Author's Note: If you missed the previous two episodes of this series, here are the links:

• Episode 1: This Is One Of The Most Unfairly Overhated Games Ever
• Episode 2: Sometimes... You Just Want To Play Something Incredibly Dumb

Part 12: THE (NEW) WORST PUZZLE IN FINAL FANTASY FRANCHISE HISTORY!

After the riveting highs at Augusta Tower, Final Fantasy XIII-2, unfortunately, subjects you to the doldrums of its Skinner Box-like grinds. When you meet Hope, he informs Serah and company that they are stuck until they retrieve him five Gravitron Orbs, and the whole affair is about as interesting as watching grass grow. A slightly exciting story arc involves Alyssa betraying Serah when she realizes she's a paradox and Serah is minutes away from erasing her from history. Luckily for all involved, it's around this point when Final Fantasy XIII-2 decides to summarize the events of Final Fantasy XIII in the most METAL WAY POSSIBLE! This sequence starts when you meet a different Yeul who lectures about the "legendary l'Cie" that are genuinely responsible for the crystal pillar. She states that Serah has "Etro's Eyes" and transforms into Caius. He calls Noel a "traitor" for not fulfilling his destiny and then STABS SERAH THROUGH THE CHEST, which causes Chaos to erupt from her body.

Regardless, when Serah locates Noel, she watches Caius offer him the opportunity to "complete his destiny." As was earlier suggested, she learns that Noel was meant to become Caius's replacement, but this required him to kill Yeul. However, the game relays the technical details of why this brazen act of bloodshed was necessary. We discover that the Heart of Etro resides within Caius, and a blood sacrifice is needed to keep it beating. Otherwise, Chaos will return and fuck everything up. When Noel refuses, Caius shares that he's done being an immortal Guardian and departs to unleash Chaos because he's sick and tired of his job. As someone who is occasionally exhausted by their career and job choice, I related to Caius telling Noel to quit whining and get on with killing Yeul so he can retire. He spoke to me at an almost spiritual level.

What we learn about Noel while Serah explores his dream realm showcases the game's most tender and earnest moments. As goofy as all of the shit involving Etro's heart might seem on paper, there's a palpable sense of melancholy when Noel regains his memories, and he recognizes that he is a failure. Additionally, he's not immediately enthusiastic about rejoining Serah. He realizes that Serah has Etro's Eye, which means she is a seeress like Yeul. This detail means that Serah's magical ability to "make things right" slowly kills her. It is a quieter moment that again highlights how the dynamic between Noel and Serah works in the grand scheme of things. The two of them motivate each other during their darkest moments but without the subtext of romance, and that's not something you see in JRPGs very often! But we aren't here to talk about two characters leveling with each other like real people! Well, FUCK THAT SHIT! I play Final Fantasy games for the puzzles! And BOY HOWDY, do we have a DOOZY of a puzzle to talk about in this game!

First, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is weird regarding its "point of no return." Because it has a non-linear structure, you can continue to hop around the Historia Crux longer than expected. The game structurally is a bit listless near its final act, but the worst thing you could do is immediately make a beeline to the end. There are a total of TEN optional areas in the game, and while not all of them are necessary to appreciate the story and all of its weird glory, they are there, and many of them do provide extra worldbuilding. One of these optional locations happens to be the Vile Peaks, and it is here that Serah has her only character interactions with Lightning outside of the final act. It is UNFORGIVABLE that this was made wholly missable by the design team. Unfortunately, most of these supplemental levels also contain the most demanding boss encounters and puzzles—case in point, the "Hands of Time" puzzles.

If there's something I hope my new adventure game blog series on the site has proven, it's that I enjoy myself a good puzzle. The Hands of Time clock puzzles are not that. For those unaware, at Oerba and Yaschas Massif, Noel and Serah are immediately transported to a temporal rift where every puzzle involves looking at clocks with randomized numbers on them. Mechanically, each number on the clock has a hidden value that moves the hands of the clock, and the crystals will disappear wherever the clock's hands land. Because the game does not tell you what any of the symbols translate to regarding how many units they will move the clock's hands, these puzzles are only solvable through brute force. All the game provides in terms of UI assistance are button prompts when the characters are in a position to move the clock's hands and a timer that looms over Noel and Serah like a proverbial Sword of Damocles.

Additionally, like the previous Temporal Rift puzzles, these are timed puzzles, and given that the starting numbers are randomized, you can't rely on memorization to get you through them. But the worst part is that these clock puzzles are not contained within the scope of one Historia Crux point. Instead, the game repeats them THREE TIMES! On top of that, each stage subjects you to a series of puzzles instead of just one or two. During the final phase of Oerba 400 AF, you have SIX STAGES of these goddamn clock puzzles to solve! SIX! IT'S A BAD TIME! It is a real testament to how shitty it is that most of the guides I consulted avoided explaining how the entire thing works and instead linked to websites that algorithmically give you the solution after punching in all of the numbers.

Part 13: I Wish I Enjoyed Playing This Game

After Serah witnesses Caius handing Noel his ass, she awakens Noel from his slumber. However, as she exits with Noel in tow, he stops her and reminds her of the sacrifice necessary to "make the world whole again." Noel identifies Serah as an interdimensional witch, like Yeul, and states that making things the way they once were will likely cost Serah her life. I'd call this a "plot twist," except that the game has already had at least a dozen scenes with Yeul and Caius doppelgangers that stated that SERAH IS GOING TO DIE! I have no idea why the game thinks this point of order is a mystery, but it does, and I thought I had gone crazy when I reached the end, and everyone acted surprised when Serah died. However, Mog suddenly re-appears and states that Lightning, a character we have barely seen since the opening scene, broke him from his dream state in the Void Beyond. The little bugger then does a lore dump in which we discover that Caius was a Pulse l'Cie tasked with protecting Yeul until Etro saved him and made him immortal. This plot point makes ZERO SENSE! First, if the goddess Etro has the power to make Caius immortal, why doesn't she revoke that immortality the moment Caius shows the first signs of being an evil monster? Second, how is she not aware that Caius wanted to move on with his life after fulfilling his Focus? He's made that point crystal clear to everyone and their mother.

After Noel's little heart-to-heart, he and Serah exit a time distortion. Along the way, Noel relays that the source of the paradoxes is none other than Caius. Therefore, you can put "able to warp the space-time continuum" on Caius's LinkedIn profile. What item or source of energy allows Caius to create paradoxes? The game will never tell, but I find it exceedingly odd how it suggests that Caius has been up to his time-bending hijinks for centuries, despite there being no signs of him during the events of Final Fantasy XIII. Where was this guy when Barthandelus was about to blow up the universe? Was Caius just okay with that, or was he still busy farting around with Noel or Yeul while moaning about his immortality?

Nonetheless, Noel and Serah eventually end up at the butt-end of the Historia Crux. While there, they look over the charred remains of the once beautiful city of New Bodhum and come across a disheveled Lightning. This Lightning, who is adorned in the Valkyrie-inspired clothing from the opening sequence, reveals that this is what happens to the world if Caius's plot succeeds. To stop this timeline from becoming canonical, she has Mog open a portal to the exact moment when Caius is about to destroy the entire time continuum. Despite understanding the gravity of the situation and the importance of Serah's mission, Lightning refuses to join them because of reasons she'll never tell. I'd also point out that her transporting Noel and Serah mere moments before Caius blows up the world, when she has the power of time travel, is contrived bullshit, but the former plot hole bugged me more.

Alternatively, we need to return to Final Fantasy XIII-2's rushed development. When you reach the final act, the game drops storytelling pipe bombs as if its life depends on it. If I were to color in a pie chart on how much of the game's story is conveyed across its tenuous five-act dramatic structure, more than a third would be in its fourth act, and another third would be in its last. I understand some of you might read that and scoff this off as another example of "Square being Square," but things are different in the world of Final Fantasy XIII-2. It jam-packs so many shot-reverse-shot exposition deluges that I felt dizzy going into the final Caius battle. The pantheon of gods and goddesses that have only been mentioned briefly up to this point might as well get slide decks because that's how long Noel and Mog's lectures go on during the last few levels. This structure would have been much more palatable if the game had done a better job spacing out this information. Instead, it shoots on all cylinders with less than two to three hours left.

Not only does the game make a sloppy bum-rush in reminding you that it has a story, but its production values also plummet. The last four levels, including Valhalla, all repeat the same ruined silver futuristic city landscape, with the one difference being the filters. A Dying World uses a grey filter; 700 AF Bodhum uses a yellow filter; 500 AF Academia uses a red filter. Likewise, none of the final levels are especially fun to play. While it pales in comparison to the one-way escalators in 400 AF Academia, the 500 AF version is no cakewalk. I got severe flashbacks to the neon pink one-way corridors in the penultimate level in Final Fantasy XIII. Yet again, you ferry Serah and Noel from one narrow staircase or walkway to the next, with no end in sight. It is the blandest and most vanilla-ass level design in the entire game, and it also happens to be the game's climax. Oh, and how could I not mention how intolerable the random encounters become! As said last episode, the one feather in Final Fantasy XIII's hat is that it does not have random encounters. When Final Fantasy XIII-2 borrows its predecessor's level design, its inclusion of random encounters makes everything slow to a crawl.

Speaking of questionable productions values, the entire final act of the game lacks any semblance of enemy variety. I know Final Fantasy XIII-2 borrows HEAVILY from XIII's bestiary and sparingly adds anything new, but fighting the same Cie'th enemy types, just as I did in the final act of Final Fantasy XIII, left a bad taste in my mouth. Additionally, what the fuck is up with the music whenever you go to Academia? If there is one unmistakable positive aspect of Final Fantasy XIII, it is that its OST is a masterclass of excellence. Its sweeping orchestral tracks are something I still go back to from time to time, with the music at Oerba as one of my personal favorites. Final Fantasy XIII-2 is an odd jumble of synth pop tunes and discordant chamber music. Its outright refusal to commit to a single musical style or genre never ceased to fuck with my brain. Yes, I respect how hard the music team went with their rendition of the Chocobo theme, but that's one of the few genuinely iconic tracks in the entire game. More often than not, you have half-baked and undermixed high hats or drum riffs that sound like the ones you would find on an outdated version of FruityLoops or Magix Music Maker. In the final level of the game, instead of giving you an epic crescendoing orchestra, it gives you the most artificial and skeletal-sounding piano solo. It's an odd choice that bugged me to no end.

Part 14: The Ending Of Final Fantasy XIII-2 Is Some Of The Dumbest Shit I Have Ever Seen

Before we jump into the absolute insanity of Final Fantasy XIII-2's ending, I must insist we talk about its last three boss battles. Things start with Chaos Bahamut because what is any "good" Final Fantasy game without a Bahamut battle? Though it annoyingly alternates between long-range and close-range attacks, it is a bit of a gimmick fight. If you have Serah or a Saboteur monster whittle away on its buffs with "deprotect," its base health isn't as impressive as you'd think. Things ramp up dramatically with Caius as this version gains a new ability that can immediately inflict a character with Curse, Deprotect, Deshell, Poison, and Daze all in one move. It's complete and total bullshit, and I hated it every time. Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 do not understand how annoying it is to get rid of status effects during battles. Esuna doesn't do jack shit, and you spend up to three turns just getting your debuffed characters back to "normal." This process alone drags the late-game boss battles on for HOURS!

Much like all Final Fantasy games, the final bosses have some bullshit immunities. Caius is unsusceptible to the aggro-drawing Sentinel abilities, making an entire class USELESS whenever you fight him! On top of that, he can instantly remove any accumulated points you have to his Chain Gauge, which can make staggering him impossible. There was no more a demoralizing sight than when I was three or four hits away from staggering Caius, only to see him instantly set his gauge back to zero with a simple finger snap. I had less of an issue with his second and third forms, though I did find it hilarious when Caius used a revive spell to come back from the dead. However, none of this compares to the battle against the four colored dragons. I thought Orphan was a big heaping pile of bullshit, but Jet Bahamut is on a whole different level. Though Jet Bahamut is your ultimate goal, there's a correct "order" on how to reach it. Something that drove me bonkers was keeping track of the buffs and debuffs on the various dragons. Often, I would attempt to cast "Deprotect" only to discover I selected the wrong target.

Before you ask, I did scan each boss, but they all look similar enough that it was still tough to tell them apart. Like before, everyone here likes to inflict Serah or Noel with every status effect under the sun, and AGAIN, it takes FOREVER to resolve this problem. It's also one of the few bosses that takes advantage of XIII-2's front and back row mechanic, a mechanic you can't take advantage of personally. Sometimes dragons that you are just moments away from beating ignore the game's turn order, retreat, and tag in a different max-health ally to take their place while they heal up in the background. The purple Bahamut does nothing but AOE magical damage and can even summon a massive sword to fight alongside it. If you don't have a high-tier Sentinel monster, you might as well give up. I still think the first battle against Barthandelus is the worst storyline required boss encounter in franchise history. Still, this Bahamut circle-jerk deserves top five considerations.

Yet, we shouldn't dwell on fucked up boss battles for too long because there are bigger fish to fry. When everything is said and done, and you trigger the game's ending, you are in for one of the most incoherent fever dreams Square-Enix has conceived in the past twenty years. With Caius defeated, he demands that Noel finish him and set the final part of his destiny into motion. When Noel refuses, Caius approaches him, grabs his sword, and kills himself. Now, I'm not one to nitpick stupid story shit in a Final Fantasy game, but this scene made me go full-on berserker mode. Caius has been lumbering around the world of Fabula Nova Crystallis with a big-ass sword FOR CENTURIES! If committing suicide is all he needs to do to make his evil scheme happen, then why didn't he do that in the first place? I was under the impression that he needed Noel to be the one to kill him, but it appears that was not the case. Why moan and complain for HUNDREDS OF YEARS if you could have done this all along?!

Somehow committing seppuku allows Caius to transport himself to Valhalla, the realm where Valkyrie Lightning exists. However, Lightning is still absent, and Serah worries that maybe Caius has killed her and they have somehow failed to correct the timeline. Serah, Noel, and Mog then teleport to Gran Pulse in 500 AF and find a teeming metropolis on New Cocoon. Curiously, it is named after the god Bhunivelze, whom we have only sparingly encountered in the game. When Noel and Serah walk up to the gate to Valhalla and discover it safe, the two realize they have completed their mission of making the world whole. Serah thanks Noel and then dies. She says, "Thanks for everything, Noel, but I'm going to die now" and promptly becomes a ghost. It happens so suddenly I felt inspired to load up a save to re-watch the entire cutscene. Yes, the game has repeatedly warned us that Serah will die upon completing her mission. Still, I didn't think this would happen in the most unsatisfying manner possible. Here I thought tri-Ace was about to hit me with their most lethal dose of melodramatic anime horseshit. Instead, they up and fridge Serah so Lightning can come back and be the protagonist in the next Final Fantasy XIII game!

What happens after Serah's death is, at the very least, "punchy." There's a scene in which Serah's spirit communes with Lightning, and while touching, it felt like a direct rip of the ending of Final Fantasy X where Tidus comforts a weeping Yuna before he leaps into the Farplane. Even more hilarious is when Serah takes the time to lay out how she knew correcting the timeline would kill her as she is a sorceress under the employ of the goddess of death, Etro. I found this laughable because her speech to Lightning marked what had to be the eighteenth goddamn time the game lectures the audience that EXACT plot point! However, all is forgiven when we discover Serah's death was what Caius was planning. Noel realizes that they have accidentally killed Etro by letting Serah die as a dark cloud invades New Cocoon. We discover this ghostly spirit is none other than Chaos, and it even manages to corrupt the god of creation. Caius binds himself to Chaos to become a demigod and, with the most incredible shit-eating grin on his face, starts blowing up the world. It's a real "Haha! I threw that shit before I walked in the room!" moment, and I LOVE IT! Not since the likes of Kuja or Kefka have I seen a villain take great pride in their schemes, pull it off, and look like they are enjoying themselves. It's a fun callback to Final Fantasy games of yesteryear.

Part 15: Let's Talk About The DLC Shit That SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE GAME!

I should note that seeing Caius gloat on the throne of Etro is exclusive to Final Fantasy XIII-2's "true" ending. You have to put up with a ton of bullshit to get it, and I'd advise most to look it up on YouTube after getting the "normal" ending. I am, however, dancing around the issue that Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the middle chapter of a trilogy and, as a result, doesn't have a self-contained ending. Our time with Serah is undoubtedly over, but Caius is more potent than he was at the start of the game, and the world order we sought to protect is all but destroyed. I played this game well after its original release and was able to transition into Lightning Returns almost immediately. If I had to wait for an additional two to three years to get the "stunning conclusion" to this ordeal, I would have been a bit peeved. Worse, with nearly ten hours of Lightning Returns under my belt as of the publishing of this blog, there's a different issue worth addressing. The XIII games are not a franchise; they are an anthology. Sure, there's a more honest attempt to bridge the gap between XIII-2 and Lightning Returns than XIII to XIII-2. Nonetheless, Lightning Returns, much like XIII-2, feels like a soft reboot wherein a new writing team shit-can all of the themes and narrative choices from the previous game so their story can have more creative freedom. So, YET AGAIN, a handful of exciting character arcs and plot threads remain entirely unresolved.

Even if you want to challenge me on that last note, there's a more nefarious aspect of Final Fantasy XIII-2 that I find unconscionable. The DLC scenario for Lightning (i.e., "Lightning's Story: Requiem of the Goddess") should NOT have been sold separately. I understand that the Game Pass and PC releases package all of the story scenarios into the casino, or in this case, the main menu. However, knowing this even exists isn't all that clear to the player. Likewise, knowing when to play any of this content is confusing. Sazh and Snow's scenarios are goofy one-off character-building missions that fill you in on what they have been doing since the events of the last game. Both provide incredibly earnest and emotionally-charged soliloquies and probably get more attention than what they deserve when you consider their roles in Final Fantasy XIII. I know some of you are Sazh defenders, but honestly, giving him a DLC mission makes the underutilization of Fang and Vanille in XIII-2 all the more unacceptable.

On the other hand, Lightning's DLC boggles my mind. Mechanically, it is a preview of what tri-Ace had in store for Lightning Returns. The classes Lightning can shift to using the Paradigm System are not the ones were are accustomed to and, instead, a diverse collection of jobs from previous Final Fantasy games. Gone are the Ravager and Commando, and back are the Paladin and Mage. They are fun to play, but the game doesn't precisely prime you for its fundamental pivot away from the core mechanics of Final Fantasy XIII. Thus, it is a challenging scenario that can very quickly breed frustration. I did enjoy the truncated leveling system and found it to fit the scenario's short playtime. I was less enthused by Caius being your only enemy and you fighting him repeatedly. Likewise, the level variety is barely there with you looking at and exploring the same desolate city ruins over and over again. Like the base game, you can tell the team behind Lightning's DLC cut costs while still trying to squeeze the absolute most they could from the Final Fantasy XIII engine.

But what about the compelling backstory for Lightning following the events of Final Fantasy XIII? It is here where Lightning's DLC both hooks and loses me. It hooked me because the Lightning in this episode was a far more convincing and fully-realized character than the one we encountered in Final Fantasy XIII. You can tell by this game and especially by Lightning Returns that the writing team finally decided what they wanted out of her as a character. The benefit of this "Come to Jesus moment" is that Ali Hillis, Lightning's English voice actor, puts more effort into her performance. You slowly start to see a more sardonic, sarcastic, and honestly more captivating version of Lightning throughout this episode. The only problem is that the dialogue here is jam-packed with technobabble and the same proper-noun syndrome that makes whole swaths of Final Fantasy XIII incomprehensible even to an MIT graduate.

At least there are some fantastic visuals and character moments, which is all you can hope for in cheaply made DLC. In what I can only describe as the final nail in Final Fantasy XIII's coffin, Lightning confronts a Yeul doppelganger to free Serah's soul from the throne of Etro. This "Shadow Yeul" consumes Lightning in a shroud of darkness and deletes her Eidolon. With the last mechanical hallmark of XIII dead, the rest of the DLC feels like an obituary to the game that started this sub-franchise. For example, Lightning spends a portion of her time reviewing her accomplishments in Final Fantasy XIII and dismissing them as irrelevant. Despite her best efforts, Serah is still dead, and she is no closer to seeing her sister again. Lightning's speeches also have a religious undercurrent. She laments her sister's death and pontificates if it is punishment for her sins. This religious tone is a huge focus in Lightning Returns, but there is no denying that it is far removed from the themes of XIII and even XIII-2.

The good news is that this particular DLC at least tries to ease people into Lightning Returns' wild and wacky world. Just as Lightning gives up hope as she further descends into an existential crisis, Serah's soul beckons to her. Serah comforts her older sister even though her soul is tied to Etro's throne. ONCE AGAIN, she confirms that she knew she would die and states that the two will meet again. Lightning gains confidence that she can make things right and decides to sit on Etro's throne and enter a hibernating state. So, there's your hint that with Etro's death, everyone in the world is immortal and unable to die. Yup, that's it, but at least it is something. Before we transition to my final thoughts, it would behoove me to mention the "alternate" endings for Final Fantasy XIII-2. During some of the dialogue prompts, you can select an incorrect or obscure choice to discover alternate but non-canonical conclusions. In my case, out of morbid curiosity, I wanted to see what would happen if Serah never exited the dream state created by Chaos. These endings are goofy fail states, but finding them is a decent amount of fun. The effort put into some of these endings is stunning, but there's no doubting that they are essentially a fun distraction and nothing more.

Post-Script: Should You Play Final Fantasy XIII-2?

After spending three longer than necessary blogs broadly talking positively about the game, I hate to say it, but my answer is "probably not." Under no circumstances should anyone allow this to be their first impression of the Final Fantasy franchise. Since publishing the last blog, I have had several people reach out to me privately to say they too are fans of Final Fantasy XIII-2, and some have even told me it was the first Final Fantasy game they had played. I don't fuck with that. Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a game that requires you to approach it with a particular mindset to get any modicum of joy. If you have already made up your mind about Final Fantasy XIII and every game that derives from it, there's nothing here. If you have a deep aversion to XIII's combat, this game improves on that combat but still has many of the same shortcomings. Finally, you have to turn your brain off whenever the game gets heavy with its lore, and I know that's not something most people enjoy having to do.

It is a dirty and messy video game, and I do not want anyone thinking it is anything but that. I highlighted XIII-2's gameplay accomplishments in the previous episodes, BUT I also feel like underscoring its mechanical failures. The Pokémon-inspired monster collecting is weird, and it subjects you more often than you would like to aimless fetch quests. In addition, its story is a teeming dumpster fire. I will be the first to admit that it made me laugh, but I highly doubt that was the intended reaction. The game spends so much of its time lingering on its character-based drama that it comes across as hilarious. The game's ending is a complete mess, and even after reading multiple fan explanations as to why Caius can commit suicide, I'm still flabbergasted. Don't get me wrong. Should random strangers offer me their ear, I'm likely to ask them to listen to me fail to explain the plot synopsis of Final Fantasy XIII-2, and that's likely why I spent that time in prison.

Nonetheless, this game is entertaining to watch and evolve before your eyes. Even when the game is in its worst form, it is endlessly engaging. You have to put up with a bunch of bullshit, don't get me wrong, but there's no denying that the game is a genuine joy to play. Likewise, the game openly recognizing its stupidity from time to time helps. The world surrounding the Final Fantasy XIII universe is absurd, and it was refreshing to see Square-Enix double back and accept that. You can yell and scream about Square-Enix soft-rebooting the themes and story arcs first introduced in XIII in favor of schlock until your face turns blue. However, if you accept that the XIII series is less a trilogy and more a collection of three video games of Square-Enix burning fat stacks of cash, I think you can reconcile that. It's almost admirable how thoroughly they throw the baby out with the bathwater regarding Final Fantasy XIII, especially with its heavier themes about state religion, dogma, and destiny.

To anyone who would counter that the game was better off following Final Fantasy XIII's footsteps, I ask you to think about how that would work. Who's journey would we follow? Snow as he attempts to plan a wedding? Lightning as she rejoins the military? Which stories were left unresolved or in a state where you wanted to learn more about them after the events of XIII? And let's suppose you chime in with Vanille or Fang. In that case, XIII's inability to make them queer dampens my ability to trust whatever Square-Enix has planned for them. Yes, Final Fantasy XIII-2 treats its predecessor with little reverence, but that well is bone dry! You'll have better luck trying to squeeze water out of stones than get another half-decent storyline from OG Final Fantasy XIII.

Ultimately, I think it's time for veterans of the Final Fantasy series to make their peace with what this franchise will provide moving forward. Likewise, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about this point, but I can only imagine that there are people perfectly content with the state of the series right now. I think I, and the rest of the Final Fantasy fanbase, need to be more cognizant that there are people who only know the Nomura era. And you bet they are 100% content with the franchise's direction. For them, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a pretty easy recommendation. It's an apt continuation of the tropes and idioms of prior Nomura-led projects, and it even sands the edges off some of his rougher sensibilities. And if you really want to play an RPG with an epic world that treats the Final Fantasy IP with complete and total reverence, there's always Final Fantasy XIV right there.