Final Fantasy XIII-2 Review

[FinalFreak16]

Whilst you do need to pay attention, you can't actually put the controller down and get a beer and comeback when it's done. The combat is some of the most laid back, effortless, thoughtless button pressing in history.

In fact the player is PUNISHED for trying to direct combat himself. The higher combat rankings are MUCH easier to get by just automating the entire battle. I tried a few myself and always got lower scores compared to just auto-attacking.

I also agree with this. While fighting in XIII never got completly dull it was a shame that the players job was reduced to managing player classes instead of planning attacks. I personally hope they attempt another battle style similar to FFX in the future as it involved a lot more strategy and forward planning.

Though I imagine Square-Enix assumes everyone wants fast paced action nowadays. To which they may be right, I dont know, I havn't done the market research. But still, I can always hope I guess.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Serah was one of the characters in XIII whom I could not stand at all. I would groan whenever she came on scene, and spent a good portion of time thinking nasty thoughts about her. Is her personality the same in XIII-2? Is she still a wilting flower?

She starts off pretty useless, then becomes more empowered as the game progresses. I couldn't stand her at the beginning, but she winds up holding her own fairly well.

I'm very excited to try this out. Personally love the FF13 combat, a quick paradigm shift seems much more skillful and thoughtful than the ATB of yore. I just wish they really played to that, making it a bit more of a juggling act.

I'm going to go ahead and consider this the actual FF13, and the other one an OVA prequel.

Also, are the buffer and debuffer classes worth anything this time? Or did you not use that strategy?

I wound up using them pretty much exclusively in boss fights. Once I had maxed out Serah and Noel's combat levels (he's a Commando, she's Ravager), I just hit things in the face really hard. I had my little Medic kitty on hand to apply Band-Aids as needed. For bosses, it helps to throw in some buff/debuff for a while, but by and large, I didn't really need it.

 

[Sassafrass]

By the way I heard you can turn off the auto battle option, is this true?

Well, technically yes and no.

There's an option in the Options menu that allow you to place the cursor on "Abilities" (Or whatever it's called now, I think it's Abilities.) by default, so your cursor starts over that option instead of Auto. So, it's not technically gone, but it kind of is.

 

[DSQ]

I liked the combat from ff13, it was the best part. What I didn't like is how the frist 20hrs were like being directed down a hallway and you lost some of that 'adventuring' vibe.

Overall ff13 was a really decent game, so

I would have bought ff13-2 now if my ps3 haddn't been stolen. Nice review Susan.

EDIT: I should say that the fact that Sazh only being in the game in post story DLC did really piss me off.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Really great review Susan! Also, the ending made me laugh.

I was kinda concerned and curious to know how those two characters would work out. I don't have much of an opinion about Noel so I'm pretty neutral towards him, but I didn't like Serah and I found her to be useless, so I was shocked to find she was going to be one of the main characters. I thought it was gonna be weird and awkward, but I'm so glad it's not the case.

Do they give you a limit on how many monsters you can have or is it you get every kind of monster that the game offers you? I was kinda wondering about that ever since they announced that the game will let you do this.

 

[Mirrorknight]

It's nice that they tried to correct the worst problems from XIII in this. Too bad that I'm not going to play it until I beat XIII. And seeing that I'd actually have to play XIII to do that, that's never going to happen.

Oh don't get me wrong, I gave it the good ol' college try, but about five hours into it, I had to simply had to put the controller and walk away. And nothing anyone can do will make me go back.

It's a damn shame, too. I've been playing Final Fantasy since I was 6 when I got my shiny new copy of the original FF for my NES. It's sort of sad that the series has fallen so low.

 

[DragonWright]

I tried the demo and the combat is as bad if not worse thanks to messing around with monster raising and QTEs, which means it'll be a chore to slog through.

And DLC. Hell no.

I really wanted to like this game. I was even considering buying it if it were cheap. But I'm not paying full price for rehashed terrible gameplay, then have to buy DLC later to get the complete game.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Really great review Susan! Also, the ending made me laugh.

I was kinda concerned and curious to know how those two characters would work out. I don't have much of an opinion about Noel so I'm pretty neutral towards him, but I didn't like Serah and I found her to be useless, so I was shocked to find she was going to be one of the main characters. I thought it was gonna be weird and awkward, but I'm so glad it's not the case.

Do they give you a limit on how many monsters you can have or is it you get every kind of monster that the game offers you? I was kinda wondering about that ever since they announced that the game will let you do this.

You can't control which ones you catch and which you don't - it just happens (or not). I think there's something like 150 different monsters you can catch, and I have maybe....hmm....25 or so at the moment. Thing is, there isn't nearly enough difference between monsters - a Commando is a Commando is a Commando - so it really doesn't matter much which particular monster you use in that role.

That said, you will catch higher-level ones as you go, and some will have passive abilities like resistance to fire or whatnot. But overall, it's a pretty shallow system, especially if you're used to something like the demon fusion in Persona.

It's a fun diversion, but that's about it. But having a Medic on hand for every fight sure did come in handy.

 

[vivster]

only read the first paragraph and the bottom line and i completely agree
i played it now for a month

everyone hoped that it would be a "better FFXIII" but sadly it is not
it is completely different... it's as different from 13 as X-2 is from X or DA2 is from DAO
as a big fan of 13 i was disappointed
it turns down the story and cranks up the rpg elements
everyone who loves the sidequests and little trinkets known from some other FF titles will probably be happy because there is a good amount of content in this one
the level system of both characters and monsters has way more debth now and it's fun to experiment

it's by no means a bad game but it missed many chances to be great
but what do i know... after all i count FFXIII in my top 3 of all FF games^^

 

[wooty]

Heard plenty of good things about this installment and I will be picking up my copy on Friday morning. Not missed a launch in 15 years, well, except for the ones we werent told about, and I aint gonna start now.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Really great review Susan! Also, the ending made me laugh.

I was kinda concerned and curious to know how those two characters would work out. I don't have much of an opinion about Noel so I'm pretty neutral towards him, but I didn't like Serah and I found her to be useless, so I was shocked to find she was going to be one of the main characters. I thought it was gonna be weird and awkward, but I'm so glad it's not the case.

Do they give you a limit on how many monsters you can have or is it you get every kind of monster that the game offers you? I was kinda wondering about that ever since they announced that the game will let you do this.

You can't control which ones you catch and which you don't - it just happens (or not). I think there's something like 150 different monsters you can catch, and I have maybe....hmm....25 or so at the moment. Thing is, there isn't nearly enough difference between monsters - a Commando is a Commando is a Commando - so it really doesn't matter much which particular monster you use in that role.

That said, you will catch higher-level ones as you go, and some will have passive abilities like resistance to fire or whatnot. But overall, it's a pretty shallow system, especially if you're used to something like the demon fusion in Persona.

It's a fun diversion, but that's about it. But having a Medic on hand for every fight sure did come in handy.

Huh....somehow I was kind of expecting that. Sounds interesting enough.

Thanks!

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Well played, Justin, well played. Into the Gamefly queue it goes!

 

[Xyliss]

Well I quite liked FF13 so this does sound good to me now. I think I might get it just as soon as I have some time to play

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Review

You won't love it, but hey, you probably won't hate it. That's something, right?

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"Its fine qualities edge out its shortcomings, if only just" and "You won't love it, but hey, you probably won't hate it. That's something, right?" is a very odd recommendation for a three and a half star rating.

When did nearly four stars equate to "it's kinda good, I guess--but only just"?

Critics don't seem to understand their own ratings systems nowadays. Newsflash: three out of five should be a solid 'good' and scoring nearly four on that same scale should be great.

Inflating your scores just makes your reviews look amateurish and schizophrenic.

 

[Simonoly]

To me, FFXIII was a terrible game in almost every respect (apart from the pretty graphics). What disappointed me most was the lack exploration that all other FF games have offered and the hideous characters and story. It appears they have the fleshed out the world in FFXIII-2, which I'm really glad to see - they've obviously listened to their fans (at least a bit). But FFXIII alienated too many people and created both an unlikeable world and unlikeable characters, of which many people, including myself, just don't want to revisit. Best thing they could have done is just move on to FF15 or versus XIII instead of trying to convince us that the world of FFXIII isn't dead behind the eyes by releasing a sequel.

 

[Ipsen]

But what really shows, and is even demonstrated in this video, is how people view the combat. They'll say it something along the lines of "Yeah, you just let the AI do all the gameplay, but if you really want to do something, you can paradigm shift." They're missing the point. In XIII the strategy comes from the paradigm shifting. That's the active choices you're making. They made the autobattle so that the fights flow well in real time. Paradigms are the equivalent of choosing what attack you're doing, only instead of a specific thing, it picks a category that the AI will most likely apply in the exact way you wanted. Sorry if that sounds like a rant.

I want to second this. XIII has a rather unique, multi-faceted battle system, which (was the about the only part of that game) I enjoyed. If battle menus could have been tweaked to allow faster selection, or bring up one command each as my ATB gauge fills (so you know when to STOP auto command, or so it doesn't feel like the game is defeating itself for you viewing pleasure) people would have received the battle system better. I am disappointed they did not.

I think the issue lies in that the paradigm shifts made the battle exciting, and its skillful use could make or break battles (and especially the end-battle score), but the other important facet, the one most people are familiar with, the selection of skills, was too simplified.

A nice point of all of this would be that battles with grunts go fast, but the story in XIII was so goddawful, I wanted to stay in battles more than anything else. I see no improvement in XIII-2 in that department, so I'll not bother.

Another point, besides chocobos, and a few weapons/armor names, what staples from the previous series actually made it to XIII? I'd have felt better about the game if even the fanfare remained, but I cant even get that much...

 

[bakan]

Well, I got it last month and nearly finished it (didn't finish some side stuff - btw the story isn't too confusing).

And in conclusion I liked it and they improved a lot of the stuff which was bad in XIII, though there is some unfinished stuff ingame which will get released as DLC and that isn't for my liking.

Spoiler: ending related stuff

Oh, and not to forget the ending, when you finished off the main antagonist of the game and you are left with a cliff hanger and "To be continued..." - I was so pissed

 

[oldtaku]

Mildly amusing and not horribly bad if you're desperate for an RPG.

This is what Final Fantasy has come to.