Part 1: Final Fantasy XIII, In Hindsight

As many of you know, I am not a fan of Final Fantasy XIII. At one point, I even went as far as to suggest Final Fantasy XIII "killed" the franchise. Those were heady days indeed, and with 20/20 hindsight bias in my favor, I stand by everything I said in the final episode of my retrospective of Final Fantasy XIII. The plot in that game is incomprehensible, and it has entire story threads left lying in abandon unresolved forever. Less than half of its ensemble cast "works" with its decision to go with Lightning as its protagonist, a highly questionable one. The mechanics are all over the place; even if you enjoy the combo system or its rhythm-based combat, the Crystarium is boring as fuck. Finally, its pacing issues are among the worst I have ever seen in a big-budgeted video game. Overall, I think Final Fantasy XIII is a lousy, miserable time when it is all said and done.

Yet, Final Fantasy XIII is a game I still think about to this day. It has been THREE YEARS since I last touched the game, and I still can recite specific boss battles, character moments, and mechanics as if I played it yesterday. No game has all of the pieces and parts that Final Fantasy XIII has in a single package. There is no game other than Final Fantasy XIII that attempts to merge tales of Norse Mythology with Hot Wheels-like Michael Bay Transformers. No game combines real-time combat with an endless onslaught of linear corridors as part of an epic journey. I have yet to see a game tell a narrative based around the corrupting influence of centralized governments and religious dogma alongside boss designs that look like Victorian-era chandeliers. And while Final Fantasy XIII deserves condemnation for its long and pedantic story that wastes your time with endless character moments that go nowhere, it is also a game with touching scenes of introspection thanks to characters like Sazh and Vanille. It's a messy video game that is more work than it is worth to get anything worthwhile out of it, but there's something "special" to it I cannot deny.

For that exact reason, Final Fantasy XIII still has its defenders. While I feel no desire to ever return to the game, subsequent works in and out of the Final Fantasy franchise have forced me to soften my stance. Christine Love's Get in the Car, Loser! and Final Fantasy VII Remake both have since shown me that there's something to rhythm-based combat worth exploring. I would emphasize that it wasn't until Final Fantasy VII Remake that Square-Enix "properly" justified the franchise's move towards its current flashy real-time gameplay. Nonetheless, the toothpaste is out of the tube, and there's no going back. At least things are fun now.

But what does any of that have to do with Final Fantasy XIII-2? Well, for one thing, people enjoy grafting their hatred for Final Fantasy XIII onto XIII-2 without giving the latter game a chance. Reviewing the Metacritic scores for XIII-2 would suggest a massive regression for the Final Fantasy franchise and a game that possibly murdered people's dogs or cats. I will just come out and say that I HATE Final Fantasy XIII but still was able to have some fun with XIII-2. I'll get into the specifics shortly, but I enjoy the smaller scope and open-ended structure employed by the game. The story has far lower stakes than its predecessor, but that's a good thing to me. When XIII-2 revels in its schlock and openly recognizes the stupidity of its world, it is a fun time. I cannot imagine anyone playing this game and not laughing or smiling at least once.

Part 2: No, Seriously, This Game Isn't That Bad!

Reading the reviews for XIII-2 when it was first released was a bit of a trip. For whatever reason, the number one complaint I saw brought up repeatedly were the quick time events (i.e., QTEs). Honestly, I think the QTEs are a positive addition. One of my major issues with Final Fantasy XIII is that when it starts rolling out its story after meandering for hours upon end, it subjects you to one fifteen to twenty-minute uninterrupted cinematic after another. The QTEs in XIII-2 force you to pay attention and break up the game's long sweeping monologues with flashy action. The game is still guilty of quick cuts and shaky camera work during action sequences which is an issue that plagues Final Fantasy XIII as well. Nevertheless, I found every QTE fight sequence Noel and Serah had with Caius easier to digest than any story sequence involving Galenth Dysley in XIII.

To further highlight how much of a non-issue the inclusion of quick-time events are in the grand scheme of things, look no further than the game's opening level. We watch Lightning dressed like a Valkyrie from Norse mythology, fight back Caius, and waves of monsters. For the first time in what feels like ages, we finally have a Final Fantasy game that communicates its driving antagonist at the start of the game. While the game briefly reviews its mechanics, it employs QTEs to establish its overall tone and critical parts of the story. The QTEs allow you to explore each environment far faster than if the game ferried you from one point to the next through linear corridors like Final Fantasy XIII. Likewise, needing to time button presses and controller inputs, to me at least, seems like a clever way to remind the player about the gameplay's emphasis on rhythm.

If you, like me, hated how Final Fantasy XIII started because it does nothing to give its players a sense of how its world works, I cannot comprehend how you don't view Final Fantasy XIII-2 as an improvement. In two hours, XIII-2 teaches you its core mechanics, introduces its primary characters, and establishes its villain. All of that took Final Fantasy XIII thirty hours to accomplish! Additionally, we have a clear grasp that something has fucked up in the world of Fabula Nova Crystallis from XIII to XIII-2. Speaking of which, the second level in this game provides NPCs with quests and storylines! One of the weirdest creative decisions in Final Fantasy XIII was cutting out NPCs and sidequests completely. As a result, it was often difficult to understand the relationships between characters and their varying roles as the story progressed. XIII-2 fixes that problem immediately by using the supporting members of NORA as quest givers. Hilariously enough, it was not until THIS GAME that I finally understood why any of these goobers liked Snow and why they chose to oppose the evil space pope in the first game.

Then we have Noel and Serah. As was the case before, I don't understand why so many people hate Noel and Serah. Serah is simply a far better protagonist than Lightning ever was in Final Fantasy XIII. Her goal of trying to find her sister across the time continuum isn't exactly Shakespeare, but at least you know what the fuck she wants and why! With Noel, my heart understands why people might get upset that he's just another Tetsuya Nomura punchable face, with baggy jorts and all! However, much like Serah, he's a character that provides a lot of storytelling utility, and at no point do you struggle to understand why he's tagging along with Serah. Likewise, being a transplant from a different timeline allows him to inquire about the game's surrounding world. It's not a lot, but thanks to Noel, I finally understood the significance of specific environments as I could use the game's dialogue choices to learn about them instead of needing to flip through the codex.

Lastly, I like Serah and Noel's relationship. For once, a role-playing game attempted to depict a male-female non-romantic relationship, and for the most part, it works. I greatly appreciated Serah communicating that she's still in love with Snow, and Noel accepts that and moves on with his life. Instead of subjecting us to another ham-fisted romantic relationship or love triangle, XIII-2 depicts a somewhat real friendship that grows organically. In many ways, this dynamic reminded me of my favorite companionship in all media: Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy in 30 Rock. As long as you ignore the story arc when 30 Rock put the two into an ill-fated relationship, which we don't talk about, it's to this day the best male-female friendship ever depicted in mass media. And much like Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy, Serah and Noel continue to have fun with each other as their surroundings devolve further into chaos. They openly discuss their vulnerabilities and inject levity into scenes by passing jokes by one another. Some of my favorite moments in XIII-2 involve Serah and Noel just shooting the shit in the void of time-space as they wait for a different bizarre scenario to arrive. More than that, the handful of moments when both of them openly recognized the schlocky situations they were in, I couldn't help but laugh.

Part 3: XIII-2 Improved (Almost) Every Single Mechanic in FFXIII

For the most part, I plan to explore the mechanical and cinematic improvements XIII-2 made compared to its predecessor during this episode and examine its story in the next one. Nonetheless, incomprehensible cinematics and poor characterization are not the only things XIII-2 solves from XIII. Final Fantasy XIII's Crystarium System was an awful tech tree and a massive reason why I could never feel fully invested in the game's characters. The one-dimensional nature of XIII's Crystarium boiled out the appeal of tech trees and was more a linear progression system masquerading as one. XIII-2 solves that issue almost immediately. As most of your time in XIII-2 will be with two characters, the game forces you to hybridize your party members and explore multiple branches across your available skill trees. Furthermore, the pacing of XIII-2's Crystarium is miles better than the one found in XIII. More importantly, XIII-2 does not hold back on the best mechanics or special abilities that differentiate the characters and their diverging classes.

Did I also mention there are choices to make of consequence on XIII-2's Crystarium and that this version of the mechanic isn't just a single pathway for each character? I was fucking flabbergasted when I first was prompted to review Noel's Crystarium and determine if I wanted him to be a debuffing wizard or an aggro-drawing tank. On top of that, at various "chokepoints" on XIII-2's Crystarium are nodes that allow you to permanently change one of your characters by either increasing their ATB Meter, giving them access to a new job, or boosting their core stats. Unlike in XIII, there's a rewarding sense of progression with each of your characters as you level them up and add new abilities into their repertoire. It also helps that character classes start with powers that make them fun to play from the onset. Medics can immediately heal and cure your whole party, and Saboteurs start with decent debuffing options.

Likewise, because XIII-2 is shorter, some more enjoyable late-game mechanics are instantly available. Air juggling, which didn't start until hour twenty or thirty in Final Fantasy XIII, is a chapter one ability in Final Fantasy XIII-2. That alone makes it far easier to get a handle on its rhythm-based combat. Chocolina is an abomination, and, still, I wouldn't say I liked the equipment system in XIII-2, but at least its crafting mechanic felt worthwhile and nowhere near as incremental as the one in XIII. I was not too fond of the introduction of an encumbrance mechanic, but the character customization options were fun to play with in-between combat sequences. The co-opting of the Persona franchise's "Player Advantage" gimmick in the form of the Mog Clock takes some getting used to, but visually manifesting the preemptive strike system is a significant improvement. I vastly prefer that to XIII's Deceptisols.

Finally, there's the Paradigm Tune System, which SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN FINAL FANTASY XIII! For those of you who remember playing Final Fantasy XIII, you may recall how you control one "party leader," and the game's AI controls the supporting two characters. You may also remember how if your "party leader" died during a battle, that would lead to an immediate "Game Over." It was an absolute bullshit rule and incredibly frustrating, especially when the game started spawning instadeath casting enemies that could inflict Lighting with Doom. Luckily, in Final Fantasy XIII-2, that is not the case, at least, for the most part.

Yes, the player still only directly controls one party member. However, they can also re-assign the "Party Leader" moniker on the fly with the player swapping between the characters however they see fit. This revision addresses one of the most significant issues I had with Final Fantasy XIII in that the AI was terrible at properly managing healing spells and status effects. For example, in Final Fantasy XIII, if you fail to control your Medic, the AI would idiotically cast multiple level-one healing spells instead of high-tier ones or status effect resolving commands. I still recall losing to a boss because Vanille queued up four casts of Cure instead of Curaga while my entire party was also poisoned. The AI still does this kind of stupid bullshit, but in XIII-2, you can at least mitigate the issue by queuing up the correct commands before shit gets out of control.

Another substantial improvement in Final Fantasy XIII-2 is that the death of the party leader no longer results in an instant Game Over. Instead, the game immediately swaps to the next human party member. Now, there is something to be said about the ability to hot-swap to your characters, posing an existential crisis for the Paradigm Shift System. Square-Enix still WANTS you to let its algorithms do most of the heavy lifting. However, that's not what I did when I played Final Fantasy XIII-2. While it certainly wracked up hours on my overall playtime, and it is worth mentioning how XIII-2 can be completed well under thirty hours, I played XIII-2 basically like a turn-based JRPG. Before every character's ATB meter filled up, I made sure to pause and swap to each of my party members and make sure their commands were optimized for the situation before them, and I had a lot of fun doing this. I felt like I could get into a groove with the "Command Synergy Battle" mechanic for the first time and eventually enjoyed the Paradigm System. When I approached each battle, no matter how small, as a rhythm puzzle with at least one viable solution, I had fun discovering those solutions and other alternatives. And with the penalty against Party Leader death gone, I felt as if I could comfortably experiment with my job assignments without losing significant progress. I'm not joking, but if this is how Final Fantasy XIII was originally designed, I think the way most people talk about the Paradigm System would be completely different.

Part 4: XIII-2's Production Values And Scope Are Half of XIII's But I Don't Think That's Necessarily A Bad Thing

Be warned; I never said Final Fantasy XIII-2 was perfect. The game's production values are one of the starkest reminders that XIII-2 is more of a low-budget "soft reboot" than a genuine sequel. The first issue is that most of its environments and settings are carbon copies of ones you saw in Final Fantasy XIII. Oddly enough, its original locations, like Academia or The Void, are among the game's worst levels. Academia's alternating one-way escalators will be forever burned into my memory as one of the worst modern-era Final Fantasy dungeons I have ever played. Likewise, while I like the concept of viewing the same environments across massive leaps of time to witness collapses of society, there's no doubting that this was done as a cost-cutting decision rather than a narrative one. Furthermore, many of the game's boss battles are recycled enemy types from Final Fantasy XIII. All of this is to say, the game feels and looks cheap.

I'm grateful this game has NPCs and legitimate quest givers, unlike Final Fantasy XIII. However, there's no doubt in my mind that the character models in XIII-2 lack a level of animation smoothness and technical care found in its predecessor. Outside of the opening cinematic, XIII-2 has none of its predecessor's high-budget and awe-inspiring CG cutscenes. Say what you will about the game, but Final Fantasy XIII is a "looker," and there are cutscenes in that game that still hold up visually. Here, the action sequences are mainly in-game and told through those QTEs I mentioned earlier. This means you can't sit back and absorb its cinematics as you can in almost every other Final Fantasy game. Simultaneously, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is far less technically consistent than most games bearing its namesake. There are times when I noticed Chocolina or Hope's lips flapping out of synch to their dialogue or characters floating out of bounds of the game's geometry. Part of this is due to XIII-2 being more open than XIII and thus more susceptible to technical glitches. Nonetheless, with the number of explorable environments minimized, a lot of this feels unacceptable in a mainline Final Fantasy game.

All of that aside, the worldbuilding and narrative structure of Final Fantasy XIII-2 is miles better than Final Fantasy XIII's. I would even go so far as to suggest I wish you could swap the two games in terms of their budgets. With XIII-2 doing a better job at contextualizing Cocoon, Grand Pulse, and the many factions at odds with one another, this game seems like it should have started the whole Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy initiative. I'll tell you what, at least Noel is a better cipher for the player, and his fish out of water prompting at least informs the player as to where the fuck they are and what they need to do. That's miles better than listening to Lightning constantly brewing about how much she hates Snow for twenty goddamn hours or Hope being a shit-stain for forty! Visiting the environments, lazy level design be damned, actually works as a way to communicate the story's message about needing to avert a world-ending cataclysm. It's a real shock when you first explore the end of the timeline and see familiar locations and environments in absolute ruins.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is an example of a big fish in a small pond. While not a complete success by any stretch of the definition, it succeeds more often at its pared-down list of objectives than Final Fantasy XIII's bible of narrative aspirations. You have a believable relationship between two characters; the world the characters inhabits makes sense; the pantheon of gods that are mucking about have motivations; the primary villain, Caius, lays out his reasons for being evil by hour two. Don't get me wrong, none of this punches anywhere close to the best this franchise has offered over its thirty plus years of existence. I had my share of fun, but I'm not placing this game's story near or above the likes of Final Fantasy VI, IX, X, or XII. Likewise, the game still struggles with the "proper noun glut" that makes every Fabula Nova Crystallis game downright impenetrable. To make matters worse, the new proper nouns XIII-2 introduces (i.e., the Historia Crux, Heart of Chaos, the City of Academia, etc.) are pure technobabble. But, for the most part, it is coherent, and I couldn't say the same about XIII!

Part 5: I Appreciate The Structure And Pacing

If Square-Enix's decision to include QTEs is the number one complaint most have with the game, then its non-linear structure is the second. And yet again, I diverge from popular sentiment: I like the non-linear and timeline-based design of Final Fantasy XIII-2. For one thing, with my growing age, I appreciate games that break up their chapters and environments into clearly communicated bite-sized chunks. Upon returning to the Historia Crux after completing a level, I relished being able to gauge if I had enough time to complete another "episode" or if I was better off taking a break or walking away. It's far from perfect, with the difficulty star ranks being as useless as they were in Final Fantasy XIII. Also, as the Historia Crux is open-ended, you can sometimes find yourself stuck in bottlenecks or in environments meant to be played later. In my first playthrough, I made the mistake of going to Oerba 200 AF far earlier than I should have and wasted HOURS trying to get past the Caius boss battle with underdeveloped characters I did not know were not ready. That can happen anytime as the game doesn't communicate its preferred sequence of events, and it sure does suck every time. In fact, I had to pop out of the absolute ends of environments during my playthrough upon reaching an impenetrable boss fight on three occasions.

However, a handful of benefits to the Historia Crux are worth commending. The first, and this is a crucial selling point for me, is that you can play as little or as much Final Fantasy XIII-2 as you want. You can certainly spend the time to 100% every explorable date and environment, so you unlock the "Secret Ending," but the benefits of doing so are not so great that you feel obligated to do this. For the most part, each environment and level employs a gimmick and culminates with a boss battle at the end. With a few exceptions that I will note in the next episode, the levels never overstay their welcome and get their points across in about fifteen to thirty minutes. The only dungeons that go longer are the ones that inflict the occasional Temporal Rift puzzle or Academia 400 AF, which is one of the worst dungeons/levels Square-Enix has ever made. In terms of communicating the overall theme of the game's narrative, the Historia Crux is a huge success. When the game finally allows Serah to speak, and she recalls the concluding events of Final Fantasy XIII, and things are not as you remember, the game runs with a relatively exciting sense of mystery. When you encounter a handful of familiar faces or environments, and none of them behave or look as they did in the last game, I honestly wanted to investigate the reason for the discrepancy.

Besides, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is NOT a time-intensive experience. There are five "episodes" or distinct acts in Final Fantasy XIII-2, as well as an epilogue that contains the final boss and concluding cinematic. This structure ensures that you always feel like you are progressing the story, which, AGAIN, is not something I could say about Final Fantasy XIII. Likewise, there's character work in-between the game's more dramatic moments that further develop the relationship between Serah and Noel as well as Caius and Yeul. To further tie into Final Fantasy XIII-2's carefree attitude, you can interact with all of the story-required NPCs however you want, using dialogue choices. These interactions certainly have "correct" responses. Still, the game doesn't overtly punish you for role-playing however you see fit. Some of the most entertaining character interactions in the game come when you allow Serah or Noel to call out other characters for their bullshit. For example, when you eventually meet Hope and discover his solution for all of the issues plaguing the world is time travel, you can have Serah tell him, "You used millions of precious resources on a single time machine?" And it's GREAT! You can also skip these sequences, thus sparing you from mountains of technobabble, making additional playthroughs not a bore!

Being the second chapter to a three-part series is no easy task, but even in that regard, Final Fantasy XIII-2 shines. The story foreshadows a lot of worldbuilding that is to be resolved in the next game, and it does so in a way that doesn't cheapen itself. Caius is someone you KNOW will not go down without a fight, and when he appears to be defeated, you also know that there's more to his story down the road. Again, I think a lot of this is a case of "less is more," but XIII-2 not endeavoring to resolve all of Final Fantasy XIII's narrative problems did not bother me as much as I thought it would. The issues it does solve are satisfying enough that I am willing to accept that Lightning Returns might honor my goodwill. And in terms of depicting two characters having a fun time as they avert the end of the universe, this is no worse than Final Fantasy X-2. Serah and Noel are time cops drifting around in a low-stakes, often manic adventure across millennia. What's wrong with that? As Final Fantasy fans, haven't we been subjected to far stupider concepts or stories?

Part 6: It's Not All Rainbows And Unicorns

I know I usually leave my conclusive assessment of Final Fantasy games for the last episode of any series. Nonetheless, I want you all to know I don't know if I would wholeheartedly recommend this game. It is possible to enjoy Final Fantasy XIII-2 if you open your heart, but only if Final Fantasy XIII did not personally offend you. For people like myself that are officially "in too deep" and have essentially signed up to ride this Final Fantasy train until the heat death of the universe, there are worse ways to spend your time. Yet, XIII-2 is admittedly a hard sell for most people. Despite all of its improvements, the Command Synergy Battle and Paradigm Shift systems don't feel great most of the time. The difficulty swings in the game are often wild and come out of nowhere. The game frequently struggles to communicate your preparedness for some of its required events, which can be endlessly frustrating. For example, I spent my first five hours of the game wasting away trash mobs as if they were nothing and then got stuck on the first Caius battle because the previous boss battles I had encountered were QTEs rather than authentic fights. I later had another similar scenario with the dragon boss at the Archylte Steppe. I didn't know until AFTER I started the battle that I was under-leveled for the encounter.

There are more than a fair share of nitpicks that are worth mentioning as well. The Sentinel job class, much like it was in Final Fantasy XIII, does not perform as it should and often fails to draw aggro while tanking, which makes some enemy encounters and boss battles excruciating. The recycled environments, especially the cityscapes, are bland and uninspired and, worse, difficult to navigate. By a country mile, the worst example is the City of Academia, whose one-way walk paths and escalators make exploring it an absolute slog. Speaking of slogs, the random encounter rate is fucking ridiculous at times. The one nice thing I can say about the linear corridors of Final Fantasy XIII is that they relied on real-world instancing like Chrono Trigger and allowed you to get through most environments without fighting endless trash mobs. That's not the case in Final Fantasy XIII-2, as monsters will pop out of thin air without warning and maul you if you don't tackle them headfirst. The decision to throw in random encounters feels more like a padding technique than an authentic strategy to get the player invested with its mechanics.

This issue leads me to a pretty important point: if you hated how Final Fantasy XIII played, there's nothing here for you. Many of the fundamental problems people had with Final Fantasy XIII are still here, even if they have been tempered. In fact, in some ways, Final Fantasy XIII-2 exacerbates them. I mentioned that there are quest givers, but the side quests here are incredibly basic and only worth exploring for people who want to 100% the game. That bland quest design is something that haunts large portions of the story missions as well. I praised the game earlier for its frenetic action set pieces, but that doesn't mean it is free from lulls. In one case, after some pretty heavy story bits on the Augusta Tower, with an even more epic boss to boot, the game immediately forces you to run around Academia picking up random fragments. Worse, it then forces you to play its version of Chocobo Hot and Cold when you need to collect a half dozen Graviton Cores. Those sorts of collect-a-thon missions are a glut in Final Fantasy XIII-2, and they cause the game to drag for hours upon end.

If there is one mechanic that I ebb and flow on whether or not it is a positive addition, it would be the Pokémon-like companion mechanic. On the one hand, it is inoffensive and reminded me of the Pokémon mechanic in Final Fantasy X-2. On the other hand, it's a timesink that does the game no favors. The difference here is that having a captured monster tag along with Serah and Noel is a requirement as there are only a few set pieces when a human companion occupies the third character slot. Also, the monster mechanic is imbalanced. Funnily enough, many of the monsters you capture in the first few environments prove to be more valuable than the late-game ones. Much of this is due to the game providing plenty of components and raw materials for upgrading early-game monsters and slowly becoming stingy with resources for late-game monsters. As a result, you can very quickly max out starting slimes and gremlins before you have the necessary components to level up a behemoth once. More importantly, it's an immersion-breaking mechanic. Here I am trying to tread water against Caius the second or third time, and I see my slime trying to inflict him with poison, or my robotic dog is breathing fire on him. It was a visual that never sat well with me. Finally, I did not enjoy grinding for resources. The loot drops never felt rewarding, and the prizes for completing side quests ranged too vast a delta for me ever to feel the need to complete them consistently.

Finally, there are times when the game is downright unfun to play. The first point of order would be the MANY Temporal Rift puzzles. Most are inoffensive time-wasters whose only sin is that they are not colorblind-friendly. Others, like the Hands of Time Clock Puzzle, might well be the worst puzzles I have ever seen in my entire life. The fact there are still dozens of websites that have algorithms that help you solve the clock puzzles without wanting to shove an ice pick through your ear says a lot about that particular Temporal Rift. I hinted at it earlier, but a handful of boss battles also feel cheap. My least favorite bosses in Final Fantasy XIII-2 are the ones that inflict "Wound Damage." Wound Damage not only lowers your character's HP but also lowers their maximum HP. In practice, this makes certain bosses essentially timed battles without a countdown meter. The issue with Wound is that it very often leads to death spirals and the player knowing they cannot possibly win their encounters with several minutes still to be played.

Part 7: DO NOT BUY THE STEAM VERSION OF THIS GAME!

As I stated earlier, this episode of my mini-series on Final Fantasy XIII-2 is mostly about core mechanics and the story's basic premise. Next episode, I'll provide my usual close reading of the game's many twists and turns. As you might guess, my feelings about Final Fantasy XIII-2's overall story are the same way I feel about its gameplay improvements. I appreciate it for what it is, even if it is saddled with a core that I do not enjoy. That said, I don't understand the vitriol and venom that is often directed against the game's story and characters when it very clearly is trying to provide a simple and silly adventure for people who enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII. However, I have to insist on ending on a rather negative note. If my series convinces you to play XIII-2, I must advise you, DO NOT BUY THE STEAM VERSION OF FINAL FANTASY XIII-2!

With many of you still smarting about the borked launch of Final Fantasy VII Remake on PC, I welcome you all to the long-standing tradition of FUBAR-ed PC releases of Final Fantasy games! Cue me posting a screen capture of Final Fantasy XII's official mouse and keyboard controls!

And for added measure, let me share how the snowboarding minigame works on the current Steam release for OG Final Fantasy VII.

As you can hopefully see, Square-Enix is actively incompetent in porting Final Fantasy games to PC digital marketplaces. Need I remind you when they first announced Final Fantasy V and VI were coming to Steam, how they just lazily ported the Android and iOS versions? Then there's the original Eidos PC port of Final Fantasy VIII and its godawful MIDI music. All of that aside, the Steam port of Final Fantasy XIII-2 is in a different league. First and foremost, the game will crash if you run it on any graphical settings above 720p. For whatever reason, the PC port is an x86 executable despite being capable of running on "Ultra" settings designed for x64 processes. As a result, the default version of the game crashes when it uses more than 2GB of RAM. Yup, you read that right, 2 WHOLE GIGABYTES OF RAM! The game has a RAM saving protocol from the console version to prevent it from overloading the 360 and PS3. However, Square-Enix didn't remove that protocol in the PC port, and in combination with the game's memory leak issues, you'll struggle to get past the prologue.

Before the MASSIVE fan-patch that you can find on the internet, and I strongly recommend, you had to edit the executable manually to prevent this from happening. In my case, I had to use a third-party application to make it large address aware. Speaking of weird carry-overs from the console versions, if you notice that your Steam version of the game is running at sub-thirty FPS, there's a reason for that. Somehow Square-Enix forgot to remove the controller checking protocol even though the game starts in a Mouse and Keyboard setup. Every nanosecond, the game pauses to see if you have a controller hooked up, which causes the game to run like absolute shit out of the box. Then there are the memory leak issues. I ran the game on a 3060Ti and felt like the advertised 1080p looked like a lie.

More importantly, the amount of "cut content" with the PC port is ridiculous. For those who might remember, Final Fantasy XIII-2 launched with a BUNCH of DLC and pre-order bonuses that Square-Enix eventually sold on PSN and XBLA. Much of that digital content is absent in the official PC release, which is a considerable problem. Luckily, the optional "episodes" at the casino are here. Still, you'll have to download that fan patch mentioned above if you want all of the content and resources console gamers had at their disposal when the game was released. Oh, and one of the other fan mods you should consider downloading is the "Leviathan's Tears" mod. For whatever reason, the Steam release changed the translucent raindrops in the console version to be pearlescent. Therefore, you should change that unless you want your computer screen covered in raindrops that look like semen.

Anyways, I will catch you all next time as we attempt to unpack Serah and Noel being time cops.

Ppl I’ve talked to that have played this game generally like it. I think most of the hate is ppl piling on the internet.

Hope you check out Lightning Returns, which is even more unfairly hated.

What a rollercoaster of a blog. I liked Final Fantasy XIII quite a bit, eventhough the story wasn't great. It was still interesting enough for me to want to see what happened next. To hear that a lot of mechanics have been improved and that the airjuggling is available much sooner, that makes this game a no-brainer for me to check out.

But to hear that the game does a poor job of signalling whether you stand a chance to get through an episode at your current level and that you might have to bail out after going through 95% of it, that's roughhh...

And then i hear that the game still runs like crap, so i'll guess this will stick around on my wishlist until i get a new GPU :)

I am currently playing through this and I'm near the tail end of the game and honestly had no idea the Crystarium gives you much of a choice of anything. I mostly gobbled up my pacman crystarium dots as they came, maxing out the obvious choice of Ravager and Commando for Serah and "Guy" respectively. I actively ignored unlocking additional roles to my main duo until I unlocked all their ATB segments and gotten their boosts. By that point my "pets" were already much better saboteurs and buff wizards than I would hope of becoming and I simply started building out the secondary sentinel/medic roles. I guess you can make some choice at the start but it seems like the game is very strangely advocating how these characters should progress for the first 12 hours. Still it is a step up from XIII I guess, although I will have to take your word for it as I played through that game basically a decade ago.

I will also note that on my Series X this game got "boosted" on the system level and runs at 60FPS 4K which is nice. Some of the art direction doesn't do the new resolution any favors though, and all the DLC is still priced like it's 2010. That said I obviously purchased Serahs bikini outfit straight away because how else are you supposed to play the game.

I liked Final Fantasy XIII-2 a lot. In fact, with the time element stuff going on, I've always believed that this game could've been Crono Crisis if not for that game getting shelved for some reason. The story is pretty good, Lighting's sister makes for a good protagonist, which is why her dying in the end is sad. And even the main character reminds me of Serge from Crono Cross.

Like you, I often think about XIII, however unlike you I have not touched that game since about 4 months after it launched. My last stop on the game was at the bottom of the final dungeon's final staircase, where more of the same bullshit enemy packs awaited me who resisted literally everything I was throwing at them, despite the same game plan working perfectly fine for the prior 10 hours. I was done by that point. Nothing in the barely-resolved plot's ending was worth re-learning how to play at that point, and watching the final boss fight and cinematic on Youtube showed me this was correct.

In fact, I thought I was done with Final Fantasy altogether, but it turned out I was just done with Final Fantasy XIII. It was obtuse, but only when it wanted to be, and was otherwise a railroad experience that had far fewer uplifting moments than it had down-in-the-mire moments.

I don't really know how a game can personally offend someone, but I honestly feel like XIII tried to kill the family cat and blame it on me.

XIII-2 was never really for me, and that's okay. As much as I love your JRPG pieces Zombiepie, I have a feeling this series will only confirm this even more.

EDIT: It probably says a lot that I would rather play XV and its accompanying DLC again, in full, than play anything related to XIII.

So nice I played it twice. Like you mentioned it has an obvious cut in the budget department (you won't find any Leona Lewis singles here), but man this game felt like a step up from XIII in every way that mattered. Like, they actually got things back on track for a minute there!

The DLC was especially crazy, as someone following it all on release. Mass Effect costumes, Gilgamesh and the Pupus become superbosses, and waiting for a story DLC that would apparently expand on that insane cliffhanger ending. I was actually pretty pumped for a follow up back in the day.

And uh... Lightning Returns does have a lot of fun stuff in it (and an ending so audacious I can't help but admire it), but it lacks a lot of the charm XIII-2 had, particularly in the character department. Noel and Serah were incredibly compelling and entertaining protagonists, but Lightning just genuinely sucks, and Returns was determined to make her duller than ever.

Looking at this trilogy as a whole is truly wild. Each game is so radically different in tone and narrative, their own little lime capsules throughout the PS3 generation and Square's struggle to adapt and gain their footing in it.

Haven't read through it all yet, but I had a similar experience. I despise 13 for a while host of reasons, so I skipped 13-2 when it originally came out. Then someone on here did a blog wayyyyy back, and I think specifically mentioned it fixing my biggest combat issues (that when the character you were controlling died you game overed, and also that you couldn't change characters mid-fight in 13) and I figured I'd give it a shot.

It's now easily in my top FF games. It has GAG ENDINGS, one of which is one of my favorite scenes in an FF game! It also gave us Crazy Chocobo, which rules. Honestly the whole soundtrack kicks ass and deserves to be talked about alongside the Nobou ones.

I also tried 13 again after this and Lightning Returns, thinking I had turned around on the series, but I still don't enjoy that game.

I liked it a lot, but i'm not an FF fan so i feel like that opened me up to enjoying the 13 series more than most, it betrayed some fans of the franchise but let people like me in.

It's been far too long since i played it to remember specifics but i liked the simple areas to progress through, the refinements they made to the combat and the music, i think doing a weird mini sequel gave them the chance to mess around a bit so the soundtrack is a bit more memorable to me that the typical orchestral fair.

My major complaint with it was that i couldn't finish it, i didn't have any issues with difficulty throughout the game until the very end when you're forced to fight a very difficult enemy, i looked online and others complained about it too, if you didn't grind enough before that point it's not possible to win the fight, but the game was easy up to that point so i had no reason to, so i just watched the end on youtube which was kind of anti climactic.

Your hang up on the game defining its villain in the first hour while also lauding a gameplay structure that is often incomprehensible is still so confusing. So many of the plots in this game are bad or obtuse. At least the game plays better and is less breathlessly serious than XIII.

I haven't even finished this blog yet, but I'll put this here anyway: you are correct.

I found this game to a pretty fun 7/10 game back in the day.

Crazy Chocobo is the best chocobo theme in the series

@cikame: Yah I was never a huge FF fan over the years - I didn't even own a Nintendo growing up - and everything that FF13 did to anger fans I really appreciated as a very casual JRPG "enjoyer". The fact that it was so extremely linear and gave so little choice in character growth was an extremely welcome design choice for me, a person that didn't want to get bogged down in character builds or grinds in open areas. Of course I realize this is all anathema to what actual true JRPG fans want out of one of these games but it was surprising how all those design decisions, right down to the somewhat hands off combat system and class assignment, really spoke to me at the time.

I guess I will still be the odd man out here.

I liked FF13 a lot. I like the "story", world building, and its linearity format specifically, but kind of hated the combat and the open world bits, so the Crystarium being somewhat linear actually plays well in a way that I kind of don't want to waste time thinking about it too much. I like the discovery journey the player is put into viewing how the characters' acts and behaves the way they do. It was eyebrow rising at first, but once all the pieces comes together it was a revelatory moment that very few game tops.

FF13-2 was a weird experience for me. I was sort of looking forward to it. Its opening felt like it had potential but mixed in with a bit of generic expectations regarding the state of the world with Sarah and the starting village. Sarah and Noel are good characters I don't have issue with, Noel actually grew on me as the game goes on. Also they both have their own romantic interests already with Snow and Yeul which works out well considering square tends to do better when it comes to platonic relationship than trying their hands at romance.

I agree the combat is over all better than FF13, but it was still missing some pieces i wish it had and added unnecessary baggage. The diverse combat role is a necessity with the limited cast, the newer Crystarium is...honestly kind of wack if you don't know how you are suppose to game it, it could lead to underpower character, but if you know what you are doing it's just a matter of pick str or mag on one of your character, and min max that direction. Usually people pick str on Noel and mag on Sarah...however the most annoying fight in the game might turn out better with Sarah on str. Also no respec is such an old concept that needs to die. Plus I do find a lot of the battle + exploration to be a chore if not annoying

The issue with 13-2 starts front and center with Caius being either a complete shitshow of a character or complete mishandling of him or both. Which then bleeds into disregarding the rules set up by the world and I am still very conflicted about how I feel about it. Which at this point is more established since it is coming off the set up by the original game. The playing with timeline and different endings is pretty much lifted from Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross.

Anyways with all that said, 13-2 is in competition for me as one of the worst FF games I have played, a good deal of it is because of the potential it has, and complete butchering of it.

Lightning Returns seems right up might alley and if what @ltsquigs says is true, it's apparently one of the most entertaining modern Final Fantasy experiences out there. I think I'll still make the effort to check out a 16 or 8 bit entry after this mini-series, but LR is definitely at the top of my list.

If what you want out of a Final Fantasy XIII sequel is a more coherent story that doesn't waste your time to get to the good mechanics, then I really think you will have a fun time with XIII-2. Yes, it has some rough edges, but those can be rectified by grinding a bit and engaging in the side quests. The few times when I rand into road blocks, I was able to get out of them after thirty or so minutes of side quest tomfoolery.

And if you are interested in playing the game, get the version on Game Pass.

This is part of the reason why I have such a hard time talking about and assessing the Pokémon mechanic: it is hilariously busted. If you sink in the right resources into a few of the starting monsters, you are essentially set for life as you get complete Saboteurs, Sentinels, and Synergists way earlier than you should. However, I don't think that's a bad thing because it allows Serah and Noel to stick with the DPS classes which are indisputably more fun to play. With them strictly oscillating between Racager and Commando, it's way easier to juggle shit and also pop off each character's ultimate move, which is always fun to see.

And as I mention below, some of the DLC is fucking criminal that it was not included in the base-game.

There is indeed an element of Chrono Cross in Final Fantasy XIII-2. Both games go down bonkers plot trajectories and seem to have a fun time while doing so. I would just mention that XIII-2 has a lot more levity than Chrono Cross and while it does indeed take a dark turn, that's not until the penultimate level. Everything prior to that continues the game's general trend of being a fun light-hearted adventure.

I respect people who say "I didn't like Final Fantasy XIII, and nothing can convince me to play XIII-2 or Lightning Returns." It's what I would likely have done had I not made a pact with the devil to see this franchise through the gates of Hell.

Also, what if I told you I think Final Fantasy XV: Episode Ardyn fucking ruins everything that is even remotely redeeming about Final Fantasy XV's story? Is that considered a Final Fantasy "hot take?"

I'll just say this now, but I'm having a hard time getting my thoughts about XIII-2 into writing. Overall, I think some of the episodes are well told and add depth to the story in areas where it was lacking. However, I think some of the DLC is downright criminal. Lightning's epilogue should have been included in the game and not knowing what the fuck happened to Vanille and Fang unless you buy their DLC is a goddamn shame. It does not help that all of this DLC is set at the same price it was when the game first launched, which would mean you're look at a $80 investment to play the "definitive" Final Fantasy XIII-2 experience.

@zombiepie: Honestly I agree about Episode Ardyn. I thought I knew what was going on until that mess came along. Retcons rarely solve anything, especially when the base story has been so clearly reduced to a shadow (hah!) of what it could have been.

Hot on the tail of reading your Chrono Cross retrospective, I came here and again I share your feelings. I absolutely couldn't deal with XIII but enjoyed XIII-2 enough to platinum it on PS3 and played it again on steam after a series of fan patches.

Self aware silliness, with some genuine moments when needed. Not perfect, but really enjoyable and it really did a lot of correct the flaws of XIII.

Chrono Trigger is still my favorite RPG to this day and this game hit a ton of my CT zones. It felt like someone was itching to make another CT game and figured they would use a bunch of FF XIII assets to do it. I'm on the FF ride until heat death too, and this was a nice stop along the way.