A must-play if you've finished FFXIII, if not you might not enjoy it as much
User Rating: 8 | Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Limited Collector's Edition) X360
When I decided to buy Final Fantasy XIII-2 i wasn't expecting too much. I had just finished XIII and I had a lot of fun with it, but I had heard that this one (XIII-2) had a poor story and had gotten various other bad reviews, so I wasn't expecting too much. It turned out better than I had hoped. One interesting thing they changed in XIII-2 is the power to tame monsters and use them in your paradigms, monsters each having different jobs (commando, ravager, sentinel, etc.). Each monster as its own crystarium and can be leveled up to different top levels, depending on the monster. This is an interesting twist on the battle system. There are two main characters that, through the crystariums, can learn all of the jobs. Another big change is that you have a moogle that follows your around all the time. You can throw the moogle to reach treasure spheres that look inaccessable.
FFXIII-2 is definitely a lot more free-roaming. Much of the game revolves around a time traveling system; collecting artifacts to open gates that lead to different time periods. You can travel to any of the time periods that you have opened.
Another thing that I have seen criticized a lot is the story. Yes, the story is kind of cheesy, maybe a little cheesier than the FFXIII story, but if you have played entirely through the first game, you will definitely enjoy the sequel. Although I can definitely see how you would not enjoy it if you hadn't played through the original.
