Final Fantasy XIII-2 Review

Hello my friends! Recently, I just finished playing Final Fantasy XIII-2, the sequel to the promising but ill-carried out Final Fantasy XIII. If you read my other blog at all, you'll know that I found FF XIII to be rather disappointing. Still, I looked for the sequel to redeem itself. Did it?

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Genre: RPG
Pros: Beautiful graphics; exciting gameplay, plenty of sidequests, good monster catching system, manages to pull off time travel in a fun way; replay value
Cons: Poorly developed characters fail to give story emotion depth, side quests almost impossible without manual, frustrating ending, gathering some materials for leveling too difficult; Snow is in it.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 takes place after its predecessor ended, of course. After people left Cocoon to live on Gran Pulse, things have gotten pretty quiet. Serah is pretty content too: she's getting married to her fiance, she has a good teacher job, and everybody loves her.

The only bad thing is that her sister Lightning has gone missing, but she is the only one who noticed. Everyone else thinks that Lightning died fighting on Cocoon, but Serah is positve that Lightning had given Snow and Serah her blessing -- a memory only she remembers. Snow believes her eventually and he leaves her to find Lightning.

Turns out Lightning has been chosen by the goddess Etro to kick evil's butt, so she is in  place that is rather inaccessable because its inbetween time and space or something like that. So she sends Noel, a young man with a beautiful face but hideous pants, to get Serah and bring her back to Lightning. Noel comes from a future he is determined to make sure never happens -- via time travel! And Serah wants to find Lightning -- via time travel! So they hook up and ultimately try to save the world.

Plot

This may sound kind of convuluted, but XIII-2 does a very good job with the whole time travel thing. Even though you are going through dozens of different time periods, they all link together in a believable way. However, time travel has never made for a very . . . tangible story line. Since anything can happen and technically be reversed, you can't get attached to anything. Because it tries so hard to keep time straight, the actual plot is actually very simple and lacks any real development. However, I like the plot more than XIII more because XIII-2 is not deliberately trying to confuse you. Barely any references to L'cie, Fal Cie, Cieth or any other "CIE" here.

The simplicity is what makes it work. Honestly if the plot were any more complicated, it would die.

You will feel cheated with the ending. There are fragments that are scattered throughout the game, and if you collect them all, you'll get a better ending, but only after you beat the main story line. Which means you'll have to watch the "bad" ending and just might be yelling at your TV at the humanity of it all.

Characters
Characters are one of this game's downfalls. There isn't much character development, probably because the game can be completed in many different orders because of time travel. If an aspect of character development were one thing in one era, but different when you go to a different place,  there would be continuity issues. Still, it's disappointing. It's hard to cheer for characters you don't care for much. The strongest characters in the game are Noel and Caius, the latter being the villain of the game. Noel and Caius have a backstory that is revealed and has good emotion. I actually began to like Caius because he was only fueled by his love for a single girl, and I'm not spoiling this because it is obvious from the beginning.
Serah is adorable and strong-willed, but that is about it. She doesn't grow like Lightning did in the previous game. I like her, but she is pretty 2-dimensional.

There are cool side characters too. Hope and Alyssa were an awesome duo, and had interesting character quirks.

Snow was included in this game and because of that I hate the game more. Snow might just be the worst FF character in the history of FF characters. He is obnoxious and cliche, and I hate his voice-actor. He treats his fiance like a younger sister, rather than a lover. To make it worse, he treats her like she can't do anything of value. I loathe him to death. There is no chemistry between the two. Final Fantasy VIII this is not.

Music
I miss Nobou. Still, the track of this game is pretty good. Not a memorable track in the game, but the ambiance is good enough. The song played while fighting the giant Flan was so ridiculous it made me laugh, but it was the only bad song in the bunch.

Gameplay
The game keeps the fighting system like its predecessor, except more polished. So that means it is awesome. Leveling up is a lot easier than in the previous game.

 If you've always wanted to be a Pokemon master like me, this game is a dream come true. You can capture monsters, train them, and use them in battle. For the first time you can have a chocobo consistently fight at your side, valiantly "KWEH"-ing as he stabs your enemies through the heart with his perfectly manicured talons. Or maybe you want a giant robot? Or a giant cactar? Or a tonberry? You must have them. Sometimes the materials you need to make your creatures grow are too difficult to obtain, which is frustrating.

You'll spend a lot of time capturing and training monsters, but that isn't all the game has to offer. Besides the main story line, there are also plenty of sidequests. But unfortunately, most of them are fetch quests, and you get tired of stealing the Jewel of Thadmus off the Cliff of Eternity after a while. Or fetching a watch. (Seriously? A watch?!) Most quests have you go look for an item, but do not give you directions, so you bumble about in search of them. The bad thing is that the items are often in DIFFERENT TIME PERIODS, so not only do you have to search ground, you have to search time. Not having a manual will make the task almost impossible.

There is also a place called Serendipity where you can gamble and race that Chocobo you have been training all this time. Chocobo races are awesome, and a good call back to VII.

You can also reset levels and beat them over, which unlocks alternate endings to the game. These endings are fun, but honestly unsatisfying.

OVERALL
FF XIII-2 improves on its predecessor in every way. The characters are less obnoxious, but they don't develop much at all. Snow is so annoying I want to shoot him. Noel is a sexy beast though, and kind of reduces the Snow thing. Caius in all his purple and feathery glory will kind of melt your heart and then stab it with his Soul Calibur-esque sword. Gameplay is much improved, but monotonous side quests are detrimental. The ending will make you sad for many reasons. I won't gives spoilers.

I still continue to play the game, collecting my fragments. I need to get some money so I can get a downloadable outfit for Noel. His pants make me sad.

NOEL: Whaddid you say 'bout my pants?

Nothing, Noel. Go back to being eye candy.

NOEL: Mm'kay.
*sighs* He needs a woman.

FINAL SCORE

8.5/10