If I had a nickel for every time travel RPG I played in 2024 I would have two nickels
This is a game that I’ve been meaning to play for a good long while now. I beat the first XIII in… 2020, if Steam is correct, so it’s been quite a gap between this and that. I liked XIII-1 (as I will heretofore refer to it) well enough. It was one of the first FFs I was ever exposed to (alongside XI and FFTA), so in my quest to play all the mainlines, it was a high priority at the time. I liked the main party, I liked the world, I was Not Great at the combat (fuck Barthandelus), and overall I definitely didn’t hate it as much as the general public did/does. Subsequent entries that I played left more of an impact/a higher positive impression on me, however. I think the two biggest reasons for that are 1. I was bad at the combat so it was hard and 2. It didn’t really have a strong supporting cast and villains to me.
XIII-2, I feel like it centered itself around being everything that XIII-1 was not; and overall, I think it very much worked. Let’s talk about why!
Real quick I just want to get my biggest complaint out of the way and it is something that I do not hold against the game itself at all I hold it against Square; the PC port sucks shit. I had to mod it to make it playable. What The Fuck. It didn’t run as good as it should, and sometimes it would break and I’d have to reset and lose my progress! Square: fix your shit you small indie company
anyways:
XIII-1, as everyone probably knows at this point, is a linear game. It’s also a slow burn type of game; you very gradually get all your stuff and your party together as you run through Cocoon, and when you land on Pulse is when the game really opens up. The game is gogogogo all the way forward no looking back, which to be fair works narratively.
XIII-2 is not that at all. When it comes to the battle system and your paradigms and all that, you’re pretty much thrown right into it from the start. You have your whole party of 2 people, the crystarium is good to go, it feels like the game is saying “yeah you know what this is go do it”. When it comes to the levels/story, yes it’s technically linear, but as this is a time travel game, it’s split up into different levels of different areas at different times that you can move back and forth freely and can even reset and replay if you need/want, which is really cool! I loved it. Also, on top of your 2 characters, the game has a whole monster collecting/leveling bit that works as the 3rd member of the party.
I think when it comes to the battle system, I jived with it a lot more than XIII-1. There’s a couple factors that make this;
And as I mentioned up above, I really did like the “world map” (time map) that the game operated on. Nothing was truly missable, I could grind, I could go back and get monsters that are apparently broken, and because of the nature of this being a time travel game, the fact that you would go back and forth between the same location was really fun and honestly something you Have to do if you wanna make this style of game work.
Couple other things I appreciated: The fragments. Having tidbits of lore or funny dialogue behind these side quests felt really nice, and a good way to more naturally tie the datalog into the actual flow of the gameplay. Also, how the random encounters worked, and the Mog Clock. Even though it’s the classic RPG random battle, it lets you actually react properly to it. You can attack early, or run away. Yet it also takes what XIII-1 had with different enemies behaving differently in the overworld. You see a lobo spawn and you think “yeah I’m not running away from this let me get the preemptive attack.” It actually adds skill to what is classically completely random. Although the slashing and attacking is a little clumsy.
However, as in anything, there are flaws. I have 2 major ones: the Crystarium, and monsters. The Crystarium is THEORETICALLY cool. It’s a chill, manual way to level which is always very fun, and a part of XIII-1 that I really enjoyed. However, every move you make is PERMANENT. It is SO EASY to accidentally fuck up your whole build by pressing one button and then you have to either deal with the consequences which can lead to you not being able to do some of the endgame content, or reloading which means Numbers% progress is gone. Like, at least it could have given a confirmation, or an animation of it moving ala XIII-1, or what it should have been; The Option To Fucking Go Back While You’re Leveling. Because the game just throws you into the meat, it’s SO EASY to fuck it all up from the start without truly understanding, which is what happened to me. I had to reload a couple times before I could really start. Monsters also have this issue, but it’s a little better because you can just get another guy so it’s not nearly as permanent. I can’t get a new Noel (it’s a time travel game I should be allowed to get a new Noel); no, the problem with monsters, and I don’t have a solution for this I just know I didn’t like it, was the drop chance and the materials needed. Just… fucking drop the monster I want. And then I gotta find the singular monster that is the only source of endgame crystals for my guy and he never spawns and even when he does and even if I beat him and get 5 stars I still might not get the thing; it was annoying, I hated it, those are my major problems with the gameplay that actually felt like they impeded my experience. Other than that though, XIII-2 is ABSOLUTELY an overall improvement over XIII-1.
I remember seeing complaints about the story before I played it, so I was nervous going in. But honestly? I liked it. I often saw people say “oh it retconned the ending of XIII” but like; yes. That was the point. Time broke and despite that ending happening, Serah was the only person who could recall it. Yeah, sure, time travel isn’t for everyone and it’s fucky, but I enjoyed it and I actually felt like it was solid and understandable all the way through, which is a big achievement for a JRPG lmfao, especially the sequel to a pretty confusing entry.
Another really big plus in XIII-2’s favor is having a really good villain. The fal'Cie were kinda all over the place and I never found my fit, but Caius was enthralling. I COMPLETELY understood his motivation, his pain, and not to mention: he fuckin won. He got exactly what he wanted. I think Caius alone is the biggest reason why I enjoyed this story so much.
I really enjoyed the nature of paradoxes. Sure, it might not be the traditional definition of what a paradox is, but it was a nice overarching explanation. Time fucked up. This is why things is bad. This also leads to some really cool interactions of changing the past and future, as well as them all being interconnected. My personal favorite bit is in Augusta Tower 200AF when Serah and Noel are fighting the artificial fal'Cie; and the thing that saves them is Serah getting so frustrated with Hope that her feelings go through time, causing Hope to never start the project in the first place, leading to Adam not being able to throw itself into a Garland loop. I fuckin loved that bit so much.
As for things I didn’t care for as much: I think the concept of Chaos was a little hard for me to wrap my brain around; what was it, why is Etro it, I could have used a little more explanation or like a datalog or something on that. Or maybe I’m just dumb! That’s a possibility. I also felt that how it treated the previous cast was a little off. Now, as one of the 3 Hope Enjoyers, this game was fucking HUGE for me. I got to see that guy grow up and be cool and awesome and he was a mainstay and it made me very very happy. But when it comes to, say, Lightning and Sazh, I was a little iffy. Now, again, it’s been a while since I’ve played XIII-1. I definitely don’t remember the finer details, but something about Lightning being so willing to serve a godly force just felt off to me. Something about her felt still. Now, she has been in Valhalla for Numbers centuries, so that changes a person, but something still felt off to me. And Sazh; why did that poor man have to get stuck in the casino for like the whole plot off screen and then only appear at the end? I wish he was around more. I’ll go more in depth in a second.
But regardless, I overall enjoyed the story and I think it stuck with me a lot more than XIII-1. The ending hurt, but I think knowing about Lightning Returns didn’t make it hurt as much. This game definitely feels like it was made with a 3rd game in mind, for better or for worse.
To get into a little more nitty gritty of my favorite aspect of any video game, as well as to double the length of my post, let me do my traditional List Of Characters And How I Felt About Them (I love these sections I hope other people do too)
I think the thing about this game is while its cast is small, that core selection is really enjoyable. Those few people that you’re with the whole game through. It’s just a little rough when it’s a sequel and it has to build off of that correctly. Some characters feel different, some were turned into crystal so they don’t count, and some were sent to the casino dimension and weren’t allowed to exist until the end :(
XIII-1 had a special sauce to it. That game is Fucking Gorgeous despite being 15 years old at this point. I don’t know what they put in it to make it last so long. XIII-2 has a similar sauce. It’s a little weaker, there’s a little more roughness, I can see the facial expressions be a little stiff, but that sauce still remains. XIII is peak “Final Fantasy is on the cutting edge of visuals”. My absolute favorite scene is the first phase final battle with Caius, on the beach of Valhalla. Something about the lighting against the water, against the sand, and against the characters, was stunning. I don’t even pop off at things like this often but God Damn.
Fuck. Before I ever played this game, even back when I picked up Theatrhythm Curtain Call for the 3DS and I really only had XIV under my belt; the little selection of soundtrack I got hit different. XIII already has amazing music, but XIII-2 is Fucking Peak. I love it so much. The lyrical songs are earworms, the Aggressive Mixes when you get into combat, the battle themes, the slower themes, aaaaaaagh!!!!! It’s got that XIII violin that goes insane, Caius’s Theme has that grand, dark choir, you have symphonic, you have techno, you have slow piano moments, I cannot get enough of it. There were times where I would just sit in the Historia Crux, listening to the music. I know some people said that it doesn’t always fit the game, and I get that, especially in the boss themes, but I didn’t mind at all. I think it helps that I already loved the soundtrack before I played it, but even in gameplay and hearing these tracks a lot more frequently did not diminish ANYTHING. I think I gotta make another top 5 list.
I did it! It was fine. Sazh’s DLC was nice to give me context on what he was doing, plus a little Chocolina lore, but it’s gambling. I’m bad at gambling. The fucking faces he made in the card games were absolutely hilarious though
why did they do this angle it’s so funny
Lightning’s was cool. Repeatable Caius battle, get better and better at it. Plus you get a real sauced up unit from it (still couldn’t top Chichu)
The Coliseum was the real meat of this, and it was the last thing I did before going for the secret ending. All very cool fights, and I get another Gilgamesh battle. Fuck that Ultros and Typhon fight though holy shit I was getting pissed off.
Couple other thoughts I had that I couldn’t think of where to put it: I think I would have liked just a single extra area. Something about the number of zones we got, felt like it was just a tad too small. Maybe Gapra Whitewood? Somehow? I dunno. Also, I liked the paradox endings. They were fun postgame bonuses, they fit really well into a game about time travel and changing the future or past, not to mention they cleanly slot into the time map and fragment systems. Just a bit of extra content that feels allowed to be fun or give extra info. Anyways:
Despite the fact that I’ve played SO many FFs, I’ve only 100%ed/Platinumed 3 of them. FFI and II (the pixel remasters), and now XIII-2. That’s gotta say something about this game, that I actually wanted to go the full way and finish the whole thing. Despite my complaints, the monster grinding and the crystarium weren’t enough to stop me, and the difficulty of endgame was something that I felt was approachable enough. While I would have liked some of the more grindy elements (AHEM MONSTERS) to be more consistent, it still feels like a game that was near perfectly sized. I don’t usually do direct games one after the other, cause I need variety else I get really burned out, but this has me honestly considering going straight for Lightning Returns next. We’ll see how that turns out.
8/10. An overall improvement over the first entry in gameplay and story. Despite it being clunky or annoying in some consistent areas, it regardless has that sauce that had me locked in.