When we all sat down at g33k HQ to determine what games we were going to review for 2012, I mentioned Final Fantasy XIII-2 and everyone let out a groan. People looked at that game and did not want to volunteer to review it like their lives depended on it. Heck, some even suggested that we don’t review the game at all. That was the legacy that had been left behind after Final Fantasy XIII, the first Final Fantasy game on next-generation consoles, was released.

Obviously FF 13 was a very polarizing game, and everyone that I had talked to had both good and bad things to say about it. People praised the real-time Paradigm combat system for being unique and interesting, but were also annoyed that it took upwards of 40 hours before the game designers would let you explore the world on your own and swap out party members. The running gag with FF 13 was that the “tutorial” for the game was about 30-40 hours long. During that time you were treated to a story that made little sense, characters that were annoying, being forced to use only two characters during combat and not being able to choose which ones, and being slowly dragged through an extremely linear storyline that didn’t allow you to explore the world. Once you got through all of that, the game started to get good. Problem was that a lot of people, myself included, stopped playing long before that payoff came.

I wanted to play Final Fantasy 13-2 because I was the only person on the staff that had played the previous game, and because I thought it was important to see if Square Enix had learned anything from the criticism that was leveled against them. The good news is that FF 13-2 is a better game than FF 13. Way better.

The story for this game picks up three years after the events of the previous installment. We are re-introduced to Serah, sister of the last game’s main character Lightning. Lightning is missing for some reason, and Serah keeps having dreams that give her weird, vague visions of where her sister may be. Things start to take off, and get really complicated, when Serah meets up with Noel who claims to be from the future. In Noel’s future, the entire human race is extinct and so he sought to go back in time to prevent the end of the world. As he goes back in time he meets up with Lightning who tells him to go find her sister and help restore the timeline. Hearing that Lightning is alive, Serah joins up with Noel and the two ping pong through different time periods and alternate timelines hoping to change the future with the help of a cute, and also annoying, Mog sidekick. Make sense? Good, that’s as clear cut as the story will ever get.

The good thing about the time travel theme that FF 13-2 has, is that it really encourages exploration very early on. Within an hour you are able to explore time periods that are 5, 10 and even 200 years in the future. In each of these time periods you solve paradoxes and find items called artefacts that will help you move to new time periods. Solving paradoxes can manifest as a combat scenario where you fight something that doesn’t belong in this time period, or by solving puzzles that restore the timeline. The good thing about the time travel theme is that when you really explore the game, you are generally rewarded with interesting new time periods. This is fun because you can see environments and places in many different scenarios and it can be fun to see what would happen to a place if you do events a certain way. The downside to time travel, is that sometimes you just have no idea what is happening in the story.

Everyone can joke that most Final Fantasy games have storylines that don’t make a lot of sense and as I have already stated, FF 13-2 certainly fits that stereotype. As you get further into the game though, things do start to come together and it gets easier to understand what is happening and some of the motivations of the game’s villain. All seems very Anime to me, and that’s totally fine. What is frustrating is that because Time Travel is involved, the game keeps throwing curve balls and plot twists at every possible opportunity. Just when you think you have things figured out, blam, something completely unexpected happens. This continues throughout the game and even messes up the ending cutscene of the game. Obviously no spoilers here but just know that the game developers have given themselves the opportunity to sell you more DLC, or even make Final Fantasy 13-3, before you get any sort of closure with the story.

Generally speaking, if there is a new game in the Final Fantasy series, that generally means that they are going to create a completely different combat system. This time around, the combat system pretty much stays exactly the same as it was in FF 13. There are five different classes in the game that each fill a very specific role, similar to a MMO. There is Sentinel to soak damage and draw aggro, Commando that deals physical damage, Ravager to dish out magic and elemental damage, Synergist to buff the party, and Saboteur to debuff enemies. Something that they have “improved” in FF 13-2 is that while you can only directly control either Noel or Serah, you can switch between the two freely. While you are controlling your selected character, the other party members will perform actions based on what kind of class role you give them. In the previous game, if the character you had direct control over died, you lost the battle. Mercifully they have changed that so if your character dies, you’ll switch to the other. It should have been like this in the last game, but it’s good that the game developers heard our pleas this time around.

Party size is still three characters, but each character can do almost any role you want. You can Paradigm Shift and switch character roles at any time with a simple button press, and this can be very important. Enemies have a “chain break” bar that fills up as you deal damage to them. Once that bar fills up, the enemy will become staggered and you can unleash massive damage upon them and kill them quickly. This is very important, and many enemies can only be defeated in such a way. Ravagers fill the bar up the fastest, but that type of damage causes the chain break to degenerate at an accelerated rate. Commandos on the other hand don’t fill up the chain break a lot, but can ensure that it doesn’t degenerate. To bring down certain enemies you need to be juggling all these different class roles and the chain break gauge, making combat hectic but also very fun and rewarding.

Throughout the game you will have Serah and Noel taking up two spots in your party. The third position is filled in with a small group of monsters that you collect in the game world. As you defeat certain monsters in the world, you get the ability to put them in your party and have them fight for you. Each of these monsters has a specific class role and unique abilities, and using them you are able to round out your team. It’s a nice way to add a Pokemon style mini-game to encourage you to explore the world and find the biggest and best monsters to use. You can also infuse monsters with other monsters, allowing you to transfer over some unique abilities. It softens the blow when your low level monster that you have been leveling up for awhile gets replaced with the bigger and more awesome one you just got. You can just infuse the new with the old and not really lose much in the terms of monster progression and leveling. Oh yeah, and you can put hats on them too.

Story and combat aside, FF 13-2 is a visually impressive game. I reviewed the game on the PS3 and everything looked gorgeous and imaginative. There were no slow downs or frame rate issues that I noticed during my playthrough. Previously, FF 13 on the XBOX 360 had some graphical and frame rate issues, but after watching some video of players going through the game it seems to have been rectified. If you have the option I would still suggest getting the PS3 version to get that little extra graphic boost at 1080p, but the XBOX 360 version will serve you just as well. Also important to note that the 360 version is all only one disk so that’s a bonus.

The most difficult part about this review is trying to determine who this game is for. Obviously if you liked FF 13 you’ll like FF 13-2. If you hated the previous game, then don’t get this new one. For me though, someone that hated the last game but enjoyed this one, I think the recommendation is a bit tougher to give out. The game gives you so much more freedom on where you go, and the combat is so enjoyable, that even if you don’t give a rats ass about the storyline I think you’ll end up enjoying yourself for the 25-40 hours that it takes to complete the game. Even after you beat it though, you can go back and continue to level up other class roles, beat harder bosses and unlock alternate timelines and endings.

Ultimately, all of the games that are in the Final Fantasy XIII lineage will be very polarizing and devisive. Final Fantasy XIII-2 should be remembered as a good game though. It took the best parts from it’s previous entry, and for the most part threw out the rest of it. Some of you may still not like what the game offers you, and that’s just fine. If you give it a chance though, you may find that you end up liking it a bit more than you would like to admit. I know I did.

[easyreview title=”Final Fantasy XIII-2″ cat1title=”Final Score” cat1detail=”The storyline, especially the ending, can be confusing or down right frustrating to keep up with, but overall this is a much better game than Final Fantasy XIII. Combat is really fast and fun, collecting new monsters is addictive, and traveling through time to see how your actions affect the world is interesting.” cat1rating=”4″ overall=”false” icon=”star2″]