Developer: Square-Enix
Platform: PC (Steam)
Release Date: 12/11/2014
Price: $15,99
Genre: RPG
As a result of Cocoon's fall at the end of Final Fantasy XIII, some of its surviving citizens now reside on Gran Pulse, and the world has adopted a new dating system ("AF" or "After the Fall"). In the three years since, new towns and cities have been established. While searching for Lightning, her sister Serah and the her new unknown friend Noel travel to old and new places on Pulse and Cocoon.
As they travel through time, some locations from Final Fantasy XIII change in appearance. Eden is no longer the capital and the Sanctum is no more. The city of Academia is the new capital, and the new provisional government is run by the Academy, a scientific expedition group wishing to use human technology to build a world that doesn't rely on the fal'Cie.
There is also a mysterious new world called Valhalla, the realm of death and chaos at the edge of time in the distant future, ruled by the goddess Etro.
For those unfamiliar with who Etro is, or with the Fabula Nova Crystallis lore overall, I highly recommend watching this video before playing the game.
Also, it you are interested in what takes place before and after Final Fantasy XIII, search for translations of the two official novels Square-Enix launched, called Episode 0 and Episode i.
Serah Farron - The main protagonist of the game. She is Lightning's younger sister, Snow's fiancée, and the only one out of her friends that still believes Lightning is alive. Gaining the ability to have visions of the future, Serah journeys with Noel to find and save her sister. Her weapon is a bow that can transform into a sword, though its true form is that of her moogle companion Mog.
Noel Kreiss - The deuteragonist of the game. Noel comes from a future where he is the last surviving human in a world that faced destruction 200 years after Cocoon's fall. After a chance encounter with Lightning, he travels into the past to find her sister, Serah. He sets off with her to save Lightning in the hopes of changing the future. He uses two swords that are able to combine to form a spear in battle.
Lightning - Even though she is not playable, she serves as the narrator of the game. Having been attacked by the emerging chaos and subsequently taken to Valhalla, Lightning is no longer believed to be alive by anyone except Serah. In reality, she has become a knight, protecting the goddess Etro in Valhalla while warring with Caius. She wields a new gunblade resembling a combination of her Blazefire Saber and a traditional sword.
Snow Villiers - Snow left to search for Lightning two years after her disappearance, but is nowhere to be found at the time Serah sets out on her own search.
Hope Estheim - Hope is a 24-year-old young man, and the leader of the Academy, researching the world's history and looking for a new energy source for Cocoon in the absence of the fal'Cie. He is aware of Noel and Serah's travels through time because of his research, and helps them in their search for Lightning. He wants to change history in order to improve the world and bring back the people dear to him.
Caius Ballad - The immortal guardian of the seeress Yeul, and an ominous figure who follows Noel and Serah on their journey through time. He seeks to save Yeul from her cursed fate by killing Etro and destroying all of time itself. Caius is of equal strength to Lightning, and fights against her as she tries to protect the dying goddess, as well as Serah and Noel. Caius has the ability to harness his inner chaos to transform into the entity Chaos Bahamut.
Historia Crux - Serah and Noel travel through time with a device called Historia Crux, its like a place where every timeline exists, so you can visit both the past and the future going through different gates. Also, some places might be visited during different timelines, which changes the way they look, and the monsters and characters you might.
Monster Capture - The pokémon aspect of the game. Three characters are used in combat—the two main characters and a monster. Monsters must be captured from battles before they can be used, and there are around 150 different monster types available to be collected. Captured monsters act just like the main characters, but can also perform a "feral link" attack that increases the chance of capturing another monster and have specific effects on the battle. Either of the two main characters can be selected as the one that the player has direct control over at any point; the other character and the monster are then controlled by the game's AI. By the way, this time, if the party leader dies its not game over, like in XIII.
Save Points Are No More - You can now save at any time be going to the main menu screen.
Paradigm Shift 2.0 - The battle system got a new look, but its still pretty much the same (which includes the stagger system and the same character roles). It did receive very important improvements though, the most important one being that it no longer takes time for you to change your paradigms, which means the changing animation from XIII is gone, making the battles much faster and dynamic.
Crystarium 2.0 - The Crystarium is a leveling and growth system, making a return from Final Fantasy XIII in an altered form. The system consists of constellation-style representations of the character's weapons and tamed monsters, made up of small and large crystal nodes, which can be accessed from the start of the game. There is one Crystarium system available for each monster and Paradigm role. Crystogen points gained in battle can be used to expand the Crystarium, unlocking bonuses to health, magic, or strength, or provide the characters with new abilities and slots for battle accessories. For the monsters, the bonuses are unlocked with items dropped by defeated enemies.
Moogle Clock - Monsters do not freely roam the map like in Final Fantasy XIII, but instead, they randomly appear as in the earlier Final Fantasy games. For a limited time after monsters appear, the player may attack them to gain a combat bonus (moogle clock green); if its yellow, the battle starts with normal parameters, and if too much time passes before combat begins, the player cannot restart the fight during combat (moogle clock red). When the battle begins, the screen transitions from the regular map to a separate battle screen as in XIII.
Moogle Throw - You can throw your moogle for it to get treasures you wouldn't reach otherwise.
Cinematic Actions - During some fights, players are put through quick time events (QTEs) that allows them to deal higher damage to foes and/or end certain battles.
Live Trigger System - When talking to characters, the game sometimes begins the Live Trigger system, in which the player chooses their response from several options; these dialogue options are generally not repeatable.
Mini Games - There are multiple mini games in XIII-2 like the Temporal Rift in which the player must complete different puzzles to close the rift and continue on. There is also a city in the game that let you play various games like Slots and Chocobo racing.
- The Steam version of the game includes a range of the downloadable content from the original version, which includes: new opponents for the Coliseum (Omega, Lightning & Amodar, Jihl Nabaat, Ultros & Typhon, PuPu, and Gilgamesh), new outfits for Serah (Summoner's Garb, Beachwear, and White Mage), new outfits for Noel (Battle Attire, Spacetime Guardian, and Black Mage), outfits for Mog (A Wondrous Wardrobe), and new chapters that focus on specific characters (Sazh: Heads or Tails?, Lightning: Requiem of the Goddess, and Snow: Perpetual Battlefield).
- The choice for either English or Japanese voiceovers.
- 60 frames-per-second.
- Customizeable rendering resolution (720p, 1080p, and more).
- The game's incredible music was composed by Masashi Hamauzu, Naoshi Mizuta, and Mitsuto Suzuki. You can check out previews for all the 4 CD's in the official website for the OST.
- You can also check a collection of reviews from the console release of the game on its metacritic page.
- The official trailer for the Steam release of Final Fantasy XIII-2 can be found here.
- Check out the official steam page for the game for more info and updates on future patches.
- The system requirements are:
MINIMUM:
OS: Windows® XP SP2 or later
Processor: 2GHz Dual Core CPU
Memory: 1500 MB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® Geforce® 8 Series/ ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series VRAM 256MB or later
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Hard Drive: 30 GB available space
Sound Card: Sound card compatible with DirectX® 9.0c
Additional Notes:
*Please be aware that save data processing may take longer than usual while SteamCloud is active, due to synchronisation with the server.
RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows® Vista/ 7/ 8
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Quad (2.66 GHz)/ AMD Phenom™ II X4 (2.8 GHz) processor
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® Geforce® GTX™ 460/ ATI Radeon™ HD 5870
DirectX: Version 11
Hard Drive: 30 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 11 compatible sound card
Additional Notes:
*Maximum supported frame rate: 60fps
*Graphic Options
*Screen Resolution Options
*A game controller using Xinput is recomended for this game. (If using a DirectInput based controller, please use the driver side key configuration to adjust settings as required).
Enjoy the
chocobo
A thread by LuuKyK and Yoshichan.
