Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the second part of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. In this game your goal is to travel throughout time and change the past, present and future!
The gameplay is just like before, walk around fighting creatures with a real time action bar by choosing between six character roles. Some differences though: You now play as Serah and Noel, the 3rd member of your group is a monster and can be chosen freely, but you can only control Serah or Noel. If the leader "die" in battle control automatically change to the other until the end of battle. The AI is a little better compared to the first game, but still not quite smart. One thing it annoyingly has trouble with is considering the target weaknesses with the attacker attributes, like using magic attacks in a physical build just because the target has magic weakness, thus throwing your carefully made build in the garbage. =/
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| Monster Crystalarium and "food". |
The Crystalarium is back, a little different but essentially the same. The item upgrade system was simplified and merged with the shopping NPC, which makes things less mysterious but not as interesting. On the other hand the Monster System is new and deserves an explanation.
As you defeat creatures you may get their crystal. Once you do you are able to use them as the 3rd member of your party (yes, you can have chocobos fighting for you), and they get their own crystalarium. Unlike your characters though, in order to expand/evolve their crystalarium you need to use what we like to call "monster food", which are items dropped from creatures or purchased on the shop. On top of that each creature can be infused into other creatures, transferring their known skills and passive abilities. This allows you to make extremely powerful allies, if you decide to grind for them.
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| Monster Infusion. |
The equipment system suffered a complete overhaul. Now each gear has "power points" to be equipped and each character has a maximum of 100 points to mix and match. Fortunately the paradigm shifting was made faster and more responsive and the linearity of the game was broken a bit, although walking around the same place up and down delivering quests doesn't really make it any better. They did fix the scaling of the game, so each battle doesn't feel useless anymore, and that is one of our main problems with the first game.
In the end we had a much better experience with Final Fantasy XIII-2 than with the first game. Unfortunately badass Lightning is not a main character (despite being stamped all over the game), but Serah and Noel proves to be enjoyable enough. Even Hope overcomes his whining issues! If you played (or watched) the first game and is looking for some more, Final Fantasy XII-2 do not disappoint.
If you'd like to dive deep into the Monster System, check this guide.