FINAL FANTASY® XIII-2

Fix the game Squeenix, you absolute HACKS

I love this game but do not purchase this version of the game whatever you do. The fact that 90% of the discussion forums and reviews are how to spend 2+ hours of downloading patches, testing things over and over, and reading through forumgore while still not running 100% is a joke. People who purchased this game should not have to play trial and error with community guides to get the product to work well. Do yourself a favor and play this game elsewhere. Anyone who says "it workz fine for me lol" cannot discern the difference between 12fps and 60fps. Your rig has nothing to do with this dumpster fire port.

This game straight up DOES NOT work on my PC (RXT 3080Ti & Intel I9). It does however run on my steam deck (???) I have seen many pages about how to "fix" this issue but seeing as those include REINSTALLING WINDOWS or downloading some old directx file I'm not going to consider any of those viable or reasonable. I wish I could find a reasonable and concise answer as to why this game crashes every single time on my PC.

There is an issue with the game crashing due to memory restrictions, but if you check out the form there is away to patch it and get that to work.

So the game it self is visually pleasing and has all the same kind of elements from Final Fantasy XIII, the random inconters are anoying in any game, but at least now you can save it more or less anyway on the go.

The whole time travel thing is a headacke at first, but once you get used to it you going to find how great it is to go back to diffrent stages and unlock even more secreats.

Before hand, use the FF XIII fix to improve the stuttering.
With current hardware (steamdeck included) this game runs well.
It's weird it looks worse than the first one, but it's not too bad.

The story sure is weird. It's so... sad. But the gameplay is really improved from the first opus.

AMAZING soundtrack, fun story, and all around upgrade to FFXIII's battle systems. PC port is shot and crashes a lot but with patches the game is stable.

this game is broken, the port is bad. i couldnt play the game

Out of three FF XIII titles this one is surprisingly the best port. Sure, it still needs some fixes/patches, but unlike FF XIII and Lightning returns we have full mouse support here.
Gameplay-wise this one is the easiest. Took me 133 hours to 100% all achievements. And that taking in account how I love going AFK while the game runs and watch movies or do other stuff.
The "pokemon" monster taming system is fun. However for the base game the depth of infusing/building monsters might not even be needed. Simply maxing out Serah and Noel will do the trick. Even Long Gui is way easier than in FF XIII.
Coliseum DLC on the other hand - that's where the fun and grind is.
And advice - Serendipity DLC (that opens up after main story ending) is a much easier path to tons of coins then Chocobo racing.

(+) Pros:
1.Gameplay improvements from Final Fantasy XIII.
2.Interesting plot twists, especially at the end
3.Monster crystal: You can add monsters to your party.
4.Multiple paradox endings.

(-) Cons:
1.The ultimate issue: It's a very bad port. CRASH... CRASH... CRASH...!!!
There's a simple fix available on the internet, and it works perfectly.
2.There are only two main characters.
3."To be continued..." – The secret ending is locked behind 100% completion
4.Wild Artefacts are crucial for story progression. This isn’t an issue if you collect all of them during map exploration.
However, if you miss one or more, you might find yourself needing to unlock a story-related gate, only for the game to tell you that you need a Wild Artefact to proceed.
-Good news: There are only 10 Wild Artefacts.
-Bad news: The game does not track which ones you have already obtained.
5.Annoying anomaly puzzles.
6.Heavy metal music plays while riding the rambunctious Chocobo.
7.Only the Japanese VA is available.

This trilogy is the last actually good Final Fantasy. I don't care.

Super funny when you get all 160 fragments and put the game at max speed. The game is still stable despite being so frenetic.

You need mods for sure to maintain your sanity with the performance......but after that barrier the game itself is pretty neat.

frequent crashes, huge fps drops, very disappointing

Noel Kreiss

Wow. The reviews weren't lying. I crashed a total of 4 times in 30 minutes even with FF13Fix. The game is unplayable and I'm essentially forced to refund. Impressive.

I can't even get past the point where you select your x/y-axis camera settings in the first 3 minutes of the game due to crashes. This game is not playable.

Nice game design, very epic soundtrack and interesting story.
Gampelay is definetly better than FF XIII.
Sadly it's a bad port (even worse than FF XIII) and you need to install 1-2 mods and change settings for it to run properly.

DO NOT ENABLE CLOUD SAVE FOR THIS GAME!!! IT WILL CRASH ALOT AND THEN STARTING A LOCAL SAVE FILE WILL LOCK YOUR GAME TO LAST PLACE OF CLOUD SAVE AND U CANNOT ADVANCE FURTHER SO YOU WILL HAVE TO RESTART.

START WITH A LOCAL SAVE ONLY! I REPEAT DISABLE CLOUD SAVE FOR THIS GAME

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a fine game. Not perfect by any stretch, but it is a fun take on the ATB system and best played as a more lighthearted (when the story isn't heavy) remix of the first game.

I don't recommend this game because the port is of poor quality. Playable, but I have experienced many crashes. I am too stubborn for my own good, but you, dear reader, may have a PS4 or something laying around that will run this game far better than the best PC ever will.

I won't say its broken. I'm glad this exists, but it is a subpar port,

Not a good port, crashes with steam saves. Gave is aggressively mediocre as well, weird time travel and your 3rd party member is a random monster

Final Fantasy XIII-2 (FF13-2) is a sequel that attempts to improve on the shortcomings of its predecessor, Final Fantasy XIII (FF13). In terms of gameplay, FF13-2 is reminiscent of Final Fantasy X-2, as the game is more varied and open.

FF13-2 tries to improve all the complaints about its predecessor, especially by getting rid of the monotonous gameplay loop in FF13, where you basically just walk and fight. Levels are now more open and you can even jump with your character! Moreover, you can now return to previous locations. Most locations re-use assets from the previous game. The music still is good with some new tracks.

A major addition in FF13-2 are NPCs who you can talk to and do quests for in any order. For some reason, NPCs who give you quests have the same "talk" icon as all other NPCs, so you basically have to talk to every NPC to find the right ones. Sometimes you will find special items that will unlock new locations, or the same location in a different timeline. If you are planning a 100% playthrough, you can spend a lot of time here.

Other additions to the game are mini-games in a casino and Chocoboo racing, similar to Final Fantasy VII. There are also some puzzles to solve, most of which are fine, except for the clock puzzle, which is badly presented (I did not recognize the numbers!) and can be quite difficult to solve.

Combat is similar to FF13 with the staggering mechanic. Enemies have now less HP, which speeds up combat encounters. Random encounters now appear out of nowhere, but are still avoidable. Also, the game does not end when your main character is knocked down. As usual, the difficulty rises steeply towards the end of the game, forcing you to grind and level up.

The character upgrade system is simpler than in FF13 and allows for less customization. You can also now capture monsters and use them as a third companion (Pokémon) in combat. Captured monsters can be upgraded by using resources you collect through combat (farming). You can also merge monsters to transfer abilities, giving you quite a few options for customizing your monsters. This system is quite neat and you can spend some time with it.

In terms of characters, FF13-2 is a step backwards. I wish there was more interaction with characters from the previous game. Even worse are the main characters. Serah remains an uninteresting character until the end of the game and has very little depth. Noel, the second progatonist, is a better character with more depth, but is introduced rather suddenly and without much explanation and remains rather flat until the mid-end of the game. The main villain is pretty cool, especially his voice (Weiss/Nier: Replicant). And then there's Kupo, who is supposed to be cute, but can become annoying due to his childish portrayal. Kupo also serves as story exposition, so you don't have to read the datalogs (as you should have done in FF13). The best character in the game is Chocolina, who acts as a recurring shop with an overly capitalistic attitude. Although she is a minor character with little dialogue, I found her lines the most fun.

Story-wise, FF13-2 is quite a mess. Time travel rarely makes sense, and in this game the designers do not even seem to be trying to make sense of it. Moreover, the game does not make much use of time travelling mechanics. Other games integrate time elements more seamlessly, e.g., through time-related abilities or time puzzles that affect other timelines. In FF13-2, your actions have little to no effect on subsequent timelines (except for the main story, which is scripted). My biggest disappointment is that the game does little to build on the world-building introduced in FF13. That was one of the best parts of the previous game. It's a shame for the previous world building and characters - both are relegated to supporting roles in FF13-2.

Another major shortcoming of FF13-2 is that most of the quests involve finding some random plot device to advance the story, which is fine, but not very motivating. That said, the game gets off to a promising start: the NPCs and quests in the first two areas were quite well staged, and the NPCs reacted to changes made by the player. Unfortunately, this quality does not continue. The side quests get worse as you do uninspired random errands for random people. Some quests give you little information about where to go: the description could have been better. Additional hints on the timeline screen would have been nice.
FF13-2 also introduces a dialogue system that gives the player four options. If you choose the right option, you are sometimes rewarded with small gifts. Quite an unnecessary system.

The PC port is bad: You need the unofficial FF13FIX and 4GB Patch to play it. There is also no in-game volume control.

Overall, FF13-2 is an improvement in terms of gameplay, but not in terms of story or characters. Characters remain largely flat. Story and quests are mostly driven by arbitrary plot devices. The world and characters previously introduced in FF13 are mainly used as scenery in this game.

The game port is bad, and you need to find a work around on how to fix it. There are posts in the Hub / Reviews on how to fix it.

Story wise, I totally love how they approach the story using the Historia Crux it is such a good feature. I got hooked into Serah & Noel more than i would expect to. When started i feel like why they choose the Main Character to be Serah, but along the way I realized she deserve the Role.

If you played FF XIII, XIII-2 also use the paradigm system but is 1000% way better they have lenient restriction compared to XIII paradigm system and the progression is very smooth you don't have to be restricted to a Role just to unlock a bonus slot for acc or ATB gauge, just choose what you want to build for the character and it will work out. Mobs in the mid-game is definitely easy to kill and repeat farming while exploring the maps so if you want to branch out from current role it is easy.

Also Equipment is not a hard requirement, you can just use what you have since Paradigm covers almost everything you need to progress through the main quest.

Overall great game and very enjoyable progressing, exploring experience

The game doesn't work, many crashes, FPS drops, unfortunately I can't recommend the Steam version, in my opinion it's the weakest Final Fantasy XIII franchise in terms of story :/

I was not a fan of the sequel, except the monster catching.
I'd rather return to the previous entry or a different Final Fantasy, but that's entirely subjective and personal opinion.
But still, it's Final Fantasy, so download it.

Gameplay wise, much better than XIII. I recommend this game, but there are some major issues that will keep people away.

The main thing is just getting the game to work. On steam deck I never had any issues, my desktop however I had to do some work first. The game would not boot. I had to download the 4gb fix patch. Then I had a buzzing audio bug that needed more fixing. Still the game sometimes needs to be started multiple times before it works. This game came out in a time when SE had god awful ports. The newer FF games have none of these issues.

The difficulty overall seems easier than XIII. This game still has the weird hard AF difficulty spikes out of nowhere. Only thing I can think that explains this is that the game wants you to come back later and fight them. You will go from understanding and making good progress, to just instantly deleted.

The quest design is super confusing at times. FFXVI did a great job with marking where to go and what NPCs give side quests. This game will have you running around aimlessly trying to figure out where to go next.

The story is an abortion. This game pretty much makes XIII's ending useless. If you like that ending, just don't play this game because it destroys everything with the stupid time travel bs. How hard is it not to make a ridiculous, contradicting story full of plot holes?

If this game had better writing, quest design, and combat it would be one of my favorites. On sale it's a good time sink. I'm just waiting for Rebirth to release.

Oh, here's for the clock puzzles. Thank me later
https://clock.andrewpyle.dev/

Square Enix will fall like their partner Sweet baby
also if you release product in the west we have all rights to criticise you

This isn't a well done port. It crashes a lot. The audio will have a buzzing noise if you have surround sound enabled through your audio driver, which you can fix by running the program in Vista compatibility mode. Steam Cloud saves will also cause the game to crash, so you have to turn them off to try to make the game crash less. I can't recommend playing this port due to the poor quality and constant crashes, although I enjoyed the game itself.

absolutely masterpiece, story is breathtaking and gameplay is incredibly fun, been playing the 13 triology for so many years by now and its absolutely a game that went deep into my heart <3

Let me start off by saying that this game is entirely playable by installing a couple of fanmade patches. You can find all of the instructions and links in this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2038838545 It is very easy to do and only takes about 5 minutes. I did this before my first playthrough and experienced zero performance issues.

As a huge fan of Lightning Returns, I figured it was about time I played this game as well. Boy am I glad I finally did. Serah and Noel are genuinely great characters and its fun to watch their interactions throughout the game. I always found myself looking forward to unlocking the next areas just to see their reactions. The story is a little generic at parts but I loved every bit of it. Even after playing Lightning Returns multiple times, I was still surprised by this game's ending

The combat is also great; I was weary at first since I had played a bit of XIII in the past and really disliked the combat. This game seemed to have fixed the issues in XIII (such as slow paradigm shifts and little customization) and added some extra improvements, like being able to capture monsters and add them to your team.

The Crystarium leveling system makes grinding more rewarding in my opinion. Its fun to go through a bunch of battles and see how many points you racked up to level up your team. Not to mention the addition of fragment skills that allow you to manipulate factors such as how frequently you encounter enemies or how often rare enemies appear. The schemata system is also effective and easy to understand.

My only real negatives with this game are the side quests and anomaly puzzles. Many of the side quests are fetch quests that require you to find and return an item. These quickly get repetitive and boring. The anomaly puzzles are a fun addition, but I found the clock puzzles to be too difficult and ended up using an online tool to complete them.

I highly recommend this game even if you have not played any of the XIII entries. The story is easy to follow, the characters are lovable, the combat is fun, the environments are beautiful, and the soundtrack is amazing. Lightning Returns is one of my favorite games of all time and this might just be a close second after completing it. Just install the patches and you're good to go!

I deeply, unironically love this game. It is pilled high with reasons not to, a few big ones which may turn you off could be:

The game requires external patching to get running stably because Square Enix don't understand how to port to PC, and this is from the early era of there ports so they also didn't care very much about the PC market.
The plot is absolutely insane, character motivations are simplistic and often pulled straight from the JRPG trope bin with little thought or care.
100%ing the game requires a lot of tedious side-quests which should have been cut entirely.

So why do I recommend it?

This game lets have the most fun with the paradigm system because it is unlocked from the start. You get build a pack of swap-able monsters who take up the third slot so shifting paradigms also can shift an entire party member. There is a lot of depth here, in terms of how you level your characters and what monsters you use, level up and when you should infuse them into newer monsters to pass on key passive or active skills. It becomes a fun little game play loop.

The music, while atypical of final fantasy in several places, showed a willingness to experiment with genres and sounds in a Square game (something they are normally unwilling to do) and the visual design is solid for a game from 2011. Is the faux-death metal boss encounter theme for everyone? No, but I love that they tried.

I also like the plot. It's terrible but in a bizarrely charming way because you know all the hilarious or ironic moments are unintentional. This isn't a shit writer claiming that writing a bad story intentionally makes it good and then claiming that their one ironic idea justifies a bland experience. This is a team of writers who tell you straight faced that if you change the future you change the past because of time travel. Or that if you scream loud enough in the future someone in the past will hear you and change their perspective.

And so, you laugh.

You laugh because the professional voice actors intone the most non-nonsensical gibberish with the solemnity of a grand Shakespearean drama and that the writers at Square thought that this was, if not great, then at least compelling or good rather than stupid. And that complete lack of awareness, or unprofessional delivery from the actors, make it oddly compelling. You want to see way insane train of logic your characters jump on because the writers didn't know how to write a time travel story. You want to see how fumbling and awkward the dialogue can get because they introduced the most basic of dialogue selection during non-essential conversations and they filled with bizarre anime answers.

So buy it one sale, install the 4G patch so the memory leak doesn't cause the game the crash and enjoy.

This is so ridiculous, they are making the best ff series unplayable. For whoever wants to buy it make sure you're playing it on Steam Deck

Do not get this here or on PC, it's broke, and even the mod's can only keep it working so long. First, if you have the dynamic audio setting on in Windows, this game just goes BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, and if you switch audiosources, the buzzing does not stop. Turning it off messed up all my other audio balances.

I started it up, got past a fight and some cutscnes, CRASH - ERROR, BlackScreen, full restart - try again boop.

Tried to get a refund from Steam, since i only put an hour in - but because i bought this on sale and time has passed, Steam said no refund so BOO STEAM! i bought it on sale, its a hole 8.47? LAME!!!!

Game is completely unplayable despite patches and all troubleshooting recommendations. SE should be ashamed for releasing a game in this state. Crashes constantly before even getting to move a character. They obviously don't care but they should be ashamed.

yaa ,good game 8.6 out of 10 . strong story , good emotion yaa story is not connect like 13 and also character will also take time to connect as compare to 13 but at the end of the game you will have a strong mark of felling as me.

This PC port should not be legal to sell to consumers. Crashes constantly.

Disable Steam Cloud saves for this game if you want to try. It will still crash but less frequently

so far it seems alot more fun and upbeat than FFXIII-1.

The improvements to FFXIII are really good. Linear game play is minimal and characters are much better written

I'd avoid this one if you have a computer made in the last 10 years. It has to be ran in Windows Vista Compatibility and still crashes frequently. I get that it's a fairly old game, but Square has made i clear they don't give a crap about their PC ports.

The first game was perfect but this one is epic.

I could recommend the game if it worked well out of the box... BUT, it just DONT, you will have a crash if you try to use it in fullscreen without using some fan made patches... It bugs me as to why Square-Enix dont fix FFXIII and FFXIII-2, the game works really well if you apply two fan made patches

1. FF13FIX https://github.com/rebtd7/FF13Fix/releases

# Installation

Download the latest [release](https://github.com/rebtd7/FF13Fix/releases) and add both ```d3d9.dll``` and ```FF13Fix.ini``` to the folder ```FINAL FANTASY XIII\white_data\prog\win\bin``` for FF13 and to the folder ```FINAL FANTASY XIII-2\alba_data\prog\win\bin``` for FF13-2.

2. 4gb patch: that enables the game to use 4GB of RAM instead of only 2GB: https://ntcore.com/4gb-patch/ and are a must have to play in resolutions above 720P, you just need to apply it to the FFXIII or FFXIII-2 exe that is on the same folder that the FF13fix files was copied to, after that the game runs great. It's a shame that Square Enix can't learn nothing from what those guys made...

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. FF-13-2 is a horrendous PC port, this game absolutely will not work out of the box without applying fan fixes and mods. Without fixes it'll likely crash either during most cut-scenes or just crash every 10-15 minutes.

There's a guide on steam with a list of all fixes to get the game running on modern hardware and with those installed I only had a single crash in all my time playing, then rarely a brief stutter when loading into a new area for the 1st time.

If you correctly apply the fan fixes and get the game working then I would argue that FF13-2 is one of if not the most underrated FF game, it fixes practically every major issue I had with 13.

The game maps are no longer 90% straight corridors and completely linear for 30+ hours.

You don't instantly game over if the party leader is downed.

Monsters actually drop gil now when you beat them.

13-2 doesn't take an additional 5+ hours of grinding the same 6 second fight over and over to max out all characters after you've 100% the rest of the game.

The pacing is no longer abyssal, in FF-13 you don't unlock paradigm shifting until chapter 3, many hours into the story, in 13-2 you start with it unlocked straight away.

13-2 features Loads of varied side quests and activities instead of just the 64 stone battles and I guess the chocobo treasure hunts seen in 13.

13-2 features a monster taming & training system where you can capture most enemies you encounter who act as your 3rd party member.

The main antagonist is fantastic, easily one of the best written in the whole series.

I personally wasn't a big fan of the FF-13 OST, it has a few amazing songs but in general it's very whelming. 13-2 has one of the best soundtracks of the series with banger after banger.


It's a real shame how bad of a port this game is cause overall FF-13-2 is a really good game, it's a massive improvement over FF-13 but players should not be expected to need mods and fan patches to run a relatively recent game publish by bloody Square Enix.

The game is enjoyable, and it has one of the best music for sure.
However, even with mods and settings to help. This game is just a HORRIBLE port from the console version, not even the best PC in the world will be able to play this in 60FPS.

It's very unfortunate. I wanted to love it so much, it really has a lot of depth going on and I wanted to fully delve myself into it but the stuttering issue just prevented me from doing that every single time.

Still would recommend it if you don't mind the lag.

Game crashes frequently (roughly every 15 minutes) and struggles to perform even on a higher end PC. The combat system continues to be an autopilot game from FF13, and enemies continue to be sponges for damage. I can't truthfully recommend the game, even being as early in as I am, as its flaws make the game quite literally unplayable.

If you've ever wanted to download mods to fix a game because you have to, this is your game.
And if you've ever had to download those mods and still not be able to finish the last dungeon because even after the mods, the game still continued to crash, this is your game.

To beat this game, you need to youtube someone else beating the last dungeon.

inevitably, when the full trilogy comes out as a remaster on the a Nintendo console, i'll be there day one to purchase it.

I can't believe so many people in SE approved this joke. This game shouldn't even be made in the first place. Now I understand why SE gone downhill so much after FF13 trilogy.
FF13 ending is already prefect. The dev "fixed" things from FF13 but also introduced some really annoying things at the same time:
1. Bad port even after installing so many things to fix. Crashed a few times. Buzzing noise. Stuttering.
2. Stupid Lucky Coin fragment!!!
3. Monster system feels like Megaten but in a cheap way lmao. Just let me use Hope or Snow.
4. Stupid random encounter mechanics, the ticking clock thing, and Serah never hit the monsters properly!! Stupid random encounter rates in Academia and Augusta Tower.
5. Questionable character motivations especially the GODDESS ETRO WTF. (Hope & Caius are the only good characters in this game btw)
6. Messy plot. Time travel BS.
7. Again they put everything in Datalog and never explained things properly!!
8. Unsatisfying ending and secret ending. EVEN THE SUPPOSEDLY-JOKE PARADOX ENDINGS ARE BETTER.
9. The annoying mini games in Oerba. The jumping puzzle in Academia AF500.
10. Mog throw feature. You need to wait for so long for Mog to pick the treasure?? And it will get interrupted by random encounters?? WHY YOU DESIGN THIS?

I was pretty satisfied by FF13 so I decided to play this game. Now this game ruin everything (except the OST they are still bangers) and I don't know if I should even give LR a try anymore lmao.

very good game, story is a bit confusing but gameplay has been perfected and the achievements are fun and arent a hard grind to get

I played XIII and LR but skipped XIII-2 in the trilogy purely due how shit the Steam PC port was. However I felt the music alone was enough to give this a game a try.

I used the Fixing and enhancing Final Fantasy XIII-2 by Surihix guide (also found at the top of the Community tab). It walks you through EVERYTHING. I was tech savvy enough to get the mod fixes going within an hour and this made the game a MUCH better experience. I didn't think I'd spend more than 25 hours on this game but ended up with almost 50.

EVERYTHING from XIII-2 is a step of from XIII. It improved the already great battle system from XIII with a ton of quality of life improvements. VA was also very good (I played in JP). Story was still a bit convoluted but if you know FF, that's basically what you're signing up for.

My only bad experiences in this game was the location of some of the Wild Artefacts (which are required to progress with the story). Even when I looked up a guide on all the Wild Artefact locations, I still had to go on a wild goose chase to figure out which time period I haven't gotten the Artefacts from. Also, one of the Academia time gate was the most annoying area in the entire game. It's basically impossible to avoid battle and that alone ended up taking hours of my playtime (at least I got a ton of Crystarium Points for that).

TLDR: spend an hour to fix the game and it's an FF title worth playing, especially if you liked XIII.

The game does not work properly, I keep getting kicked out of the game. I will be asking for a refund as this is not satisfactory

For the first half or so of the game I was having a great time. It's like Radiant Historia and Pokemon had a baby and dressed it in a Final Fantasy costume. And then for the second half it just kept getting progressively worse and less interesting and less fun. By the time I made it to the final area I was so uninvested in anything going on that I just uninstalled it and didn't even bother looking up the ending online.

good game yeah

Good game. Must play.