I don't know exactly how many Final Fantasy games there are. I've played every numbered edition except for 14 and I've played a couple on the Gameboy back in the day, and I played Mystic Quest. When you add all of those together along with the Crystal Chronicles games you get...probably closer to 25 but whatever. There's a lot of them and most of them fall somewhere between good and amazing. The scale for me goes FFVIII on one end and FFVI on the other. Every other game falls somewhere between these two on the scale. Something like Mystic Quest falls on the VIII side of the scale. FFXIII-2 definitely fits in the group of better Final Fantasy games.
Upon rereading that paragraph up there I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense. All I was trying to say is that FFXIII-2 is a really good game. If you played FFXIII then you already have a pretty good idea what XIII-2 is about. The combat is exactly the same, utilizing "paradigm shifts" to change character classes mid-fight to make for fast, seamless combat. When I first played XIII the idea of the combat really turned me off. I didn't like the idea of losing meticulous control of my characters. I wanted to input each individual command myself. After playing the game though, I understood the system a lot better and it very simply works. Taking out the menus allows for really fast and exciting fights. You can pay more attention to the action on screen instead of constantly being lost in the next menu.
The biggest difference between XIII-2 and XIII is...well, XIII-2 is a lot better. They took all of the good from XIII and eliminated most of the bad. It doesn't feel linear anymore, it doesn't take 75% of the game to really open up, and you don't have to play for 20 hours before you can develop your characters and party properly. The most notable difference is the lack of a third story character. Instead of swapping between characters like in XIII, you use Serah and Noel for the entire game. The third party member is a monster that you can capture yourself. Most of the monsters you encounter in the game are capturable, you don't have to do anything special, it just randomly happens. This adds a really cool element to the game. Each monster represents one of the available combat classes (Ravager, Commando, Sentinel, etc...)and you level them up with objects that are dropped by monsters or purchased from the Chocobo lady who acts as a store.
The story is...well, it's pretty convoluted. Basically, Serah and Noel are travelling through time gates fixing paradoxes all while searching for Lightning who is trapped in Valhalla battling this dude Caius who is also travelling through time and trying to stop you while also battling Lightning in Valhalla and he has this girl Yuel who exists in different times and is a different person but looks the same and is dead but isn't dead and Noel knows her but doesn't know her and and and and and it's time travel. The whole thing is a bit messy but it's still pretty entertaining. I kind of lost interest in the story about 3/4 of the way through but it didn't have an impact on my overall enjoyment of the game. It's a lot of JRPG stuff you've seen and done before. Most of the main characters from XIII play some small part in the story so that's pretty interesting.
They definitely paid attention and fixed a lot of the problems people had with the first Final Fantasy XIII and that is awesome. However, when compared to the glory days of the franchise (I'm talking IV, VI, VIII here) they're still way behind. The paradigm system works in a really interesting way, and it is entertaining, but it still feels like they keep taking more and more of the "game" out of it and making it more of something we watch while interacting with slightly. I'd love for them to take a big step backward for the next installment but it is highly unlikely. I'll still look forward to it, and still play it, and more than likely still enjoy it. The Final Fantasy series is really one of the few franchises that has pretty much never let me down. VIII was pretty mediocre, and I don't count XI or XIV since I don't really play MMO's. The rest of the titles have all been quality and as long as they keep that up, I'll continue to be a fan. Whether a fan or not, XIII-2 is worth checking out.
No comments:
Post a Comment