» Wed May 02, 2012 10:30 pm
I'm a little ways into Final Fantasy XIII-2 and I thought I'd post some impressions. These come from someone that enjoyed XIII well enough as a game, but felt it was a fairly poor Final Fantasy (if it matters).
Like
Noel Kreiss - I went in expecting to hate this guy. Not because of his looks, but because trailers pegged him as Snow Jr., an optimistic doofus that's spouting heroic lines every time he gets a bit of screen time. Not really the case, at least not yet. He fills a similar role as Snow, but does so in a less obnoxious manner. Where Mr. Villiers would often resort to a big, stupid speech, most of Noel's reassurance has come in the form of simple, down to earth talks with Serah, the helpless, overgrown baby that she is.
Pokemans - Hardly a substitute for full party members that are integrated into the story, they're actually handled fairly well as a game mechanic. Catching, leveling and feeding them to one another, monster taming is quickly becoming an obsession. It's not fleshed out nearly as much as the Persona games, but the fun in growing/fusing powerful monsters is still there. Naming them and dressing them up is also a guilty pleasure of mine.
My team currently consists of a Hoplite COM (Sir Cang), Gremlin RAV (McQueen) and a Cait Sith MED (Alfred).
Level Design - It's not Skyrim, it doesn't have to be, but it's not Final Fantasy XIII either. Areas actually have some twists and turns, plenty of treasure chests to find (both visible and hidden) and NPCs offering casual conversation bring this world to life.. sort of. Their implementation still feels somewhat mechanical in nature, but their presence alone goes a long way to improve over XIII's lifeless (albeit gorgeous) world.
Many areas that I've seen so far give Final Fantasy XII a run for its money, and just about all of them offer more exploration than Final Fantasy X (perhaps on par with Final Fantasy title before it, minus world maps).
Indifferent
Story - I've heard terrible, terrible things about this game's story, with some fans calling it "unsalvageable" in regards to story-expanding DLC. I haven't seen anything that would make me say that. I'm actually liking it a fair bit so far. However, the whole thing is very.. "convenient" so to speak. These people in their mid-20s are throwing around topics like paradoxes and the space-time continuum like it's nothing. They'll be incredibly knowledgeable about very complex subjects when the story calls for it, yet clueless to much simpler topics. This knowledge, when coupled with these characters' backgrounds, requires the player to suspend their disbelief.
It's not really a problem for me, because the story so far is actually much more interesting than XIII's. It just asks that you not anolyze every little detail. These convenient bits of storytelling are a means to an end, and the end itself is actually a fairly enjoyable story.
Dislike
Serah - As I said earlier, she's helpless and childlike. All signs point to that changing, but as of right now, I couldn't care less if she got trapped in a paradox while I wasn't looking, leaving Noel and Sir Clang to track down Lightning as a duo. Also, can you release her DLC already? A pink bikini is better than that.. thing she's wearing by default.
Combat - The highlight of XIII returns mostly unchanged.. which isn't really a good thing. What was a highlight is actually now one of the weakest aspect of XIII-2 that I've come across. It was fun; in fact, it still is. It also still lacks any kind of depth. You're still just changing Paradigms and spamming attacks. Which attacks you spam still don't really matter, and you're given so few options. I don't care what abilities I'm learning in the Crystarium because 99% of the time I'm not even aware that they exist.
No matter which Paradigm I'm controlling, battles still feel like a hands-off experience. That didn't change in XIII despite advancing throughout the entire Crytarium, I'm not expecting it to change here.
And that is after I recently beat FF XIII, which has the same battle system.
Wondering what is the "Omega Weapon" of this game 
Still, need to beat the end bosses pretty soon since i have about maxed everyone's primary roles on the 9th level.
