The announcement of FFXIII-2 sparked some pretty mixed feelings. I've never been a fan of Final Fantasy sequels/spin-offs, usually be cause they are not very good. Dirge of Cerberus was. . .ok; FFX-2 was just terrible. Don't even get me started on the cell phone titles. Really, the only one that seemed to be worth a damn was Crisis Core (mainly since it makes FFVII so much better). On the other hand, I really liked FFXIII. If it weren't for my PS3 deciding that it wanted to corrupt my HDD for no real reason, I would totally have a platinum in that game right now. On a whim, I decided to give it a go. I even picked up the CE for the super badass soundtrack, and prayed to go that it wasn't going to let me down.
My benchmark was, "This has to be better than FFX-2, or I'm never doing this again." Lucky, it passed the gratuitous fan service test with flying colors, and it retained the basic combat mechanics from the original, with some pretty new tweaks and additions.
If you haven't seen much of anything about the game yet, here is the premises: Lightning goes missing after the ending scene from XIII, and no one believes that something nefarious has happened to her, save Serah (and by extension Snow, but I don't give a shit about what he thinks). Elsewhere in Valhalla, a place with no time or end, Lightning is in the fight of her life again the mysterious new character Caius Ballard. Lightning, chosen by the goddess Etro to defend her throne, has a new look and weapon which are pretty sharp. Gotta say, I'm in love with the plume butt skirt.
Plume Skirt MotherF*ckers!!!
The player doesn't see much of Lightning, however, after the opening scenes, but shortly there after, we are introduced into Noel Kriess, the last human to be born on Grand Pulse, who mysteriously ends up falling into Valhalla. After some more pretty scenes and flashy fights, Noel is sent back in time using a Time Gate (yeah, not super original) to find Serah, give her a Moogle/bow/sword and bring her to Valhalla. Insanity ensues as he arrives just in time to save Serah, and the two must embark on a quest to change the future.
Anyone else have crazy flashbacks to FFX during this scene? OMG IT'S SIN!!!
(image via ffwalkthrough.net)
Back to the game itself, the combat system is almost identical to the Paradigm Shift System from XIII with some cool tweaks. First off, you have two main characters, which dramatically speeds up the leveling process. Both characters have access to all paradigms: Noel's most common build turns him into a Lightning/Fang Hybrid with a emphasis on physical, while Serah feels more like a Vanille/Hope hybrid (high magic with great Sabatour skills)
The other cool change to the battle system is the Monster Ally system, which is kinda like demon summoning/fusion from SMT games. As you defeat monsters, you have a chance of obtaining their crystals. These gems allow you to summon that particular creature into battle, and they act as your third party member. Unlike Noel and Serah, each monster has one unique role that cannot be changed, and must be assigned to the Party Paradigm in order to be used in combat. Monsters can be fused and leveled using the something similar Crystarium tree which runs of collectible items that can be bought or dropped after combat.
The story can be . . . rough at times since it is told in such a non-linear fashion, but it's complete and competent once you read the notes that are unlocked after completing quest, side missions (which are pretty cool and involved) and collecting fragments. The game also features several Paradox endings, showing the possible outcomes of fiddling around with the timeline.
Oh, there is also Chocolina, and time-traveling Chocobo salesman that . . .somehow obtained a human form.
Really the only complaints I have with the game are the ending and DLC. The ending is. . . incomplete and will most likely be completed through DLC which has already started to release. So far, it's mainly been character packs (which allow you to fight special characters in an arena to obtain their crystals), costume packs and weapons, but Square-Enix plans on releasing extra episodes to complete the story. I'm not a fan of these kind of DLC releases, as it seems to punish gamers for picking up the game at launch by making them pay more an more to complete the actual story of the game, whereas someone can buy it used a year later, buy the DLC and pay about as much if not less than I paid for the CE. It also seems to punish gamers who can't get online to download said DLC. I hated this shit in Dragon Age: Origins, and it's just as disturbing today. I mean, come on!
Even with these drawbacks, the game is pretty solid and worth playing. If you enjoyed XIII like I did, you should definitely check this one out. There's not really a huge draw for new fans to the series, and I suggest completing XIII before tackling this beast. You should get anywhere between 60-100 hours out of it, depending on DLC purchases/how involved you get into the monster crystals/etc. The main story can be completed in about 30-40 hours. Oh, and the soundtrack is the shit. OMG, Crazy Chocobo? Could listen to that all day.
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