Fixed many of the issues FFXIII had, namely the pacing, linearity, and limitation of controlling only one character in the party. Felt like a more focused RPG experience instead of the weird inbred mashup of RPG and action that FFXIII was. The story was also actually coherent this time (for the most part at least, it’s still a post-FFVII squenix game so, y’know)

Overall, I would recommend people interested in the FFXIII mini-franchise to skip the first one and just start with XIII-2 (based on what I’ve heard, I expect I’ll also end up recommending skipping Lightning Returns but that remains to be seen)