Final Fantasy XIII-2 Feels Like the Game You Wanted FFXIII to Be
What happens when a developer listens to fans' complaints? Promising things.
Final Fantasy XIII was not, despite the claims of many, a terrible game. In fact, it was pretty decent. But it turned off an awful lot of the series' fans despite being generally quite similar to the fondly remembered Final Fantasy X. Why that was the case, and why the game ended up the way it did, would best be reserved for a separate conversation; the point is, for various reasons, FFXIII wasn't the game many fans wanted. They weren't shy about expressing their dissatisfaction, especially online.
That's nothing new. Fans hate a sequel, complain on the Internet, film at 11. The real difference is that this time Square Enix listened and responded. The result is Final Fantasy XIII-2, a game that addresses practically every single fault in its predecessor. I've heard XIII-2 referred to as, "the sequel no one asked for" in more than one quarter of the Internet, which is harsh but not entirely wrong. Even I enjoyed FFXIII for what it was, but I also have no desire to play it or another game like it ever again. But that's the thing about XIII-2: It's not much like FFXIII at all. In fact, it would be much easier to enumerate the things the two games have in common than to list the changes. First, the combat system is mostly unchanged; secondly, the world and characters follow on from FFXIII's story. And that's about it. In every other way, XIII-2 is a far cry from its predecessor's long, gorgeous, linear corridor to the final battle. Normally when disconnected RPG franchises receive direct sequels -- see Final Fantasy X-2 or Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World -- it's little more than an excuse to reuse game assets and tech. Based on about six or seven hours of hands-on play, I feel comfortable saying that's not what XIII-2 is at all. Aside from the monsters that appear in random battles (a recurring element of the Final Fantasy series even outside of the odd direct sequel), none of the game's visuals seem to be cobbled together from the previous game. So far, the action seems to be set in new locations, which makes sense given the way FFXIII ended; and even if XIII-2 does reprise familiar locations, they're bound to feel different this time around, because the entire game has a completely different structure than FFXIII. Clearly Square heard players' complaints about linearity, because XIII-2 is unusually non-linear for a Final Fantasy game. It's not exactly an open world -- this is certainly no Skyrim -- but of all the games in the series, only Final Fantasy XII (and perhaps the second half of Final Fantasy VI) approach the openness present in XIII-2. Dungeons, towns (yes, there are towns this time), and fields allow players to roam freely; quest-givers populate each area, offering side objectives beyond the main plot; and players are welcome to jump around within the game's story even as they advance the narrative.
The central hook of XIII-2 is time travel, and the story revolves around a timeline feature that should look immediately familiar to anyone who's played Atlus' Radiant Historia. As you progress within the story, you'll unlock nodes on the time line that take you to different points in time and space. It's possible to hop between time periods at a moment's notice, redoing events in pursuit of perfection. The concept of time travel is one that hasn't really been explored in Final Fantasy outside of the original NES game's 2000-year closed time loop and the dream-like temporal projections of Final Fantasy VIII. Still, even if the gimmick isn't standard Final Fantasy fare, the specifics within that context are very much in line with the series' tropes and themes. This time around, players control Serah Farron; the younger sister of FFXIII protagonist Lightning, Serah served as the damsel in distress who motivated the previous game's plot. This time around, she's the one seeking to uncover the mystery of what happened to her older sister after the ending of FFXIII. Although Lightning was fine as that game ended (her allies Fang and Vanille having sacrificed themselves for the benefit of the world), no one but Serah remembers seeing Lightning after the defeat of Orphan. Though she's convinced that Lightning is alive and well somewhere, her former allies no longer seem to share her optimism. The future contains an older, more grizzled version of Snow Villers who's long since given up the search for the lost heroine; meanwhile, Hope Estheim has matured into a confident young man who leads a research institute investigating the artifacts that allow Serah to leap through time. Meanwhile, her companion -- Noel -- hails from a time centuries in the future in which the world has been brought to ruin.
Serah and Noel appear to be the only party members for most of the game (a brief prologue sequence against a full-powered Lightning notwithstanding), but XIII-2 still retains its predecessor's three-person combat system. Filling the third battle slot is a host of monsters that the protagonists can tame and control. More than 100 different monsters can be recruited, upgraded, leveled-up, and even fused with one another to create entirely new beasts. In effect, the party members take the old-school Final Fantasy job of Beastmaster, though without the limitations of games like Final Fantasy V and Tactics. You can keep several creatures on-hand and swap them out on the fly through the use of Paradigm Shifts. Paradigm Shifts, of course, are FFXIII's core combat device, and they return for the sequel. In fact, barring the addition of monsters in the third party slot, very few of XIII-2's battle mechanics have changed. Serah and Noel can each take on one of six different action roles, which complement one another in various ways. The "break" mechanic remains, allowing the heroes to inflict high-damage attacks against weakened enemies. Allied monsters have their own distinct traits, meaning each type of creature will serve best in different roles for combat. One monster might work best in a Medic (healer) role, while another may possess a number of Saboteur (sapper/debuffer) traits. In other words, they slot pretty easily into your battle tactics, although innate monster skills aren't limited to a single type, so a favorite creature could potentially slot into several different combat paradigms. Click the image above to check out all Final Fantasy XIII-2 screens. As before, random combat is a thing of the past. Serah and Noel can see foes before they make contact, and the process of evading battle or initiating a preemptive strike is much less arbitrary than in FFXIII. You no longer have to rely on rare and expensive consumables to slip past enemies and net a sneak attack. Instead, Serah's marketable moogle companion serves as a sort of radar warning for impending attacks. When a hostile creature appears close to Serah, a "moogle clock" begins to count down. Take the initiative and launch into battle before the clock runs out and you get a preemptive strike which leaves the enemy vulnerable to break status; begin battle once the clock has run out, however, and you'll be at a disadvantage. The one down side to XIII-2's more expansive game design is that its graphics seem like a step down from those of its predecessor. Bigger areas to explore and free camera angles are the culprit here -- but it's hard to imagine that FFXIII's numerous detractors would begrudge the tradeoff. XIII-2 is easily one of the more ambitious chapters in the Final Fantasy series, offering what looks to be significant player freedom; FFXIII, on the other hand, was gorgeous but limited. When I interviewed FFXIII and XIII-2 producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Motomu Toriyama at E3 this year, they were in ill humor. And little wonder; I have a feeling that, game journalists being the tactful creatures they are, the two men sat through session after session of interviewers demanding to know why FFXIII was so awful. Based on how much FFXIII changes (Toriyama told us in an interview at TGS that the primary goal for the sequel was to make it as different as possible from the first game), the developers have clearly seen their share of player criticism. More importantly, though, they've taken it to heart. http://www.1up.com/previews/final-fantasy-xiii-2-feels-game-you-wanted?pager.offset=1 More positive previews have come online too, I am surprised the press isn't shredding this game to pieces as it seemed like a cash in. There was a secret event in Japan where journalists got to play the first 9 hours of the game.
