In a year's time, the saga that is the Final Fantasy 13 trilogy will probably be one that people look back on and make some snide remark about while hyping up 15 before the crushing disappointment settles in. The negative comments surrounding the games have been done to death at this point, and even though I like Final Fantasy 13 the first thought I had when I finished it wasn't "Yes, I'd like to have a sequel to this." In my first part I talked about Final Fantasy 13's shortcomings and high points and now in part two I'm going to talk about its sequel Part three will be all about the narrative between 13 and 13-2 and how 13-2 is a really bad sequel. The fourth part will be about the third entry in the series...once it is released and I have finished it, of course.

I'm not sure who really wanted a sequel to Final Fantasy 13, but if I had to hazard a guess it would be Motomu Toriyama, the director of 13 and 13-2. There's kind of a good reason that Final Fantasy games don't typically have direct sequels, and it's because they've all pretty much been worse than their predecessors. 10-2 had a fun battle system but nothing else about it was enjoyable. Final Fantasy 7 had Dirge of Cerberus and Advent Children and the less said about those the better. Even Final Fantasy 4 has The After Years and that is a hunk of actual junk. But unlike Final Fantasies 4, 7, and 10, FF 13 was not loved by the majority of people who played it. Sure, a lot of mess is talked about FF7 but it all seemingly comes from people looking back; FF7 is still beloved by many. So with 13, a sequel couldn't really hurt the bad reputation that the first game had, right? Hell, if anything it'd actually be an improvement.

No. People who think that 13-2 is a better game than 13 are wrong. Fuck opinions, this is god damn science.

Final Fantasy 13-2 follows the tradition of being worse than the one that came before it, but it also holds the distinction of being kind of a better game too. The writers of 13-2 would call this a paradox. I call it an accident.

I don't pretend to know anything about making a game - I'm just some dork that likes Japanese games a whole bunch - but 13-2 feels like a game that the team behind 13 decided to make to address the complaints of 13. Kind of like what BioWare claims to be doing with Dragon Age 3, but not at all. Paradox. The fact that it was released rather quickly after 13 combined with the actual gameplay found inside adds some kind of substance to this claim. Almost as soon as you are in control the game feels like it is pulling at your arm and showing you how everything is different and better while being all smug about it.

"Oh, you didn't like that it took three hours to get to a level up screen in 13? Well check it out, one hour in and you get the Crystarium." "What was that? You didn't think it was a good idea to gate the Crystarium based on story progression? Well hey, now you have FULL ACCESS to the Crystarium at the start! Oh, and did we mention it's not as mindless as holding down X to watch the line move? Now you can totally obsess over min.maxing your nodes! Hell yeah! And just open that map, BAM, all kinds of turns, no straight line running in THIS adventure!"

Final Fantasy 13-2 is a snake oil salesmen whose pitch is that this elixir will make you forgot about Final Fantasy 13.

Much like how FF13 tricked players into thinking the game opened up in chapter 11, 13-2 tricked players into thinking it was a better game than 13. Sure, the game doesn't take its sweet time unlocking systems and within two hours you have your three man party and an unlocked battle system, but that doesn't make it a better game. It makes it a game where there's no need to gate progress because there's no need to do so. In 13, your Crystarium is gated due to the narrative; it makes sense that the Crystarium opens up more completely in chapter 10 after Dysley flat out tells you to get stronger. In 13, the story was the driving force behind the majority of actions, it was why you didn't get a level up screen until chapter 3, it was why you had two characters for a large chunk. A better game might have struck some kind of balance between gameplay and story, but locking certain systems based on progress never felt like that much of an issue. In 13-2 this system lock is a non-issue because there's no story reason for there to be an issue; the game just handwaves the issue of "Why can this future boy and this ex-l'Cie fling around spells?" with something about 'crystal residue' or something and now even normal people can use magic sometimes. No one ever does, the NPCs still walk around using regular ass guns, but hey who gives a shit when it means you've got the paradigms and the Crystarium as soon as you're in control of Serah.

Normally I wouldn't mind but it's a lot easier to swallow the progression of the characters in 13. Lightning and Snow were already accustomed to danger and fights and adapted once they got their magic, Hope specifically went with Lightning in order to grow stronger physically. In 13-2, Serah just suddenly knows how to fire a bow and arrow, swing a sword, and fling around fire and ice as if she's been doing it her whole life. This is mere SECONDS after nearly being attacked and injured by one of the weakest enemies in the game. Again, this is all just handwaved away with Serah going "If I have to" when asked if she could fight. Later on in the game she mentions that she is more comfortable fighting, but she was never uncomfortable. She was always just the same, flinging spells and swinging swords. Her time as a l'Cie was spent crying and walking on the beach before becoming a crystal so it's not like she had any combat experience prior to Noel showing up and handing her a mooglebow. Sure, this might come off as me being petty or nitpicking, but it just irked me. I'm not suggesting they totally change the battle system, I just wish it was handled better in the narrative. But then, considering how the gates were seen as a negative before, I'm not surprised by the end result.

At the same time, the battle system in 13-2 is better and feels like the logical extension of the flaws in 13's system. No longer is the game over when your controlled character dies, no more are you forced into an animation when you first swap paradigms. The battles are even faster and with the added benefit of being able to modify paradigms, the tactical options are enhanced. The simple addition of 'Cross' and 'Wide' add more flexibility to the paradigms and their roles, and being able to save three decks of six paradigms gives you more easily accessible paradigm choices, though unfortunately you cannot swap decks in the middle of battle. Battles are much more fun thanks to the changes and the swiftness at which battles happen. I liked the combat in 13. I loved it in 13-2.

Almost everything in the game feels like the result of the developers looking at all the criticisms and doing the opposite and it is apparent even in the first area, New Bodum. The first game opened with a bunch of narrow paths and straight lines, in the sequel you open the map and it's a series of turns and such, but the map makes it look bigger. It gives the illusion of more explorable paths, like it is daring the player to try and say the maps are straight lines. Map design is something I'll admit the sequel does better. Sure, the areas are more open and ripe for exploring, but at the same time you're spending the game revisiting the same areas only with a new coat of paint. It's neat exploring the Bresha Ruins. It is less neat when you go there one hundred or two hundred years in the future and the only difference is that the map is snowy and the background music is different. Somehow the game does setting worse than 13. Both games consist of a series of locations that are barely connected to each other. But at least in 13-2's favor there's a better reason for this.

13 had a noticeable lack of towns and side activities and NPCs. 13-2 attempted to rectify this by having a bunch of NPCs you could have flavor dialog with and sometimes an NPC will give you a sidequest. The sidequests in 13-2 range from boring to mildly boring. The only enjoyable ones are the ones where you are tasked with defeating an optional monster because they allowed for more time with the battle system and were also similar to the side activities in 13. The other side quests are all pretty much fetch quests. Fetch quests involving time travelling, but still fetch quests. When are fetch quests ever fun? They aren't ever. And yet, in 13-2 not only are you tasked with searching for vague items for random people, often they are hidden (because paradoxes) and you'll spend time wandering around an area looking for the faint glimmer of a hidden chest. The worst part is that these fetch quests are mandatory to get the 160 hidden collectibles that are needed for the super secret ending. There's also a casino in the game because everyone loved the Golden Saucer. I hope you didn't want to play poker or Chronobind, because you'll get a big fat "BUY THE DLC" message when you do, and then the card games aren't even playable by the main characters. Even after you buy the DLC the BUY THE DLC pop up happens. It'd be like the guy in the party camp in Dragon Age Origins sticks around reminding you that the Warden's Keep is only available in the DLC and to get there you have to go through the main menu. Enjoy your slot machines and your chocobo races. Mini games. Hooray, what a great addition. But hey, at least there are mini games, right? That's what you really want in your JRPGs.

Things like that are why I feel like 13-2 tricks people into thinking it's a better game. It adds NPCs and sidequests but both of those things don't enhance the game outside of getting another tick on your quest to 160 fragments. Take a game like Nier, its sidequests may have been lackluster but doing them got you insight into the world and its inhabitants while also developing the main cast. 13-2 doesn't really do this, it just has an NPC tell you he lost something and then you go find it and yay, here's a fragment. It adds things the first game lacked just to say that the game has them, as if the lack of those things were why the first one was so disliked. Hell, maybe that was what was disliked the most, I still don't know what people hated so much about 13 and I've heard pretty much every bit of criticism towards it; but 'lack of mini games' never seemed to be high on the list. Even the mini games are just a means to an end. On their own the side quests aren't entertaining or even all that interesting. But JRPGs have a habit of having mini games and side activities to go through and 13 was lacking so here you go, just like you always wanted, a series of fetch quests and virtual Where's Waldo. And let's all agree that the Temporal Rifts were stupid.

As I replayed 13-2 I struggled to understand why some think it is a better game than 13. The things it does better, battles and level layout, aren't enough in my eyes. But at the same time I had more fun playing 13-2 than I did 13 and if I had to replay one again right now, I'd pick 13-2 every time. It is a better playing game than 13 but it is a worse game at the same time. Paradox. I suppose it boils down to what you want in a JRPG. 13-2 is a shorter game and the earlier, ungated access to the Crystarium means you can make the game a breeze with minimal effort which makes it more fun to play. It's not as heavy a game and lends itself well to shorter sessions.

All that aside, even though I enjoy the part where I am playing 13-2 (as in the battles, mostly), I still have no idea why it needed to be made in the first place. Final Fantasy 13 did not need a sequel and 13-2 is such a bad sequel that I'm still not convinced that it is one.

The reason why 13-2 is such a bad sequel is because of the follow up in terms of narrative. As a pure gameplay thing, 13-2 is better since the battles are more fun. But as far as narrative is concerned, it's much, much worse.And if you thought the story was bad in 13, holy shit does 13-2 make 13 seem like a masterpiece in comparison. This is why I consider 13-2 to be both a better game and a worse sequel. So let's get into the story....

Next time. Because this is already getting long and no one wants to read a fucking dissertation on Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2.

As always, thanks for reading.