Review
When Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be receiving a sequel I wasn’t thrilled about it. The lack of towns, missions, and the linearity killed the original and soured expectations for a sequel. Yet, after hearing of all the improvements that the sequel allegedly made, I decided to give the game another chance. So does FFXII-2 really improve over the original?
Unlike the prequel, FF13-2 takes a more open story route. In the opening scene of FF13-2 we see Lighting, who was the protagonist in the last title, engaging in an epic battle in Valhalla against a villain named Caius. During the battle Lightning notices a time gate opening with a man from the future coming out. This man’s name is Noel. Knowing that she cannot win this battle she tells Noel to travel back into the past and to bring her sister to Valhalla. Though he succeeds in finding Serah, a huge disturbance in the timeline has occurred causing paradoxes to reek havoc all throughout history. It’s up to Serah and Noel to fix these paradoxes and defeat Caius before he destroys the rest of history.
Serah is now the main character
The story is an improvement over the prequel, but not by much. Players are now given choices and multiple paths through a menu that operates like a stage selection, which fixes the linearity issues of the first title. However, following the story may take a bit more effort then anticipated. The focus of the game is time traveling. You travel to this area, solve the paradox and then go to the next. There’s really no connection though between the areas that you travel to, unless of course they are the same place but a different date. Though I have to say the last battle did seem to draw a lot of attention and explained some of the lore behind this latest title.
I can almost say the same for the gameplay. Like in FF13 one, I found myself mashing down on the X button and using the auto battle option through most of my journey. This is still one of the biggest issues that I have since I felt it took away from skills and strategic planning and instead had the battles based on luck; unless of course you decided to grind. For most parts you’ll probably be playing like this until you run into stronger enemies such as the bosses. This is where Paradigms come in. These are pretty much your options for what role/fighting style you want during battle. There are dozens of different combinations to try out, but for the most part you should be fine with the default ones until you reach extremely high health bosses. This should all be familiar to, since this is exactly the same system in the last title. However, there are a few new key gameplay elements that are surprisingly done well.
Gotta Catch'em All
The biggest change to gameplay is the ability to capture monsters. Exactly as it sounds, players will be able to engage certain monsters and capture them. After this you’ll be able to have them as your third party member, since the game doesn’t have any other playable characters. Just like Noel and Serah, these monsters can also level up. However, they level up with certain items gained from battles or purchased at shops. You can even place decorations such as hats or angel wings on them. It’s a nice feature that I personally hope we see later on in the Final Fantasy series. The other change is the introduction of Ferral links, which is a part of the monster capturing system. In an attempt to break away from the bashing of the X button, Ferrel links allow your monsters to perform special quick time moments, which is something I was very pleased with. I was a bit bummed out to know that I was mashing X again, but with the Ferral Links I found myself using them as often as possible. Not only do they deal a great amount of damage, but they’re also exciting and fresh.
So much to explore
The visuals are just as beautiful as any other Final Fantasy title. Unlike it’s prequel, FF13-2 takes advantage of open world environments. No longer are we cursed to follow a single straight path that FF13 brought us. Instead we will be traveling through luscious jungles, populated cities, and small towns. There are tons of locations that have wide open fields to explore and I enjoyed every bit of it. The the cut-scenes are what Final Fantasy games are most famous for and let met tell you they don’t disappoint. The Final Fantasy series still to this date contains some of the most kick-ass CGI ever.
Of course the visuals can only be good if there is a good soundtrack to go along with the scenery. For the most part the audio is good. It consists of harmonics, mixtures of beats , and is meant to make the game have more of an emotional feeling. This has added to the overall enjoyment of traveling; though there were certain parts where it just didn’t match at all. For example: Your traveling in a peaceful town with some peaceful music when out of nowhere it starts playing some scream’o rock music. The placement of this kind of music just felt awkward. I could understand why it would play for certain chocobo rides, but the fact that it just plays randomly annoys me and doesn’t seem to fit so well in a game that seems to have a stellar soundtrack (beside this track). Otherwise, the audio is perfectly fine beside the normal out of sync dialogue that happens from time to time.
NPC are back!!!
There’s definitely some improvements that have been done in this sequel. Towns have been filled with plenty of interactive NPC, there are shops in every map, and plenty of side quests to keep you busy. The battle system has been modified along with the leveling up system, but it’s not a huge change. If you were someone who liked the original FF13, then this title is for you, however if you weren’t then I at least suggest a rent as the improvements may change your mind.
For more information on how we review games check out our criteria here. A copy of this game was provided to The Paranoid Gamer by the publisher for review purposes.
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