Final Fantasy XIII-2 starts not long after XIII, In which Lighting finds herself protecting the throne of Valhalla from the games Antagonist Caius. During the battle another male appears, one of the two protagonists of the game Noel. Lightning decides to get Noel to travel back through time to her sister (Serah), The other Protagonist of the game & the story begins in their Journey towards Valhalla & finding Lighting. The character change isn't all that bad. Serah may not be as strong as her Older sister Lighting, but she is still a leading lady. She isn't as annoying as any of the previous characters of the game like Hope & to a certain extent Vanille & the fact that the two main characters Health levels up quite good & the fact that you shouldn't come across a situation in which you keep having a character die for the simple reason that the game is much easier then the previous one so you won't have much need for phoenix downs or even potions. Having one of them or a monster with the role of medic levelled up slightly is enough for most of the casual fights in the game. Though how ever when it comes to some of the boss fights they're roles will have to be levelled up a fair amount & you will have the do the usual changing from one paradigm to another multiple times.
Unlike in Thirteen in which you have one single road you can go & you had to take it you instead have a more open map feeling in which you can find hidden treasures by using mog to discover them. As you get further into the game you progress through the historia crux finding different versions of places & new places all together. In each different version of the place things are different, in one it could be snowing, in the other it could be normal blue sky. One could be destroyed or in ruins, the other might not be & the fact that in each different version you can explore places you couldn't in the previous version. In places you also come across distortions in time in which you have to complete to continue through the game & progress to the end which is estimated to take anywhere around twenty five hours to complete, unlike the lengthiness if XIII.
A new feature to the game is the fact that you have monsters that you can level up & that have a designated role. There is quite a lot that has also changed from XIII, the Crystarium levelling has. Instead of having five levels & multiple things to unlock in one level you have 99 levels & everything you unlock counts as a level so you have 99 things to unlock, which doesn't take too long for the first couple of roles, but as you progress through the game it does take longer to level up each role considering the amount that you need continues through each level & doesn't reset. A sweet feature in the game is the fact that you can close the time gates & re-do the level (In which you need to do with some to get the paradox ending). A good change they also made is the speed in which you change paradigms. Instead of watching each character go through the change it does it instantly meaning you can get straight back to attacking without having to wait. That & the Auto Battle feature means that the whole fighting sequence is actually much faster & action-packed then XIII's. You also have the feature of Cinematic actions in which you have to press a sequence of buttons against the boss that you are fighting, which adds a nice aspect of the game which when watching is quite a nice feature
A few negatives to game is the fact that you don't have a variety of character, other then at the start in which you play as lighting other then that your always Either Serah or Noel. The main story is rather easy & short, in the fact that XIII too a lot more effort & time to go through the storyline, in XIII-2 it is more of a breeze get through & the fact that the two most intriguing characters of the game (Lighting & Caius) get hardly any screen time.. Though them negatives are out matched by many of the positives. Like the fact that the battle syste
m is faster & better. The Crystarium is much easier to understand, Obtaining Gil is much easier then in XIII for the obvious reason that unlike in XIII where you had to obtain Gil through treasures & selling items in XIII-2 you can obtain Gil from fights, meaning it is easier to buy better items in which you can level your monsters role up & the many more positives that come with the game.
Overall the Storyline of the game is good, even though it isn't as story orientated or as had as XIII, The character progression isn't bad at all. So props to Square Enix for delivering & fun & good game that people can easily spend hours on it even once completed. The overall score I want to give this game is probably 8.5 With some of the negative aspects of the games (The ones that I mentioned & some of the ones that I left out so I didn't spoil the ending) I don't think it should be anything above but overall the game really is worth getting & playing & is a fun sequel.
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