Final Fantasy XIII-2

Although not a first for the franchise, but the first that I’ve played, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a rare direct sequel to a Final Fantasy game. The producers at Square felt that the world and lore that was created for Final Fantasy XIII had more story to tell and after putting more than 100 hours into FF13 myself in 2 complete playthroughs I didn’t disagree with them on that at all. At the end of 13 even the most annoying of characters developed to a point where I actually liked them, or at least accepted them for who they are, and the conflict had resolved to a point of being a satisfying ending. The question is does XIII-2 improve on the perceived flaws of its predecessor. As a bit of a warning I find it very hard to talk about XIII-2 on it’s own merits like I do with most sequels, and this review is going to be a little more referential than I’d like.

I’ve said this before, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it here; I play Final Fantasy games foremost for the story, starting with Final Fantasy 4 (2 in North America) I had a new appreciation for storytelling in video games and I’ve followed the franchise closely ever since. And I’m sad to report that the story told in XIII-2 did not live up to my expectations. I feel like in an effort to improve the flaws cited by fans it became difficult to have a guided, well told experience. Not to mention shorter; I finished XIII-2 in about 25 hours, less than half the time it took me to finish XIII which was practically all story. They gave the players a gated freedom to choose their path (which I will get to later) that resulted at least in terms of story telling, in a ‘villain of the week’ television series model. Where you go to an area, complete the main objective which rarely has much to do with the over-arching plot, you are then rewarded with a bit of information to advance the story. As a gamer primarily interested in the story, there were only 3 moments in the game that I thought were really well told, and only one of those that was really powerful, the ‘reveal’ was excellent, but it definitely didn’t make up for the rest. One other note on length, while I did finish the main story in about 25 hours, that only included 41 of the 160 fragments to be gathered, so in a sense only represents a quarter of the game. fragments are collected by completing main and side quests, finding hidden treasures and killing certain monsters. At the time of this writing I have collected 78/160 and my play time is somewhere between 34-38 hours though much of that was spent in the casino with a button stuck down playing slots (yes I did collect a fragment from this as well). As you can imagine there is a lot of game time here for completionists who are not necessarily motivated by story.

Many fans criticised 13 for linearity, and I agree that the corridors definitely felt tedious at times but I definitely wasn’t as down on the game about it as most. XIII-2 aimed to improve this by introducing the Historia Crux. To me the Historia Crux felt much like a Mario world map, where you unlock new levels by completing objectives in the levels that came before it. In each area you’ll find artefacts that unlock gates found in the area that will open up new, times/locations in the Historia Crux. This is supplemented by gates that are opened using ‘Wild Artefacts’ which gives the player some choice as to which areas they open up next, though it seemed to me that those choices were inconsequential. So while there are some freedoms here, it is just the illusion of freedom since there is still only one way to advance the plot. In a sense, a return to form that many fans of the franchise will be happy to see but I do not believe it was worth the apparent sacrifice to the story telling.

The paradigm combat system remained mostly unchanged, but unlike 13 where you have a whole slew of characters to choose from who are more or less limited to the roles they can fill, your party in 13-2 consists of only 2 characters, Serah and Noel, who don’t really develop at all unlike in 13, and really don’t have any other motivation than to track down lightning by resolving time paradoxes. In 13 there was a certain amount of strategy involved in which characters you put into your battle party since they all contained a different combination of roles and so you couldn’t necessarily have all the representation that you wanted. In 13-2 you fill out your 3 person battle team with monsters. Each monster only has 1 role, but out of combat you establish a paradigm pack of 3 monsters. This gives you a lot of freedom with regards to how you build your team since you are not limited by the roles of a certain character, but the sacrifice there is that some of the strategy is gone. These monsters are randomly collected by beating them in combat. That aspect of it is actually pretty fun in a pokemon sort of way, and collectors are going to have a good/frustrating time trying to “catch ‘em all”. That said most of the monsters I used in my deck I obtained early on and used them for most of the game, I never really felt obligated to switch them out for ‘better’ ones. This is partially due to the Crystarium system which I will get to in a bit. The most disappointing thing to me about the combat system in 13-2 in general however is that the significance of the Saboteur and Synergist roles has been drastically reduced. In 13 I felt like it was crazy to even consider going into a boss battle without the ability to buff/debuff, and in my opinion it was one of the best implementations of those roles because they felt significant. One other change to the combat is the introduction of ”Cinematic Action”, read quick time events, which are implemented in 2 ways. First, via a monster’s ‘Feral Link’ ability, which relies on a chain meter that builds up during combat, once full can be unleashed to perform a monster specific ability that is often (but not always) related to their role. For example, I had a synergist that  would cast a whole slew of buffs, successfully completing the quick time event grants a percentage bonus to the ability. I’m not entirely sure but I believe in the case of the synergist previously mention it modified the duration of those buffs. The second implementation of quick time events is at the end of boss battles, I hate QTEs implemented in this scenario since it takes away from watching some of the best cinematics, luckily these seem to inexplicably taper off in the second half of the game.

The Crystarium system returns though it has been changed dramatically. For the characters, Instead of choosing a role, and getting stats and abilities from nodes within the role, you have 1 set of nodes. Nodes come in different sizes, and you basically assign a role to the node, depending on the size of the node, you get more stats based on the role you’ve selected. For example, if you select commando, your attack will go up, while if you select ravager it will be magic. It’s not 1 to 1 like that though, you will often get ‘some’ points in each, hp, magic and attack, but the stat for role you select gets more. Abilities are unlocked after set amount of nodes have been selected for the role. Monsters also use the Crystarium system though it is slightly different, instead of using CP earned in battle like the characters, monsters use items that you find or buy. These items have stats assigned to them, so you can use ‘magic’ items to improve the magic abilities for the monster for example. I found the items to be a bit scarce when it comes to the later tiers as well as cost prohibitive, which is why I used the same monsters for most of the game. I feel as though it was a missed opportunity to add an element of strategy to the paradigm packs.

I should also mention that mini-games are back, there are some puzzles, and a casino with slots and chocobo racing, and does add a bit of variety to the gameplay and serves as a nice distraction once in a while.

All and all I had an ok time with the game, but I think it went in the wrong direction. It clearly tries to appease those who were disappointed with 13, by adding some of the missing features but in doing so it feels as though it alienated those of us who appreciated 13 for what it was. I’m hoping that there is some sort of proper conclusion by way of DLC as opposed to the full on sequel as the 13-3 rumors are suggesting, because as it stands I have a hard time recommending this game to Final Fantasy fans like myself who are looking for an epic story. The game is not broken by any means and there is some fun to be had to be sure, but it is definitely on my short list of disappointing Final Fantasy games.

Final Fantasy XIII-2

To say I’m having mixed feelings about Final Fantasy XIII-2 would be an understatement. It seems like they took the fans criticisms to heart, and brought back some of the staples that many people loved about Final Fantasy games in the past. Sounds good right?

I know I was in the minority when I said that I didn’t mind the corridors in Final Fantasy 13, the story was compelling enough to encourage me to push forward. My playthrough was 50 hours without the need to dilute the experience with aimless exploration. What appears to have happened is that they bring back exploring by way of hiding fragments within various sandboxes. You don’t explore a world at all, you explore small segments of a world and you can select which segment you want to explore via the ‘Historia Crux’. The Historia Crux feels like a Super Mario world map, as you get through areas you unlock new ones to explore. Here’s the thing, this is not the type of exploration that Final Fantasy is known for, it’s kind of a joke. I’m sure later in the game when it makes sense to revisit some of these areas because they have changed due to your actions it might be a little more engaging but as it stands now I feel this ‘addition’ has taken away my primary motivation in FF games, that is to say the story suffers.

While there is an over arching story that has Serah searching through time to find her sister, each of the areas in the Historia Crux feels like its own episode. Like any piece of episodic content, there will be good and bad parts, but in many cases you’re left with one piece of information to advance, or flesh out the over arching story. The problem with this in my mind is that the sub-plots here feels like most of these are insignificant or forgettable so far. I’m still early on so maybe this will improve with time but there isn’t a ton of motivation for me in this game.

There have been some neat changes to the paradigm combat system, first is the fact that you only have 2 characters to develop, to fill out the group however you get to add 3 monsters to your deck. Each monster has 1 of the classes assigned to them, so you get a little bit more control over which classes are available to you, provided that you have monsters of the type you’re looking for. Monsters are levelled up via the crystarium system just like the character, however instead of earning CP, they progress by using specific items that you can find or buy to level. The combat itself feels a little more reactive, or rather, you have less time to react, and it’s more about watching the opponents animations, it’s sort of neat but I’m not totally used to it yet.

I’m not going to talk about the Crystarium system at the moment because I don’t really feel like I understand it. Suffice to say it is different from the last game, in that you don’t seem to have separate crystals per class and it isn’t nearly as obvious what you’re getting when you spend your CP in the new system. I hope this makes more sense later but it just feels like clicking buttons at this point.

You know, despite all that, I’m still having some fun here, and I’m going to continue playing, I just unlocked the casino before turning in last night, and it’s just as tiresome as it was in FF7. I’m hopeful that some of this stuff evolves pretty soon though particularly the story.

Box Art

It had been 3 years since our last Final Fantasy adventure, and the first on this generation of consoles. It seems Square Enix has really split the difference amongst its fan base with it’s “linearity”, I have some problems with this game that far outweigh that one… Does this entry live up to it’s pedigree?

Starting at the top, Since Final Fantasy 2(US)/4(JP), its clear that the focus of Final Fantasy games was going to be epic story telling that gives the sense of us vs. the world, where an unlikely group of adventurers come together as the only ones who can save the world from some terrible villain, and if that is what you’ve signed up for in Final Fantasy XIII, most of that is here. In traditional Final Fantasy fashion, they’ve created this huge world, and all the lore and history to make it feel authentic, and give you some understanding towards the characters nature, and motivations. For better or for worse,each of the characters have a story to tell as to how they’ve got into this situation, generally by way of flashback cut scenes, and they are believable for the most part. I’m not sure if it was clever or lazy, but the writers chose to send the characters on a crusade (in the most traditional sense of the word), where they are given a focus (mission), by a Fal’cie (a god-like being), but the lore explains that the end goal of a focus is not exactly clear. So as a player, you understand why the characters need to complete their focus, but you don’t know exactly what the end goal is… I wasn’t a big fan of this approach since, it really didn’t motivate me to carry on. The other problem I had with the story is the absence of a real Kefka/Sephiroth type villain, which traditionally would be my primary motivator, “I need to kill this guy, he’s bad news”… The story was interesting enough to keep my attention and keep me pushing through, but it didn’t nearly give me the motivation that I’m used to getting through Final Fantasy games.

Graphically this game is stunning, there were a couple moments where the game would come back from cutscene and it would take me a minute to realize that I’m in control again. The environments for the most part are beautiful (save the token industrial warehouse area), and it almost masks the fact that you are mostly progressing through a series of corridors, but they are styled in such away that it gives you the impression that you are in a much larger area, so at least it doesn’t feel claustrophobic. This is what has been fueling a lot of the criticism about the game thus far, linearity, but apart from being able to fly around in your airship randomly in earlier Final Fantasy games, it is still a linear experience, you know exactly where you need to go next, and if you’re somewhere that you’re not supposed to be the enemies over power you anyway. So while FF13 is linear, the only difference to me is that they make no effort to hide that fact by distracting you with random exploring. Although this does mean that the exploration aspect in general is missing, you will often find branching corridors that lead to treasure and what not, so you do get a little bit of that sort of thing but its not all that rewarding. As to be expected with the series, the cutscenes are second to none, and are some of the best (if not the best) in the series, action packed, clean, and satisfying.

The voice acting was good for the most part, I appreciate the extra time square took syncing the lips for the english soundtrack. The music was pretty good, but I take offense to someone deciding that it was ok to put lyrics to the Chocobo song… that was awful, or lyrics at all for that mater. There were definitely parts where they beautiful score matched the environments and tone of the game perfectly that you couldn’t help but get wrapped up in it. The good definitely outweighed the bad here…

As per the usual, Square has chosen to innovate with the the combat system. The first thing long time players of the series will notice is that you no longer have a mana bar. The only resource in the game you really need to manage is time, via the ever present, “Active Time Battle” (ATB)  system. You only have direct control over your current party leader (a designation that you can only choose when you’re about halfway through the game). For the first part of the game, where you are unable to choose who control basically serves as an introduction to each of the classes, Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Medic, Synergist and Saboteur, in the end each player will have the ability to learn each class, but generally speaking each has some combination of 3 to choose from. The player also has the ability to “shift paradigms”. A paradigm in FF13 is basically a set of class selections, out of combat you are able to configure a “paradigm deck” with up to 6 combinations of classes for the 3 characters in your “Battle Team”, so all of the strategy in this game comes from setting up your paradigm deck to be effective against the enemies you’re fighting.

Tri-disaster paradigm (RAVx3) in action

The objective of combat is generally to get your opponents “chain meter” to the appropriate level to force the enemy to “stagger”, at which time your damage increases by a percentage based on the level of the chain meter, up to 999% damage. The chain meter is somewhat interesting on its own, since different classes have different impacts on how the meter behaves. For example, when a Commando hits your opponent, the meter doesn’t increase much, but decreases at a much slower rate than usual. Ravagers on the other hand, increase the meter a lot, but it decreases quickly. So for example if you’re using a paradigm that uses a Commando and 2 Ravagers (the paradigm is actually called “Relentless Assult”), you have 2 of your characters quickly increasing the chain meter, and since you are using a commando, it decreases slowly, and is likely the best way to get an opponents meter to the stagger point. To illustrate how paradigm shifts become strategic, in the early going where you only have 2 members in your Team, you would only have 1 commando, and 1 ravager, and as such, would take a while for the meter to reach the stagger point, to combat this, you would use paradigm shifts to switch back and forth between a 2 Ravager team, and a Rav/Com team, so that the meter still decreases slowly while still boosting the meter a fair amount. One annoying part is that you automatically lose if your party leader dies, later on there are some baddies that can and will one-shot the leader, in those situations it’s best to have a Sentinel in the group so they can taunt, and absorb those blows. Throwing the Synergist and Saboteur into the mix to make sure you are buffed, and your opponent is debuffed in long fights especially, you can see how there is a lot to be aware of through the course of a fight. So much so that 99% of the time, you don’t have time to be selecting what attacks to use even on your party leader. There is an “auto-(attack/hinder/heal etc..)” button that basically selects what would likely be best for the current scenario. Therein lies my complaint with the combat system, I wish I had some control over the AI here, this includes the auto button and all party members, I think if they used a gambit system like they did in Final Fantasy 12, where you’d have some control over the logic I would have had more fun with it, and I wouldn’t have to wait for everyone to be topped off before a res gets thrown.

All that said, the combat system was OK, the action was a little faster paced than I would have liked, and it as a result I next to never did anything other than use “auto” which meant pretty much spamming “X” the whole way through.

In order to learn summons (Eidolons in this title) you need to stand off against them, they have their own meter of stuff they like to see in combat, and in order to win these battles, you need to do that thing to build up the meter, while racing against a doom counter (instant death if expired), these serve as short breaks in the story, and some frustrating battles while you figure out just what you need to do to top off those meters. Once learned, the summons were pretty useless, the only one I ever saw was Odin, and I only ever really used it was because they returned your party to life with full health.

There were a few welcome changes from the traditional Final Fantasy formula, gone is healing after every battle, your party is automatically healed to full and cured of all status ailments (including KO) out of combat. Towns are also gone, no more wandering around talking to everyone in the town just in case one of them is a secret member of your party, and no more run from one side of town to the other to visit the various shops, this is all handled via a “shops menu” at every save spot. It may not be logical really, but I welcomed the change. You also don’t need to upgrade all your gear every time you get to a new village. I think in my game, I had maybe 5 or 6 weapons for each player by the end of the game. To replace this, they introduced a crafting type system. You use the spoils of battle to grant experience points to your weapon and accessories, after so much xp, your weapon levels up, and after so many levels, you can use a catalyst item to change it to a new weapon which you can level up some more. I can say through the course of my game, I used this very minimally… and you really shouldn’t feel obligated to use it. It seems like a more or less wasted feature unless you’re big into grinding.

A look at Vanille's Medic tree in Crystarium

Another staple in the franchise is character development. No more gaining “levels” for your characters, in this edition you use the “Crystarium System”. You basically earn “CP” in every battle, whether or not the character is in the active party or not. You use the CP to move from node to node in the specified class tree to gain stat improvements like +strength, +magic or +hp, or abilities. There isn’t a whole lot of options on the way and CP is easy enough to come by that its no trouble to max out the 3 base classes for each character as you progress through the story (well, not really max out since the last level doesn’t unlock until you’ve beaten the last boss). There isn’t a ton of choice here apart from simply picking which to level first. Another example of Square making you think that it’s not linear when it really is…

In any case, I had a great time with this game despite some minor shortcomings, it’s definitely a solid addition to the franchise that many long time fans will appreciate and enjoy. I’m already looking forward to finishing the mission side quests, and trophy hunting when I can find some more time (or whenever the girl friend lets me have the TV back after kicking her out of the living room for 2 weeks while I got through it, whichever comes first).