Being a huge Final Fantasy fan I picked up 13-2 on day one. At this point I’ve put around 40-50 hours into it. Continuing the story of 13 I was excited to see if they resolved some holes that were left in the plot. No, they didn’t. They accomplished in making it even more convoluted than before. Why? Well because Noel..but then Serah..Lightning is...who the hell knows. Throwing in paradoxical events and jumping through so many time periods you’d think the characters would forget everything going on. The game does throw cameos of the original 13 cast in, which is nice to see, though I would prefer to play as them without DLC. Only about halfway through do you begin to realize that you’re stuck with two characters the entire game. What? Oh hells no Square! Final Fantasy has always been about a good 7-9 character usage, you gypped us.

Don’t get me wrong, Noel is a pretty cool character, though he can be a bit defensive other times. Now Serah, she needs to quit complaining.  Serah wants to get her friends back, but  this just ends up making so many people die. Noel “appears” in Valhalla and just agrees with Lightning. Serah in turn complains about “having no one” or being depressed and what not. Oh, well except for Maqui and Yuj and everyone else in New Bodhum, they don’t matter. They do however bring Moogles back. Hooray right? No, this he/she creature/weapon has an awful voice. I despise hearing it talk and love throwing it to retrieve objects due to this. I also didn’t realize Moogles said Kupo after every flippin’ sentence..

The battle system is still stylishly awesome and works very well. However now your third party is taken place as a monster you capture in the wild and it levels...*cough* Pokemon *cough*. There are of course one’s you can’t use but I would prefer a revolving door of people with a personality and a story. No matter how cool Don Tonberry was, he never once said a word. I liked being able to enhance monsters by fusing other monsters abilities, making them stronger in turn.

For people who have played it, do you realize how selfish this plot is? The entire reason for both Serah, Noel, and Hope is to save their friends. Screw the world! Well they do make a mew Ark, but it seems more like a ploy to hide the real reason. Through the story you do also meet (many) Yeul’s, 13 year old girls who can see the future. Some of them are good and work with you....so why can’t they ask exactly what they should do? Following her is her guardian named Caius. His logic behind his intentions make more sense than the entire story, until the end. Don’t get me started on the end. It’s heinous and I don’t want super spoilers in this.

Oh wait! Music time. So there are a few good tracks included. They have the original Chocobo theme and a few map themes and battle music does its Final Fantasy job. These are drastically lesser in numbers to the other garbage thrown in. Being able to ride Chocobo’s again is great, but if you ride a dark one you have to listen to an emo-metal-screamo version of their theme. I’m not against this kind of music, but as a cover of this particular theme I shun it. The song that plays during the ending sequences not only ruins the impact they’re supposed to have, it is by far the worst song in Final Fantasy history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6bkfhLbw4Y

Here's the song..enjoy?

So, all and all this is my least favorite Final Fantasy to date. Square, please step it up.