i fucking hate this disgusting piece of software some may consider a video game and is a prime example on why listening to fan feedback can backfire terribly. spits in the face of everyone who enjoyed the first one in favor of trying to please the crowd that disliked it to a abysmal degree. Too Linear? make the worlds open to a confusing degree that discourages exploration. Didn't like the story or characters? ok lets just throw them all out the window and create a new cast and shoehorn them into the (absolutely destroyed and disconnected) FFXIII universe that will sure to get people to like them. Theres also only TWO party members for some got forsaken reason and the third slot is taken up by a shitty monster collector. This is genuinely my least favorite game ever made.

Oh there's time travel too, lovely

Great story and alot of fun to play.
The story takes a new direction from FFXIII and heads in a new direction while keeping with the premise of changing your fate. The characters are likeable, with appearances from characters from FFXIII. Not nearly as linear feeling as 13 was, 13-2 has alot of open areas and the ability to go back and forth between areas, if you just feel like exploring some more or working on side missions.
The combat system isn't really any better than 13, but to me it feels a bit more entertaining with the monsters in the party. The crystarium is a bit more complex if your looking to min/max your characters, while being a lot simpler for just straight leveling purposes.
Ill always love the FFXIII music, FFXIII-2 takes previous themes from XIII and attunes them to all new heights

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.

no one is ready to admit that this is one of the best rpgs to ever release in the 2010s. it does the "final humans in the world" troupe very well and is a great direct continuation to xiii-1. i also loved the ending to bits and the game left me broken and emotional as hellllll. 10/10 for meee. not to mention the OST is beautiful and has tons of different themes, for example: it can be beautiful and instrumental such as hope's theme or "wishes," or it can be more techno like "paradigm shift" and "parallel worlds."

é bom perceber que não precisamos mudar de linha do tempo pras nossas opiniões variarem - eu que odiava esse jogo até mês passado por razões fúteis ("só fizeram ele abertão pra 'consertar' o XIII - que eu gosto - covardes!") agora noto que o brio é mais rígido: não é porque a liberdade é apresentada como diversão (ou, utilizando métricas iluministas, "melhora") que o aspecto perigoso ou solipsista dela é ignorado. cuidado!! não seguir o marcador de quest pode te levar pro abismo!!!!

anotações adicionais:
a refutação da piadinha de que "em todo jrpg você usa o poder da amizade pra matar deus" é legal, mesmo que não-intencional

prefiro acreditar que a ideia dos monstros veio mais de dragon quest v do que de pokémon, mas nenhum dos dois casos salva muito

Bearing numerous improvements, XIII-2 manages to bring XIII back above water--despite making many of the same mistakes.

I'll be writing this review just like Square Enix makes their sequel games. But not just any of their sequel games, I'm talking about the ones that boldly feature Roman and Arabic numerals strung together. Which means I'll be doing this one quick, cheap, and dirty.

After all, I wouldn't expect a film buff to spend much time on Disney's direct-to-DVD offerings, which is about where we're at right now in gaming terms.

Where's Lightning…?
But to be fair, these types of games aren't inherently a bad thing. Developers who are freed from all the expectations (and marketing budget) tied up in massive flagship titles are more likely to experiment and try out strange--and if we're lucky, interesting--new ideas. X-2 was ostensibly an asset flip of X , but was crammed full of so many weird, admirable, and frankly better ideas that it easily outshines its predecessor in every category. Its runtime (my casual playthrough clocked in at sixteen hours) certainly helped impressions as well.

One thing is certainly clear: when the stakes are so much lower, it's easier to roll with wacky ideas, faster pacing, and goofy presentation.

So, how does XIII-2 hold up compared to XIII?

Far, far better than I imagined it would.

Don't get me wrong, it's still not what I'd call a good game--it almost was--but if you even remotely enjoyed XIII, then you'll be hard pressed to not enjoy XIII-2 far more.

Nearly every single obvious issue from XIII has been addressed in some way--usually to decent success. The world is no longer linear, there are side-quests and NPCs galore, mini-games are constantly thrown in to spice up gameplay pacing, etc. etc. Even the battle systems have been refined to allow greater flexibility, player expression, and moment to moment freedom of choice.

So in that sense, XIII-2 not only outshines its predecessor, it also reminds just how fucking dire XIII was in the first place. Most of these "improvements" are (at least in any other game) the bare fucking minimum. But hey, XIII was a complete and total trainwreck, so let's give credit that some lessons were actually learned.

Even the fucking music has been massively improved--much like it was in the jump between X and X-2. Hamauzu's exceeding dry score has been bolstered by the more dynamic, energetic, and frankly fun work of Naoshi Mizuta. It's still a far cry from Uematsu's greatest moments, but XIII-2's score is at least filled with rhythmic intrigue and charming moments.

So in general, XIII-2 is--at least at times--a genuinely fun game. I can't say the same about XIII at all. So big points for that.

Valhalla is a place where nothing ever happens

However, XIII-2 still manages to drop the ball in many of the same ways XIII does. Don't forget, this is still a Toriyama/Watanabe joint. Even though the battle systems have been greatly improved…it's still sitting on an unstable foundation. The auto-battle system is still inherently unfun and requires players to seek out moments of enjoyment in an otherwise dull framework. It doesn't help that weapon and accessory choice is still rudimentary and often uninteresting.

Beyond that, most of my problems with XIII-2 come from its incessant need to meter out content as well as its disastrous narrative.

If there's one thing X-2 got right, it was its pacing. You could dick around with all the silly side content the game had to offer, which might be enjoyable if you were truly obsessed with the world and characters of X . Or, you could beeline your way through the game's main content in a fast and fun manner. In-and-out before you cracked the twenty hour mark.

XIII-2 comes close to this breezy pacing, but manages to blow it in the second half of the game. Which, at this point, seems to be the Toriyama specialty. There's just a lot of unfun, uninteresting, and tedious shit you need to do in order to finish up the game. From areas filled with uninteresting random encounters every five feet (that don't even give you XP!), to fetch quests across space and time, to massive areas filled with lame puzzles that are just plain unfun to explore and solve…XIII-2 has all of the Toriyama classics. The final area in particular is just plain cruel--requiring players to navigate a massive area filled with ultra-slow turning platform puzzles and random-encounters up the ass. I might have been kinder, if not for the fact that Square's dogshit PC port crashed on me three times during this segment.

And it’s a damn shame too. The first half of the game is filled with simple, quick, and fun set pieces that constantly have us rolling between random places in space and time--shootin' the shit with random side characters for just enough time before they become boring. If XIII-2 kept up this presentation, it definitely would have gotten an easy 7/10…but alas, Toriyama and co. just can't help themselves.

Which is pretty crazy when you think about it. Do you seriously care if your game is longer if it's at the cost of its enjoyability? I'd rather have something short and sweet. Sadly it seems like your average JRPG fan begs to differ. After all, Square has managed to turn a five hour rollercoaster ride through Midgar into a forty hour chore--to massive acclaim. Shows what I know.

Speaking of critical acclaim, can you believe that Famitsu gave XIII-2 its coveted perfect score? The early 2010s were a very curious time for gaming.

Beyond everything I've already said, it's hard to imagine anyone giving XIII-2 a perfect score on account of its awful narrative. X-2 certainly had a goofy story, but it played into its sense of camp very well. XIII-2 instead tries to create a "darker" tale about love and life strewn across many timelines and beyond temporal paradoxes.

I'm not gonna scrutinize the story in detail--it's really not worth the effort. But needless to say it's got that trademark Kingdom Hearts sense of melodrama and needless convolution. Which would be fine, if not for the fact that it takes up a good chunk of your playtime in the second half of the game. Instead, I'm forced to feel secondhand embarrassment for the development staff (and anyone who was forced to play the game on a shared living room TV) every time a cutscene starts rolling. If only they just owned up to the camp and took the X-2 approach…

In closing, I want to admire Square for managing to unfuck a lot XIII's bullshit. But, at the same time, they weren't able to lean into XIII-2's status as "silly asset flip cash grab sequel" as hard as they should have. We're instead left in an awkward middle-ground, one that’s too silly to be serious and too serious to be fun.

Who knows? Maybe a fucking third try at the XIII formula will give us a decent game. Only Lightning knows the answer…