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arynisI managed to wrap up my playthrough of Final Fantasy XIII-2, the second game in the Fabula Nova Crystallis trilogy. While I'm super excited to move on to Lightning Returns, I wanted to write up my thoughts on XIII-2 first.
XIII-2 can be summed up as this: what if Final Fantasy got together with Chrono Trigger/Cross and had a baby? This game. All while improving on many parts where XIII fell short.
Here's my overview of the game. I abandoned Positives/Negatives as terms because I feel they don't capture the points as well.
Strengths
Flaws and Shortcomings
Before I move on to each point, I want to note that I played XIII-2 on PC, and I modded the game before I jumped into it. These are the changes I applied:
These supposedly help the stability a lot, I haven't experienced any issues during my playthrough. The framerate dropped at some points, but it wasn't too bothersome.
Strengths
XIII Improvements and Expansions
One of the biggest strengths of XIII-2 is that it took everything that XIII fell short on and improved on it.
The level design considerably improved. Exploring areas for the most part felt like actual exploration and not running through fancy corridors. Finding and opening treasure chests takes more effort this time around, Mog is your huge help here. Advancing in an area may require you to solve puzzles in temporal rifts or find a key item in another era. There are NPCs you can interact with, making the setting much more lively and real.
Speaking of NPCs, they are a huge help with making the lore and worldbuilding more organic, which is something I wanted to see. People will make comments as you pass by, and you can talk to several of them. It especially helped the earlier parts of the game where the main plot hasn't fully kicked in yet. Bresha Ruins and Yaschas Massif were a lot more interesting with the hustle and bustle, and it felt rewarding to talk to everyone on my way. Whether the person offered insight on the Academy's growth, ongoing projects or even trivial personal matters, it gave you an insight into XIII-2's changing, shifting world. In addition, people pay attention to what you do, be it riding a Chocobo or throwing Mog around, which is a great attention to detail. The downside is that some of the lines can get repetitive at times, notably sidequest NPCs whose lines change if you completed their mission.
The battle system was already fun, but XIII-2 made it even better. The party leader dying no longer results in a frustrating game over and Paradigm Shifts are always done instantaneously. The Sentinel role is overall more important as well, the first Gogmagog fight already teaches you the importance of SEN/SEN/SEN. Battles are also more rewarding and worthwhile. You get Gil, CP for leveling, monster materials for monster leveling and components for buying certain equipment. You may or may not get to tame a monster to boot! It felt like you always walked away with something after each battle. However, battles can still be a grindfest, especially if you're tackling the Coliseum bosses and need to prepare for them. XIII-2 also introduces the Wound mechanic, which encourages you to plan your battles and don't rely on stalling (or make sure you have plenty of Wound potions). Thankfully, Wound works against enemies as well, but I haven't relied on it as much as much as it hindered my characters. In addition, some battles have Cinematic Actions, which are thankfully fairly merciful QTEs. Leveling is not as straightforward as XIII was, however. I recommend grabbing guides for leveling Serah, Noel and any notable monster you want to use, as you don't want to screw them up.
While I'm on the topic of battles, the post-game is more varied compared to XIII. You can face the mightiest foes of Archylte Steppe, which returns some of the more notable battles from XIII, such as Ochu, the Immortal, Long Gui and Yomi. Long Gui and Yomi are not as difficult as their XIII counterparts, but it's best to stay on your toes for them. The Requiem of the Goddess sidestory offers a very exhilarating and challenging 1-on-1 battle, while also serving as the game's true ending. The Coliseum's superbosses will offer you a last batch of challenges if you're still left wanting more. Typhon and Ultros are no joke despite their comic relief role, and Gilgamesh is super tough even with the right monster setup, which in itself requires a lot of preparation.
Besides combat, there are actual minigames now. There are the aforementioned temporal rift puzzles, which come in three different flavors. Serendipity offers several activities, such as slot machines, Chocobo Races, while Sazh's sidestory adds poker and Chronobind. Missions are now either fetch quests or combat sidequests, adding a little more variety. There are even quiz sidequests! Lore aficionados have an advantage here, but even then you're better off using a walkthrough, as I'm not sure if the answers for several of these questions are noted anywhere in the game.
Intriguing World and Story
Being a sequel, XIII-2 picks up from where XIII left off, and gives additional clarifications for XIII's ending that at most was explained by the analects. The story, unlike XIII's emotional and character focused plot, is more focused on the surrounding world and its chaotic events, and it takes a good while to really kick off. Lightning is someplace else for a reason, alongside a man who is hellbent on defeating her, nobody remembers Lightning except for Serah, there's a guy from the future and we're thrown into time travel shenanigans. As someone who played Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, it felt nostalgic to travel to different eras and witness alternate histories. Nonetheless, I was just as confused as Serah was, so it was time to get on this wild ride and find some answers!
Episode 01-03 are slower and work on establishing the current (and not so current) state of affairs. People have settled on Pulse and are working on building a life independent from the fal'Cie reign. People are actually excited about the prospects of time travel and are willing to research into the paradox effect, rather than treating it as a secret or an apocalypse scenario. The timeline's oddities not only plucked Lightning out of the flow of time, but also various objects and entities, who ended up in places they shouldn't have. As I mentioned earlier, the NPCs and the worldbuilding make up for the slower story pacing, helping you ease into the plot. You meet familiar faces on the way, such as Hope and Snow, working towards helping the world in their own ways. As you advance through time, you can see mankind united towards wanting to build a new home while wanting to save Cocoon from its inevitable collapse. It's not without difficulties of course, several missions and NPCs shed light on conflicts and dilemmas, most importantly Alyssa's character. Episode 03 also introduces Caius and Yeul within Oerba 200 AF, though still a mystery at this time.
Episodes 04-06 are where I consider the story to be in full gear with developments firing off from this point on. Academia 400 AF doesn't pull punches and hits you with the full horror of a man-made fal'Cie ruling a city. People get turned into Cie'th in front of your eyes, said Cie'th won't waste time killing others, and said Cie'th may even try using Remedy(!) on themselves in battle. After breaking Adam's time loop and thus changing the future, Serah and Noel are ultimately led into a trap where they get separated. We get to see the bleak future Noel comes from. Yeul's terrible destiny of dying over and over again also becomes apparent, and we see that Caius is fighting to free her from such an existence. Depressingly, we finally learn that Serah shares her fate with Yeul, bound to die to visions of the timeline. Yet, she pushes on, willing to sacrifice her life if it means saving Lightning, Fang and Vanille, as well the future.
I wished for everyone a happy ending. I wanted Noel to live in a peaceful world, I wanted Serah to reunite with Lightning, I wanted Yeul to be free and happy. I had hope even for Caius. But in the end, I knew I was wanting too much, and someone was going to draw the short straw. Little I did know that almost everyone ended up the short straw in this scenario...
Caius, despite his best efforts, is finally overcome—no, he gets what he wants. He gets himself killed at Noel's hands, seemingly fixing the timeline. Fang and Vanille are rescued and the new Cocoon, Bhunivelze, takes into the sky. And then, Serah, after we thought she'd be safe after all, is forced to see a vision that takes her life. Noel doesn't disappear, meaning that the future hasn't changed. Etro's Gate swings open and the dark chaotic force destroys the timeline, changing the world. We're treated to a shot of Lightning sitting on Etro's throne, crystallized. It's a distressing, upsetting ending that may make one feel like every effort was in vain, going against the themes of defying fate. However, if it weren't for Serah and Noel, Cocoon would have collapsed, taking Fang and Vanille with it. Humanity wouldn't have a new home, though their future is uncertain in such a warped world. Lightning is free from her fight with Caius. Thus, despite the dark conclusion, there are still specks of hope in the sea of despair. Requiem of the Goddess shows us why Lightning had become crystal. She did not wish for Serah's soul to become part of the chaos, and she crystallized herself to preserve Serah with her. While XIII-2 has a weaker journey compared to XIII's constant emotional highs, it gives a very powerful finale that hits as hard as XIII's moments, if not harder. Lightning's determination to keep Serah safe even when everything seems lost had me tearing up during the entire cutscene.
Overall, the story is easier to follow with the crucial parts being part of the core experience, so you don't need to spend time reading the datalog to understand what's going on. However, the fragment entries do elaborate on additional details. These include the reason for Adam recognizing Serah and her prior brand—Adam uses Eden's memory modules. Snow possesses a brand once again because he wished to be as strong as he was when he was a l'Cie, and thus he asked for a brand himself, but it's not known who gave him it. Caius has a very fascinating backstory that feels like it could have been its own tale in a way. There's also several lore details peppered within, including the identity of the happy-go-lucky Chocolina, who is Sazh's beloved chocobo chick!
So this description was written this way for a very specific reason. Saying Chocolina's name too early would have caused a mess. Who would've thought that!
However, even if the fragment entries hint at it and the story implies it, I wish Alyssa and the dilemma surrounding her was more prominent. Alyssa is a person that exists only because the timeline became unstable. She's a person who is supposed to be dead, yet is alive... in other words, a paradox. She wonders what happens to her when the timeline changes, and if people would still remember her after history corrected itself. It's little surprise she hands Serah and Noel a false fragment that sets both of them up. She wants to preserve her own existence, especially when Serah can "lose [her] temper and the future changes." Alyssa actually disappears from Academia in the end and NPCs are left wondering about her. Unless you go back to Academia 4XX and talk to the NPCs, you may entirely miss this detail entirely (as it happened to me, until my friend nudged me about it), which is quite the bummer. Alyssa's intrigue is very easy to gloss over unless you really dig in.
Lastly, it's worth noting that XIII-2's story isn't as effective without having knowledge of XIII. Meeting Snow and Hope isn't as meaningful without knowing where they started out. The desire to find out what happened Lightning and reach her doesn't hit as hard without knowing how XIII concluded and knowing Lightning's journey. While some sequels can be enjoyed without having to experience their predecessor, this game probably ain't it. While XIII-2 does come with a Beginner's Primer to summarize the first game, it doesn't do it any justice. It's more handy if you played XIII before and need a refresher before starting on XIII-2.
Live Trigger Fun
One of the additions of XIII-2 was the Live Trigger mechanic, which allows Serah or Noel (depending on the situation) to react to specific events. These are primarily one shot responses, rather than choices within an on-going dialogue. There are a few cases where the Live Triggers do serve as a puzzle-based response where you need to pick the correct reply in order to complete a mission or advance the story. In the end, the mechanic doesn't offer any meaningful choice making, I felt it helped more with roleplaying and immersion. Not even the final Live Trigger matters, where you decide whether to kill Caius or spare him, but it was an emotional choice nonetheless.
What made the mechanic shine for me is the variety of comical responses you get to pick during most conversations. While they are guaranteed to ruin the mood, it's absolutely priceless to see Serah gush about Snow without end, or have her treating Augusta Tower as a murder mystery investigation. And despite how outlandish some of the choices are, none of them feel out of place or jarring, the characters genuinely act out on whatever hilarity you chose to ensue.
Hope's absolutely snarky response to the matter of why someone looks grown up when you time travel into the future.
Fragment Skills
You can earn Fragment Skills by talking to the Mystic in Serendipity after you acquired specific fragments, making it a rewarding incentive for collecting all of them. The most valuable options let you control the monster encounter rate, the rate of rare monsters which would be a pain to find otherwise, give you better chances for taming monsters and give you double CP after every battle. Whether you are grinding, trying to tame a specific monster or trying to complete your bestiary, they are immensely helpful. The Paradox Scope lets you see "Bad Ends" at specific points, including a secret ending, which range from downright absurd to mysterious and intriguing.
The last skill, Clock Master, requires you to obtain every fragment. Speeding up the game at this point is only useful if you need to do additional grinding for resources, but a very welcome addition. It's also handy for replaying areas if you're trying to collect every adornment from Live Trigger rewards.
Even Better OST
XIII already offered many memorable songs (which make their return in this game as well), such as Blinded by Light, Sunleth Waterscape and Test of the L'Cie. XIII-2's OST is just as excellent, and I found way more of the songs to be memorable. Giant's Fist, Worlds Collide and Limit Break! are amazing boss songs and Paradigm Shift is a super catchy battle theme. Plains of Eternity makes me want to stay on the sunny weather for the Steppe. Threat Level Omega really helps set the ominous mood for Academia 400 AF. Caius's Theme, Time's Master and Heart of Chaos are excellent songs for the Caius fights, culminating in the intense Unseen Abyss, the final boss theme.
The Paradigm Pack
Unlike XIII, your party consists of Serah and Noel at almost all times, with your third member being a flexible trio of monsters, called the Paradigm Pack. Ever wanted to decimate enemies with a friendly chocobo? Want to look tough with a pet Behemoth? Do you want a Flanitor to heal you instead of being an annoying opponent? The game lets you tame almost every monster in the game (with varying success rates), so you can bring along anything you want. (Regrettably, Long Gui cannot be tamed. No Oretoise rampage for you.) You can even give them custom names and decorate them to your heart's content! Eidolons are cool, but how about beating down the big bosses with a giant bird wearing shades or a sprout critter?
One of the most dangerous entities in this game at its full potential. No, really.
Of course, some monsters are better than others (with the DLC "monster" additions being among the best), and raising them to full potential with optimal skills is even more time consuming, but it's still a fun aspect of the game that I really enjoyed. My final team consisted of COM Lightning, RAV Lightning, Nabaat and Snow for the most part, but here's my shout out to the monsters that made my journey possible: Wildfang (Albino Lobo), Furball (Narasimha), Flannister (Flanitor), Misty (Blue Chocobo), Giddiup (Silver Chocobo) and Poppy (Chichu). Honorable mentions go to Goblin Chieftain and Cloudburst, who made beating Gilgamesh possible.
Excellent and Memorable Villain
Your main antagonist for XIII-2 is Caius Ballad, who makes his very first appearance wishing farewell to a girl (Yeul) reminiscent of FFVII's famous moment, and determined to take down Lightning, no matter what. His straightforward actions and the reasons behind them unfold over the course of the story. Caius is a guardian tasked to stay by Yeul's side, protecting each of her incarnation across every era, but also having to witness all of their inevitable deaths. Caius possesses everlasting life thanks to the Heart of Etro, meaning he can never perish unless he's killed by the one chosen to succeed him, Noel. Caius is determined to save Yeul from her heartwrenching fate, wishing to free her from having to die every time she's born. In order to achieve that, he wishes to smash open Etro's Gate by making Cocoon collapse and killing enough people. Doing so would destroy the boundary between Valhalla and the mortal world. Without time and the future existing, Yeul no longer has to witness visions, so she wouldn't be killed anymore. Beyond that, we learn from the fragment entries that he's a former l'Cie who obtained Bahamut and set the eidolith into his sword. He even merged himself with Bahamut through an incarnate summoning, allowing him to take the form of Chaos Bahamut, and in the end, Jet Bahamut.
Even if it didn't matter in the end, it was still an emotional choice.
I'm a sucker for good Anti-Villains, and I feel Caius checks all those sweet marks. Even though his means are wrong and he has to be stopped, you can clearly feel that he's the hero of his own story, wanting to do what he feels is right. His voice acting was on point, and it really helped get his sorrow and care for all the Yeuls across. Jet Bahamut is his last ditch attempt to defeat Serah and Noel and he's defeated... But in the end, he gets what he wants. The Heart of Etro is extinguished, causing the goddess's death and allowing the mortal world to transform, erasing the concept of time. In other words, the villain freaking wins! His theme even plays as part of the credits!
Caius left a great impression on me, and he helped make the second half of the game, as well the finale, hit hard.
Flaws and Shortcomings
Sidequest Design
While I appreciate the addition of fetch quests (and sometimes Live Trigger events) among the combat missions, only few of them felt meaningful. Despite their blandness, they all build the setting in their own way, so that's nice if you care about the lore, but otherwise they are going to feel like a slog. The only notable sidequests were the one with Ugallu (more details about Yeul), looking for the Blitz squad members (arguably the best sidequest for its emotional climax and conclusion) and the Bresha Ruins missions (your ultimate reward being a toilet paper coupon). The quiz missions (Brain Blast and Captain Cryptic) are fun if you know your lore. Brain Blast is frustrating due to the inclusion of RNG questions (e.g. Heads or Tails) that force you to potentially start over. Captain Cryptic also has to be found for each of his rounds, which is a pain in the butt.
Tedious Final Area
Oh dear, Academia 500 AF. The area is ominous and interesting at a first glance: the new Cocoon is on the verge of taking off. Chaos has transformed the city into a labyrinth of blocks. The music is fantastic and sets the mood for the finale. You're about to face off against Caius once and for all...
But first, go through this elaborate platforming segment!
The platforming element, combined with having to wait for the blocks to line up the way you need it, turn this level into a slow crawl. Getting 100% exploration on the map is also difficult thanks to that. Thankfully, you don't have to do elaborate platforming to progress, you only need to wait for the right position and make sure the cube is set to the correct color for progression. From my experience, if you're trying to do elaborate jumps on a block, you're doing it wrong and frustrating yourself needlessly. The only times such tricks are required are for a few treasure chests, which need you to stay on the block as it changes position, then use Mog Throw. The chests don't contain anything of importance either, so if you don't want to waste time and your sanity, you can ignore them.
However, if you want to get every bestiary entry? You need to go through the area from the start twice. The northeastern part of the map has two kinds of Woodwraith battles, but you can only fight one of them, which requires you to close the gate to get the other fight. If you want to tame Proto Behemoth and/or Schrodinger, their fight is also a one-time encounter, so if you don't get what you want, you have to re-load your save or close the gate.
Whether you're going for 100% completion or you are playing for the story only, the road to the finale is a slow one.
The Hands of Time Puzzle
I enjoyed the concept of this puzzle, but I had two big issues with it.
The first one is that this puzzle feels like a huge leap compared to the other two crystal puzzles. The temporal rift puzzles are straightforward and simple, but Hands of Time requires you to sit down, think, and get out a pen and paper to figure out the correct pattern. It just feels like the odd one out.
The other issue is putting a timer on some of the HoT puzzles. The time limit makes sense with the crystal puzzles, it feels unfair here. You can pause the game of course, but still, eeeh. I think it would have been better to let the player think it over at their own pace.
On the flip side, the Hands of Time puzzle only appears in optional segments, meaning you won't encounter it during mandatory progression.
RNG Monster Encounters
XII and XIII let you encounter monsters in the field, so you knew in advance what you're going to fight. XIII-2 takes a different approach and randomly spawns monsters near you. While this is justified by the plot, it can take time to encounter the monsters you want to fight, especially if you're trying to tame specific monsters or need to farm specific materials. Fragment Skills help with the encounter manipulation to an extent, as well speed up the overall process, but even then it's still down to RNG. At the end of the day it still beats the tediousness of trying to get Platinum Ingot/Trapezohedron drops off those damn Oretoises.
I'm still sick of seeing Gancanaghs, though.
Conclusions
As a closing point to my review, XIII-2 did a lot of good and offers an entertaining experience, especially if you enjoy time travel stories. It's an interesting follow-up to XIII's finale, and I'm invested in seeing how Lightning's story concludes. Onwards to Lightning Returns!
Thank You for reading!
XIII-2 can be summed up as this: what if Final Fantasy got together with Chrono Trigger/Cross and had a baby? This game. All while improving on many parts where XIII fell short.
Here's my overview of the game. I abandoned Positives/Negatives as terms because I feel they don't capture the points as well.
Strengths
- Improvements and expansions on many aspects of XIII
- Intriguing world and story
- Live Trigger is a fun addition for interactivity
- Fragment Skills are a great reward feature
- Even better OST than its predecessor
- Paradigm Pack is a lot of fun with monsters
- Excellent and memorable villain
Flaws and Shortcomings
- Sidequests are mostly simple, save for a few exceptions
- Tedious final area
- The design of the Hands of Time puzzle
- Monster encounters are RNG based for the most part
Before I move on to each point, I want to note that I played XIII-2 on PC, and I modded the game before I jumped into it. These are the changes I applied:
- Applied Large Address Aware flag with this program to the game executable
- Applied the Console Content Patch, Leviathan's Tears Mod and Xbox Button Prompt from this collection
These supposedly help the stability a lot, I haven't experienced any issues during my playthrough. The framerate dropped at some points, but it wasn't too bothersome.
Strengths
XIII Improvements and Expansions
One of the biggest strengths of XIII-2 is that it took everything that XIII fell short on and improved on it.
The level design considerably improved. Exploring areas for the most part felt like actual exploration and not running through fancy corridors. Finding and opening treasure chests takes more effort this time around, Mog is your huge help here. Advancing in an area may require you to solve puzzles in temporal rifts or find a key item in another era. There are NPCs you can interact with, making the setting much more lively and real.
Speaking of NPCs, they are a huge help with making the lore and worldbuilding more organic, which is something I wanted to see. People will make comments as you pass by, and you can talk to several of them. It especially helped the earlier parts of the game where the main plot hasn't fully kicked in yet. Bresha Ruins and Yaschas Massif were a lot more interesting with the hustle and bustle, and it felt rewarding to talk to everyone on my way. Whether the person offered insight on the Academy's growth, ongoing projects or even trivial personal matters, it gave you an insight into XIII-2's changing, shifting world. In addition, people pay attention to what you do, be it riding a Chocobo or throwing Mog around, which is a great attention to detail. The downside is that some of the lines can get repetitive at times, notably sidequest NPCs whose lines change if you completed their mission.
The battle system was already fun, but XIII-2 made it even better. The party leader dying no longer results in a frustrating game over and Paradigm Shifts are always done instantaneously. The Sentinel role is overall more important as well, the first Gogmagog fight already teaches you the importance of SEN/SEN/SEN. Battles are also more rewarding and worthwhile. You get Gil, CP for leveling, monster materials for monster leveling and components for buying certain equipment. You may or may not get to tame a monster to boot! It felt like you always walked away with something after each battle. However, battles can still be a grindfest, especially if you're tackling the Coliseum bosses and need to prepare for them. XIII-2 also introduces the Wound mechanic, which encourages you to plan your battles and don't rely on stalling (or make sure you have plenty of Wound potions). Thankfully, Wound works against enemies as well, but I haven't relied on it as much as much as it hindered my characters. In addition, some battles have Cinematic Actions, which are thankfully fairly merciful QTEs. Leveling is not as straightforward as XIII was, however. I recommend grabbing guides for leveling Serah, Noel and any notable monster you want to use, as you don't want to screw them up.
While I'm on the topic of battles, the post-game is more varied compared to XIII. You can face the mightiest foes of Archylte Steppe, which returns some of the more notable battles from XIII, such as Ochu, the Immortal, Long Gui and Yomi. Long Gui and Yomi are not as difficult as their XIII counterparts, but it's best to stay on your toes for them. The Requiem of the Goddess sidestory offers a very exhilarating and challenging 1-on-1 battle, while also serving as the game's true ending. The Coliseum's superbosses will offer you a last batch of challenges if you're still left wanting more. Typhon and Ultros are no joke despite their comic relief role, and Gilgamesh is super tough even with the right monster setup, which in itself requires a lot of preparation.
Besides combat, there are actual minigames now. There are the aforementioned temporal rift puzzles, which come in three different flavors. Serendipity offers several activities, such as slot machines, Chocobo Races, while Sazh's sidestory adds poker and Chronobind. Missions are now either fetch quests or combat sidequests, adding a little more variety. There are even quiz sidequests! Lore aficionados have an advantage here, but even then you're better off using a walkthrough, as I'm not sure if the answers for several of these questions are noted anywhere in the game.
Intriguing World and Story
Being a sequel, XIII-2 picks up from where XIII left off, and gives additional clarifications for XIII's ending that at most was explained by the analects. The story, unlike XIII's emotional and character focused plot, is more focused on the surrounding world and its chaotic events, and it takes a good while to really kick off. Lightning is someplace else for a reason, alongside a man who is hellbent on defeating her, nobody remembers Lightning except for Serah, there's a guy from the future and we're thrown into time travel shenanigans. As someone who played Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, it felt nostalgic to travel to different eras and witness alternate histories. Nonetheless, I was just as confused as Serah was, so it was time to get on this wild ride and find some answers!
Episode 01-03 are slower and work on establishing the current (and not so current) state of affairs. People have settled on Pulse and are working on building a life independent from the fal'Cie reign. People are actually excited about the prospects of time travel and are willing to research into the paradox effect, rather than treating it as a secret or an apocalypse scenario. The timeline's oddities not only plucked Lightning out of the flow of time, but also various objects and entities, who ended up in places they shouldn't have. As I mentioned earlier, the NPCs and the worldbuilding make up for the slower story pacing, helping you ease into the plot. You meet familiar faces on the way, such as Hope and Snow, working towards helping the world in their own ways. As you advance through time, you can see mankind united towards wanting to build a new home while wanting to save Cocoon from its inevitable collapse. It's not without difficulties of course, several missions and NPCs shed light on conflicts and dilemmas, most importantly Alyssa's character. Episode 03 also introduces Caius and Yeul within Oerba 200 AF, though still a mystery at this time.
Episodes 04-06 are where I consider the story to be in full gear with developments firing off from this point on. Academia 400 AF doesn't pull punches and hits you with the full horror of a man-made fal'Cie ruling a city. People get turned into Cie'th in front of your eyes, said Cie'th won't waste time killing others, and said Cie'th may even try using Remedy(!) on themselves in battle. After breaking Adam's time loop and thus changing the future, Serah and Noel are ultimately led into a trap where they get separated. We get to see the bleak future Noel comes from. Yeul's terrible destiny of dying over and over again also becomes apparent, and we see that Caius is fighting to free her from such an existence. Depressingly, we finally learn that Serah shares her fate with Yeul, bound to die to visions of the timeline. Yet, she pushes on, willing to sacrifice her life if it means saving Lightning, Fang and Vanille, as well the future.
I wished for everyone a happy ending. I wanted Noel to live in a peaceful world, I wanted Serah to reunite with Lightning, I wanted Yeul to be free and happy. I had hope even for Caius. But in the end, I knew I was wanting too much, and someone was going to draw the short straw. Little I did know that almost everyone ended up the short straw in this scenario...
Caius, despite his best efforts, is finally overcome—no, he gets what he wants. He gets himself killed at Noel's hands, seemingly fixing the timeline. Fang and Vanille are rescued and the new Cocoon, Bhunivelze, takes into the sky. And then, Serah, after we thought she'd be safe after all, is forced to see a vision that takes her life. Noel doesn't disappear, meaning that the future hasn't changed. Etro's Gate swings open and the dark chaotic force destroys the timeline, changing the world. We're treated to a shot of Lightning sitting on Etro's throne, crystallized. It's a distressing, upsetting ending that may make one feel like every effort was in vain, going against the themes of defying fate. However, if it weren't for Serah and Noel, Cocoon would have collapsed, taking Fang and Vanille with it. Humanity wouldn't have a new home, though their future is uncertain in such a warped world. Lightning is free from her fight with Caius. Thus, despite the dark conclusion, there are still specks of hope in the sea of despair. Requiem of the Goddess shows us why Lightning had become crystal. She did not wish for Serah's soul to become part of the chaos, and she crystallized herself to preserve Serah with her. While XIII-2 has a weaker journey compared to XIII's constant emotional highs, it gives a very powerful finale that hits as hard as XIII's moments, if not harder. Lightning's determination to keep Serah safe even when everything seems lost had me tearing up during the entire cutscene.
Overall, the story is easier to follow with the crucial parts being part of the core experience, so you don't need to spend time reading the datalog to understand what's going on. However, the fragment entries do elaborate on additional details. These include the reason for Adam recognizing Serah and her prior brand—Adam uses Eden's memory modules. Snow possesses a brand once again because he wished to be as strong as he was when he was a l'Cie, and thus he asked for a brand himself, but it's not known who gave him it. Caius has a very fascinating backstory that feels like it could have been its own tale in a way. There's also several lore details peppered within, including the identity of the happy-go-lucky Chocolina, who is Sazh's beloved chocobo chick!
So this description was written this way for a very specific reason. Saying Chocolina's name too early would have caused a mess. Who would've thought that!
However, even if the fragment entries hint at it and the story implies it, I wish Alyssa and the dilemma surrounding her was more prominent. Alyssa is a person that exists only because the timeline became unstable. She's a person who is supposed to be dead, yet is alive... in other words, a paradox. She wonders what happens to her when the timeline changes, and if people would still remember her after history corrected itself. It's little surprise she hands Serah and Noel a false fragment that sets both of them up. She wants to preserve her own existence, especially when Serah can "lose [her] temper and the future changes." Alyssa actually disappears from Academia in the end and NPCs are left wondering about her. Unless you go back to Academia 4XX and talk to the NPCs, you may entirely miss this detail entirely (as it happened to me, until my friend nudged me about it), which is quite the bummer. Alyssa's intrigue is very easy to gloss over unless you really dig in.
Lastly, it's worth noting that XIII-2's story isn't as effective without having knowledge of XIII. Meeting Snow and Hope isn't as meaningful without knowing where they started out. The desire to find out what happened Lightning and reach her doesn't hit as hard without knowing how XIII concluded and knowing Lightning's journey. While some sequels can be enjoyed without having to experience their predecessor, this game probably ain't it. While XIII-2 does come with a Beginner's Primer to summarize the first game, it doesn't do it any justice. It's more handy if you played XIII before and need a refresher before starting on XIII-2.
Live Trigger Fun
One of the additions of XIII-2 was the Live Trigger mechanic, which allows Serah or Noel (depending on the situation) to react to specific events. These are primarily one shot responses, rather than choices within an on-going dialogue. There are a few cases where the Live Triggers do serve as a puzzle-based response where you need to pick the correct reply in order to complete a mission or advance the story. In the end, the mechanic doesn't offer any meaningful choice making, I felt it helped more with roleplaying and immersion. Not even the final Live Trigger matters, where you decide whether to kill Caius or spare him, but it was an emotional choice nonetheless.
What made the mechanic shine for me is the variety of comical responses you get to pick during most conversations. While they are guaranteed to ruin the mood, it's absolutely priceless to see Serah gush about Snow without end, or have her treating Augusta Tower as a murder mystery investigation. And despite how outlandish some of the choices are, none of them feel out of place or jarring, the characters genuinely act out on whatever hilarity you chose to ensue.
Hope's absolutely snarky response to the matter of why someone looks grown up when you time travel into the future.
Fragment Skills
You can earn Fragment Skills by talking to the Mystic in Serendipity after you acquired specific fragments, making it a rewarding incentive for collecting all of them. The most valuable options let you control the monster encounter rate, the rate of rare monsters which would be a pain to find otherwise, give you better chances for taming monsters and give you double CP after every battle. Whether you are grinding, trying to tame a specific monster or trying to complete your bestiary, they are immensely helpful. The Paradox Scope lets you see "Bad Ends" at specific points, including a secret ending, which range from downright absurd to mysterious and intriguing.
The last skill, Clock Master, requires you to obtain every fragment. Speeding up the game at this point is only useful if you need to do additional grinding for resources, but a very welcome addition. It's also handy for replaying areas if you're trying to collect every adornment from Live Trigger rewards.
Even Better OST
XIII already offered many memorable songs (which make their return in this game as well), such as Blinded by Light, Sunleth Waterscape and Test of the L'Cie. XIII-2's OST is just as excellent, and I found way more of the songs to be memorable. Giant's Fist, Worlds Collide and Limit Break! are amazing boss songs and Paradigm Shift is a super catchy battle theme. Plains of Eternity makes me want to stay on the sunny weather for the Steppe. Threat Level Omega really helps set the ominous mood for Academia 400 AF. Caius's Theme, Time's Master and Heart of Chaos are excellent songs for the Caius fights, culminating in the intense Unseen Abyss, the final boss theme.
The Paradigm Pack
Unlike XIII, your party consists of Serah and Noel at almost all times, with your third member being a flexible trio of monsters, called the Paradigm Pack. Ever wanted to decimate enemies with a friendly chocobo? Want to look tough with a pet Behemoth? Do you want a Flanitor to heal you instead of being an annoying opponent? The game lets you tame almost every monster in the game (with varying success rates), so you can bring along anything you want. (Regrettably, Long Gui cannot be tamed. No Oretoise rampage for you.) You can even give them custom names and decorate them to your heart's content! Eidolons are cool, but how about beating down the big bosses with a giant bird wearing shades or a sprout critter?
One of the most dangerous entities in this game at its full potential. No, really.
Of course, some monsters are better than others (with the DLC "monster" additions being among the best), and raising them to full potential with optimal skills is even more time consuming, but it's still a fun aspect of the game that I really enjoyed. My final team consisted of COM Lightning, RAV Lightning, Nabaat and Snow for the most part, but here's my shout out to the monsters that made my journey possible: Wildfang (Albino Lobo), Furball (Narasimha), Flannister (Flanitor), Misty (Blue Chocobo), Giddiup (Silver Chocobo) and Poppy (Chichu). Honorable mentions go to Goblin Chieftain and Cloudburst, who made beating Gilgamesh possible.
Excellent and Memorable Villain
Your main antagonist for XIII-2 is Caius Ballad, who makes his very first appearance wishing farewell to a girl (Yeul) reminiscent of FFVII's famous moment, and determined to take down Lightning, no matter what. His straightforward actions and the reasons behind them unfold over the course of the story. Caius is a guardian tasked to stay by Yeul's side, protecting each of her incarnation across every era, but also having to witness all of their inevitable deaths. Caius possesses everlasting life thanks to the Heart of Etro, meaning he can never perish unless he's killed by the one chosen to succeed him, Noel. Caius is determined to save Yeul from her heartwrenching fate, wishing to free her from having to die every time she's born. In order to achieve that, he wishes to smash open Etro's Gate by making Cocoon collapse and killing enough people. Doing so would destroy the boundary between Valhalla and the mortal world. Without time and the future existing, Yeul no longer has to witness visions, so she wouldn't be killed anymore. Beyond that, we learn from the fragment entries that he's a former l'Cie who obtained Bahamut and set the eidolith into his sword. He even merged himself with Bahamut through an incarnate summoning, allowing him to take the form of Chaos Bahamut, and in the end, Jet Bahamut.
Even if it didn't matter in the end, it was still an emotional choice.
I'm a sucker for good Anti-Villains, and I feel Caius checks all those sweet marks. Even though his means are wrong and he has to be stopped, you can clearly feel that he's the hero of his own story, wanting to do what he feels is right. His voice acting was on point, and it really helped get his sorrow and care for all the Yeuls across. Jet Bahamut is his last ditch attempt to defeat Serah and Noel and he's defeated... But in the end, he gets what he wants. The Heart of Etro is extinguished, causing the goddess's death and allowing the mortal world to transform, erasing the concept of time. In other words, the villain freaking wins! His theme even plays as part of the credits!
Caius left a great impression on me, and he helped make the second half of the game, as well the finale, hit hard.
Flaws and Shortcomings
Sidequest Design
While I appreciate the addition of fetch quests (and sometimes Live Trigger events) among the combat missions, only few of them felt meaningful. Despite their blandness, they all build the setting in their own way, so that's nice if you care about the lore, but otherwise they are going to feel like a slog. The only notable sidequests were the one with Ugallu (more details about Yeul), looking for the Blitz squad members (arguably the best sidequest for its emotional climax and conclusion) and the Bresha Ruins missions (your ultimate reward being a toilet paper coupon). The quiz missions (Brain Blast and Captain Cryptic) are fun if you know your lore. Brain Blast is frustrating due to the inclusion of RNG questions (e.g. Heads or Tails) that force you to potentially start over. Captain Cryptic also has to be found for each of his rounds, which is a pain in the butt.
Tedious Final Area
Oh dear, Academia 500 AF. The area is ominous and interesting at a first glance: the new Cocoon is on the verge of taking off. Chaos has transformed the city into a labyrinth of blocks. The music is fantastic and sets the mood for the finale. You're about to face off against Caius once and for all...
But first, go through this elaborate platforming segment!
The platforming element, combined with having to wait for the blocks to line up the way you need it, turn this level into a slow crawl. Getting 100% exploration on the map is also difficult thanks to that. Thankfully, you don't have to do elaborate platforming to progress, you only need to wait for the right position and make sure the cube is set to the correct color for progression. From my experience, if you're trying to do elaborate jumps on a block, you're doing it wrong and frustrating yourself needlessly. The only times such tricks are required are for a few treasure chests, which need you to stay on the block as it changes position, then use Mog Throw. The chests don't contain anything of importance either, so if you don't want to waste time and your sanity, you can ignore them.
However, if you want to get every bestiary entry? You need to go through the area from the start twice. The northeastern part of the map has two kinds of Woodwraith battles, but you can only fight one of them, which requires you to close the gate to get the other fight. If you want to tame Proto Behemoth and/or Schrodinger, their fight is also a one-time encounter, so if you don't get what you want, you have to re-load your save or close the gate.
Whether you're going for 100% completion or you are playing for the story only, the road to the finale is a slow one.
The Hands of Time Puzzle
I enjoyed the concept of this puzzle, but I had two big issues with it.
The first one is that this puzzle feels like a huge leap compared to the other two crystal puzzles. The temporal rift puzzles are straightforward and simple, but Hands of Time requires you to sit down, think, and get out a pen and paper to figure out the correct pattern. It just feels like the odd one out.
The other issue is putting a timer on some of the HoT puzzles. The time limit makes sense with the crystal puzzles, it feels unfair here. You can pause the game of course, but still, eeeh. I think it would have been better to let the player think it over at their own pace.
On the flip side, the Hands of Time puzzle only appears in optional segments, meaning you won't encounter it during mandatory progression.
RNG Monster Encounters
XII and XIII let you encounter monsters in the field, so you knew in advance what you're going to fight. XIII-2 takes a different approach and randomly spawns monsters near you. While this is justified by the plot, it can take time to encounter the monsters you want to fight, especially if you're trying to tame specific monsters or need to farm specific materials. Fragment Skills help with the encounter manipulation to an extent, as well speed up the overall process, but even then it's still down to RNG. At the end of the day it still beats the tediousness of trying to get Platinum Ingot/Trapezohedron drops off those damn Oretoises.
I'm still sick of seeing Gancanaghs, though.
Conclusions
As a closing point to my review, XIII-2 did a lot of good and offers an entertaining experience, especially if you enjoy time travel stories. It's an interesting follow-up to XIII's finale, and I'm invested in seeing how Lightning's story concludes. Onwards to Lightning Returns!
Thank You for reading!