10 Ways that Final Fantasy 13-2 is better than Final Fantasy 13 – The Importance of Little Things
It’s amazing how important seemingly small changes can be to a game’s overall quality. Uncharted 2 is a good example – it’s mostly the same as Uncharted 1 but by making a few tweaks here and there (blind fire, better grenade controls, smoother stealth & melee, more locale variety, etc.), they turned a pretty good game into a great one.
Final Fantasy XIII, on the other hand, was a much more divisive game than Uncharted was. It’s understandable that they might make more drastic changes to the formula with Final Fantasy XIII-2 in order to regain fans they lost with the first one. However upon playing the demo, I was impressed that not only were there the bigger changes we were all expecting, but that they had also made some smaller but no less clever changes to improve the overall feel of the game. Therefore, I present my list of 10 Ways that Final Fantasy XIII-2 is better than Final Fantasy XIII, full of changes both big and small.
1. Large text option – How sad is it that in 2012, the option to increase the text size in a game is so rare that it caught my eye? Now I know my engineer friends are going to say, “Just make the UI so that the default text size isn’t a problem!” but that approach ignores personal preference. Some people may prefer smaller text so they can more easily see the visuals, whereas others may prefer larger text so that reading is easier and less of a strain. Plus some players may still be playing on an SDTV or may have visual disabilities that make it difficult for them to read small text. That Square-Enix has given the player a choice in the matter is to be applauded.
2. Fight the enemies rather than fight the game – In Final Fantasy XIII-2, the delay from animations when paradigm shifting has been removed and there is an option to make the cursor default to the Abilities line in combat rather than the Auto-Battle line. These may seem like very minor increases in speed (a few seconds here, one less input required there) but they make combat feel more fluid and over the course of an entire game save the player a lot of time.
3. Real-time cutscenes – Final Fantasy XIII was full of prerendered cutscenes which always seemed a bit silly to me considering how good the in-game graphics already were. In Final Fantasy XIII-2, most of the cutscenes are rendered with the in-game engine. This has a number of benefits such as reducing the amount of space required for the game (thus allowing it to fit on a single DVD in the Xbox version), making the visuals more consistent, and allowing for a variable character appearances in cutscenes.
4. Monster party members – Once you had the option to choose your own party members in Final Fantasy XIII, there was rarely a reason to switch members – just pick your favorite team, your favorite strategies, and use them for the rest of the game repeatedly. In Final Fantasy XIII-2, one party member slot is dedicated to various monsters. Since I assume that later monsters will tend to be more powerful than early monsters, the player is going to want to change their monster lineup over the course of the game thus adding variety and helping to prevent the player from getting in a strategic rut.
5. Goodbye tubes – The change from extremely linear maps to more open maps is the change that most people have been focusing on the most so little more needs to be said.
6. Items & equipment – Final Fantasy XIII had a very poorly designed equipment system where the player was supposed to pick one weapon for each character and then spend the entire game grinding materials to give that piece of equipment better stats. It required the player to lock-in their decisions at an early stage and was extremely tedious to maximize stats. Final Fantasy XIII-2 ditches that poorly conceived system for a more traditional item and equipment system.
7. Greater control over the party – Final Fantasy XIII-2 adds the ability to switch the currently controlled player both in and out of combat. It also adds an optional additional layer of control over paradigms with the ability to prioritize single or multi-target abilities.
8. Trust the player – One of the main complaints many players had with Final Fantasy XIII was how it felt like the game didn’t trust the player with comments like “30 hour tutorial!” being common. That does not seem to be the case in the sequel with a full 3-character party and most combat, equipment, and leveling options unlocked very early on.
9. Time Travel – This is hard to see in the tutorial but based on comments on the full game, it’s possible to make and remake decisions in the various time periods and to see their effect on other times, thus making the story more interactive than past Final Fantasy titles.
10. Improved Leveling System – Final Fantasy XIII’s Crystarium leveling system had the illusion of freedom with its various paths but in actuality, the game carefully gated the various ranks to the point so that just playing through the game normally usually gave the player enough XP to max out everything. Final Fantasy XIII-2 looks to have removed most of the restrictions as well as speeding up the process (just select the paradigm you want to LV-Up) giving the player much more control over how their characters will progress and develop.
It’s easy to overlook the importance of relatively small aspects of game design and focus on the big picture, however games are often made by their smaller aspects. Seemingly minor things like “The jumping feels floaty” or “the text speed is too slow” are all too often the only things that stand between a great game and a not-so-great one.
I really have to disagree with you, after playing through FFX13 (PC), it is the probably my personal favorite in the final fantasy franchise. FFX13-2 for me was a downgrade, the monster system felt like a weak version of Pokemon (I didn’t like it). One huge thing is that the Monsters of FFX13 are visually dull and ugly. You can only play 2 characters, and I feel that Noah is such a terrible character, and Serah is so ditzy and more of a secondary character. I feel that one of the amazing things of FF13 was that you can play 6 characters and they were interchangeable (one of the aspects I loved about FFX). For some reason that lack of Characters really stopped me from finishing FFX13-2. I love lightening… so I’m just waiting for lightening returns (for PC).
But yeah, I have to disagree with you, If I would give FFX13 a 9/10, FFX13-2 is about a 6/10…
I played through final fantasy 13 about three years ago, I played final fantasy 13-2 and tested it out and it didnt have a serious feel to it like final fantasy 13 did so I didnt return to playing it. I think that final fantasy 13 was ok it had an open world Gran Pulse which was sort of like the open world in final fantasy 12 i cant remember the name exactly.
Final fantasy 13-2 not sure if it really had a world but just a bunch of dimensions two warp through which I didnt like I would have prefered a open gran pulse to explore like the one in 13 but with more NPC’s
Good post, but just to be accurate, the option to make the cursor default to the abilities menu was there in FFXIII as well 🙂
I actually LIKED ff13. Yes it was linear and had its flaws but people need to stop comparing it to the others in the series and start just looking at it as its own game. I’ve played nearly all the FF games and liked them all for different reasons. In FF13 the battle system was inovative and fun and I kinda liked the levling up of the weapons except I agree it did encourage you to stick with the same weapon through the game for the most part. as for the paradigm animation I think they did that on purpose to discourage it from being too abusive. it was kinda like using a turn to switch roles. those of you that say you’ll never play another FF again are really missing out. for the record though I like 13-2 a bit better.
oh you also missed a big one – in FF13 there were NO random encounters, in 13-2 they are semi random where they pop out but you have a few seconds if you need to change things up before fighting.
Dagon, if you are talking about turning back, XIII is similar to VII, so that was a good move :p (I mean universe)
Just to say that Final Fantasy X was the last true Final Fantasy. It had the storyline, the strategy and the animations wernt too bad either. The new FF games have the looks but left us all in dissapointment. Most of it was so obvious actions we basically knew what was round the corner. Plus that its embarrising to play with say your family around because Vanille makes orgasm noises. FF 13 2 finally got the wheel moving but the storyline was terrible. If I had a pound for every time Serah would cry I would be rich…
Personally, I wish there was component change in the two games. I wish the complex story of FF13 went to FF13-2 while the horrible story of FF13-2 went to the garbage can. The new ABS system was a boring gameplay method and after a 5 hours of using it you basically mastered it. The classic turn-base method made you rely on your personal training and overall skill. I disliked FF13 as it had some crappy core gameplay with annonying delays (stupid paradigm cutscenes) yet having what it takes to have a golden prodigy. FF-13-2 was horrible in story but fixed minor annoyances in the battle system. But the story difference bewteen the 2 games is incomparable: 13 was a “we know there is a happy ending but how long till it ends” while 13-2 was “paradox, paradox, caius, paradox., paradox, caius, caius….. then the story ends with a sad twist which I won’t spoil 🙁
First 60$ is not alot of money and if it is too much rent it for two weeks or a month… it would still be cheaper that way you silly sods.. and dagon123 are you sure you even played 13?! it is turn based i dont know what your talking about its just as turn based as 10 or even 7…
To be honest, I am waiting on a price drop for this game. FF XIII really let me down. I will be honest and say I did enjoy the game at first, but then the sheer lack of anything new in the game after the first few chapters, meaning a change in the lay of the land, mini games, an actual interesting lv up and gear lv up system….I just got so bored, that plowing through the last 1/3 to 1/2 of the game was just a practice in tedium.
But you know the old saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me….so I am waiting on a price drop so I don’t feel so betrayed by the cost of the game. I know this will not make the new game look good, if a lot of people do the same, but that is Square Enix’s fault, not us gamers.
Very well written!
I really hope FFXIII-2 Can become a great sequel and am very please with the removal of the animation for Paradigm Shifting because that’s one thing I was finding simply silly and extremely irritating.
The biggest way its better than its predecessor, is that I will not be spending any money on it. Not that I have sixty dollars, anyway.
I’m not going to go over why I didn’t like XIII, but simply stated, I will not touch XIII-2 nor any future Final Fantasy game unless its Turn-Based.
Some people will say “Get with the times”, yet, to make that statement, especially on this blog of all places, would be hypocrisy at its height, there is DEFINITELY still a market for old style JRPG’s, heck, Dragon Quest? anyone Pokemon? (Though Pokemon is a stretch) but my point is
If its not broke, don’t fix it, and Square decided to break it, and forgot how to put it back together, and they lost me as a customer and long time fan when they did, I gave XIII a chance, I really did, but trying to add these things onto XIII-2 in my honest opinion is missing the point altogether
Two blog posts in two days? It’s like you just barely discovered caffeine or something.