Two years after the original Final Fantasy XIII released, it got one of the few direct sequels in the series: Final Fantasy XIII-2. The game is definitely built off the base of the original, but it remixes it in many significant ways. The extremely linear design is replaced with a new one that looks non-linear but is still mostly railroaded. For this review the game was played on Xbox Series X, which most notably makes the game run at 60 FPS.
Time travel
Although this game still doesn’t bring back the concept of an overworld that Final Fantasy games used to have, it does allow you to go between areas easily again. Most of the areas you visit make you find something in the area and then use it to open a portal there that leads to a new area. There are a lot of areas, but they aren’t all unique. Instead, you will frequently revisit old areas at some different point in the timeline, which is rather extensive in this game.
If you just want to beat the game this doesn’t really get in your way, since it will tell you where to go for basically the whole game. The only exception is an objective similar to the Triforce Quest from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker towards the end of the game. Overall this system makes the game a bit more interesting to explore than a typical JRPG world, but not by much.
Pokémon
Unlike the larger parties of older games, Final Fantasy XIII-2 only has two of what you would normally consider a party member in a Final Fantasy game. Like the first Final Fantasy XIII game you can still fight alongside one more ally, though. This party slot is filled up by a lot of the enemies that you fight in the game.
You don’t actively catch them like Pokémon in this game. Instead, upon defeating enemies you sometimes get a crystal that lets you make them your third party member. Unlike a regular party member you don’t actually get to control them. They just automatically do moves from whatever class they are and have a super move you can use at any time in battle once their meter fills up. Outside of battle these characters can be leveled up by combining them or giving them special items. Overall it is an interesting system, but not particularly deep or balanced.
Combat woes
Apart from those unique mechanics, which weren’t that fleshed out in the first place, Final Fantasy XIII-2 doesn’t do much to stand out. It isn’t incompetent in any area though, which is worth something.
The pacing is a bit better than you would expect from a game like this. You basically start out with the battle system that Final Fantasy XIII took many hours to finally let you use. The level of strategy unfortunately doesn’t ever really improve from there, though.
The fights you get into in this game leave a lot to be desired. Almost everything in the game can be beaten with the same strategy, and when it can’t switching strategies generally just means changing classes, which can be done in the middle of battle. Some of the harder stuff is a bit more interesting, but the resource management and decision making that make other JRPG battles interesting are basically gone here.
The world of Final Fantasy XIII-2
This is where the game shines the most, and the world is a big draw for a lot of fans of this genre, so that is quite fortunate. This game takes on the sci-fi genre in a way that you hardly ever see from JRPGs. It also has a relatively high amount of Final Fantasy references for the series. Overall it makes for an interesting place to walk through and look at.
The soundtrack is quite good as well. It is definitely unconventional, but that just makes it more memorable. Around half or more of the songs are good enough to be worth going back and listening to them later. Even though the game is decently long the music doesn’t really get old.
As far as Xbox 360 game graphics go this is far from the pinnacle. It obviously isn’t cheap or anything like that, though. Prepare to not be blown away, but still have an unquestionably AAA experience with this game.
The story
Probably the most discussed aspects of these games is the story. Luckily Final Fantasy XIII-2 does quite well in this area.
Even though you only have two party members, they are pretty much both way better than any of the characters in the last game. Noel especially is one of the most entertaining characters you will find in this genre. His development as a character kinda falls flat due to awkward writing, but it is still pretty decent for a video game.
The overall plot and villain are pretty good too. You might take issue with the way it builds on Final Fantasy XIII, but that’s not exactly a problem with the game itself. Unless you had some strict expectations going into the game, it’s hard to imagine someone being totally disappointed by this story when it finishes. There are definitely better video game stories out there, but this game still does better than most.
Should you play it?
If you played Final Fantasy XIII and didn’t completely hate it then you should play this one. If you want a unique experience in the JRPG genre you should check it out, too. If you don’t like JRPGs in general there’s a chance you could like this one, but it’s not that amazing of a game overall.
Overall the game is an 8.0 out of 10.
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