One of the series' greatest strengths has always been its elegant, sweeping harmonies and catchy, infectious tunes, but Final Fantasy XIII-2's music is average at its best moments and abominable at its worst.
It's tough to relate to the motivations and desires of characters whom you want to smack in the head.Īs someone who has been playing Final Fantasy since before I could walk on two legs, I was particularly disgusted by Final Fantasy XIII-2's soundtrack. There's one particular character that I would love to erase from history: a bubbly shopkeeper named Chocolina who follows you across time in order to sell items at absurd prices and scream irritating things in your ear. Perhaps this might all be easier to swallow if the game had competent dialogue or voice acting that didn't sound like a hammy 80s sitcom set to quadruple speed for maximum squeakiness. I lost interest around the tenth time something was explained as a "paradox." Soon enough, the plot takes a turn for the nonsensical, veering into the land of Weird Proper Nouns and confusing use of terms like "artefact" and "spacetime" and "kinky robot slave" (I might have made up that last one). The story, for starters, opens simply enough: protagonist Serah sets off to rescue her sister, FFXIII star Lightning, with the help of a time traveler named Noel. For every dazzling landscape or satisfying puzzle, there's a niggling flaw or baffling moment that will make you wonder why you're still playing.
TWO SAIYANS PLAY TRINE 2 SERIES
Instead of just roaming through a series of areas or flying across a world map, your characters travel through time, changing history and solving puzzles as they go.Īll of these trappings help make Final Fantasy XIII-2 far more appealing than its predecessor, but they don't make it great. In other words, the whole game seems like one big apology.%Gallery-140865%To top things off, Square Enix has reached back to its glory days and borrowed a mechanic from one of its critical darlings, Chrono Trigger.
At times, it feels like the development team just went down a laundry list and added everything that fans believed Final Fantasy XIII lacked. After the mediocre Final Fantasy XIII and the sheer disaster that was Final Fantasy XIV, many fans have lost faith in the RPG titan.įinal Fantasy XIII-2 is the publisher's attempt to mend this relationship. In today's gaming landscape, Final Fantasy is more punchline than powerhouse, more quantity than quality. There was once a time when "Final Fantasy" meant greatness, when seeing Square's brand on a game box meant you were about to play something special.