FINAL FANTASY® XIII-2

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.

The good news is, there are community-made fixes that stop the constant crashing (mostly).

The bad news is, once the crashes stop, you have to play Final Fantasy XIII-2

This game is best final fantasy out of the FFXIII trilogy. Story is 11/10, Grapics are 9/10, Combat is 8/10, and Soundtrack is 10/10. This is my 3rd time playing threw FFXIII-2, and it has gone down as my favorite game of all time. Enough for me to buy it on PC after having played it on the Xbox 360 many years ago.

The first guide walks you though in great detail on how to download and install 4 small files to fix everything with images, and it only takes about 15 mins to do it. It is really quite simple and easy to follow. Ignore the negatives reviews about the game being bugged and the fixes didn't work because they do.

i like the game play . you can play for hours .

don't mind the people who cant take the time and effort to mod their game to fix the game. the game's good. turn off steam cloud sync and install HD cutscenes and HD textures mods. get the FFXIII Fix file. if you take the effort to fix the game, you will enjoy the game.

Broken AF Port
Crashes constantly
Stutters all the time
save doesnt work 0/10 wouldnt take it even if you paid me
Requires fucking fanmade fixes to be functional serah goes from retard to time travel master degree several times and holy shit I hate whoever made this port that should've been functional over a decade ago

100% completing this game was like shelving broken glass (not good).

I can't believe I have to give a negative review of this game. I want to love this game so much.

I immediately jumped onto here after I finished FFXIII. And for 4,5 hours of my playtime, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the gameplay. However, the astonishingly bad port is hindering the experience and I'm having a really bad time trying to recommend everyone to play this game with all these issues.

First, the inconsistencies on the framerate. There would be places that this game would run flawlessly. But 70% of the time, the framerate would dip here and there, even went as bad as around 15-20 fps. I have applied the community fixes, but it still doesn't do shit.

And then the game-breaking glitches. I'm currently stuck on chapter 3 because of a glitch that doesn't show any gameplay tutorial for me, so a new move couldn't be learned and now I'm forever stuck on Sunleth Waterscape.

Lastly, again, fuck you Square Enix for region locking the English dub. Just because I live in Asia, doesn't mean I understand Japanese.

Pity. I love the FFXIII and I desperately want to love this one too, because I have heard only good things about this game, when being compared to FFXIII. I wish Square Enix would fix this game, but I know they wouldn't do jack shit about it.

Unplayable even with "fixes"

Has only ever worked offline and even then there are still issues with it crashing. I really wish I could play it.

Nice combat system. Good graphics.
A WTF story. That's pretty all.

Game is great, PC port is horrible.

keeps closeing the game for no reason. plays fine but no use in playing a game that closes each 5 mins

I absolutely love Final Fantasy games. However, this is the first Final Fantasy game I've had to give a thumbs down for. There are a multitude of problems with the game that had to be googled to fix which just shouldn't need to be a thing.

-Lots of frame rate issues and or stuttering with the game. Apparently there is a FAN MADE patch that fixes a lot of this.

-There is often a loud buzzing that happens upon launch of the game. I think this primarily affects headphone users but yet another problem I had to google to find out why this was happening. Eventually I fixed this.

-Steam Cloud Saves completely screws with this game. I'm not sure what causes it but you HAVE TO DISABLE STEAM CLOUD SAVES FOR THE GAME in order to make it stop crashing.

-I've read other programs crash the game for people including Overwolf and other programs.

-I'm sure there are potential other problems I haven't listed like various crashes and bugs that I personally have not come across. I think it depends on personal PC specs for each person.
Come on Steam/Square Enix, you guys are better than this. :(

7/10. But the pc port is pretty bad despite all the fixes and optimizations I've tried.

great game <3 I played it back in the days on my xbox 360 and bought it again an steam a few years later to show my love for the game!

the fix takes like 5 min and the game is great

really impressed how better is it compared to the first 13 game, there is way more stuff to do, if you played 13 and didnt like it, you should try this one but only if you dont mind crashing sometimes and bad performance.
the story is fine, although there is a few confusing moments on the line and maybe some not explained stuff too but you can still just go on with it.
I think that the main problem with this game is the pc port, i had to download the FF13Fix to be able to play the game fine but i still had problems, my game was not opening with the mod, took ages to figure out it was the version of the mod so i switched to version 146 but i still had crashes on loading screens sometimes.
Something that bothered me was the difficult, i grinded a lot on the game, did a lot of secondary stuff and i was really strong, but on the last area was ridiculous, 2 attacks were enough to kill all my party, so i ended up switch to easy mode because i just couldnt stand to grind anymore.
if you decide to play this game now, i recommend use the easy mode and enjoy the story. I dont think its a game where you should use much of your time on it grinding or something, the game itself already doesnt help with all those performance problems.

Played XIII on XBOX 360 14 years ago. Had such a great time with it and was excited with the rest of the story but then life happened. Got married and a kid and never got to follow up on the sequels. Kimi ga Iru Kara was something I listened to through the years. That really cemented this series for me as one of the best and even when I had the time to play, I've always thought to myself, I'll just let the story end where XIII ended - where just like IRL, it was just all fun, no worries.. Now times been a bit rough and I'm here at the end of XIII-2. I figured playing the rest will recollect some of those great times I had during XIII 14 years ago and it did manage to relive a time where things were a bit more chill in my life. Glad I did. So glad I'm on the last stretch to 100%. LR-XIII is next.

Its a fine game, but the PC port is a garbage fire.

very crashy on pc. just buy the console version, perferably for an old console if you're able to.

i cannot recommend this game at all. i would love to, it's a very fun experience when it works. unfortunately, the port for this game is so awful and requires so many fixes just to get it to run without crashing constantly that i don't think it's worth the time or effort. either buy it on console or watch a playthrough

tl;dr, great game, bad port

DISCLAIMER

Review

How can I buy the dlc for this game?

Let me get this straight, I really like this game.
I frankly think that improves many things from the original title.

"Why the negative review then?" you think.
The answer is simple; I cannot play the game as much as I would like. It crashes fairly often and I post the review as I just had enough.

So I will make you a deal, if (big if, but a man can hope) Square patches the game to not crash, post a comment and I will re-review it properly. Until then, I can only suggest the game if you either can work the files or if you are very patient.

Good FFs = 7,9,10,14,15!

a notable jump in enjoyability from its predecessor, i can forgive its so-so combat and confounding plot when the game itself is so vibrant and goofy. packaged with an impressive ost, too. self-fanfiction, in a good way. had a fun enough time to get all of its achievements, too!

This port is an ABSOLUTE MESS. I was greeted with a near-deafening sound just by opening the game for the first time due to some surround sound incompatibility, how does that even happen, man?
But thanks to some BRILLIANT individuals in the community, there are very in-depth tutorials of how to fix the game with mods and patches to make your experience the best it can be. Cheers to them!
Obviously you shouldn't have to do all that and it should probably be the basis of any review, but I followed through with it and was able to have a blast with the game without any problems whatsoever, so I'll be that guy and totally recommend it. Jut get in in a sale and follow one of said guides and give the game a try.

As someone who enjoyed the first game SO VERY MUCH because of its story, world and characters, I was disappointed with the direction this game took, but I immediately decided to treat it as a "filler adventure story" between the other two games and so I was able to enjoy it for what it was. Though I was still deeply disappointed about Lightning being sidelined like that after all that development in the first game, I had some many expectations... but oh well.
The combat changes were very welcome and it was engaging from the get-go, unlike in the first game. As per usual, the XIII's don't disappoint in the soundtrack department, the combat themes are SO DAMN GOOD. That boss theme and a certain big-baddie's theme? I could listen to them for hours on end.
So yeah, overall I really recommend it if you were able to enjoy the first game. Get the game in a sale, fix it with the help of one of those guides and give the game a go. It's not a guarantee you'll enjoy it, as I said I was disappointed with the direction it took but was able to gloss over it by treating it like a fun little spin-off, so I encourage you to do the same. Who knows? Maybe you'll come out enjoying your time with one more game instead of being miserable and waste time complaining about video games online.

Love the game.

Crashes every chance it can
Story makes no sense

Great Game. I love the story. The Steam-port has been a buggy mess to get running with sound issues and the game crashing without a patch from the community page. However technical issues aside, the game looks beautiful. Lightning plays a secondary role this time while her sister Serah takes the lead. She might not look as tough as Lightning, but she grows at her own pace. Well, and I adore her.

I really love this game, but i think it should be studied how horrible this port is as I've never had a game permanently lose all audio if anything in your USB ports unplugs while the game is running and I've never had a game hijack my computer and deny task manager from appearing to shut it down, forcing a restart.

Square Enix makes Bethesda look like a competent game company with crap like this.

FUN!
Its a good game whit a decent story and improvements gameplay wise compared to FF13.
The game is a bit old, but stand up for todaays standards.

10/10

the best

How can I fix the issue? It keeps on crashing in the intro then close app. Need help peeps. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Horrible port, but if you get the right fixes for it the game becomes solid. If you're coming from XIII directly there's a ton of differences, for one the CP grinding is not as bad, and there's a monster catching system you may enjoy. You get gil from fights, thank god.

Realy good story, ok combat and amazing music but slot machine fragment is trash.
Guy who made it should be fired

This game keeps crashing. I want to complete it, but it's simply impossible with the game crashing. This game is an extremely bad port and a complete waste of my money and time.

Game crashes right at the start at the same point. i could only play it for 9 minutes, requesting a refund.

good game

Can't even get past the intro without crashing

It was annoyingly forced close me at first, but gladly someone posted a way to fix it, i like the combat system (continuing from the XIII) probably my favorite one, graphic is good, story is confusing, the soundtrack is amazing, buy it at discount price so its worth the price, either way is a good game

Was on the fence with purchasing for a while due to the reviews on crashes. Had a couple long flights lined up and said "screw it" and bought it. Just beat the game and didnt crash once. Was also happy to find out it includes the DLC's although they only become available when you complete the game as opposed to when they became available originally. Definitely recommend.

Game is filler trash do not play skin to the final 13 game