Games Summaries

Final Fantasy XIII-2 starts not long after XIII, In which Lighting finds herself protecting the throne of Valhalla from the games Antagonist Caius. During the battle another male appears, one of the two protagonists of the game Noel. Lightning decides to get Noel to travel back through time to her sister (Serah), The other Protagonist of the game & the story begins in their Journey towards Valhalla & finding Lighting. The character change isn't all that bad. Serah may not be as strong as her Older sister Lighting, but she is still a leading lady. She isn't as annoying as any of the previous characters of the game like Hope & to a certain extent Vanille & the fact that the two main characters Health levels up quite good & the fact that you shouldn't come across a situation in which you keep having a character die for the simple reason that the game is much easier then the previous one so you won't have much need for phoenix downs or even potions. Having one of them or a monster with the role of medic levelled up slightly is enough for most of the casual fights in the game. Though how ever when it comes to some of the boss fights they're roles will have to be levelled up a fair amount & you will have the do the usual changing from one paradigm to another multiple times.

When word of a sequel spread, the fear of that linearity persisted. But it seems the developers at Square-Enix wanted nothing more than to prove the gaming populace wrong with the same level of defiance Lightning and her friends showed the gods. Final Fantasy XIII-2 showers you with choice and branching paths. The battle system functions faster and includes several new features like tamable monster allies. But with these improvements, the story sheds much of its focus. Characters act without clear motivation, and the only driving force is to find Lightning. Without question, it's a better game, but Final Fantasy XIII-2 makes costly sacrifices to its narrative in order to achieve mechanical advancements.

Unlike in Thirteen in which you have one single road you can go & you had to take it you instead have a more open map feeling in which you can find hidden treasures by using mog to discover them. As you get further into the game you progress through the historia crux finding different versions of places & new places all together. In each different version of the place things are different, in one it could be snowing, in the other it could be normal blue sky. One could be destroyed or in ruins, the other might not be & the fact that in each different version you can explore places you couldn't in the previous version. In places you also come across distortions in time in which you have to complete to continue through the game & progress to the end which is estimated to take anywhere around twenty five hours to complete, unlike the lengthiness if XIII.

A new feature to the game is the fact that you have monsters that you can level up & that have a designated role. There is quite a lot that has also changed from XIII, the Crystarium levelling has. Instead of having five levels & multiple things to unlock in one level you have 99 levels & everything you unlock counts as a level so you have 99 things to unlock, which doesn't take too long for the first couple of roles, but as you progress through the game it does take longer to level up each role considering the amount that you need continues through each level & doesn't reset. A sweet feature in the game is the fact that you can close the time gates & re-do the level (In which you need to do with some to get the paradox ending).

Much like Final Fantasy X-2, this sequel approaches storytelling with a lighter heart. It still leaves plenty of room to get serious, but much of this emotional weight bears down towards the finale. In the beginning, Lightning somehow finds herself guarding the throne of Valhalla, a realm of chaos unbound by time. She fights a dark-haired man named Caius and -- in the midst of battle -- meets a stranger from a future age named Noel. She tasks Noel with traveling through time to find her sister and bring her to Valhalla, as Lightning can't leave the realm unguarded.

You acquire full control of Serah, Noel, and the systems that power them an hour or two after the opening sequence; a stark contrast to the slow build of the original. As soon as the two heroes leap into the flow of time, Final Fantasy XIII-2's open nature shines through.

Environments no longer follow a single path. With webs of rooms to explore and treasure chests hidden off the map, Final Fantasy XIII-2 encourages you to take your time and look around. You can access these environments, which dot the timeline, in more than one order. While a general flow from one place to another moves the plot along, the freedom to sidetrack greatly enhances the explorative flavor.

More impressively, you can unlock the ability to close time gates and start the area from scratch, correcting mistakes or just trying something new. This functions as a literal "reset button" mid-game. This sense of freedom, even if you choose to ignore it, helps Final Fantasy XIII-2 feel more like a traditional RPG where discovery dominates the experience.

Train monsters to fight by your side.
Train monsters to fight by your side.

At each new turn, battles separate Noel from bringing Serah back to Lightning. These battles share plenty of systems with the original, but Final Fantasy XIII-2 includes several crucial improvements, both large and small. One of the bigger changes: Serah and Noel are the only playable human characters in the game with the third party slot ready for a monster ally. Defeat a wild critter and you have a chance to tame it. Each critter has an inherent role in battle and a few special skills. Furthermore, each monster can level up along with the human heroes by consuming items.
A good change they also made is the speed in which you change paradigms. Instead of watching each character go through the change it does it instantly meaning you can get straight back to attacking without having to wait. That & the Auto Battle feature means that the whole fighting sequence is actually much faster & action-packed then XIII's. You also have the feature of Cinematic actions in which you have to press a sequence of buttons against the boss that you are fighting, which adds a nice aspect of the game which when watching is quite a nice feature