Review: Final Fantasy XIII-2

Once again the time is upon us to jump into the vast and unending world of Final Fantasy with this latest title bringing with it a huge assortment of new locations, items, creatures and an unyielding and engrossing storyline that continues on the epic tale of its award winning predecessor.

Set 3 years after the events of Final Fantasy XIII, the planet of Cocoon now sits suspended in the sky consumed in crystal with its surviving refugees abandoning their old lives to start anew on the wild lower world of Gran Pulse. Among the survivors; Serah, Snow and their band of friends known as team NORA have begun to build their new home of New Bodhum to replace their old city in a hope to start a new life for themselves and for future generations.

However, with Lightning thought to be dead, and Snow’s disappearance in search for her, life for Serah just hasn’t been the same. Clouded and distorted visions of Lightning’s whereabouts have found their way into Serah’s dreams, convincing her that her sister is still out there somewhere and is trying desperately to make contact. But no sooner does she realise what she has seen, a meteor brought forth from a different time finds its way onto Pulse, bringing with it a storm of monstrous creatures that have begun plaguing the world. As new Bodhum is once again at war, Claire unexpectedly finds herself under the protection of a young man called Noel who has travelled from the future with a message from Lightning and a mission to journey through time and space in order to unite the two sisters once and for all.

Revolving largely around time travel, Final Fantasy XIII-2 will have you traversing through various time periods with the use of the ‘Historia Crux’ allowing you to effortlessly move back and forth through time to any location on both Gran Pulse and Cocoon whilst either following the narrative or any of the countless side quests that encourage you to explore the many open areas dotted throughout the game. When using the Historia Crux, your surroundings will no doubt shift along with you, as one moment you could be running through the snow covered Ruins of Bresha, and the next you will be running through same area and instead be met with a beautiful summery scene. And as the scenery changes with time, so do your environment as you may additionally be able to explore other areas that you were unable to beforehand.

Whilst adventuring, you will no doubt notice the ‘Time Gates’ that sit in areas throughout the game which can be activated via Artefacts found when defeating certain enemies or hidden in secret areas. These gates serve as portals to the Historia Crux and so must be unlocked in order to expand the game’s universe. An added bonus is the ability to reset the Time Gates, therefore restoring the area to how it was before you entered. This may not seem like much of a bonus, but for the extraordinarily adventurous, this can prove quite helpful if you want to make different decisions or enter certain areas or talk to people that were otherwise unavailable after your first visit.

Another helpful system integrated into XIII-2’s gameplay is the introduction of ‘Live Triggers’ which work to provide you with more control over the story ultimately branding your own thoughts and opinions within the narrative that builds your own outcome of the game. Usually appearing during dialogue sequences, certain question or answers depending on the conversation appear, prompting you to choose the most appropriate sentence that best reflects your own opinion. Combining Live Triggers with the Historia Crux can also be quite helpful as you will be free to choose any and all options to find their outcomes and even gain access to additional items.

Much like its predecessor, XIII-2’s combat system serves as the game’s core component, offering up fast-paced action with the help of the familiar ‘Active Time Battle gauge’ and a large selection of battle types and styles to fit the preferences of any gamer, revolutionising the way fans have faced off in battles since Final Fantasy’s birth. In XIII-2 this highly refined but user-friendly system gives you full control over the battle-field, encouraging you to build ‘Paradigms’ for your party to utilize in battle. Customizing Paradigms gives the player a huge tactical advantage by combining certain traits for the character to use such as melee/ magical attacks, defensive techniques, buffs that give your party perks like increased defence, and de-buffs that give your enemies negative effects.

That said, simply using a paradigm only makes up part of the battle, switching between your Paradigms is one of the most effective and efficient ways to fight as you can swiftly change up your tactics when the going gets tough. For example, if your party is in serious danger of dying, the best option would be to use a paradigm made up of healing and defensive traits for your characters to use. However, if you manage to trigger your opponents ‘Stagger gauge’ causing it’s defence to drop for a short time, the best option would be to use a Paradigm composed of combat traits such as Cammando and Ravager causing your party focus on dealing as much damage as possible.

Making its successful debut in XIII, the ‘Crystarium’ is back once again with a few refined features allowing more freedom to upgrade your party. Gaining Crystarium Points through battles will help you to level your player roles, rewarding you with more perks and heightened abilities, and unlike XIII, lets you climb each of the tiers without any restrictions. Climbing these tiers is essential for your party’s growth as you can gain some helpful perks such as more ATB slots that help to elongate your attacks, or even access to completely new roles that your characters had been unable to use beforehand.

During certain battles where you find yourself facing off against major opponents, you will likely come to a point in the battle when a ‘Cinematic Action scene’ comes into motion, pulling you out of the original action and throwing you into a thrilling button sequence that if done correctly can reward you with a number of advantages such as dealing extra damage or receiving stat boosts that last the rest of the battle.  However, failing a sequence will result in negative effects on your party, ultimately making Cinematic Action scenes a make-or-break situation.

When progressing through the story you may find yourself engulfed within one of the various rips in time known as a Temporal Rift, which will require you to complete a set of tasks in order to continue such as navigating a maze of platforms using a certain path so as to collect all of the crystals placed around the stage. You may also be asked to collect certain crystals that must be matched in pairs. The implementation of brain teasers such as these is a step in the right direction for Square as they do a great job of breaking up the gameplay, lessening the inevitable repetitiveness of the battles you face throughout the game.

If travelling through time and space with Serah and Noel gets a little bit lonely, you can always benefit from recruiting one of the 150+ monsters found roaming the two worlds. Square’s implementation of this ability gives you mastery over most wildlife allowing you to choose your favourite monsters to fight alongside you in battle. Using certain monsters in battle is essential to your victory as you are able to integrate them into any of your paradigms allowing you to mix and match different monster to fit your tactical preferences.

Not only do your new friends offer up another set of hands (or paws) to the battle, but they can also impress with a special attack to give you the advantage over your opponents. Each monster carries their own unique attack which can be activated once the ‘Feral Link gauge’ has reached its limit, resulting in a mini Cinematic Action sequence requiring you to input a number of button combinations in order for your monster to unleash its fury. Much like normal Cinematic Action sequences, the amount of damage your companion deals depends on how well you perform during the sequence so it’s important to pay attention even if it isn’t exactly you who is fighting.

One familiarity your monstrous companions share with the rest of the party is the ability to level up, but even more so do they share a familiarity with the way you upgrade your weapons and items. As you move through the game you will no doubt pick up an assortment of strange materials that can be used on both weapons and monsters in order to increase their abilities. That said, you must find special monster materials in order to strengthen your creatures, and depending on the material, certain abilities such as magic or strength can be heightened allowing you to play around with the balance of your monster’s skills.

One little monster you will come to know early on in the story is Mog; Serah’s Moogle companion who not only can take on the form of Serah’s weapon, but can also provide a database of insightful knowledge and some helpful abilities that will no doubt prove useful no matter where you are in the game. One of the more interesting and rewarding abilities Mog can provide is the use of the ‘Mog Clock’ which you will notice at the bottom of the screen when ambushed by enemies that appear out of nowhere due to the disturbances in the timeline. It is wise to keep an eye on the clock before entering a battle as the more time that passes, the lesser chance you have of gaining some advantages in battle such a various status buffs or your opponent’s stagger gauge instantly reaching its limit.

Mog’s services can also be used outside of battle as he holds the uncanny ability to sense certain items hidden in locations throughout the game. Some of these items will be hidden in plain sight and resemble nothing more than a shadows which will require some of Mog’s magic to bring the item into your current timeline. Some items however might not be stuck in time but may be just out of reach rendering Mog’s time bending skills useless. Luckily Square have given us the ability to throw the poor Moogle around the environment and so can retrieve items if thrown close enough to them.

While XIII-2’s rich narrative and immersive gameplay provide much of the charm found throughout, none of it would have been achievable without the stunning graphical detail that shines through every inch of the game. But with such a variety of open environments, simply charging through the story won’t be enough if you want to capture all of XIII-2’s beauty as everywhere from the sunny shores of New Bodhum to the overgrown forests of the Sunleth Waterscape, glow with an alluring tranquillity that never fails to impress. That said, much of the gameplay also contributes its fair share of beauty, especially when facing off in battle as your party perform a number of elegant attacks while magical lights and weapon clashes glisten through the battleground which can be enhanced even more so if you enter a Cinematic Action sequence, throwing your party into a fantastical show of acrobatics and skill as you work to systematically take your opponent down.

With more music than any of the Final Fantasy titles before it, XIII-2’s soundtrack is nothing more than a masterpiece, combining a dynamic selection of music genres to fit every event and location. And whether you’re ridding Chocobo’s through the game’s open environments or facing off against colossal monsters, you’ll always be in the company of some hot blooded track that will follow you unfalteringly through even the stickiest of situations while providing you with that much needed boost of vigour, inspiring you to journey the lands to their fullest and stand up against impossible odds as you come face to face with hordes of monstrous creatures all eager to take you on.

When compared to the argued flaws of its predecessor, the hype surrounding XIII-2 made it seem like nothing more than a desperate attempt by Square to sate the tempers of a few angry fans who only saw XIII for its weaknesses. With that in mind, XIII-2 was given the unfair image of another dud title made up improvement focused content with no real mind of its own. However, not long after playing XIII-2, all trace of negativity that had built in my mind (thanks to the internet) had washed away as I was met with a huge array of fresh, dynamic and innovative content… with the obvious improvements thrown in for good measure.

Overall 9/10

Square Enix have truly outdone themselves with this title, keeping the great story and legendary name running on without failure and with no end in sight. Taking its rightful place in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series; Final Fantasy XIII-2 stretches the borderlines of modern gaming with its groundbreaking gameplay, emotional and engrossing storyline, and a vast open universe, encapsulating you in its immersive environments, encouraging you to explore and experience the endless amount of content on offer and to ultimately lose yourself in the adventure at hand.