Timeless Beauty (Presentation)
The environments in Final Fantasy 13 could really take your breath away, and 13-2 is no different. As a matter of fact, you visit so many locations at so many points in time that it has greater visual variety. You'll be exploring the usual valleys and fields, but highly technologically advanced locations as well - and just about anything in between. I found myself constantly distracted by the dozens of beautiful views this game has to offer.
A lot of the enemies and music are re-used from Final Fantasy 13. It makes sense, considering it takes place in the same world, but it's still something to consider. We'll get into the gameplay side of this later, but 13-2 has a lot more optional content and a lot more NPCs to talk to for sidequests. Their voice acting is generally fine, but there's a very limited amount of different models with very limited animation. It can be a little bit grating to watch the repetitive mouth flapping of the same face you've seen a few dozen times after watching the truly gorgeous cutscenes reserved for the game's important characters.
13-2's soundtrack can be described as having higher highs and lower lows than its predecessor. Most of the battle themes you'll hear are excellent, combining synth with orchestra to emphasize the game's journey through different time periods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdframgnBVE
But some tracks have an almost 'grunge metal' feel to them, with screaming vocals that absolutely do not fit the beautiful landscapes and emotional story of a Final Fantasy game. The track that plays when you ride a red Chocobo, 'Crazy Chocobo' is infamous at this point. Listen at your own risk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUOOgNzOv4
In short, FF13-2 offers more visual variety, especially in environments, but NPC and enemy designs are still regularly re-used and not particularly impressive in the former's case. The soundtrack recycles some tracks from 13, but the original pieces are mostly excellent. A few of the tracks are bad.
Time's Teachings (Gameplay)
Final Fantasy 13-2 is an evolution of Final Fantasy 13 in many ways. In this segment, I'll focus on the ways 13-2 differentiates itself in its exploration and battle system.
The endless complaints about Final Fantasy 13's overly linear nature were clearly heard and applied to 13-2. While there are still linear segments, the game opens up almost immediately and many of its environments feature branching paths or are completely wide open. Not only that, there are many optional locations and time periods to visit for players who explore thoroughly. As free and open as the exploration is, though, the areas and time periods can feel a little disjointed because you access them from a somewhat disorganized level select screen referred to as the 'Historia Crux.' This is a small price to pay for the sheer amount of freedom and optional content, however.
Some small things were added to the exploration in 13-2 as well. You can now jump at will, and you can find secret treasures hidden in the environment by using your companion Moogle's special detecting ability or by throwing him to treasures out of your reach, an act that he very much doesn't appreciate. Enemy encounters have also been reworked; FF13 did away with random encounters entirely with enemies simply existing in the overworld. 13-2 partially returns to the traditional system, with enemy encounters appearing at random in the overworld, but not necessarily initiating a battle like the JRPGs of old. Once an enemy appears, the player can choose to try to run away, or deal a first strike on the enemy to gain an advantage in battle. This system allows you to grind certain types of enemy more easily, but can be frustrating in cramped areas when faster enemies that can actually chase you down spawn.
In FF13's linear environments, there weren't many NPCs you could actually interact with. In 13-2, however, there are a boatload of NPCs with sidequests and lore, although most sidequests boil down to finding an item in the area or killing a specific enemy. The best sidequests play with the game's theme of time travel and have you visit an area in multiple different time periods to figure out what to do. The game even has a lot of dialogue options, but we'll discuss those in more detail under the story segment.
One final thing to mention about the exploration is that sometimes, to progress, you need to resolve a 'paradox' by solving a puzzle. These puzzles offer some welcome variation when done on occasion, but can often overstay their welcome by either being simple and repetitive or frustratingly hard. As an example of the former, there are puzzles where you just connect crystals of the same color over and over again. As an example of the latter, there are complex clock puzzles that would take more time to explain than they're really worth, but basically, you move the arms of a clock to numbers which then decide how many steps you can move the arms of the clock again, and using this method, you need to find a way to have the clock stop at every point without ever landing on the same point again. If that sounds confusing, that's because it is.
So, all in all, the exploration has changed a lot. But what about the battles?
Final Fantasy 13 shifted a lot of the focus in battles from actively choosing options to preparing and switching between 'paradigms,' where you assign each character a role like Commando or Medic. Final Fantasy 13-2 uses the same system but expands upon it in a few ways. For starters, your characters throughout the entire game are Serah and Noel, and you decide which Roles to teach them when as you level them up. This means that you not only need to think about which paradigms to use, you also need to choose between improving your current roles/paradigms or learning new ones. It is a little disappointing to only have 2 characters instead of Final Fantasy 13's six, but the other addition to the battle system makes up for it: monster taming. Most monsters you encounter can be tamed and acquired for use in battle. The third party member in any paradigm is a tamed monster of your choice and there are dozens upon dozens of monsters you can tame, level up, combine with each other for powerful passive abilities and even name and equip with cute cosmetics.
Unlike Noel and Serah, tamed monsters only ever have one Role, but that makes sense considering the sheer amount of tameable monsters you can acquire.Next to the major additions, there are also minor conveniences. A paradigm shift now happens without a small cutscene demonstrating to which role each character has switched, and if the character the player is controlling gets knocked out, you automatically switch to the other instead of getting an instant game over.
You'll notice that these additions do indeed expand on the system that was present 13, but don't fundamentally change it. I have a lot of respect for the decision to not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. A lot of people complained about the streamlined battle system in 13 because it was different, not because it was actually fundamentally flawed on a game design level. It's very satisfying to plan out some perfect paradigms and then watch your team destroy an enemy with little effort thanks to your thinking ahead, and this game pushes that system even further with added convenience and customization.
I think most of the changes made in 13-2 are for the better, but there are a few bad ideas mixed in. One of those is the quick time events in cutscenes. Usually the finishing blow against a boss is handled by awkwardly performing a series of timed button presses over a cutscene, which feels unnecessary and pretty tedious. It feels completely contradictory to how the battle system works - you've spent all this time planning ahead, setting up your Paradigms and switching between them - now watch an elaborate cutscene where Noel and Serah destroy the boss while you press the buttons it tells you to. Considering this only happens after major boss battles, though, it's not too much of a bother.
All in all, Final Fantasy 13-2 is a shining example of listening to feedback while maintaining your vision. Exploration was massively expanded, with huge open areas and optional content to explore. Random enemy encounters in the overworld generally allow for easier grinding and monster taming, but can be tedious if faster enemies spawn in enclosed areas. The 'paradox' puzzles add nice variety but outstay their welcome if you're trying for full completion.
13-2's battle system is fundamentally like 13's but with more customization. The quality of life improvements and extensive monster taming system make this one of the most fun and addictive JRPGs I've played, though the QTEs tacked at the end of some boss battles can sour the mood a little bit.
Broken Timeline (Story)
As its name implies, Final Fantasy 13-2 is a direct sequel to Final Fantasy 13. As such, there will be Final Fantasy 13 spoilers in this segment.
The Premise
The story of Final Fantasy 13-2 takes place a few years after Final Fantasy 13. It's immediately apparent that something is different from what we remember. Lightning survived the events of FF13, but when the story begins in 13-2, it's believed by everyone that she died in the battle to save Cocoon and disappeared alongside Vanille and Fang. The only person who remembers otherwise is her sister, Serah, who is one of the two main characters in this game. This premise is immediately quite interesting and it's hard not to feel sympathy for Serah. She's spent a few years knowing her sister ought to be alive because she actually remembers it happening, but almost everyone else thinks she's just been in denial all this time, incapable of accepting the simple truth.
She finally sees her memories validated when Lightning, who is now stuck in a place outside time known as Valhalla, sends a person called Noel her way. Noel is the second main character in FF13-2, a hunter from a horrific future where all of humanity has died out and he is the last remaining person. Noel brings Serah a message from Lighting; that the timeline has been messed with, leading to Lightning's disappearance and the existence of this awful future. Noel and Serah set off on a journey through time together to find Lightning and prevent this apocalyptic future from ever taking place. To help, Noel has also brought Mog to help Serah. Mog is a Moogle who can transform into a bowsword and be wielded as a weapon.
After Serah time travels for the first time the story structure goes on a little bit like this: Serah and Noel enter a new area and time period and discover there is a 'paradox' to resolve before they can move on. Paradoxes are things that don't belong in that specific time or location but have ended up there due to the damage the timeline has suffered. They resolve the paradox, open one of the 'time gates' in the area, move on to a new time/location and the cycle repeats. Along the way, they gather clues as to what caused the timeline to change the way it did in hopes of ultimately saving Lightning and the future itself.
The Characters
The protagonists of the story are Serah Farron and Noel Kreiss. Serah is a returning character from FF13, where she played a central role in the story as Lightning's sister and Snow's fiancée. A major goal in the story of FF13 was to save Serah from her crystallized state, which makes it interesting that the roles are reversed in this game, with Serah setting out to save her sister Lightning. Noel Kreiss is a new character, a time traveler from a distant future he wants to prevent from ever happening. They're accompanied by Mog, a Moogle sent by Lightning to help Serah. Serah is a very likeable and sympathetic character and we can empathize with her goal of reuniting with her sister. She does have some character flaws, like a dangerous temper, but this unfortunately doesn't come up very much in the story, which may lead some people to feel she's a bit too perfect as a person. Even though the premise of the story very much makes it look like this is all about Serah, I actually felt Noel was the real 'central' character. The journey to reunite with Lightning often feels like it takes a back seat to the journey to save the future he's from, and most character relations and interactions revolve around him. For example, Caius and Yeul (more on them later) have a connection to Noel, and when returning characters like Snow appear, they mostly clash with Noel while Serah stays in the background. To push this point further, the leitmotif that appears in all the battle themes comes from 'The Last Hunter,' which is Noel's theme. I'm conflicted about this because I think it's great they brought a new, well fleshed out character to the table but it's disappointing to see Serah fall into the background again after she spent most of the last game frozen as well. Mog is a cute character, but he's mostly there for comedy and doesn't have much to learn or achieve in the story outside of an optional quest about his home. But the victory animation where Serah hugs him is heart meltingly adorable, so at least there is that.
The antagonist of the story is a mysterious man called Caius Ballad. He fights with Lightning at the very beginning and follows the protagonists through their time travels, fighting them or hindering them at every opportunity, proclaiming that changing the timeline is a 'sin.' He's accompanied by a mysterious girl called Yeul. Caius is easily the most sympathetic and interesting villain from these three games. I can't fully explain why without getting into spoilers, but to give a brief overview: he's been made immortal to serve as Yeul's guardian, but Yeul is not immortal. She, instead, dies and is reborn as a new person time and time again. Witnessing this girl die over and over and over is what drives Caius to do the things he does in the story and paints his otherwise horrible actions in a sympathetic light. Yeul herself doesn't really have the opportunity to become an established character because every time you encounter Caius, he's with a different Yeul from a different timeline. As a result, who I'm calling 'Yeul' is actually a group of several different characters with the same voice and appearance, none of whom get very much time to be developed. It makes for an interesting character concept, though, and some Yeuls get more screentime than others.
The returning characters from FF13 are a mixed bag. Lightning provides a strong opening for the story but then passes the torch on to Noel and mostly stays in the background for the rest of the game. Characters like Fang, Sazh and Vanille barely appear at all.
That leaves Snow and Hope, and I have a lot to say about both. I'm very disappointed in the way Snow is, or rather, isn't implemented in this story. After Serah confides in him that she remembers Lightning being alive, he proves himself the worthy fiancé by believing her without hesitation and going off to find Lightning, something that makes me like him even more than I already did. But then he just stayed away for 3 years, never coming back to Serah. When you run into him again, he's gained a stupid haircut and a new fal'Cie brand. Even weirder, there's barely any chemistry or interaction between him and Serah at this point. I really don't understand this, but the best I can think of is that the developers wanted to leave room for a Serah and Noel romance instead. Snow mostly just clashes with Noel and disappears from the story after you fight alongside him in one of the time periods, with much of what he did in the past years relegated to the data logs you can read. Most encounters afterwards are optional. Hope, on the other hand, plays a much better role in the story. He's grown up into a renowned scientist who is playing an important role in the recovery of society now that the fal'Cie are no longer functional. He believes Serah and Noel are indeed time travelers and is very eager to help them for the sake of the friends he fought alongside in FF13. He and his attempts to help facilitate a better future play a major part in the story across multiple time periods, and I only wish other characters from the first game had this kind of presence as well.
Thinking back on FF13-2 made me realize that the game's cast of important characters is pretty small. This might be a consequence of people complaining about how convoluted the story got in FF13. The only other significant side character I can think of is Alyssa, Hope's assistent. Because she's with Hope, she gets a lot of screentime, and she's actually an interesting character. The only other newcomer that sticks out to me is Chocolina, an enthusiastic Chocobo girl and trader, but she only really comments on the story rather than being part of it. Her origins aren't even explained in the main story.
Pacing & Progression
FF13-2's story can often feel like many smaller stories stringed together. The overarching story has a strong presence near the beginning and end, but sometimes feels like it takes a backseat to the immediate threat or conflict in each given time and place. In a few words, the story feels episodic and disjointed. Many threats and enemies occur simply as a result of "meddling with the timeline," and don't really relate to Caius at all. Other conflicts do relate to Caius, but this is only explained if you happen to come across a specific bit of lore or an alternate ending. This problem only gets worse if you take the time to do all the optional content as it becomes available.
It should be said that just because parts of the story are disjointed, that doesn't mean each individual part is bad. I'll keep it vague to prevent spoilers, but at one point in the story, you enter a city in the future. This city is in a truly awful state, a miserable place to be for you and all its inhabitants. Due to some actions in the past, you then create an alternate 'good future' version of this city. Entering this 'good future' version was one of my favorite moments in the game because it communicates so clearly that the future can be changed. It's a hopeful thought that plays into the overarching story quite nicely and gives a clear sense of progression that most other areas lack.
Quests & Optional Content
Due to the disjointed nature of the story we established earlier, it can sometimes be hard to follow. Many things are explained in the data logs, and a lot of lore is hidden within optional areas or quests. Some of the best character moments and interactions, especially between the FF13 original cast, are found in worlds that can be completely skipped over if you simply want to go straight to the end. This could've been a cool extra if the main story wasn't so starved of good interactions between the original FF13 cast to begin with. But with the caveat that some of the optional content probably should've been integrated in the main story, there is a lot of good optional content. Each unique location in the Historia Crux has its own story and its own problem to solve.
The Ending
This segment and article have already run on for much too long, so I can't fully do the discussion about FF13-2's ending justice here. But if you've heard anything about the game, you'll know that the way it ends is controversial and my opinion on it is very mixed as well. If people are interested, I may write an article just about the ending.
In Summary
FF13-2s story starts with a strong premise and characters with understandable and believable motivations, but the overarching story often falls into the background and ends up feeling disjointed in the middle. It may be disappointing to FF13 fans just how meager the presence of the original FF13 cast is and how few their interactions are. There are many highlights, however, like the antagonist Caius and several very compelling optional locations and quests.
After All (Conclusion)
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is, in most ways, a perfect example of how to make a sequel. It takes FF13's attempt at streamlining JRPG combat and makes it more involved, faster, more customizable and all-around more fun. The QTEs are a mistake, but they're rare enough that they don't ruin the experience. It allows for much more open exploration and has many hours of optional content to offer that doesn't just involve talking to a stone that asks you to kill some enemy. Its presentation expands and experiments, and this is generally a success as well - I come back to its battle themes almost every day when I need something exciting to listen to.
The only major disappointments the game presents are in its story. While its opening and arguably ending are strong, the main quest often falls into the background of only tangentially related conflicts. The cast from FF13 has a limited presence and many things are not well explained in actual dialogue and scenes, being resigned to data logs instead. That's not to say that the separate fragments of story are not good, but that they sometimes lack a proper connection to each other, and rarely ever connect back to Final Fantasy 13.
All in all, a great sequel - the story just wasn't what I hoped it would be.
_
Wow! It's been a few months since I wrote any articles. I've been stuck on this one for a while because I wanted to articulate how good 13-2 is, but also how many frustrations I have with the story. I hope it was a good read and I hope my next article won't take as long. Stayed tuned, and all feedback is appreciated!
