it feels like playing a CGI film, but it's hard to appreciate when it stands for absolutely nothing, and that little shit-gremlin of a moglin keeps yelling KUPO KUPO KUPOOOO in every scene so we can have some kawaii shit to go with the countless layers of obfuscation that drive this plot into the ground. If I had a gun I'd shoot that fucking hell-cherub so fast.

The gameplay isn't good either. I don't begrudge Final Fantasy XIII for its linearity at all; this game on the other hand is filled with false choices that are just time-wasting mechanics posing as open-endedness. For example, early on you're presented with the 'choice' to either fight a boss head-on or walk three paces along an alternative path to get a device that weakens him. My manly nature dictates that I fight him head-on without resorting to trickery, but he will one-hit kill your party, so you're forced to take the second option anyway. Then why is it a choice at all? That's right: to pretend this game isn't every bit as linear as its predecessor, when it is, when it's a fucking SHAM. To waste your fucking time. The game also really likes to recycle its bosses; to interrupt boss fights with cinematic moments and QTEs and cutscenes; to basically do all that video games of this time were derided for in such an especially egregious fashion that even I found them annoying.

The developers go all in on deceiving players into thinking they have any input into the story, by having four dialogue options pop up with a hilariously fancy 'Live Trigger!' splash in every conversation. Fuck them too. I don't get at all what's the appeal of these 'choices' that don't change one iota of the game, and the way they're presented like such a huge feature is amusing to see in the same way watching a Lilliputian attempt to score a three-point field goal would be amusing. Having only two party members and a rotating cast of captive Pokemon doesn't do it for me either. The battle system feels lesser than its predecessor with inconsequential features like Wounds (lowering your maximum HP) put in only for the sake of having more new features.

The music is nice, but I don't feel it melds into the game well pretty often - it's like they composed a lot of good tracks in a vacuum and then overlaid them into the game without too much consideration for context. In a game where the voice actors can't even get the inflections of their lines right, that would be too much to ask.

This game is a disservice and a blight on its predecessor, which I absolutely loved. It should have been left to rot on whatever page of Fanfiction.net it was uploaded to.

In short, I am mildly upset with this game.

"Let's make a sequel that ignores the worldbuilding of the original to focus on new wacky time travel lore, knock down the playable cast from 6 to 2, and harass you with a moogle navi that you can punish by throwing off cliffs!"

Sounds like an idea of the unhinged, one that would be laughed out of the room at pre-production stage, right? Nope—these ideas made their way into the final product, because somehow everyone involved in the decision making process thought this was a good idea.

And they... were right??? This game has no right to be as good as it is, it's a complete overreaction to all the criticisms of FF13, and yet it somehow just works. Making the main cast Lightning's mostly absent sister and this random guy from the future, complete with a cutesy mascot, sounds like the premise of a creatively bankrupt sequel; instead, it leads to one of the most memorable trios in the Final Fantasy series. Serah was already a decent character in the original, especially considering her role as a plot device damsel, and here they capitalise on that by allowing her to shine as a protagonist, on a journey with very real stakes to restore her old life. Noel slots in excellently with the new lore, has amazing chemistry with Serah—without creating romantic girl/boy duo #124812490 in media—and provides a very emotional story that left more impact on me than I was expecting.

Hell, even Mog is pretty lovable; and when he isn't, you can just throw him over the edge and listen to his sweet screams! Ludonarrative dissonance, pfft, more like ludonarrative resonance.

Battle wise I unfortunately don't think this sequel is better, it's one of the areas I feel the original was stronger. The improved QoL such as removing the long animation of the first paradigm shift (thank god) is appreciated, but overall it's just... a bit too easy for my tastes, and lacks the expertly designed game balance of FF13. The monster collector system is a fun idea, but I found it a little jank and grindy, and would've preferred a third character instead. Also, Serah and Noel are garbage synergists!! Either you infuse a chimera of abilities through a monster grindfest, or accept that debuffs are The Way this game. I'll remember you, haste...

Thankfully, exploration is here to save the day! Unlike FF13, which has the openness of my bathroom outside of the Archylte Steppe, 13-2 understands that it's nice being about to revisit areas and walk about a little. Each area is fairly small, and to call them "open areas" would be a ludicrous exaggeration outside of the returning Archylte Steppe, but the way they get around this is quite clever—time travel! There's so many hidden gates to find that take you to completely optional areas and time periods, it really makes it feel like you're exploring the 4th dimension. I wouldn't say the approach to exploration is perfect: a major blemish is how absurdly hidden most quest items and even some story items are, practically expecting most players to have a guide in hand, along with a bizarre lack of sidequest markers. But hey, I still had fun screwing around!

Encounter rate is a bit high for my tastes, though at least unlike FF13, it's pretty easy to avoid most enemies. The big exception to this being a certain "Cie'th city", with such outrageously frequent encounters that I'm convinced they didn't playtest this part of the final product—they even interrupt active voice dialogue! Why is the active voice dialogue longer than the time it takes for battles to start!

I do like the fun little puzzles they throw at you, though I do have to say the clock puzzles are an absurd spike in difficulty, you go from relatively easy puzzles to this... monstrosity. I mean, it's not bad and actually decently big brained, but it's a bit much to expect from a game not designed for hardcore puzzle gamers! Not to mention giving some time limits: it's pure evil, I tell you. Good thing there's helpful tools online to solve these so you don't have to git gud—of course, I'd never resort to cheating like that, I totally solved all these puzzles on my own, haha...

Music-wise I was pretty darn excited to get to this game after hearing how good the tracks were in theatrhythm, and it certainly delivered there. Like FFX, this soundtrack takes full advantage of having more than one composer, delivering a huge variety of tracks with their own unique styles, along with a bunch of beautiful and fun vocal themes. Highlights being: Plains of Eternity, Warrior Goddess, Full Speed Ahead, New Bodhum, Historia Crux, Worlds Collide, Yuel's Theme, Crazy Chocobo (sue me), Noel's Theme - Final Journey -, Unseen Abyss, and 'Closing Credits' which basically collates all the best tracks in the game under a deceptively bland title.

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STORY SPOILERS START HERE
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Wow, time travel! This should be a dreadful idea for a sequel, but it ends up working oddly well. They quickly make it clear that time travel has limitations and consequences, with only one true timeline being allowed, along with so many ways of accidentally creating world-ending paradoxes through butterfly effects. Our protagonists can't go wherever the hell they want either, as they are guided through gates that take them to static points in history. In fact, most of the game is really about undoing the paradoxes created by a certain reckless goddess we never meet, as she's too busy dying in the corner. Etro is a unique take on divinity—unlike the Fal'cie which are predictably manipulative and apathetic, Etro's benevolence towards humanity is her undoing, as every blessing she attempts to bestow leads to equivalent curses that doom others. Even better, that's the motivation of our villain: he's a bit tired of the goddess ruining the timeline by 'saving' people, causing the seeress he's been sworn to protect to keep dying as her brain gets microwaved by forced visions of every little change in history.

Caius makes for an absolutely fantastic antagonist with a sympathetic and downright reasonable motive—erasing the concept of time probably isn't a bad idea when you live in the apocalypse—along with high emotional stakes in facing him, being the mentor of Noel. While Yuel is a giant plot device with little personality beyond Nice and Good, this becomes a non-issue with how well she is used in the story, and it honestly is somewhat believable she's become so emotionless and unaffected considering what she's been exposed to throughout all her lifetimes. This makes Noel and Caius' relationship very interesting, as they both have the same goal, just drastically different ways of going about it.

Noel himself is a great deuteragonist—while the way we slowly uncover his memories is very plot convenient, it ends up unravelling in an emotionally satisfying way as we're exposed to his past and the hopeless world he lives in, where everything is dead and the only people he has left both die and vanish into the black mist of villainhood respectively. By the end he's practically on a suicide mission, until Etro saves him: it's impossible not to feel for the poor guy.

Speaking of Etro, we have Etro's Champion here in the form of Lightning. I'll be frank, I don't think this is an organic continuation of Lightning's role from 13—in that game she was a fairly down to earth person, so turning her into this servant of the goddess feels beyond excessive and doesn't do much for her character. We also don't really get to see much of a relationship get built between her and Caius, despite them both being on the cover and the entire story revolving around their eternal conflict on the edge of time, which is a bit disappointing. However, they do stick the landing in the finale to the story, where she is unable to prevent Serah's death, and forced to accept her failure as she enters an eternal crystal sleep.

Hope's role in this game, on the other hand, feels like a very organic continuation of his role in 13, now pushing the world into a new age through his leadership developed throughout the original game. I found it interesting how he paralleled Etro, in that his good intentions often led to... many problems, until we hit the climax where he creates a new Cocoon called Bhunivelze (????? Hope you madman, read up on your FNC lore!) Alyssa is an interesting character with a fun twist, though unfortunately we don't get a good resolution for her... outside of a novel apparently? I hear that novel also explains why Snow is a L'cie again, talk about cut content lol. Also rip Sazh, he really got the short end of the stick this game... I won't speculate as to why, as I feel that's heading in very dangerous territory!

Climax of the game is absolutely fantastic, with a really strong confrontation between Serah & Noel and Caius, ending in expected tragedy D: Then it gets even worse when oops, Serah died and we all failed, Caius got his way after all! I like the extra bonus ending that reveals Caius planned this all along, one of the rare villains to actually succeed in his goal and win against the protagonists. Though I will say, I'm pretty disappointed at the lack of Noel x Caius content, the angst practically writes itself! I guess I'm going to have to make my own contributions ;p

Paradox endings are all quite fun, ranging from serious to completely absurd, I love it. There's a ton of endgame content that ups the difficulty quite a bit, though I wasn't in the mood to grind up all my monsters to get too involved in it.

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STORY SPOILERS END HERE
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So yeah, overall this game is surprisingly great! For a sequel built on such a ridiculous premise, it ends up playing out shockingly well, and delivers with a really-well done and emotionally resonant story. There are flaws, such as the combat being a bit of a sidegrade from ff13, and practically requiring a guide if you truly want to see everything the game has to offer, and it's admittedly quite low budget compared to the gorgeous graphics of its predecessor. PC port is also REALLY bad, I had to use like 10+ mods and mess around with my GPU settings to get it in a decent state—you sure aren't getting 60fps in certain areas without bruteforcing it. But, BUT, this game is something really special all in all, and I really would recommend it to anyone who wants a shorter, more experimental FF with a strong story, even to those who didn't care for FF13.

this game fixed every issue i had with ff13 gameplay.
the soundtrack is amazing, gameplay style is veeeery enjoyable for what it is and the game is no longer a corridor simulator

very nice
also noel and serah are really cute:3