One of the most common requests that has long reverberated among the RPG community has been the desire for a true
Chrono Trigger successor. What fans have spent years pining for was the dream of a modern game that featured all of the great ideas which made
CT the
instant classic that it was: time-travel, vastly different timelines,
paradoxes, and choices that showed consequences over the course of
thousands of years. What very few people realize is that this highly
anticipated
ideal
of a game has already come and gone under a different title:
Final Fantasy XIII-2.
Final Fantasy XIII, the game that preceded XIII-2,
remains a bit of a paradox in and of itself. Though it sold very well,
and, for the most part, was well-received critically, the majority of
the series’ fanbase was left cold by the introduction to the Fabula Nova
Crystallis project. The biggest criticisms for the title were in
relation to the gameplay and pacing of the adventure. Exploration, one
of the Final Fantasy series’ key features had been jettisoned
almost entirely in favor of what amounted to basically an
on-rails adventure tale with scripted events in the interim. In fact,
players would have to endure 20-30 hours of this gameplay style before
they were even given a single choice on how to play the game, and by
this point most of them had already tapped out.
Unfortunately this legacy is what led primarily to the downfall of FF XIII-2. With most fans dissatisfied, and the FFXIII name
sullied, there was not a lot of fanfare for a sequel to a game that had
so much negativity associated with it, and that many purchasers had
neglected to even finish in the first place. The reason this remains
such a tragic turn of events, though, is because XIII-2 is not just one of the greatest RPG titles of the previous generation, but maybe one of the all time great RPGs.
That statement might be a bit hard to swallow, but just give us a moment to convince you. For starters, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is
one of only 22 games to ever be bequeathed with the legendary perfect
score of 40/40 from Japan’s preeminent gaming magazine, Famitsu. What
this game amounts to is basically the best parts of what worked in Chrono Trigger, and all of the best iterations of the Pokemon and Final Fantasy franchises.
From Chrono Trigger it borrows the wildly inventive time travel mechanic, and turns it up to 11. Utilizing an almost daunting timeline system, FF XIII-2 has
a plot which is often directly related to how you play the game, and
even incorporates your choices (and your level of dedication) into how
these various eras and places will develop over time. Going even
further, XIII-2 actually has multiple timelines, some of which
end in a paradox, as seen in the games opening moments, where Lightning,
the protagonist of the first game, disappears into an oblivion of
never-ending war.
Pokemon lends
XIII-2 its monster-catching gameplay, in what amounts to one of the most
important
decisions players can make for any given situation: the third member of
your party. While the two primary roles of the battle system, which
returns the highly tactical Paradigm design from
FF XIII, are
taken by the protagonists, Serah and Noel, the third position is
reserved for whichever monster you believe can best assist you in your
given situation. With the allowance to create and stack several decks of
different monsters under different roles, and swap out your heroes with
those same roles,
Final Fantasy XIII-2 brings back everything that worked for
Final Fantasy XIII, just as it tosses out everything that didn’t.
You see, Square-Enix had heard the criticisms that everyone leveled at it over Final Fantasy XIII,
it’s just that no one took the time to check in with them afterward.
All of the key problems with the title are directly addressed, and a ton
of new ideas are introduced in order to make up for the disappointment
that many fans were left with in its wake. Meanwhile, the trademark
exploration elements of the series returned in spades, with dozens of
new environments to explore, the return of key characters in vastly
different scenarios, and a world that literally changed with each
passing hour.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 remains the best installment in the
series since the golden age of the PSX, it’s just a shame that so few
took the time to play it and see its endless potential. The title
undersold, and, as such, its mechanics were thrown away entirely in
favor of an action-based third installment,
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. This series of unfortunate events has made
FF XIII-2′s
situation even more dire in its tragedy, leaving it in its own paradox
as one of the best RPG titles of the last 20 years, even as
it’s sandwiched tangentially between 2 mediocre and
under-delivering games in the same series.
