An excellent improvement from Final Fantasy 13's corny story and linear trudge
Cons: Mildly tedious side-quests, Mog's English voice acting, almost no original monster designs
I was doubtful from the first game that this sequel was going to be much an improvement but behold the creators heard the players angst and made changes.
After getting through the incredibly long but beautifully done introduction and play through the first area, you almost always have at least two options for advancement. This immediately was box of joy for me in relation to Final Fantasy 13's forced single line advancement.
The combat functions close to the same as the Final Fantasy 13's solid design, but growth is made more customizable with the introduction of monster taming. Each monster can be developed in a slightly different manner depending on the items you use on it. Serah and Noel run through the paradigms you choose, but both receive a special ability allowing you to make a manual action entry in fights. Sadly I only spotted one or two new monster designs. Where I know we are fighting in the same world, traveling through hundreds of years would probably yield new monster discoveries in my opinion.
The Fragment quests available were mostly enjoyable, particularly figuring out where the image shown to you is and finding the object when you get there. Most of them, however, were simple retrieval quests with no information provided after completion. I would have liked to be rewarded with simple story enhancement from the fragment quests.
Character development held my interest the whole game unlike Final Fantasy 13. Noel was a great secondary lead and as he begins to understand actions and how the past and future work together he hardens his resolve in his decisions, but throughout the game his personality remains solid. Caius also has fantastic development his actual part in the story is revealed to us and his passion ripples in every place you go. Serah seemed fragile until end, a much different feel than her sister was in the first game. But she still held my attention as she continued to coach her strength to come out.
The story itself had much more weight than the Final Fantasy 13. The decisions Noel and Serah make actually have noticeable consequences and their concerns and opinions seemed down to earth.
My last note is on Mog's voice. This could be a personal issue, but it was snotty and ungenuine. I honestly thought about muting the tv every time it popped up. I also wasn't a fan of the casino eating up my money to get important fragments, but this also could have been a personal issue since I'm not really a gambler.