Recent reviews by Alexander

The direct sequel to 2009’s Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2 brings a slate of improvements to the flawed formula of its predecessor, from improved exploration to the non existence of a 20 hour tutorial, to the way you encounter enemies, while perhaps taking a hit in other aspects but overall it should be said that XIII-2 does surpass XIII and it also unveils the actual mythos behind the Fabula Nova Crystallis.

[1] Gameplay

While very similar to XIII it does bring some quality of life improvements, finally being able to change party leaders during enemy encounters which leads to not losing battles when your party leader is downed despite the two other members being alive, which was in my opinion a flaw of XIII and a departure from classic Final Fantasy. The level design, while still somewhat linear, does lead to more exploration and choices while walking around, it clearly is a step up from XIII, but it continues the linearity the franchise has had since Final Fantasy X. In a myriad of ways XIII-2 does mirror X-2, it has a similar level “selector”, the Historia Crux mirrors the Celsius, such as being able to visit every biome that existed in the previous games in a non linear form, while both predecessors you walked the world in a linear progression following the party’s journey to their destiny.

Speaking more in depth about the changes to combat, the paradigm pack is a nice addiction with a somewhat Pokemon style system, that is to say, during the game you may catch crystals that contain the monsters that you defeated and they may help you in battle, and each monster has a given role attributed to them that is immutable, you level their crystarium with components that you either randomly gain during battles or chests during the game or buy them through the shop system in XIII-2, there are various tiers of components for each type of beast, be they robot or l’cie or biological and as Pokemon have EV’s (read: Effort Value) which are mutable characteristics. There’s also an infusion system in the game, that I did not delve much into, but to summarise it, you infuse a given beast with the crystal of another’s so that they may gain said beast’s passive ability.

The last thing about gameplay should be the Crystarium, while in this game we still use a Crystarium it has changed to be less linear, you do not have 6 paths for each character, you only follow 1 path that has 22 stages, and that are not gate kept by your progress in the main journey unlike XIII’s, in this iteration of the Crystarium each role is attributed a level that goes up to level 99, each role favours a stat, be it strength, magic or HP, and when you level a role you get a bonus for the stat that said role favours, usually Serah is the Magic User while Noel is the Attack User, you may only focus on Commando for example and leave every role at level 1, there is absolutely no restrictions, and if you do end up levelling a role to 99 in early Crystarium Stages, it costs little, because the CP costs are tied to the Crystarium’s stages not the the level of the role you are levelling.


[2] Story

Final Fantasy XIII was the first one to be released under the umbrella of the Fabula Nova Crystallis, but while XIII deals with theme of defying destiny and focuses on Crystals such as early entries in the franchise, it doesn’t delve much into the mythos of the Goddess Etro that the cancelled Versus XIII was supposed to deal with right from the get go.

As with the gameplay the initial setup for this game also mirrors X-2’s setup, in the fact that each of their predecessors doesn’t foreshadow a sequel or has an emerging intrigue starting in their ending, neither does either one need a sequel, both games reach conclusive endings on their own without the need for a follow up, which leaves the setup for both feeling maybe forced and unnecessary, nonetheless both games bring interesting gameplay and are worth the play.

The game starts 3 year after XIII’s events, which is dubbed 003 AF (After the Fall [of Cocoon]), Serah is living in what is called New Bodhum in Gran Pulse which is populated by the familiar faces that lived in the original one, but we soon learn that shortly after XIII’s ending, Lightning disappears mysteriously, and suddenly monsters appear in the town and with them comes a strange fellow called Noel that says he arrived there from Valhalla where he found Lightning protecting the Goddess Etro’s throne, and he informs Serah that to reach Valhalla and save her sister they must journey through time fixing paradoxes.

The game introduces us to Valhalla to the Goddess Etro and to broader themes of the Fabula, but does it so in a way that sometimes can feel disconnected from the original game, the characters may suffer less characterization given the more non linear progression of the story, that was one of the upsides to XIII’s linearity and some of the supposed emotional scenes may come out as cheap same with some of the plot twists but overall XIII-2 tells a decent enough humanist story with the overall theme of the Fabula, that is defying destiny or dying trying.

[3] Soundtrack

Similarly to its predecessor the OST of this game is decent enough, there are some songs that are quite well, one that strikes me the first time that I heard it was the one in the seaside in one of the more advance levels, but for the seasoned Final Fantasy fan it doesn’t come close to the legendary OST of past entries made by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu.

[4] Endgame

The original endgame of this game rubbed me in a way more positive light versus the endgame of XIII, it was way less grindy and the fragment list was actually fulfilling to complete unlike the trapezohedron grind of the previous game, although the hardest bosses either played exactly like the previous one or very similarly, but that point ends up being fixed with one of the DLCs.

[5] DLCs

There are a few DLCs, I’ve read that Square Enix’s DLC practice for this game (and others for that matter) was quite consumer unfriendly but for the Steam version everything comes with this purchase.

Some of these DLCs are spoiler heavy and so will be my review about them.

Sazh’s Story: Heads or Tails?

The objective and gameplay is quite dull, the synopsis for this story is that Sazh’s son has disappeared and for him to recover his son he must play poker at the universal casino, when translating this concept to execution it really ends up being a really boring DLC, and its plot implications are simply to explain how Sazh appears at the end of the game to help out Serah and the crew.

Snow’s Story: Perpetual Battlefield

This DLC is the one that can really satiate the more hardcore players with it’s fights, you find yourself in an universal omnitemporal colosseum where you fight various enemies from XIII’s universe or related to common Final Fantasy mythos, and a SPECIAL appearance from Ultros ( a Final Fantasy VI classic).

Lightning’s Story: Requiem of the Goddess

This DLC and the secret ending that you acquire after getting 160/160 fragments is the one that connects XIII-2 to Lightning Returns, something that should have been done to connect XIII to XIII-2. The gameplay for this is somewhat fun, it requires you to fight Caius and lose enough times until you become strong enough to beat him and witness the ending of the DLC.

[6] Conclusion

Overall this game is a step up from its prequel, and while XIII is overly criticised in Final Fantasy circles this game helps clear this trilogy’s reputation for those that dare to play it.
Also this port requires you to fix it cause Square Enix, for that follow this useful guide: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2038838545

Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most controversial games in the mainline series, often criticized for its 20 hours tutorial, being one huge hallway and regarding this specific version, the quality of the PC port.

After Final Fantasy X-2 was a success Square Enix started to look towards expanded universes as to reuse assets and an existing fanbase already invested in said universe, with that came the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and eventually Fabula Nova Crystallis which would be a common mythos that would be the basis for the Final Fantasy XII Trilogy but also Final Fantasy Type-0 and Final Fantasy Versus XIII turned Final Fantasy XV.

While this game’s early linearity is bad it’s not so different from Final Fantasy X’s linearity, but the one thing that probably accentuates the linearity is the lack of random encounters, while often found to be a sour point in classic Final Fantasy those random encounters add a certain degree of uncertainty which probably helps to alleviate X’s linearity, sadly XII has set encounters, what this means is that enemies always appears and it’s up to the player to decide if they can fight or not when given a choice. This problem is something that would later be fixed in its sequel, XIII-2.

Diverging from classic Final Fantasy in this game you only control one of the three characters in battle and each character has one role active at the time, out of battle you can program 6 paradigm shifts (which are 6 different combinations of 3 roles). There are 6 roles in XII, Sentinel (tank), Medic, Commando (physical damage dealer), Ravager (magic damage dealer), Saboteur (to cast debuffs), Synergist (to cast buffs).

The combat has great depth if you get to Chapter 10 where you are free to change party members/paradigms which happens to be roughly at the same time you get to a semi open world area with different quests and zones to explore.

These quests happen to be the endgame of XII, you will do some of them during your stay in the semi open world area but most of them are to be done after the main storyline. Overall XII’s endgame grind might prove to be more annoying than classic Final Fantasy since the way to obtain each character’s best weapon either requires you to reload your game plenty of times or grind enough gil.

Now for the story and characters, the game tries to develop each character, and early on it splits the characters into little groups so we can see the dynamic between these small groups form and their conflicts, in general I feel like this approach works, but it does feel like Square Enix really developed the early story and characterization well but towards the end there seems to be a general lack of development both in the main party and the villain (s), not that it ruins the game but it definitely felt like more things could have been done while we have the whole party together.

Overall, I usually give this game more credit than maybe the Final Fantasy community at large, while most of their criticisms are warranted the game still ends up being a really enjoyable experience, but given the quality of this port I’d wait for a sale to buy it (and if you have an AMD graphics card, be sure to fully test it before your refund opportunity window runs out).

Want to start this review by saying that there are probably a wide variety of people reading up on Final Fantasy VII right now, from the old fans that still haven’t played Remake to the new fans that have only played Remake and I want to have a section for each type of people coming across this game and then I’ll have a general review of the game.

[1] New players that have never engaged with Final Fantasy VII (including Remake):


Please play through this game before jumping into the Remake, the Remake is an amazing game that you could enjoy and take much from without playing the original but playing this one amplifies how good the Remake ends up being for you. A playthrough of this game should be in between 30 to 40 hours so it’s not an insane investment but it makes Remake so much more worth.
I’ll refrain from explaining why playing this game is mandatory for the enhanced enjoyment of Remake because of fear of ruination. Remake completely redefines the meaning of spoiling.


[2] Players that have played Remake but have never played the original:


So you have just experienced the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that is the finale of the Remake and ended up on the internet trying to make something out of it and realized that playing the original is really essential?
Good! While the Steam version of this game could be better it still does its job very well.
If Remake made you feel amazing while playing then this game will be more of the same, this game has one of the best atmospheres and the Remake really did this game justice in that regard, so jump in and spend more time with your favourite characters. You will also find out that Midgar is a much smaller section compared to Remake.


[3] Old frogs that have played the original but haven’t touched the Remake:



If its been too long since you have touched this game do replay it and make yourself a favour and replay Crisis Core too (there’s a PSP emulator that’s very simple to setup).
As I have said before playing the previous game does multiply how much you enjoy the Remake and please do not judge the Remake off of things you have read on the internet just please for the love of god get the game and play it for yourself I promise you won’t regret it.





[4] So you have played both this one and remake uh?

I’m going to be honest this section is going to be about me shilling the Remake.
I don’t know where you sit on the fence about the Remake but for me it was some of the best experiences I have had in video games ever not even in recent years…
The first game that made me feel that way was the original Final Fantasy VII and playing the Remake and the final battle versus Sephiroth making me feel the way I felt all those years ago is something I never expected. Now I know Nomura is Nomura and some people don’t like the Kingdom Hearts convoluted story type that he seems to be going for in the Remake but truth is, I feel like Nomura is a shonen anime protagonist and usually is able to get out of these things fairly well and I do like how convoluted Kingdom Hearts is, yes it is not without it’s flaws but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless.
Remake right now has so much potential in what it can end up being and that’s very exciting.
Will Sephiroth go after Tifa? To what extent does Aerith know stuff? What does Cloud have 7 seconds for? Why is Zack alive in another timeline and why does that matter?
There’s so many things going in terms of plot and it’s not like the combat was left behind the combat is very enjoyable and challenging at times, it doesn’t suffer what FFXV suffered from and that’s great.
Also if you haven’t already please go and read the few translations that exist of the Ultimania that was release shortly after the Remake it’s confirms some theories and debunks others.



[5] The actual review of the original Final Fantasy VII…
I played this game before touching Remake a few months ago, and let me tell you this game in its atmosphere is still almost unrivalled, few games in today’s industry make you feel like the way this game makes you feel.
Of course the graphics and the gameplay are outdated but I have to say I ended up enjoying both even though both are outdated, the game is way too easy and that is one flaw though.
You can mod it although, if you do end up modding it you won’t be able to win Steam achievements and Steam won’t count the hours that you played, if neither of these things are something that matters to you I do recommend on modding FFVII the combat can be made more interesting, the graphics be made more modern and the translation more accurate.
This version is always online because whenever you save the game also saves in Square Enix’s cloud, this should be optional and its dumb that it isn’t.

And that’s all that I have for this review. This game is amazing and made many childhoods and hopefully my review made another person join in on the fun of the future of this franchise with the Remake!