Mild-mannered school teacher by day. Dragon-slaying, behemoth-crushing time-traveler by night.
Now I'm not saying Serah and Noel are lousy protagonists…but they aren't far from it. The real interesting plot and fights take place between Lightening and a new comer antagonist Caius. Both of these characters are fleshed out and have a purpose driven plot that is developed greatly throughout the story. Playing as either Caius or even Lightening (Cloud Strife, gender-swapped) would have made this story better but were instead given one airhead school teacher (Serah) and one barely competent 18 year old (Noel). Serah should have remained a non-playable character and offered support from the sidelines. In no shape or form does anything about Serah's 95 lb frame, non-military background and mild-mannered airhead personality suggest she should have the power to conquer impossible enemies or travel through time without destroying it. Noel, while a little easier to bare than Serah, tends to whine a lot, which is typical of the supporting male roles of many JRPGs like, for example, Tidus from FFX. Understandably, he comes from a time where it's literally the end of days so it's rational to see why he's a little down in the dumps. Despite their personalities, they just don't fit their adventure. Both Noel and Serah spend majority of the game roaming like lost puppies. They have no plan of action and constantly just roam around looking for Lightening, Snow and Hope. It's like having two all-star teams clashing in a final game to decide who rules the world and then choosing one of the fans in the stands to be their lead player, which will leave gamers asking "WTF?!". Overall, the main protagonists were weak, uninspired and poor choices.
Game-play
The gameplay is by far the best thing about this game. It looks like SE listened to complaints about FFXIII. No longer does the game end when players' main character dies and paradigm shifts are fairly seamless. The player can switch between characters both in battle and out of battle without any problems. The linearity has been toned down and players can travel between timelines freely once unlocked. As for battle itself, I thought I would have a problem with the hold-players-hand auto-battle option, as it makes another appearance from FFXIII, but it works out as it only helps pace battles and does not prevent the player from being attentive in battles or sometimes needing to select (better) manual commands to keep players from the brink of destruction.
Another feature I found interesting was the addition of monster taming which then can be leveled/infused/upgraded to fight in combat alongside the two human characters. These third monster characters are completely AI controlled at the cost of losing a third playable character in the players party. I got to admit, this can get addicting as players hunt for new monsters and Chocobos to race in Serendipity, a casino like world that players can travel to at players leisure.
The players are also given puzzles now and then. They are referred in-game as anomalies. These puzzles range from simple connect-the-dot types to I-want-to-rip-my-hair-out clock-like puzzles. The clock puzzles are by far the worst; These quickly became my most feared roadblock. Every time I approached a new anomaly I kept begging for not another clock puzzle. consequently, the clock puzzle is one of the most used...Whoever thought these were good ideas should be knocked senseless. Aside from the anomalies, There are also numerous moments where players can take on quizzes in the hopes of a prize. The quizzes mostly focus on the folklore of the FFXIII realm. Unfortunately, many of the questions are very arbitrary and sometimes are questions that players will not be able to answer because of one reason or another, often leading to a time consuming guessing game.
Overall, the game-play is solid and deserves the praise with exception to the puzzles.
Story
This is about the part where everything goes wrong for FFXIII-2. We start this game soon after the events of FFXIII. There's one problem though, Lightening is missing. Where did our heroine go? Well, that's what is revealed throughout the beginning of this game. The latter part has the gamer's two main protagonists searching for Lightening in the attempts to save her from her current plight. The problem is the entire game revolves around two people aimlessly searching for their "knight in shining armor." They do not belong to be focal points in this game's story. To top it off, these two are given power to change history as they see fit; through their actions. They do so with one goal in their mind; save Lightening. These are terrible people to give time-traveling powers to as they do not take in account the destruction they cause through their actions. In a nutshell, the plot has someone messing with the quantum physics of time continuity and then being an airhead at the same time. I'll throw up my hands in defeat if anybody like these two ever becomes my last chance of salvation. In addition a subplot incorporated includes the player aimlessly searching for "artefacts". At many points, the game "suggests" that the player go back and search already explored worlds for more of these to open up new worlds to explore. There is no direction and gamers are left to search a dozen or so worlds on where to go next. The story does pickup towards the end, about 35+ hours in, but only when the focus of the story switches from the scope of the two protagonists to a greater scope of the final outcome. Whether or not players are willing to put in the leg-work to see this through to the end is up to them.
That being said about the two main characters and story I will turn my attention to the other main support character, Mog! That's right, the Moogles have made a return and yet I am conflicted. This is the first time that I have truly hated a Moogle. Mog has several speaking roles and interacts with the players characters on a normal basis. He also has this high-pitched voice and ends nearly every sentence with the phrase, "kupo." As I was lead to believe, "kupo" wasn't an actual expressed word but rather a sound the Moogles make similar to the "kweh" produced by Chocobos. I can see this Moogle becoming the new staple of annoying alongside Navi from Zelda; "hey! Listen!" *GAH* Maybe this has some curb appeal in Japanese culture and maybe this is why I have become disenchanted with JRPGs, I cannot say for certain but I can say for certain I do not like this Moogle!
Summary
Overall, the game play is good, soundtrack is okay but they could have toned down the chorus, J-pop and J-rock songs as they are too frequent and annoying. CGs are solid and well done and battles are very fast-paced and engaging. The main plot is typical for director Motomu Toriyama, as he seems to have some affliction with paradoxes (used in this game incorrectly as a noun). Keep in mind, this is not the first well-established game series butchered by this director and his time paradox fetish.
*cough*The3rdBirthday*cough*.
Unfortunately, we are left with a substandard story that at times can be very confusing, extremely convoluted and sometimes just makes no sense. The player is given two very weak lead protagonists and a pointless journey.
Finally, this is the first time in FF history that I have seen a "to be continued" screen. Doesn't that defeat the very premise of "Final" Fantasy? Final Fantasy titles have always provided us with happy to sad endings but at least they have always had closure. FFXIII-2 breaks that formula for one simple reason, DLC. Observe as DLC finally distorts the very premise of a long-beloved RPG series. How's that for a paradox?