So, Final Fantasy XIII gets a sequel. Or, is it more of an FFXIII 'mark two'? The number 2 in the title, next to the franchise’s traditional Roman numerals, seems to suggest more than just a follow-up to 2010’s FFXIII. As well as signifying the game’s two central characters, perhaps it also alludes to a second attempt; an undertaking by Square Enix to address some of the more scathing criticisms of its predecessor. So, how does it fare?

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Square Enix

Unlike previous instalments, Final Fantasy XIII-2 features a surprisingly small cast of characters. Just two are playable throughout: Serah Farron, sister of previous protagonist Lightning, and her back-to-the-future companion Noel Kreiss. Both are equally important to the story, ensuring that neither feels like a sidekick, but they are too similar for any drama to arise from a clash of personalities, opinions or ideals. Interaction with some of the more colourful characters of the previous game serves only to make you long for one to join your party to inject a stronger personality into the numerous cut scenes.

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The central themes of loss, redemption and hope are woven through a grander framework of time travel, which itself offers up interesting examples of good intentions distorted by time and best laid plans gone awry. Throughout, it’s necessary to visit certain locations at multiple points on the timeline, where you witness how past actions shape the future and explore how changing the future alters the past. Keeping you up to speed is a montage that recaps the events that led to your current time and place and runs each time you load a saved game.

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The Historia Crux serves as a hub, albeit in diagram form, the structure of which displays the branching paths of time and offers clues to alternative routes. It also details the number of time gates and how many of 160 fragments – awarded for completing story missions and side quests – have been discovered at each location. Although the time-travel mechanic provides game play and narrative variety, there’s often not enough to distinguish the different time periods from an aesthetic perspective, making many of the areas feel like different locations on a map rather than different locations in time.

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FFXIII-2’s combat system closely follows that laid out in FFXIII, in which you assign roles to your characters that can be pre-set and switched between on the fly. The six roles include the hard-hitting Commando, magic-wielding Ravager, de-buffing Saboteur and defensive Sentinel. Both Serah and Noel can fulfil any combination of these roles, while the third space in your battle-party is filled by one of the many monsters that you recruit throughout your journey. Each monster also has a specific role, further multiplying the number of combinations available during the ebb and flow of battle.

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The goal of many battles is to combine the combat roles to fill up an enemy’s Chain Meter. This renders an enemy staggered and allows for massive amounts of damage to be dealt to them; imperative for boss and mid-to-high-level random encounters. It makes for a compellingly deep system, built on principles broadly similar to those found in an MMO, but with more flexibility. The adaptation and quick reactions often required to succeed make for exciting climaxes to battles that, aside from one or two cheap bosses, leave you feeling satisfied rather than just relieved when you earn your victory.

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Merchants were sadly absent in Final Fantasy XIII, replaced instead by cold lists of items at Save stations. Square Enix looks to have taken feedback on this particular omission to heart and more than makes up for it with Chocolina, a time-travelling pedlar who appears in almost every area of the game. Whilst she doesn’t refresh her inventory nearly enough and some will dislike her for being just too peculiar, her off-beat sunny disposition and occasional in-jokes frequently boost a weary time-traveller's spirits and raise a wry smile. She’ll undoubtedly be a hit at future cosplay events, too.

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Perversely, the introduction of one of the series’ most colourful merchants comes in the same game in which traditional Final Fantasy items such as potions and Phoenix Downs become largely redundant, thanks to the effectiveness and variety of the Crystarium levelling system. Upgrading roles by spending points earned in battle opens up new abilities, allowing Serah and Noel to excel in the roles you choose to assign to them. Your monster companions are upgraded using materials bought from Chocolina which, aside from an occasional weapon purchase, is likely to be what keeps her in business.

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Square Enix

Final Fantasy has long been known for its high-quality but numerous and lengthy cinematic cut scenes. Here, the option to skip them is a welcome one but with a tighter script they could’ve been less intrusive and more engaging. Perhaps the writers feared the time-travel mechanic would scramble people’s brains, but it’s all too common for one character in a scene to attempt to summarise what another has just finished saying. Concise descriptions of events might have been more appropriately confined to the Datalog section, which holds information about people, places, monsters and a summary of the previous game.

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Square Enix has succeeded in its attempts to create a more open game world than that of its forebear; options for exploration are available after just a handful of hours. But elsewhere, the developer seems ill at ease to let players run loose without verbose exposition accompanying each significant action. Furthermore, some key narrative events will elicit acute feelings of disappointment, rather than the keen anticipation that was probably intended. These misgivings don’t entirely undermine the intelligent time travel plot-device or the intrigue of the end-game but they do detract from what might otherwise have been an unreservedly celebrated sequel.

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