Whether you
loved or hated Final Fantasy XIII, anyone who cares about its sequel wants to
know how it compares: is it better than FFXIII? How different is it? Well, Final
Fantasy XIII-2 definitely improves upon XIII… in some ways.
As with XIII,
your enjoyment of XIII-2 will greatly boil down to personal taste, but speaking
generally, XIII-2 is markedly catered toward longtime Final Fantasy fans
compared to its vastly divergent (and therefore highly divisive) predecessor.
The return of the moogle is symbolic of this, but its classic tendencies are
manifested throughout the game, most notably through its increased focus on
exploration and discovery. These changes aren't without their tradeoffs, but if
you're a longtime Final Fantasy fan, you will probably prefer XIII-2 over XIII.
The freedom of the Historia Crux
One of the
best parts of the Historia Crux structure is that it allows the player to
selectively go back to key moments in the game and replay them to see different
outcomes. Once you've obtained the Gate Seal for a particular node on the map,
you can "close" the gate, resetting the time to when you first
stepped through it, so you can experience that portion of the story again, and
as many times as you'd like. And since the story does contain branching
decisions here and there, being able to reset individual story moments makes it
easy to see all possibilities without actually having to replay the entire game
multiple times.
You might
have guessed where this is going. Yes, there are multiple endings to Final
Fantasy XIII-2 (quite a few, in fact). But the genius bit is that since you
don't have to play the game in a linear fashion, you can see many endings
without ever having to start over from scratch. It’s like a Choose Your Own
Adventure book in a way – if you get to one dead end, you can simply turn back
the page to where the story branched off and keep going down a different path. Don't
like the way a scene played out the first time? You can easily go back and play
it again without any fuss or penalty. This system thoroughly respects the
player's time by not wasting any of it.
Saving the world
Say you're in
the city, exploring one of Academia's many flashy alleyways and suddenly you
remember where you might have seen a particular flower that some NPC asked for
in a side quest. You can pop back to the Crux in a jiffy, skip over to Bresha
Ruins, grab the item and complete the quest, then teleport back and return to
exactly where you left off in Academia. The save system is so fluid and
flexible that you never need to worry about losing your progress at any point
at all, and the freedom to jump across time and space so easily feels
delightfully efficient.
Speaking of
locations, we were nervous going into the sequel that many of the environments
would be recycled from XIII, but XIII-2 features a surprisingly large array of
new locales. And the places that are recycled don't feel like they've been
thrown in lazily, since it makes sense story-wise that we'd have to revisit
some old places, since it's still the same world after all. Many of the old
locations have been totally transformed too, and the environments constantly
play a silent part in telling the story through how they've changed in
different time periods (and across alternate timelines).
Above: Watch us play through some of the game
In FFXIII-2,
the timeline has mysteriously changed, and everyone believes that Lightning
perished in that battle. Only Serah remembers the truth, but even she questions
her own sanity in the face of what all her friends believe to be reality. Then
a stranger suddenly enters her life, a young man named Noel who claims he's
from the future and has met Lightning in another dimension outside of normal
space-time. Both want to alter the timeline – Serah wants to bring her sister
back, and Noel wants to save humanity from the ends times he's seen with his
own eyes. With their fates in alignment, they set out to change history.
As with any
Final Fantasy game, it's difficult to write meaningfully about the story
without spoiling anything. Where XIII created a fascinating mythos that
revolved around the struggle between humans and demigods and the opposition
between civilization and untamed wilderness, XIII-2's story is much more
character driven. Serah and Noel are both surprisingly interesting and dynamic
characters once you get past their over-the-top character designs.
It's a good
thing too, because you won't be seeing much of anyone else for any extended
length of time – Serah and Noel are really the only two main protagonists in
the game. It's a bit of a shame, because the Final Fantasy series has excelled
at creating some of the greatest ensemble casts in gaming, and being stuck with
the same two party members for the entire game will definitely bother some
people. If you can put your expectations of a larger party aside though, the
extra time getting to know Serah and Noel isn't wasted, and makes them more
memorable characters than most of the cast of XIII.
Above: The characters are less abundant, but arguably more likable
As you play
through the story, one thing that's especially great about the "time
gate" scenario is that it completely eliminates the break in reality that
often comes from ignoring the narrative urgency of the main quest to explore
and take on boatloads of sidequests. Because opening a time gate transports
Serah and Noel to a specific moment in time, there's never a need for them to
rush. Relax, explore, and when you're ready to take on the next big challenge,
it'll be waiting for you, frozen in time until you hit play.
To battle!
If you're
familiar with FFXIII, the core of the battle system in XIII-2 remains
unchanged. While many traditional turn-based battle systems are all about
micromanagement, the Paradigm system in XIII and XIII-2 puts the player in a high
level, "big picture" role, if you will. Instead of selecting
individual actions for each party member, you direct their actions all at once
like an alpha dog issuing commands to the pack.
A Paradigm is a set of roles
for the three party members that determines how each character functions in
battle. Each role is extremely specific in what it can do – Medics can only
provide healing and Commandos can only attack, nothing else. Each role also
provides an added bonus to the entire team, like boosted defense for all allies
when a Sentinel is in play.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 review
Whether you loved or hated the original, its sequel will surprise you
Words:
Carolyn Gudmundson
on
January 30, 2012
So what about the story?
All this time
travel relates directly to the story, which begins immediately after the final
cutscene of FFXIII ends (and it goes without saying, but
SPOILER ALERT FOR
FFXIII). Fang and Vanille have summoned Ragnarok, creating a massive crystal
pillar to keep Cocoon from crashing down. In the original ending, Lightning
survived the near-cataclysmic event and was happily reunited with her sister
Serah.
Above: Watch us play through some of the game
In FFXIII-2,
the timeline has mysteriously changed, and everyone believes that Lightning
perished in that battle. Only Serah remembers the truth, but even she questions
her own sanity in the face of what all her friends believe to be reality. Then
a stranger suddenly enters her life, a young man named Noel who claims he's
from the future and has met Lightning in another dimension outside of normal
space-time. Both want to alter the timeline – Serah wants to bring her sister
back, and Noel wants to save humanity from the ends times he's seen with his
own eyes. With their fates in alignment, they set out to change history.
As with any
Final Fantasy game, it's difficult to write meaningfully about the story
without spoiling anything. Where XIII created a fascinating mythos that
revolved around the struggle between humans and demigods and the opposition
between civilization and untamed wilderness, XIII-2's story is much more
character driven. Serah and Noel are both surprisingly interesting and dynamic
characters once you get past their over-the-top character designs.
It's a good
thing too, because you won't be seeing much of anyone else for any extended
length of time – Serah and Noel are really the only two main protagonists in
the game. It's a bit of a shame, because the Final Fantasy series has excelled
at creating some of the greatest ensemble casts in gaming, and being stuck with
the same two party members for the entire game will definitely bother some
people. If you can put your expectations of a larger party aside though, the
extra time getting to know Serah and Noel isn't wasted, and makes them more
memorable characters than most of the cast of XIII.
Above: The characters are less abundant, but arguably more likable
As you play
through the story, one thing that's especially great about the "time
gate" scenario is that it completely eliminates the break in reality that
often comes from ignoring the narrative urgency of the main quest to explore
and take on boatloads of sidequests. Because opening a time gate transports
Serah and Noel to a specific moment in time, there's never a need for them to
rush. Relax, explore, and when you're ready to take on the next big challenge,
it'll be waiting for you, frozen in time until you hit play.
To battle!
If you're
familiar with FFXIII, the core of the battle system in XIII-2 remains
unchanged. While many traditional turn-based battle systems are all about
micromanagement, the Paradigm system in XIII and XIII-2 puts the player in a high
level, "big picture" role, if you will. Instead of selecting
individual actions for each party member, you direct their actions all at once
like an alpha dog issuing commands to the pack.
A Paradigm is a set of roles
for the three party members that determines how each character functions in
battle. Each role is extremely specific in what it can do – Medics can only
provide healing and Commandos can only attack, nothing else. Each role also
provides an added bonus to the entire team, like boosted defense for all allies
when a Sentinel is in play.
Above: Take a look at the battle system in action
During battle you always have
an active Paradigm in place, which you can change whenever you'd
like by hitting L1/LB to bring up your Paradigm deck. Building a Paradigm
deck with a variety of offensive and defensive Paradigms allows you to respond
strategically to dynamic battle conditions. So you might go in guns blazing
with a Commando-Ravager-Ravager set, then fall back to Commando-Ravager-Medic
to heal as needed. Roles like Synergist (buffs allies with status enhancements)
and Saboteur (debuffs the enemy with status ailments) come in particularly
handy during long, brutal boss battles where you'll need every advantage you
can conjure.
Most of the new
"cinematic action" sequences occur during boss battles too, and these
are really nothing more than quick time events. It's a feature that almost
wouldn't be worth mentioning if it weren't so heavily touted in FFXIII-2's
trailers – they're used fairly sparingly, kept brief, and are overall pretty
unobtrusive. During particularly dramatic cutscenes, we definitely has a few
moments where pulling off a flashy killing blow with a successful QTE
definitely felt pretty cool (and we can imagine the opposite if we'd missed it
at the end of a lengthy battle), but overall it's not a feature that's going to
make or break anyone's enjoyment of the game.
One of the
complaints about the battle system in FFXIII was that it "played
itself," but this isn't exactly the case. When the difficulty ramps up,
the battle system is a perfect mix of thoughtful strategy and quick reflexes. Directing
your entire team's actions with the press of a button by shifting Paradigms on
the fly still feels satisfying when everyone comes together to pull off a
hard-won victory.
Above: Learning the combat system reveals the deep intricacies
The problem
is, it's a system that's only as great as your opponent is. Too often in
FFXIII-2, we played through lengthy stretches of the game where we just didn't
feel challenged enough by the enemies. Often, we never had to shift Paradigms at
all from our default offensive stance, and in those cases it does feel like the
game is playing itself because very little action is needed from the player. The
challenge is there if you seek out some of the tougher sidequests and go for
better endings, but at times we definitely felt like the overall difficulty
level was too low. Monsters definitely scale up in strength when you revisit
earlier areas too, so it's a bit puzzling why they almost always didn't feel
scaled up enough. Even total wimps should not think for one second about
playing this game on the easy setting. Don't do it.
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Source : http://www.gamesradar.com
8:24 AM
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