RPG Diary

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Although I am a big fan of Final Fantasy, I was very skeptical of Final Fantasy XIII-2 — I didn't like Final Fantasy XIII and I really did not like the only other direct sequel in the series. Did this game exceed my expectations?

Title	Final Fantasy XIII-2
Year	2011 (US 2012 )
System	PS3 360
Developer	Square Enix
Publisher	Square Enix

Despite the abrupt and confusing introduction, I enjoyed the plot in this game. Caius is a solid antagonist which is something that I thought the previous game was missing. The main story is a little short, but I really enjoyed the ending. There is also a fair amount of side content that helps round out the world. My biggest complaint is that some previous characters, Sazh and Snow, are largely written out of the game without a satisfying explanantion. Also some of the finer lore details are again hidden in the datalog, which I think is a poor design choice.

Overall, the game changes most of the things I disliked about the previous game. As explained above, the plot, side quests and game world are much improved. Game overs were much less frequent in this game since both Serah and Noel need to be KO-ed this time (you can switch between them). Party members are still controlled by AI, but the faster-paced battles made poor AI choices less impactful.

Most monsters have a chance to join the party after they are defeated. There are only two characters this time, so the third party slot is reserved for monsters. Monster catching adds a collectible aspect to the game which makes it more fun to slow down and explore areas. Unfortunately, raising monsters seemed to be very expensive (in either gil or time) since it depends on consumable items instead of experience points. By the end of the game my monster was essentially deadweight as Serah and Noel had significantly higher stats.

I was frustrated by some of the mini-games. There are recurring "anomaly" puzzles that need to be solved to advance the game. The "connect the dots" type becomes unnecessarily difficult as the camera moves back and forth, making it harder to see where to go. The "clock" type can be randomized and can also have a time limit. As the puzzles got larger and larger, it became too difficult for me to solve without just brute-forcing it until I stumbled into a solution. Finally, there's a side quest to just grind out 7,777 coins from a slot machine — I gave up after an hour.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 was the first game in the series with DLC. Unfortunately, I think most of the DLC is pretty low quality: useless cosmetics, some equipment (thankfully not gamebreaking), and some bonus fan-service boss battles. Lightning's DLC does round out the story a bit, but I found the actual gameplay boring — I ended up watching the cutscenes online instead.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I was pleasantly surprised by this one, and I was a little sad that the game ended so quickly. It's not a top tier Final Fantasy, but I think I enjoyed it more than Final Fantasy IV.