Spoilers are below, including the ending. You are forewarned.
My opinion of FF XIII-2 mirrors my opinion of the FF XIII: A good but flawed game. Which, for me, is okay. I don't demand perfection from my games. If I have a good time playing them, that's enough for me.
Like most time travel stories (and if I'm honest, like most Squeenix stories)FF XIII-2 makes you work a little bit to understand what is going on. Or was going on. Or will be going on. To me this is a plus. I like stories that make me work for them. But your mileage may definitely vary on that.
A lot of people seem confused to how the future can change the past, but with the explanation of how paradoxes work in the game this actually makes sense. A paradox is caused by the future and the past overlapping onto one another. If you solve the paradox in the future, then the paradox affect never happened in the past, retroactively changing the past. Trippy to say the least.
But what really got me interested in this game was a concept that I don't see explored a lot in other time travel stories but has always bothered me. Every time you change the future, even if it's for the "better" there is collateral damage in the shape of people wiped from the timeline. Is that okay? Should we even be messing with this stuff when the consequences are so high? It really made me stop after a couple encounters with Caius. Who was the bad guy here, me or him? The revelation that Etro releasing the party from crystal at the end of XIII started the whole Time Crash to begin with just made this worse.
The Downer Ending: Caught me slightly off-guard. I could feel it coming. Things were way too perky. But the extent of it blew me away. Serah just didn't die, you broke the universe. Wow. Nice job breaking it hero. I should've hated it (and lots of people did), but I think I like it. Nothing in this game foreshadowed a happy ending. To see them actually follow through on the warning that battling Caius was a BAD thing was neat.
As for gameplay, battle is like XIII which I enjoyed because of its strategic nature. The mon system is new and you could spend a game's worth of time just leveling creatures.
In short: the story, while confusing at times, had some interesting concepts. The gameplay was so-so to good depending on your feelings on XIII's battle system.
Interesting
Spoilers are below, including the ending. You are forewarned.
My opinion of FF XIII-2 mirrors my opinion of the FF XIII: A good but flawed game. Which, for me, is okay. I don't demand perfection from my games. If I have a good time playing them, that's enough for me.
Like most time travel stories (and if I'm honest, like most Squeenix stories)FF XIII-2 makes you work a little bit to understand what is going on. Or was going on. Or will be going on. To me this is a plus. I like stories that make me work for them. But your mileage may definitely vary on that.
A lot of people seem confused to how the future can change the past, but with the explanation of how paradoxes work in the game this actually makes sense. A paradox is caused by the future and the past overlapping onto one another. If you solve the paradox in the future, then the paradox affect never happened in the past, retroactively changing the past. Trippy to say the least.
But what really got me interested in this game was a concept that I don't see explored a lot in other time travel stories but has always bothered me. Every time you change the future, even if it's for the "better" there is collateral damage in the shape of people wiped from the timeline. Is that okay? Should we even be messing with this stuff when the consequences are so high? It really made me stop after a couple encounters with Caius. Who was the bad guy here, me or him? The revelation that Etro releasing the party from crystal at the end of XIII started the whole Time Crash to begin with just made this worse.
The Downer Ending: Caught me slightly off-guard. I could feel it coming. Things were way too perky. But the extent of it blew me away. Serah just didn't die, you broke the universe. Wow. Nice job breaking it hero. I should've hated it (and lots of people did), but I think I like it. Nothing in this game foreshadowed a happy ending. To see them actually follow through on the warning that battling Caius was a BAD thing was neat.
As for gameplay, battle is like XIII which I enjoyed because of its strategic nature. The mon system is new and you could spend a game's worth of time just leveling creatures.
In short: the story, while confusing at times, had some interesting concepts. The gameplay was so-so to good depending on your feelings on XIII's battle system.