if you liked ff13 you will probably not like this game. the additions to gameplay feel either superfluous or a side-grade from the first game, the story is significantly worse in how boringly unhinged it is, and to top it off this port is somehow even more broken than the 1st game

if you didn't like ff13 and could not care less about story you might enjoy this, port issues aside. even tho the combat in many ways is less interesting than the first game's, it at least throws you into fully featured combat within 10-20 minutes of gameplay. the overworld appears to be attempting to mimic xenoblade in structure, but unlike xenoblade there is still a battle map

FF13-2 is the sequel to the divisive 2009 FF13 title. It's frustrating to compare the two because despite using the same combat system and story, just about everything else feels different and not for the better.

Right away it is clear that the devs sought to avoid the same criticisms they received for the first game, almost to a fault. Multiple open maps replace the long corridors so many fans hated and the bloated original cast is now slimmed down to two MCs and their moogle mascot. The combat system remains very similar although opens up significantly faster than in the original and has shorter combat cutscenes to help battles flow more smoothly.

Unfortunately by going out of their way to avoid the pitfalls of the original, the devs lost sight of what made FF13 good in the first place. The focused narrative of the first game is replaced with a meandering plot that that feels disconnected from the original. Time travel and multiple time lines are used to justify retconning the happily-ever-after ending of the first game and for setting up the 'broken' timeline players start the game in.

The introduction of time travel immediately sent shivers of dread down my spine - authors are rarely able to properly navigate the storytelling issues time travel introduces and the writers of FF13-2 were no exception. Expect overuse of terms like 'paradox effect', 'change the future' and a whole boatload of bad writing justified 'because time travel!'.

The main gameplay loop in this temporally-broken world is jumping from zone to zone fixing the local timelines that are out of joint. Most of these zones and stories are disconnected from one another, the main thread between them being the two MCs who are jumping between timelines searching for Serah's sister Lightning. The end result is a game that feels like one sidequest after another for 2/3rds of the game. The constant jumping around unrelated maps also makes it hard to appreciate or become invested in the world as
a whole. One moment you are in a seaside village, the next the ruins of an ancient metropolis, the next an... interdimensional casino? Most zones just sit in a jumble with no natural story progression between them other than "this area's timeline is broken, teleport there and solve the paradox!" until much later in the story.

While the combat is noticeably snappier and generally improved, the decision to replace a third party member with a monster aka pokemon of your choice felt notably lacklustre. In theory the idea of monster taming seems cool, until you realise most monster types share similar skills between the various classes and there isn't really that much to differentiate monster A vs monster B besides broken stat and passive combinations. Worse still, the passive system which allows you to fuse monsters together to create stronger monsters is mostly superfluous given the easy game difficulty. Unlike the original which pretty much mandated specific team comps for certain bosses, the majority of the FF13-2 can be beaten first try with little grinding or specific tactics needed outside of perhaps 2 boss fights. The DLC introduces an additional arena with more challenging fights but by that stage you've already beaten the main game.

All this creates a game that honestly felt like a chore to play. Noticeable exceptions include the soundtrack which remained of the quality expected from an FF title and the surprisingly good platonic chemistry between the two MCs. It was interesting seeing the writers create a believable friendship between opposite sexes in a genre known for pairing the female and male MCs and given how much FF13's original cast had zero chemistry. Unfortunately this isn't enough to carry the disjointed story and tedious gameplay. I won't spoil the ending other than to say it left quite a few fans disappointed and feeling cheated even if it was meant to set the stage for the final game in the trilogy.

Only play this if you're determined to finish the entire trilogy.

The story has taken a massive downgrade with Noel and Sarah unable to match the previous cast. The only good parts of the story are the side quests and data logs which leave a hollow feeling after you finish the main quest. The gameplay works as long as there is sidequests so you can "grind" while doing something novel. The instant that it's all done, it all collapses. To quote another user in a discord I'm in, you're living in numbers land where the numbers suck.