Not the best Final Fantasy to date by far.

User Rating: 8 | Final Fantasy XIII-2 PS3
What happens when you take a game, that while not perfect but certainly a great game in its own right, and try to address the issues that critics and gamers ranted about with another dose of it in 2yrs time? Why quite simply put the answer is Final Fantasy 13-2. Like the name implies Final Fantasy 13-2 is a sequel to Final Fantasy 13. The story behind Final Fantasy 13-2 revolves around Sarah's quest to find her sister Lightning who somehow has disappeared as a result of someone altering with the timeline. Along the way she teams up with Noel who looks as though he's about the same age as her and is from the future where everything has gone to hell. The story is arguably not the game's best point as it can be confusing and doesn't feel like a proper Final Fantasy story. Instead it feels a bit on the weak side.

On the gameplay side of things Final Fantasy 13-2 plays much like Final Fantasy 13 does and even uses the same graphic's engine. Combat roles play similarly like they did before but Noel and Sarah have different abilities that they learn for each role. Which means that player's will have figure out which is best in each role outside of the 2 basic attack roles. While Sarah and Noel are the 2 main party members the 3rd slot is reserved for monsters. Player's can chose up to 3 of them and assign them to different role options. This aspect of gameplay certainly has that whole gotta catch them all vibe. On the up side there is more side quests but these feel like nothing more than simple fetch/kill quests. Furthermore the crystarium crux feels like nothing more than glamorised level selector which is a unique idea and works with the story. On a side note there are multiple endings which means that after you've beaten it you may want to go back and experiment to see the different endings.

On the audio side of things Final Fantasy 13-2 for the most part is a pretty darn good. The music score gives each location its own unique feel for the most part. The voice acting is solid but everyone except the shop keeper known as chocolina. She is simply annoying as hell to the point in which you could just mute her audio all together.

As a whole Final Fantasy 13-2 is a decent entry into the long running Final Fantasy franchise but feels like the developers have lost their edge.