The fascinating product of intense reflection driven by reading internet forums following the release of Final Fantasy XIII in late 2009/early 2010.
XIII-2 follows Serah Ferron, Lighting Ferron's younger sister and previous driving force for one third of the XIII party, as she joins forces with newcomer Noel Kreiss to stop the nefarious bad dude Caius Ballad. Get this - he wants to save the past by changing the future; in doing so various gates to different locales are opened, allowing free access to these locales across different time periods, sometimes not entirely by choice.
Structurally, it abandons everything that made Final Fantasy XIII so distinct; gone is the forward momentum that pushed our party forward. Instead, Serah and Noel are given free reign to travel across time and space as they see fit to complete side quests, resolve time travel paradoxes, and hang out in a casino that exists outside the boundaries of the game's story quest line. In some ways it feels like Chrono Trigger, if an entire game was based around the sequence in which you're given free reign to develop your party members' abilities at your leisure before jumping in to fight the bad dude at the end that stands between you and the credits. The problem is that many of the things you're tasked with doing to pursue this end up either being tedious or remarkably silly; a good hour of XIII-2 can be spent playing a fancy adaptation of connect the dots to earn experience.
The battle system is the absolute perfect evolution of the XIII ATB combat system; you get total control of the reigns over your character progression from the get go and can branch both main party members in any direction you'd like. Add in the monster hunting and training component that XIII-2 brings to the table to help fill out the third slot in your party and you have yourself quite the satisfying gameplay system.
There is a lot of really stupid stuff to ding into throughout a playthrough of XIII-2. Most of the game's storytelling falls somewhere beneath even the lowest of Kingdom Hearts story presentation, and huge swaths of the world building ends being so tonally jarring considering the stakes of the main quest that it just snaps you out of any hope of immersion with intensity.
It's a terribly fun time at its highest moments, and dreadfully boring at its worst. If Final Fantasy XIII was an overcooked steak from a fancy restaurant, XIII-2 is the bag of Doritos you purchase at the convenience store after a long night out on the town.
XIII-2 follows Serah Ferron, Lighting Ferron's younger sister and previous driving force for one third of the XIII party, as she joins forces with newcomer Noel Kreiss to stop the nefarious bad dude Caius Ballad. Get this - he wants to save the past by changing the future; in doing so various gates to different locales are opened, allowing free access to these locales across different time periods, sometimes not entirely by choice.
Structurally, it abandons everything that made Final Fantasy XIII so distinct; gone is the forward momentum that pushed our party forward. Instead, Serah and Noel are given free reign to travel across time and space as they see fit to complete side quests, resolve time travel paradoxes, and hang out in a casino that exists outside the boundaries of the game's story quest line. In some ways it feels like Chrono Trigger, if an entire game was based around the sequence in which you're given free reign to develop your party members' abilities at your leisure before jumping in to fight the bad dude at the end that stands between you and the credits. The problem is that many of the things you're tasked with doing to pursue this end up either being tedious or remarkably silly; a good hour of XIII-2 can be spent playing a fancy adaptation of connect the dots to earn experience.
The battle system is the absolute perfect evolution of the XIII ATB combat system; you get total control of the reigns over your character progression from the get go and can branch both main party members in any direction you'd like. Add in the monster hunting and training component that XIII-2 brings to the table to help fill out the third slot in your party and you have yourself quite the satisfying gameplay system.
There is a lot of really stupid stuff to ding into throughout a playthrough of XIII-2. Most of the game's storytelling falls somewhere beneath even the lowest of Kingdom Hearts story presentation, and huge swaths of the world building ends being so tonally jarring considering the stakes of the main quest that it just snaps you out of any hope of immersion with intensity.
It's a terribly fun time at its highest moments, and dreadfully boring at its worst. If Final Fantasy XIII was an overcooked steak from a fancy restaurant, XIII-2 is the bag of Doritos you purchase at the convenience store after a long night out on the town.