By Sam Coles:
What Sam is reviewing another J-RPG? Stop the
presses! Yes I am reviewing another J-RPG a continuation of the last one I
reviewed because I enjoy the genre these days as I’ve matured into an older
gamer. Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a great sequel with a good story although it can
get confusing in places because of the time travel aspect, but overall a great
experience which I’ll get into.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 starts with Lightning in battle
and she has become a godly figure with her Nordic armour and fittingly the
place she is in is Valhalla. The space time continuum has been torn a sunder so
she sends Noel who is from the future to find her sister Sera to bring her back
to Valhalla. I have to say once again the voice acting and performances in this
saga is fantastic I love Lightning as she is a total bad arse who doesn’t take
any prisoners and doesn’t let anyone push her around. Sera’s character
development is great as well because she starts off being too dependent on her sister
and she then grows into a strong woman who can look after herself.
The gameplay is more or less the same but it has
been tweaked to be more streamlined compared to the original title and I must
say combat flows better in this game compared the original title. They cut out
a lot of the animations that really annoyed me in Final Fantasy XIII especially
when you change paradigm shifts it doesn’t bother with the over long animation
it just changes the style. How you engage in battles has changed because the
enemies aren’t wandering around the area like before, but instead it’s like the
old random encounter system but you have a chance to strike and get a pre-empted
strike which will also give a speed advantage when attacking. I prefer the
battle system in this game compared to the last game because it doesn’t out
stay its welcome.
The crystarium makes a return for the levelling up
system, but again it has been streamlined to make it easier to level up each
paradigm so you don’t have to wait a certain amount of time to go over level 3
you can level up as much as you want if you have the XP points.
Graphically it’s on par with the original game with
added polish with superb animations and beautiful vistas to explore. The
character models still look great with unique looks to them and quirks. The
soundtrack is beautiful once again I have to listen to the music that plays at
the main menu before I even contemplate starting the game it’s that good.
The only problem I have with this game is that the
frame rate can dip in a few places, one part where I noticed it the most was
during episode two where it was raining and the frame took a hit because of the
intense weather effects. It didn’t happen too often so it didn’t sour my
experience.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a great experience and I
would highly recommend picking it up as it’s super cheap these days on Xbox 360
and PS3. Thank you Kim for getting me into these games they’ve opened up a new
path in gaming for me I appreciate it.
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