WARNING SPOILERS IN POST

Well, I just beat the game and apparently got the standard ending. After getting 0 starred by the bahamut triplets and seeing that horrible ending I am fairly peeved off. My boyfriend laughing his arse off at it made things even worse.

I'm also really mad about the plot holes. I thought Noel was the only one who could kill Caius without the world going to utter troute? I guess not!

Personally I think XIII-2 is fantastic and obviously has far superior gameplay to 13. I also love the soundtrack, which a lot of people complain about. I think only one track is bad... crazy chocobo. The tracks with the rapping on them were edited and the rapping was removed which saved those tracks and the tracks with the female singers are mysterious and ethereal. Story? Not so much. But I disagree that XIII's is more complex.... XIII-2's is definitely more complex and has more rules to follow so things add up logically, at least in XIII-2's universe.

Problems with the story:

Why do they need to build a new Cocoon? Why cant everyone just move to Pulse?

Why doesn't Caius just kill himself to save Yeul to begin with? Did it really require Noel to point out the obvious? Caius has the Heart of Chaos and he could easily kill Etro by killing himself. The story does point to that being his plan and maybe the time traveling store makes it hard to ask why he didn't do it earlier... maybe in this game there isnt earlier and later, just when. OHH.. but doesnt Caius need Cocoon to fall to kill all those people and cause the gate to chaos to widen so that chaos can be let loose? That's why! But wait! How the heck did Caius manage to succeed in the true ending without doing this first? Supposedly he was going to target the Ark so he could kill all those people but that doesn't happen... but chaos still ends up taking over? wtf?

Anyway, back to that ending. Yeah it especially peeved me off because it tricks you. It starts off as a good ending where everyone is going to be happy but then bam, Serah pulls a Yeul and sees the future and dies.

anyway I found an article where Toriyama explains the ending:

http://www.shacknews.com/article/723...ind-the-ending

Asked about the "to be continued" screen which shows at the game's end, Toriyama explained to Taipei Game Show attendees that there were two reasons for the ending: first, to encourage players to explore all of the various (non-canon) "Paradox" endings; and second, to extend the story through downloadable content.
lol, it's either do the fragment quests or suffer!