 |
Review: Square Enix gets ‘Final Fantasy’ back on track
And those fans made their voices heard after the 2009 release of “Final Fantasy XIII,” which jettisoned some of the series’ long-standing features in exchange for a more streamlined, action-packed narrative.
Aficionados howled, particularly over the game’s linear nature; you didn’t really get a chance to explore the world of “XIII” until you were most of the way through. Where were the wacky characters who livened up previous chapters? What happened to the quaint towns where you could stock up on supplies and juice up your weapons?
“Final Fantasy XIII-2” (Square Enix, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) feels largely like a response to those criticisms. It’s anything but linear; it may even be too liberal in letting you freely skip between locations. There are more characters to interact with, and more side missions to break up the main story. You can even train and race chocobos, the ostrich-sized chickens that have been the series’ unofficial mascots.
The sequel begins at the end of civilization, with “XIII” heroine Lightning battling against a powerful, purple-haired enemy named Caius. Hoping to reverse this disastrous timeline, Lightning flings the last surviving human, Noel, back through time. He finds Lightning’s sister, Serah, and they begin their mission to “save the future.”
That entails traveling through time warps to a series of locations at different points during a 500-year span. There’s a lush forest where a crystal tower precariously balances Cocoon, a city in the sky. There’s an archaeological site where soldiers are fighting monsters from another dimension. There’s a sprawling urban campus where scientists are trying to build another Cocoon.
At each stop, Noel and Serah have a number of ways to correct the timeline and save humanity. Eventually, the “map” of “XIII-2” blossoms into a tangle of alternate realities -- even as Caius and a mysterious girl named Yeul are hot on the protagonists’ trail.
As any “Lost” fan can testify, time-travel narratives can run the risk of disappearing up their own wormholes. In 1995, Square’s “Chrono Trigger” deftly handled the genre’s puzzles and paradoxes, but “XIII-2” is much less successful. Its convolutions left me scratching my head, and its conclusion is certain to be divisive.
And Noel and Serah are two of the blandest headliners in “Final Fantasy” history. There’s nothing really wrong with them, but when some of the more colorful “XIII” characters -- like the droll, mysterious Fang -- pop in for cameos, you wish they would hang around a little longer and take the spotlight away from the tiresomely spunky leads.
Nonetheless, I found “XIII-2” more absorbing than its predecessor, in part because I’ve gotten used to its “paradigm”-based combat. Instead of controlling all three characters in your party, you control just one -- though you can switch the paradigms used by the other two so they concentrate on physical attacks, magic or defense. Boss battles force you to constantly adjust your paradigms, so while the fights are fast-paced, they require strategy.
The third position on your team is occupied by a monster. You recruit these helpful creatures by beating them in the wilderness, then “training” them with rewards collected throughout your travels.
I also enjoyed bouncing around the different locations, which, while drastically different, all display the eye-popping graphics that are a Square trademark.
The series may never return to its late-1990s peak, but “Final Fantasy XIII-2” is a step in the right direction. Three stars out of four.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BÜLENT KENEŞ |  |
||
| What befell Niyazi-i Misri in the past is happening to Fethullah Gülen now | |||
| EKREM DUMANLI |  |
||
| When a call for fairness and reason finds acceptance | |||
| ŞAHİN ALPAY |  |
||
| Uludere, test case for democracy in Turkey | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Are the Kurds mentally divorced from Turkey? | |||
| GÖKHAN BACIK |  |
||
| Erdoğan, Gül and Davutoğlu: the inner bargain on Turkish foreign policy | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| Taking lessons from previous experiences with the military | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| Qualm | |||
| ÖMER TAŞPINAR |  |
||
| A new phase in Syria? | |||
| İHSAN DAĞI |  |
||
| Turkish foreign policy: Time for a re-evaluation | |||
| SEYFETTİN GÜRSEL |  |
||
| Poor-friendly economic growth and the AK Party | |||
| CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON |  |
||
| Missing women, missing opportunities | |||
| BERK ÇEKTİR |  |
||
| Changes to incentives for investment in Turkey | |||
| MERVE BÜŞRA ÖZTÜRK |  |
||
| The 1960 coup: a final test for democracy | |||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
