WK Plays FFXIII-2

[Wolf Kanno]

Well, this should be interesting. I only ever checked out the demo a long time ago, and I barely remember it outside of something involving fighting Titan.

Wish me luck.

[Loony BoB]

Good luck!

I quite enjoyed the gameplay of this, perhaps the most in the trilogy. It's not the best Pokémon game in the world - that goes to World of Final Fantasy - but it's a good, fun journey that isn't afraid to mix in silly with the serious.

[Fynn]

The one FF that feels like every single aspect of it has been decided by committee. Hope you’re more sane after this than I was!

[Bubba]

I still need to play through the Lightning trilogy. I still have them all for my PS3 but the disc drive is currently buggered...

Good luck!

[Loony BoB]

Oof, I remember when my PS3 drive went tits up. It was after spending a load of time in Assassin's Creed 3 and I subsequently gave up on the game because I couldn't be arsed to replay all that. Never did play the rest of the series...

[Bubba]

Oof, I remember when my PS3 drive went tits up. It was after spending a load of time in Assassin's Creed 3 and I subsequently gave up on the game because I couldn't be arsed to replay all that. Never did play the rest of the series...

Apparently, it's not too tricky to fix if you have the right toolThat's what she said I'm gonna have a go at a repair soon.

Fun fact: FFXIII has some of my favourite pieces of FF music despite me never having played the game.

[Loony BoB]

I sense the growing pain in WK every day he doesn't reply to this thread. ^^;

[Wolf Kanno]

More like dread. I needed a psychological cleanse after FFXIII, so I am replaying BoFII. I'll start it up soonish. I made this thread too soon. ^^;

[Wolf Kanno]

Soonish turned into six months, but better late than never I guess.

So far, this has been a weird game. I'm going to take back any time I've mentioned that Kitase or Nomura dwell on their glory years, I feel Toriyama is the worst about invoking imagery from previous projects. The opening alone has a city being swarmed by weird insect like creatures that are reminiscent of Sin spawn, the big bad buries a girl in water for a eerily similar shot of Cloud burying Aerith, and he even summons a big ass meteor to squash a city. Hell, they even through in a visual similar from Kingdom Hearts, despite only the Lead Scenario Writer and character designer having worked on those.

The game also just feels more like X-2 than I was expecting. Maybe it's the heavy narration or the whiplash of going from a very bare story focused linear experience to one where gameplay is thrown in your face. The dialogue boxes are an interesting choice, but I'm not sure how I feel about the QTE's they added to cutscenes. The other aspect is the reused assets with Gogmagog just being the Orphan asset reskinned and partially used. And of course we get to watch a one-note damsel in distress Serah pull a Yuna and don a very skimpy outfit and wield a weapon that feels a little ridiculous for them to be using, but I'm knee deep into Toriyama's world and its not my place to kink shame him. There is something that feels off about her in-game model, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Due to Sony deciding to hate on early tech that isn't a PS4, my PS3 is no longer capable of using internet, but I imagine the PSN store is shut down anyway, so no DLC for me.

I've beaten the first real boss and seem to have unlocked the Crystarium, which seems to be the inspiration for the Weapon Leveling system in FFVIIR, so that was neat. Game is confusing as hell, and I already feel the first major red flag in the writing is that we're trying to rush into the action of a time travel story, and that shit usually needs some slow burn exposition to get right. I also think having people just develop magic for no reason is a cop out answer, but maybe the plot ill make it work later. I also find it funny how worthless guns are in these games. Even the gun options I used in the opening cinematic was the least satisfying option.

[Loony BoB]

I agree anytime someone complains about QTEs. Not a fan.

I remember not caring much for the protags in this game, buuut I also remember loving the gameplay in general despite that. I also liked the multiple endings (especially the one that had something to do with a flan enemy), and I also liked seeing some of the old gang again.

[Wolf Kanno]

Moving slowly through this, just reached -5 A.F.

The opening is a little longer than I was expecting, but at least setting up stuff. I can't get over how much Noel looks like Squall's kid brother. I also feel like he should be voiced by Richard Cox. The ship tease between the two leads is a bit weird too. Especially since Serah is being very coy about talking about Snow. I'm still very early in the plot, but it was interesting to see NORA get some actual character development since OG thought that these four bumbling around and following Snow was enough.

The search for Artefacts is giving me 'Nam flashbacks to DQVII and looking for Tablet Shards by wandering over all of creation to find them. The CP lock on Accessories is an interesting idea, and I'm guessing it might play into crafting where I can make the same items but at lower CP costs, but we'll see. I am worried that I'm screwing myself a bit with the Crystarium, since it seems ability slots are shared, and so I have to choose which Paradigm Role to make better. I still don't like the skill ranking nonsense, but seeing how I don't have to farm weapon materials and the item drop bonus is very generous, it feels less like a nuisance outside of flubbing a boss battle here and there.

I am still on the fence about the new random encounter mechanic. It's not super annoying yet, but I must say that Serah has the most awkward swing animation for getting preemptive strikes.

New Bonhum honestly feels like something out of Spira. I remember walking around and feeling like I was in some offshoot village near Kiltia or Beseid. I believe its the same team overall (at least the X-2 team I imagine) but amusing none the less and again, showing that Toriyama has particular tastes in his design works. I really don't care for Serah's character design in this game. I think it's the fact she looks twelve and is wearing an outfit that wouldn't look out of place in a conservative lingerie magazine. Hell, even though Noel is older than Squall, I can't help but feel like the dude is fifteen or sixteen for some reason.

So far this meme is turning out to be really true so far...
78237

[Wolf Kanno]

Got some more playtime in. Let's do the classic Pros and Cons list

Pros:

Now that monster collecting has been introduced, the combat system has gotten much better. I like the fact that some monsters have high growth versus others that don't. You can tell they were looking at DQV's mechanics when they decided to do this system because it almost feels the same.
With that said, I am grateful someone on the design team took a look at XIII's monster designs and noted that if we were going to have monster collecting, we're going to need better looking monsters and more variety. I'm almost curious to know if some of these new designs for bosses even are left overs from XIII's development that didn't make the cut...
I feel vindicated that my own suggestion to fix the Crystarium system from XIII was actually used in this game, and it actually does bring more weight to the system.
This game feels like X-2 to me mostly because of the design whiplash of going from a very bare bones game that wanted you to focus on the story presented to a game that is constantly throwing gameplay ideas at you and player choice. I actually screwed myself a bit because I think I jumped to a later sequence early and was having a hell of time with the enemies and boss battles.
I can honestly say I'm feeling more invested in this entry than I was for XIII.


Cons:

Snow really needs his beanie back
I'm annoyed by how hard it is to find a second healer mon, I'm getting to the point where my starter guy is getting expensive to level up.
Why did neither character start with a Medic class, and why is it the second role you can unlock for both of them?
I feel this game has way too many statuses and it' a pain using SAB and SYN roles because they take too long to use in battle. At least it looks like they gave SYN some actual -aga level spells.
This game is surprisingly buggy. Like I know some other entries have their bugs as well, but this is like Ubisoft levels of bugginess. I had a cutscene occur where Serah ended trying to take up the space of another NPC and it was jarring to see. I've also watched Noel teleport a bit because his character was on a ledge and he kept "falling off" so to speak.
Speaking of, the in-game models that are not major characters have some of the most atrocious speaking animations. Depending on the camera angle, it gets into some body horror territory.
Though I'm more invested in the narrative, I can't say I'm in love with Serah and Noel as characters. They are both thankfully not as obnoxious as XIII's cast, and generally look better in comparison every time they interact with one of them, but neither of them are very endearing to me either. They just feel inoffensive at best as opposed to interesting.
While I appreciate that dungeons and story beats are more involving, I do feel like sections over stay their welcome a bit. Like it's not really a deal breaker yet, but it's a little concerning this early into the game, especially since the game is likely going to make me return to every time point at least twice by my estimation. This may be a non-issue, but usually pacing issues happening this early is an indicator that it's going to get worse later.

[Dr. Acula]

I quite like XIII-2, but I agree that the characters aren't all that interesting. Serah and Noel are both pretty bland.

[Wolf Kanno]

Got some more playtime in.

Pros

I feel the two best changes to the battle system are the fact that staggering is purely optional and not a requirement for random encounters. Normal enemies don't have ridiculous HP totals yet, and so I don't usually see them get staggered often since they die before I get there with a few exceptions. The second is that the Monsters have far more variety to team building and though they are stuck to one role, their roles are not as pure as the human characters with magic builds still having a melee attack and vice versa. The Limit Breaks they have are also neat and are thankfully balanced enough to add variety and not break the game.
I also appreciate that these changes to the battle system actually encourages me to change up my Paradigm shifts based on the area I am in, as opposed to OG where there really is an ideal team and paradigm setup that can coast you through the whole game.
Just broke the timeline, so I got to experience my first changed timeline.
Looks like their is a trans-dimensional theme park/casino in the future.
Finally acquired a second medic monster and found my first Sentinel one.
Mog is surprisingly less annoying than I thought they would be.
I still keep chuckling about the Simpsons meme I posted in this thread every time Lightning and her whereabouts are mentioned. Like calm down, you already know where she is, and you know she's more or less fine spending eternity fighting discount Leon.
I already went to the timeline that has all the Chocobo monsters, and I acquired a Commando type, but I kind of want to go back and get the Red Chocobo I encountered and see if they have a Black one as well.
Just as I predicted, some of the crafted accessories give altered bonuses for lower CP cost. I am also happy the game kept the equipment set bonuses from the OG game and seem to have added some skills. I don't know if it will be well implemented yet since I only have a few options at the moment, but it was one of the better ideas from the OG version.


Cons

Oh god, they were not lying when they said Late Bloomer, some of my monsters are in the 20s in terms of level and won't earn another skill for like forty levels. Yeesh... Not helping me is the fact that I don't have access to the item tier to get them much higher at this point, so some of my monsters are stagnating.
The variety of monsters is nice, but it certainly feels like they are not created equally. Like my Chocobo COM is way meaner and more dominating than some. I have a few SAB monsters, but only two really have useful spell selections from the get go. I am probably going to have to consort a guide before I reach the end.
Caius is a cheating bitch. I almost nailed him with little effort in our first fight and he nearly killed my party by pulling off some uber powerful attack at last 10% of his health that crippled my team and gave him like five buffs with another move before he kept alternating between his annoying attacks and this one super attack.
The Yeuls have no personality whatsoever, and I feel that is going to be detrimental down the line when I get to their backstory.
I have reached the first point in the plot where I need to backtrack to figure out where to go next because I've reached the end for a few timeline at the moment. I am also annoyed because I've reached the point where I'm getting side missions that are going to require time-traveling fuckery to complete and I'm likely not far enough along to do any of them.

[Fynn]

I think Serah and Noel’s general dynamics are one of the better parts of this mess of a game. And yeah Serah’s outfit is absolutely weird. Personally, I take less issue with it being stripperific and more its general quality. Her XIII outfit looked like actual clothes someone could wear, whereas this looks like it’s made of plastic, like she’s in cosplay all the time

[Wolf Kanno]

Okay, played quite a bit more. Started and dealt with the Academy stuff and the rogue A.I. I will do my breakdown a little later, I'm pretty tired.

[Fynn]

It is quite a tiring game for sure

[Wolf Kanno]

Okay let's do the breakdown.

Pros

Unlocked the Full ATB Bar attacks and they are neat.
Got a Behemoth as a companion and he's badass, especially with the Buff Feral Link
I liked the rogue A.I./Fal'Cie idea. Gave me a nice Chrono Cross vibe in a good way.
The Snow becoming a l'Cie again plotline is interesting...
I got a Sazh reference.
I feel like Noel's rant about Snow comes from fan feedback the developers coyly put into the game for.
Finally got some mechanical monsters, which is great because I have a crap ton of their leveling materials.
Have most of the skills unlocked for the party.
Surprisingly to even me, Mog and Chocolina have really endeared themselves to me. It helps Mog doesn't talk as much as I thought they would and Chocolina plays in hard to how ridiculous she is.


Cons

The load times in this game are getting a little annoying.
I am also not a fan of some of the DMC inspired battle tracks. I feel less pumped up and more like I'm playing a different game. Not helped one plays with the Snow chapter and h casually looks like he could be Dante's alcoholic half brother.
The Academy dungeon was tedious, an I hated how often enemies would just spawn right on top of you. Not helping is the aggro range for a few of them are a little ridiculous. I almost feel like this dungeon was meant to be some arbitrary leveling bottleneck forced onto the player.
Speaking of dungeons, I am a little annoyed the game is quick to re-use assets. Like I realize now that while I've opened up almost ten timelines, barring the two obvious side content ones of the Coliseum and the Serendipity, I've really only visited maybe five or six actual locations and I've redone three areas twice at this point. Way to use time travel to cut down on the cost of making places. Even more annoying is the Achlytte Steepe zone which has the annoying weather machines to make you the player screw around with it o traverse the same map four different times. Maybe the DMC reference wasn't out of place...
I am annoyed that I can't beat this one Undying Cieth for a mission you get way too early in the game. She has a monstrous amount of health and loves inflicting status effects. I feel like I could possibly beat her now, but the fight would go on for over an hour and I just don't do fights like that anymore.
I'm getting annoyed that some of my monsters have just hit a brick wall in terms of development due to finding it hard to acquire the materials needed to level them consistently. Granted, I think this was partially designed to force me to use different monsters, but I'm quickly falling into Complacent Gaming Syndrome.
Snow being a l'Cie would be interesting if A) 80% of the plotline wasn't hidden behind DLC and supplement materials, and B) If instead of Snow traveling through time too, he was simply traveling the long way, since his l'Cie nature would make that a thing.
I'm a little disappointed that the time traveling of this game is mostly concerned with everything that happened after FFXIII and doesn't let you really explore anything before or during it. Granted there is still time to prove me wrong, and I have a feeling the aforementioned Archlytte Steepe timeline is actually a distant past, speaking of...
I wish the visual diagram of the timeline was more clear. Feels weird sometimes when the game sends me in the past but places me down the line further than the time frame I was in. It just looks visually messy and its messing with my OCD.
Did I just witness Serah pull a Bill and Ted?
You know the XIII universe needs? A proper sociopath. XIII's universe would work so much better if there were a few more sociopaths running around to take the piss out of all this manufactured drama.
I feel like the XIII universe is one of the most Lovecraftian cosmic horror stories in the FF universe, but unlike Lovecrafts idea of fear, the universe is just fucking annoying and shitty to live in because all the god beings are either jerk asses or grossly incompetent at their jobs.


I feel it is safe to say that the honeymoon phase of the FFXIII-2 experience is over. While I'm not quite hating on the game as XIII due to the gameplay being a marked up improvement, I am certainly getting to the point where I wish the game would just get on with it already. I may just skip Lightning Returns and start FFXII after I finish this one.

[Fynn]

Yeah, the time travel in this game always rubbed me the wrong way because it always felt the only reasons it was there was 1) to Reuse assets and 2) Chrono Trigger polled the highest when SE asked the players which of their games people like the most. Except CT is a masterclass of implementing that well and XIII-2 throws it in pretty haphazardly without regard for what really makes stories like that compelling. You never go back into the past in any way shape or form, which is a bummer because I think your past in XIII’s world is way more interesting

I would personally still recommend sticking around for LR. It’s a controversial game, but I personally think it’s the best one of the three by far. In fact, I’d say that it feels like the game the team really wanted to make all along, with XIII-2 feeling like it was made to just quickly hold the fans over while they worked on that, what with the asset reuse and “fan feedback implementation”. It’s also the shortest, and plays he most differently :monster:

[Wolf Kanno]

I have some opinions of what XIII-2 is in the larger picture, but I'll get to that after I finish the game and do my write up.

[Wolf Kanno]

Got a little done last night. Didn't really move the story along, instead I started using Wild Artefacts to open up some optional timelines to dick around in.

Pros

Got a Green Chocobo and it's a pretty snazzy Medic
I kind of like the weird Orb event. Has this eerie quality I quite like, I just wish I didn't have to traipse between two timelines to resolve all of it.
Been playing around with some more Monster Combos and I'm thinking it may almost be time to start playing around the Infusion mechanic, because that right there seems like the easiest way to break this game and I've been ignoring it so far.
I am very grateful that XIII-2 doesn't wait until a mission activates to unlock an item needed for it. The missions in these optional timelines have been fairly easy and straightforward and I've managed to pick up several of the mission item while just looking around the map before I even knew what they were for.
I like the fact the character models change when they are in the snow.
In terms of usefulness, Bellow by the Behemoth is my favorite Feral Link. In terms of just awesomeness, Thousand Hands by my Tomato Flan is my favorite for the Bruce Lee reference.
Now that I've actually gained some more chocobos, I should probably check out Chocobo racing.


Cons

Why did I have to travel almost a hundred years into the future to retrieve a watch? Wouldn't it be practically useless now because of the elements breaking it down?
I'm starting to notice an annoying theme in XIII's universe and it sort of drains all the emotional impact for me.
The other annoying trend in the XIII trilogy so far are people having the worst communication skills. More than any other FF I can think of, I feel like a good chunk of the conflict and "drama" could be resolved if everyone would just sit down and talk to each other.
The Clock Puzzle was incredibly annoying, especially when you stumble upon it at 2am
God, I wish I could figure out where the materials for organic monsters level ups are because my organic monsters, which comprise of like 80% of the monsters I own currently, have all been stuck at the mid 20s range for ages now. Machine monsters would have the same issue, except most of them cap out at Lv. 20 since Early Bloomer is a common trait for all of them.

[Wolf Kanno]

Just a smidge don last night.

Pros

Infusions are definitely the game breaker mechanic. Made my green Chocobo much more useful by teaching them Esuna and giving them some Physical resistance buffs. My Tomato Flan can now cast multiple magic types and also got some nice magic buffs as well. You almost have to do it for Synergist and Sabatuer's since very few of them cover enough of the spell list to do the class justice.
Just figured out you can further customize paradigm sets to be more focused or spread out in their actions. This has turned Ravager into an awesome role for mopping up mobs.
Finished the Giant Cauctar quest.
Discovered the purpose of the Archlyte Steppe weather nonsense is due to the fact the enemies encountered in each weather section drop the leveling items for organic monsters. So I've been farming a little tonight.
Unlocked all the skills for Noel and Serah
Got 5000 coins in slots


Cons

Ugh, getting bored traipsing through four different versions of the Yachis Mansef region for side quests.
That damn Undying optional fight is annoying as hell. Twice now, I've nearly beaten her and all her stupid status magic nonsense, and she still manages to kill me towards the end because I'm guessing she has some kind of attack that does damage based on how many status effects I have on. I will attempt it again, but damn this fight is annoying...
Part of the reasoning being that items suck in this game and unless you're purposely controlling the Medic, they prioritize HP over curing status effects. Hell curing statuses takes forever because unless you know he item in question needed, Esuna and Remedy cure one status in the order they are inflicted instead of some better priority scale like curing Fog first. It's fights like these that shows the weakness of the Paradigm system and the superiority of the Gambit system. But again, XIII has way too many status effects.
I kind of wish the game would let you have a monster slot for every role when making paradigm sets. Would like to add a Sentinel into my grouping because I feel it's the one role that neither Serah or Noel are particularly good at.
I definitely feel like the Sabatuer class has been nerfed in this entry. It just seems like they take forever to inflict statuses on things and whereas most of the other roles seem adequate enough without infusions, the spell list for this role is spread thin among all the monsters within the role, making infusions a must to get something useful out of it. Not helped that the class feels a little underwhelming in this entry. In fact I feel like SYN, SAB and SEN have all been downgraded somewhat in this entry in terms of being useful.
Did not appreciate the weather pattern in the Archlyte Steppe that makes all the enemies into Cieth, including a few that were Undying from XIII.


Anyway, I'm going to play

[Wolf Kanno]

Got some more done

Pros

Finally beat that damn Cieth monster in Yachis Mansef, now I just need to beat the giant Silver Lobo looking beast in the other timeline.
I've almost got half of the available Fragments collected.
Manage to farm the materials needed to make the weapons that increase the ATB gauge speed by 30%.
Finished all four Brain Wizard quizzes. I've also found Captain Cryptic twice.
Obtained Twilight Odin, I just need to return to the Archelyte Steepe to farm the growth materials to level him up because he is a sad boy.
Have all the Roles for Serah and Noel at Lv. 60+
The Vile Peaks scenario was pretty snazzy.
I finally got to see Sazh!!!
My head canon is that Mog's line about the nature of Time Anomaly Puzzle rooms is the staff taking a jab at their superiors and themselves for releasing an incomplete game with the original FFXIII.


Cons

Ugh, I hate the clock puzzle anomaly.
I can't say I'm a huge fan of Academia's layout. The place is fucking huge and I'm annoyed the map doesn't really show vertical perspective very well. Also, why is almost every Fragment connected to a quiz game in this world that involves scrounging around the map?
Ugh, finding Wild Artefacts is a pain. I have at least two more portals that need it to finish the Mog quest and the Graviton Core quest-lines. I can buy one in Serendipity, that involves playing the game. I guess I'll go move the plot along...
I can tell more people on this forum played FFXV than XIII-2. How, you may ask? Because people won't shut up about the blatant DLC pandering of FFXV, but honestly XIII-2 did it first. Oh Snow disappeared, I'll see him later in the plot. Oops, never mind, his story line picks back up in the Coliseum DLC. Oh hey, I found Serendipity, some of the Fragments mention Sazh is here... Nope he's also in the DLC. Say what you will about XV's handling of DLC, at least it told you enough to get the gist of what happened in it and we moved on, but I get to read about Snow and Sazh's adventures on my off time.
I need my OCD to let go and just let me finish this game.

[Wolf Kanno]

Not a very productive night tonight. I completed the mission dealing with the monster Yeul banished and I grind a bit in the Archylte Steepe for awhile. Tried my hand at a few of the monsters hunts that opened up in the area and was obliterated for my trouble. Then I went to Serendipity and spent the rest of the night trying to get some coins in the slots and watched as I lost 6000+ coins that I started with. I thankfully saved before this endeavor, but oh man, I hate slots in gambling mini-games. They are just not fun in real life or virtual. I lost my will to play around this time and called it a night. I may do the auto-play rubber band trick tomorrow night and spend my evening cruising online instead. Maybe get back to work on that FFVII retrospective.

[Fynn]

I like how in DQ the slots are rigged ridiculously in your favor. Other games take notes

[Wolf Kanno]

I like how in DQ the slots are rigged ridiculously in your favor. Other games take notes

That depends on the version you're playing. My PS1 DQVII game definitely doesn't feel like the Slots were ever rigged in my favor.

[Wolf Kanno]

Did a little screwing around. Game is not being subtle about the whole, "While this might not be the end of side content in the game, we've looked at the clock and realized we haven't really been doing much with this overall narrative. So now we're going to cram all the plot into this game right now and railroad you for awhile because that's what I do best! ~ Love Motomu Toriyama" So, I am doing what I can at the moment before plunging into story mode.

Pro

Managed to defeat the Immortal and Ochu in the Archlyte Steepe. Still need to beat the Long Gui and the bargain brand version of XIII's ultimate boss.
Got a Cauctar
Took a few attempts, but got 12,000+ coins in the Casino and the fragment that goes with it. I'm still debating about what to spend it on, but may wait until I get the Bargain Skill after Chapter 5. I imagine by the final chapter, Gil will be useless, so I'll use that to buy coins to purchase all the items I need from Serendipity.


Cons

The Casino in this game sucks and requires way too much work or exploits to get anything going. I'm sort of grateful I can't access the Sahz DLC now.
With that said, trying to hunt down Wild Artefacts to unlock optional zones is annoying and I hate being mocked by the one in Serendipity that I have to purchase for 10,000 coins.
The few fragments I need to grab at this point are either Captain Cryptic's BS, that obnoxious 100% map completion quest in 400AF Academia, killing the last two optional bosses in the Archlyte Steepe, the Casino, or are hidden behind optional zones I can't access yet because of a lack of Wild Artefacts. So yeah... just the tedious annoying shit.
A little annoyed to discover that the Mystic in Serendipity doesn't reward you skills based on how many fragments you've acquired as much as she rewards you for obtaining certain one, mainly story ones.

[Wolf Kanno]

More or less finished Chapter 5 and heading into the final stretch of the game. XIII-2 has officially reached the same point as FFXIII where the more you actually think about what's going on in the plot, the less it makes any sense because the writers didn't quite think the idea through.

I also think FFXIII-2 is the only FF where I've seen a villain get his ass handed to him easily in the battle, only for the cutscene to step in and show the big bad won. I can't actually think of another FF where this occurs as usually the villain will just pull some super move out of their ass (looking at you Beatrix and Kuja) once their HP=0 and the cutscene feels fitting.

I'll do a proper breakdown later, but understand that the rant is coming...

[Fynn]

I am looking forward to it!

[Wolf Kanno]

Okay, let's do a proper breakdown.

Pros:

Finally was able to get the last few map completions for New Bodhum and Vile Peaks.
Got a Gold Chocobo
The Noel Flashback was actually pretty well one. I like the lighting and the music of the area. I liked that is made Serah's outfit red instead of the dark pink it usually is, and sort of wished they had gone with that color scheme instead.
Hey, Vanille and Fang finally got a cameo.
I sort of knew something was up with Alyssa, never trust the new people.


Cons:

Yep, this was an evening of cramming all the plot and what was going on all in one go.
I feel my biggest issue with the monster mechanics is that regardless of class they are, they always start at lv.1 and that is a huge problem. I've obtained on several occasions some cool and rare monster allies, but they mostly sit in my storage bin because despite being like some of the highest class of monster, starting off at lv. 1 with no skills, shitty stats, and requiring very rare XP items I have to grind for to level them up before their costs get exorbitant makes it easier to bench them. I was excited to get Twilight Odin for instance, but it's just going to take too damn long to get him up to speed to make it worth investing in him. I feel an easier solution would have been to make a monsters level synonymous with their class rank, so my Class 4 and 5 monsters should have started at Lv. 40+ so they would have high stats to compensate or not having skills and needing expensive items to get them. I get that infusion was meant to soften this blow, but by endgame, levels do actually matter.
I never noticed until the scene where fake Lightning reaches out her hand, how off the hands look in the in-game character models. Gives me some uncomfortable flashbacks to Xenosaga Episode 2.
I don't want to go into too many details at the moment since I'll likely be leaving this rant for the final overview, but XIII-2's plot has an FFX problem, by which I mean I find the rules of the scenario to be contrived, and even with those limitations, I can't help but feel like there were simpler solutions to a lot of the problems in the story so far. Etro, especially, is the cause of all the issues in the plot and even she could have actually reduced some of those issues if she was actually smart instead of creating even more contrived problems. Hell the logic of the scenario sort of zaps a lot of the sympathy I could have garnered for Caius, since it's his own actions that are really causing a Yeul murder spree at the moment.
I can definitely say for a fact that knowing the ending to this game already makes it harder to actually care about any problems in the story. Like I already know this is a Shaggy Dog plot.

[Fynn]

I will also concede the Noel flashback was well done. Great atmosphere with the light and shadows

[Wolf Kanno]

Holidays are always a stressful time and I tend to travel a bit, so I haven't had much time to play. I've mainly been revisiting the time periods from the previous chapter so I can collect their fragments and hopefully find a Wild Artefact or two. I do have one so far, but I need to do some research before I haphazardly use it because I'm hoping to get to a time period that has another Wild Artefact so I can keep this going.

I will say that while the OST of this game has been generally underwhelming to me, mainly because it feels like it's trying too hard to be Persona, but I will say the most effective track so far has certainly been Noel's Theme. I'm happy its just the map theme for his time period.

Made some upgraded weapons with a high ATB recharge and even managed to get some Hermes Sandals. Maxed out both characters starting roles and now working my way down. I'll likely try to take down the last few optional bosses in the Pulse timeline. I'm aware the next time period (Academia 500AF) is pretty much the game's final dungeon, so I'm going to try and do a few things before heading there.

[Fynn]

You’ve braved a touch road but you’re almost there!

[Wolf Kanno]

I feel I've come to the end of what I can do. I mean I could use a guide to track down more Wild Artefacts but I feel I've reached the end of my interest in this game and it's time to put it to rest.

Pros:

Finished Mog's quest and it was cute.
If I was a little more stubborn, I could probably beat the Long Gui superboss. I came close a couple times tonight and I feel if I just upgraded my weapons (didn't realize I would get a whole new set of options in the final dungeon) I could probably beat him.
The final dungeon so far feels like a remix of the OG game's final dungeon.
Collected a few more fragments and I'm at 125/160, which I don' t think is really bad considering I wasn't going for a perfect game or anything.


Cons:

Oerba and its stupid puzzle anomalies are obnoxious. The clock one is the worst, but the picture one is also annoying because the devs make you do twice as many of them.
The final dungeon has seen a serious difficulty uptick. The large group of mini-Orion enemies are annoying, but the worst is that wolf monster that inflicts status effects and casts Thundara on itself to damage your team while healing himself. I imagine now is the time I should go back and look at my accessories options to see what I can do.
I can't say I'm impressed with the final dungeon so far. The platforming is interesting, but visually it's a little underwhelming and the music isn't really that good either.
Like FFX and X-2 before it, XIII-2 has a bad habit of giving you variety in the most tedious ways possible. The last few fragments I need to collect are connected to the map quest, the casino, or tracking down Captain Cryptic. All of which are not very fun.

[Psychotic]

I will say that while the OST of this game has been generally underwhelming to me, mainly because it feels like it's trying too hard to be Persona, but I will say the most effective track so far has certainly been Noel's Theme. I'm happy its just the map theme for his time period. Agreed on all counts. I've been playing a lot of Theatrhythm FBL lately and can't really get into doing much of the XIII trilogy, but Noel's Theme is a really, really nice song and the standout from XIII-2.

[Wolf Kanno]

Okay, so I buckled and I did more sidequest stuff. Discovered the last Wild Artefact was in the casino and used it to reach Bresha Ruins 100 AF so I could tie up a bunch of loose ends.

Killed the two optional bosses in the Archlyte Steepe. The Long Gui turned into a bigger ordeal than I would care for because I tried to use a more defensive paradigm set and while it eventually worked, it made the fight way more tedious because I couldn't get him to hit the Stagger gauge when I took out his feet. The fight lasted so long he killed Serah with Doom but it's pretty useless in this game.

Checked out Yomi and managed to beat him as well thanks to poison. The real kicker was discovering he gives a on of gil, so assuming I don't grind levels for my monster party, I may finally use a reverse time trick on this place o fight him again and earn some more gil. The reasoning being that I can just convert the gil to Coins to buy he three main fragments from Serendipity. This feels like a more solid plan than trying to rig the slot machines.

The last thing to do is track down stupid Captain Cryptic and earn the last three ranks. If I mange to get all that done, I think the only fragments left will be the silly map and bestiary ones.

At his point Noel and Serah have three, close to four, of their roles maxed out. I feel it's safe to say that Caius is no going to know what hit him...

[Wolf Kanno]

Still cleaning up side quests. Maxed out all he roles for both Serah and Noel. Managed o finish Captain Cryptic with some serious luck as he mainly appeared in the same area for most of the searches. I also managed to complete the silly map side quest as well and earned enough gil to buy all he tokens needed for all the special fragments at Serendipity. I think I need sixteen more Fragments to finish the game, and while I'm sure I'll earn one in he final battle, with the exception of the bestiary quest, I'm pretty sure I've collected all I can without beating the game. I did kind of want to make the last set of final weapons for Serah and Noel, but I may finally just call it quits here. I'm literally in front of the final boss room, so I should suck i up and just finish the game at this point.

[Wolf Kanno]

And done. I'll probably do a final analysis once I've gathered my thoughts, but I'll do a final Pro/Cons list.

Pro:

SAZH!!!!!!
I guess I can go for the Paradox Endings now if I wanted.
Captain Cryptic wasn't as annoying as I thought it would be.
Oh hey, they stole the final boss fight from Trials of Mana's Zable Fahr boss fight...
I like the final boss form of Bahamut far better than the normal XIII version.


Con:

Thank god I already had a heads up for the ending, because it sucked.
Okay, to be fair with he game, I was stupidely over-leveled for the final boss battles, but overall, I found them really underwhelming and wonder why we had to fight Caius in his human form twice in a four stage boss battle. Even weirder is that I found the battles in the final dungeon a bit more challenging than the final boss gauntlet. That one fight with the souped up Behemoth with the annoying cat monsters that resist everything and debuff were more difficult overall.
They may have stolen he overall design of the Zable Fahr boss battle from Trials of Mana, but they certainly toned it down. Even with being over-leveled, the fight was pretty calm and I was surprised the boss didn't immediately revive he other two Bahamut's after I killed them both. Overall, the fight was just a level scaled version of the Fal'Cie Adam boss battle.
The final dungeon was disappointingly simple.
I have lots of opinions about the plot overall.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well this was an interesting experience. The one question I've been asked about it a lot is how it stacks up against FFXIII properly. The short answer is that with the exception of world building and music, I felt it was overall, better than XIII, but still a so-so title. The long answer will likely be the rest of this post.

I remember after XIII was released that one of the developers mentioned that FFXIII had enough cut content that they could make another game, and I am of the opinion that XIII-2 is that game. Barring the battle system. The locations, enemies, and other mechanics all feel like places and stuff from the original game. New Bohdum pretty much looks like he one seen in XIII. I wouldn't know because we never got to explore it, but it looks the same just playable and with a new sky line. The various Pulse locations feel like areas that got cut for one reason or another. Atlas was the Titan fight that got cut from the original game. Gogmagog is a reskinned Orphan. Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if Noel's design was based off an unused design of Fang back when she was still a man in the planning stage. Even Serah is playable and considering she was a cut playable character from XIII originally, I be they re-used what hey had done for her play-style. About he only things that feels like they were new was things were tied to DLC like Serendipity and the Colosseum, and of course our three new characters of Alyssa, Caius, and Yeul. I find it amusing that while Caius' design was based off Amano's character design of Leon from FFII, bu Yeul is seriously sporting an outfit that is easily inspired by Yuna's gunslinger outfit from X-2. I'm no saying that re-using or using assets that were cut is a bad hing here, but I was more annoyed that XIII-2 didn't really have that many unique locations. I mean thankfully i wasn't a complete re-use of XIII's locations, we only got o see Vile Peaks and Oerba again, but i felt like the devs took he six or seven locations they cut out and simply applied a sky box weather filter to split the difference so hey could only need o use assets that were already finished. Even the weather mechanic was something XIII played with but never utilized very well, and I can't say XIII-2 succeeded either, but I get the feeling it was something he original team had wanted to do in XIII that simply got toned down o a gimmick because the direction of the game made it no worth it.

The battle system saw the most positive improvements in my mind. Making Stagger a less important mechanic in normal battles, a more restrictive role system that makes you really need to plan out party composition, and the monster collecting aspect made the battle system feel more zippy, tactical where it needed to be, and overall it felt less like a mindless chore since I wasn't just switching back and forth between staggering and healing. Hell, once you start unlocking the -ara and higher tier of spells, a full RAV team could easily mop the floor of trash mobs in a few seconds, making grinding more bearable. The monster system was a neat idea and felt like it took some ideas from DQV. My biggest issues with it was the fact that monsters required items to level up. Sure it gave you something o do with gil, but i made some of the Late Bloomer classes a no-go because their stats took forever to catch up. Twilight Odin is an example of a monster that looks cool and I wanted to use, but grinding expensive leveling materials for mediocre returns because the real gains wouldn't kick in until he was in the 70+ range was just a chore. Hell, if my one fave RAV monster didn't have a weakness o a certain element that became very dominant by endgame, I would have used him for the final battle. Instead, I switched him out for a late game monster I found that was an early peaked type, but had better stas with 100+ in all his stats compared o my old monster, twice the HP, and no discernible weakness with comparable skills. It just kind of sucked to invest a lot in a monster only to pick up one a few hours later that was better in almost every way. Kind of reminded me of why I never liked FFX's weapon system, but I'll get to that rant when I get to that playthrough. I was also not a huge fan of the random encounter mechanic. It managed to make random encounters more annoying since some maps were simply designed for you to get into a fight whether you wanted to or no. And it got really annoying in Augusta Tower or Academia 400 AF where you are trying to either figure out where to go or solving a puzzle and getting interrupted every seven to ten seconds by monsters spawning on op of you in narrow corridors or having such a massive aggro zone that running was pointless. I did like how the Crystarium was re-imagined, and was amused that someone in the dev team came to the same conclusion I did that it would be better to choose a role to level up every level up instead of just have static roles to arbitrarily level.

In terms of the narrative... Well it's certainly a Toriyama/Watanabe collab with all the issues that brings. To get the positives out of the way: All of the major characters were either likable or inoffensive. No one was really grating even if the dialogue go a bit pretentious by the end. Even returning characters I wasn't in love with were surprisingly more decent in this game with Hope getting special note here since I can't stand him in the first game and he's actually not a bad character here. I do feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities here. Alyssa is probably the poster child as her motive and story arc is really interesting, but never gets any real pay off outside of a paradox ending you may never bother to see if you weren't in love with the game. Her and Fal'Cie Adam would have been more interesting as protagonists of the plot. Not that Caius is a bad villain, my friend certainly over-hyped him and I feel he falls short in a lo of areas, but to his credit, he would be a great villain if XIII-2's plot didn't run on stupidity. I will not mourn Etro's death in the XIII trilogy, in fact If I had the ability in the game to follow her to whatever afterlife awaits people outside of the Unseen Realm, I would follow her there and kill her again because this goddess is the cause of like 90% of the problems in XIII's world. Everything about Caius' story just feels contrived. He's immortal, but he can actually be perma killed (well sort of) and have his powers passed on to someone else but how do we even know this? And why is Noel the only candidate? You mean to tell me after a thousand years of living only Noel measured up? Likewise, why did Etro give Caius her heart? The easiest solution to this whole tragedy was for her to give Yuel the heart. I mean the girl is suppose to die young anyway, might as well just make her immortal so she doesn't have to deal with this reincarnation bulltrout and then she wouldn't really need a bodyguard. Likewise, why are we protecting Yeul to begin with if she's fated to die anyway? Why are we collecting her prophecies? Apparently it was a Fal'Cie thing but we're not given a real explanation. We also never get a real reason as to why Serah was given the Eyes of Etro either. What made her special compared to say... Dajh who was in the same boat as her in FFXIII?

The whole tragedy of the story just feels so manufactured. The whole Coccon thing was also just silly. Like I can understand the initial Fal'Cie Adam thing where yes, the easiest solution would be o turn the power on back in Coccon to get it to fly, but wouldn't the next best solution be to just get rid of it altogether? You mean to tell me that in 500 years and with Jetson level tech, humanity couldn't have just dismantled most of it and tactfully destroy the rest? Likewise, what was the point of the second Cocoon? Like I get that we need to save all he people who decided that making their city right beneath a death trap, but again, you had 500 years to move humanity to the other side of the planet, and again, you could have destroyed it piece meal style to reduce the environmental impact. And don't give me this, "we had to protect Vanille and Fang, the ending clearly shows they could just go in and secure their crystal cores to keep them alive. There were so many easier solutions with plenty of time to resolve the issue. Why did we have to pick the most contrived solution?

Likewise, the returning characters not named Hope were disappointing in how little screen time they had and how a lot of their own plotlines were locked away in DLC. XV ges trout on for doing the same thing, but I would argue it's a lot worse here since I don't know what he hell was going on with Sazh, Snow just bowed out halfway through the plot and went bumming in an arena, and Lightning's biggest character moment happens off screen unless you had the DLC. The service model design of this game does it no favors, especially since it also has the cardinal sin of having all he best shi in in for gameplay as well meaning its a bit pay to win as well.

The music was also not great. Felt like they were trying too hard to be like Persona with the vocal tracks everywhere. The lone exception is Noel's Theme, which is not only a great track, bu the original sequence it plays in is certainly a high point of the game. The rest was forgettable, with the exception of the returning tracks of which I am never going to be rid of that awful Sunlyth Waterscape theme I don't like.

Overall, I found the gameplay to better than the first game despite still having some issues. The characters are okay, but the plot is still melodramatic garbage. I find the most fascinating part of the game is the design that feels like the team trying to see how much they could do with leftover assets. Suffice to say, I'm now dreading going into the final game in the series, especially since Lightning looks to be going full edge lord. XIII had an interesting premise, bu the games have gone in so many bad directions, that I find it hard to believe there is any way to salvage it for me at this point. I guess I'll just have to take the plunge and find out I guess.

[Fynn]

I keep repeating, Lightning Returns is the best one. It’s the most unique, at the very least, so you really need to play it to see it. You might just like it. I ended up genuinely enjoying myself for the only time in this disaster trilogy

[Wolf Kanno]

We'll see how it goes. I'm already dragging my feet by obsessing over FF:Opera Omnia. ^^;

[Loony BoB]

I keep repeating, Lightning Returns is the best one. It’s the most unique, at the very least, so you really need to play it to see it. You might just like it. I ended up genuinely enjoying myself for the only time in this disaster trilogy
I'd say they all are really unique and have their own pros and cons. Personally, I take XIII for the characters, XIII-2 for the gameplay, LR for... the story? Maybe. I must admit LR didn't stick in my memory as well as the others did.