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'Final Fantasy' regains past glory
By Lou Kesten |
February 10, 2012, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE "Final Fantasy" franchise, now in its 25th year, has one of the most enthusiastic fan bases in all of video games. And those fans made their voices heard after the 2009 release of "Final Fantasy XIII," which jettisoned some of the series' long-standing features in exchange for a more streamlined, action-packed narrative.
Aficionados howled, particularly over the game's linear nature; you didn't really get a chance to explore the world of "XIII" until you were most of the way through. Where were the wacky characters who livened up previous chapters? What happened to the quaint towns where you could stock up on supplies and juice up your weapons?
"Final Fantasy XIII-2" (Square Enix, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, US$59.99) feels largely like a response to those criticisms. It's anything but linear; it may even be too liberal in letting you freely skip between locations. There are more characters to interact with, and more side missions.
The sequel begins at the end of civilization, with heroine Lightning battling a powerful enemy named Caius. Hoping to reverse this disastrous timeline, Lightning flings the last surviving human, Noel, back through time. He finds Lightning's sister, Serah, and they begin their mission to "save the future."
That entails traveling through time warps to a series of locations during a 500-year span. There's a lush forest where a crystal tower precariously balances Cocoon, a city in the sky. There's an archeological site where soldiers fight monsters from another dimension. There's a sprawling urban campus where scientists are trying to build another Cocoon.
At each stop, Noah and Serah have a number of ways to correct the timeline and save humanity. Eventually, the "map" of "XIII-2" blossoms into a tangle of alternate realities.
As any "Lost" fan can testify, time-travel narratives run the risk of disappearing up their own wormholes. In 1995, Square's "Chrono Trigger" deftly handled the genre's puzzles and paradoxes, but "XIII-2" is less successful. Its convolutions left me scratching my head, and its conclusion is certain to be divisive.
And Noah and Serah are two of the blandest headliners in "Final Fantasy" history. There's nothing really wrong with them, but when some of the more colorful "XIII" characters pop in for cameos, you wish they would hang around a little longer.
Nonetheless, I found "XIII-2" more absorbing than its predecessor. Instead of controlling all three characters in your party, you control just one - though you can switch the paradigms used by the other two.
I also enjoyed bouncing around the different locations, which, all display the eye-popping graphics. There's a great deal to exp lore.
The series may never return to its late-1990s peak, but "Final Fantasy XIII-2" is a step in the right direction. Three stars out of four.
Aficionados howled, particularly over the game's linear nature; you didn't really get a chance to explore the world of "XIII" until you were most of the way through. Where were the wacky characters who livened up previous chapters? What happened to the quaint towns where you could stock up on supplies and juice up your weapons?
"Final Fantasy XIII-2" (Square Enix, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, US$59.99) feels largely like a response to those criticisms. It's anything but linear; it may even be too liberal in letting you freely skip between locations. There are more characters to interact with, and more side missions.
The sequel begins at the end of civilization, with heroine Lightning battling a powerful enemy named Caius. Hoping to reverse this disastrous timeline, Lightning flings the last surviving human, Noel, back through time. He finds Lightning's sister, Serah, and they begin their mission to "save the future."
That entails traveling through time warps to a series of locations during a 500-year span. There's a lush forest where a crystal tower precariously balances Cocoon, a city in the sky. There's an archeological site where soldiers fight monsters from another dimension. There's a sprawling urban campus where scientists are trying to build another Cocoon.
At each stop, Noah and Serah have a number of ways to correct the timeline and save humanity. Eventually, the "map" of "XIII-2" blossoms into a tangle of alternate realities.
As any "Lost" fan can testify, time-travel narratives run the risk of disappearing up their own wormholes. In 1995, Square's "Chrono Trigger" deftly handled the genre's puzzles and paradoxes, but "XIII-2" is less successful. Its convolutions left me scratching my head, and its conclusion is certain to be divisive.
And Noah and Serah are two of the blandest headliners in "Final Fantasy" history. There's nothing really wrong with them, but when some of the more colorful "XIII" characters pop in for cameos, you wish they would hang around a little longer.
Nonetheless, I found "XIII-2" more absorbing than its predecessor. Instead of controlling all three characters in your party, you control just one - though you can switch the paradigms used by the other two.
I also enjoyed bouncing around the different locations, which, all display the eye-popping graphics. There's a great deal to exp lore.
The series may never return to its late-1990s peak, but "Final Fantasy XIII-2" is a step in the right direction. Three stars out of four.
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