Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC Review

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For any of you who have decided to join in the fun with EoFF Plays Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 to get ready for the release of Lightning Returns, you may be interested in learning a little more about the Downloadable Content (DLC) which has been released for XIII-2. If you've not played Final Fantasy XIII-2 before and are interested in learning more about the main game, my review can be found here.


Final Fantasy XIII-2 has four kinds of DLC:
- Story Episodes
- Coliseum Battles
- Costumes
- Weapons


This overview shall focus on the story episodes and Coliseum battles due to the nature of the other two types of DLC. The costumes are purely cosmetic and do not impact the game play at all. The weapons hold little to no advantage to what can be acquired early on in the game, and they quickly become obsolete.


Story

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Sazh's Story: Heads or Tails?
$4.99


Heads or Tails was the first of the story DLC released for Final Fantasy XIII-2. This episode follows Sazh who has mysteriously appeared in the floating casino of Serendipity. Upon arriving to the casino, Sazh finds that he has been separated from his son, Dajh. He meets the mysterious owner of the casino who tells him that he must gamble in order to find Dajh.


For the most part, the gameplay of this episode consists solely of participating in the mini games in the casino. Like in the main game, you can spend time on the slot machines or bet on the Chocobo races. However, this DLC does add a little more variety in the form of two card games: Serendipity Poker and Chrono Bind. Serendipity Poker is just a simple, functional poker game. Chrono Bind is a card game designed more specifically for XIII-2. At first glance, it is an overly complicated game of hearts. If you follow the tutorial and play a few games, it becomes pretty easy to grasp and is actually quite fun. Aside from gambling, there is also a short side mission involving fetching Chocobo chicks for Chocolina. After completing the main story, you will gain the ability to use Sazh as a Synergist in the main game.


While you may be excited to have an episode with Sazh, the story is pretty uninteresting and unrewarding. Costing $5, it will probably take less than an hour to complete this DLC. I would say skip this DLC and read up on the story online.

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Lightning's Story: Requiem of the Goddess
$4.99


Requiem of the Goddess follows Lightning's battles against Caius and serves to expand upon the ending of the game. As such, the whole scenario contains spoilers about the ending of the main game and should not be played until after beating the main game.


Whereas the gameplay in Sazh's DLC existed solely in mini-games, Lightning's DLC is completely encompassed by battles. While the battle system in this DLC is essentially the same as the main game, they do play out a bit differently. Your only party member is Lightning, and she has seven roles exclusive to the DLC which she can switch between. These roles are similar to the roles already found in XIII-2, but their abilities have been tweaked to accommodate Lightning being the only party member. The battles are actually a lot of fun and challenging, requiring you to think differently from the way you battled in the main game. Upon completion, you will be able to use Lightning as a Commando in the main game.


Despite the fact that the DLC does expand upon the story of the main game and contains fun battles, it holds some of the same flaws as Sazh's DLC. At $5, it's only going to provide you a couple of hours gameplay, and this gameplay can get pretty repetitive. There are only two battles to be found in this DLC, and you are forced to continually replay (and lose) in these battles in order to level up Lightning until she is able to defeat the enemies with a 5-star rating. It is worth getting if you want to see more of the story and to be able to fight as Lightning, but you may come away disappointed with the shortness of the experience.


Coliseum


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The Coliseum DLC is probably what you are already expecting. Each piece of DLC provides a fun, challenging battle against 1 or more enemies. Just like with battles in the main game, you gain the small chance of capturing each enemy's monster crystal to aid you in battle with the main game. These enemies rang from throwbacks to the original XIII to cameos from other Final Fantasy games. Unfortunately, most of these enemies require you to be very high leveled in order to beat them, which means you'll probably already have beaten the game by the time you take on these challenges.


The names and price of each DLC, the enemy you can capture, and their roles are as follows:


Bringer of the End - $2.99 – Omega – Commando
Operation XIII-2 - $2.99 – Lightning and Amodar – Ravager and Commando
A Study in Elegant Death - $2.99 – Jihl Nabaat - Saboteur
Uninvited Invertebrate - $3.99 – Ultros and Typhon – Synergist and Commando
Clash on the Big Bridge - $3.99 – Gilgamesh – Commando
Take me to Your Leader - $1.99 – PuPu – Medic
Perpetual Battlefield - $3.99 – Snow and Valfodr – Sentinel and Ravager


Whether you should get any of the Coliseum DLC is a hard thing to say. Each of the battles are challenging and incredibly fun, probably more so than any battle in the main game. The only one of these Coliseum battles that adds to the story is Perpetual Battlefield, but even that one simply adds a tiny bit of interaction between Snow and Serah. If you just want to invest in one Coliseum battle, the Gilgamesh DLC is probably the most fun. Not only is the battle challenging and the character of Gilgamesh pretty hilarious, but you are also treated to an awesome arrangement of the song Clash on the Big Bridge.


Concluding Thoughts
In the end, none of the DLC are essential to own except possibly the Requiem of the Goddess, but even then you could find videos of the story or read about it online. If you want to add some length to your XIII-2 experience, though, everything except the Sazh DLC will provide a lot of enjoyment. If you just want to buy it all but don't want to pay $33, you can also purchase the Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC Bundle Pack for $16.99. This includes all of the previously mentioned DLC, and it even has most of the costumes and weapons!


Have you already tried some or all of the DLC? Please share your thoughts below!

Nice overview of all the DLC. I purchased it for my current playthrough. I'm gonna have to disagree about the uselessness of the weapons, though. Some of the physical stats may be trumped by other weapons but I like the passive skills of increased ATB charge rate and increased chain bonuses :)

How early on are you using those weapons? Part of my problem might have to do with the fact that I didn't get the DLC until pretty late in the game. Probably skews my perception of them a bit. They do look pretty cool, though.

I will say that I still think they aren't worth purchasing outside of acquiring them through the DLC bundle. I never wished the weapons in the game were more powerful or had better abilities just because of how easy the game is in general.

If anyone does want the weapons, they can be had for only $1 a piece, which is at least a better deal than the $3 you'd spend for the costumes (which don't effect gameplay at all.)

I bought the DLC bundle right at the start of my playthrough. So I equipped them almost from the get go.

I've got to say I really like the outfits as an aesthetic change. Since I bought the bundle I didn't even pay attention to their stand alone price, but it was a nice change from the original outfits which I saw for the whole playthrough I did when the game came out.

I think Serahs Style and Steel outfit is available for free from the xbox and PSN store for those who don't want to drop the extra bucks ;)

Great article Scotty! Very informative, I enjoyed it!

I bought the Sazh Heads or Tails DLC. It was a cute story I thought and I had fun. Having Sazh in the party wasn't too great - although he has high HP, because you need the higher level items to go through his Crystarium he doesn't learn many abilities and so isn't as great a SYN as I'd hoped.

Yeah, Sazh isn't really worth having in your party outside of just wanting to see him there for the reasons you mentioned, Psychotic. He's probably okay if you go through Heads or Tails early on, though. By the end of the game, when I got all of the DLC, there were already better SYN in my party.

If the lightning DLC is meant to make the ending understandable, then it should have been part of the actual game. I'll just go ahead and consider the ending to be exactly what the game i bought showed me to be. This is akin to selling me a book and purposely tearing out the last page of it for so to have me buy it later. That trout simply doesn't fly with me.

It honestly doesn't add too much. I agree in general that it should have been a part of the main game. You can always look up the cutscenes to get that extra content, though; especially if you are planning on getting Lightning Returns and if the stuff in the Lightning DLC might play into that game.

Out of principle I would say I'd get 13-3 and then complain about an unfinished story, but I'll probably end up watching it on yt or something. I'm not going to buy 13-3 until I can get it for less than half of a new game anyway, and I don't think that will take a very long time.