If you've suspected that there's more to Final Fantasy XIII-2 than has been revealed so far, then you're correct, as Square Enix looks like it will be shoving in the age-old time-travelling plot device into the sequel's design. Specifically, anything you do in a past timeline will affect interconnecting future timelines, be it an obstacle in the way or a story-related plot point. Our protagonists Noel and Serah will be jumping back and forth, correcting timelines and eliminating anomalies in the game's universe in order to proceed with the search for Serah's sister Lightning (protagonist of the first game). Judging from what we have played so far, the developers have listened to the many pleas from fans about the prequel's approach to gameplay.
We checked out a variety of areas from different timelines during our nine-hour play through: Valhalla, New Bodhi, the Bresha Ruins, the Sunleth Waterscape in 300AF, and the Archylte Steppe. While the rest of the areas sound familiar to FF XIII fans, Valhalla is a brand new location, as it's the place where Lightning starts off when fighting the eidolon Chaos Bahamut, and the finally revealed villain Caius in active time battle and cinematic action glory. We can't reveal any more than that, except that he has the same sort of mission as Lightning's, and has special ties with the aforementioned eidolon.
At this part, we checked out New Bodhi, which was recently invaded by oncoming funky-looking bugs, and the Bresha Ruins bit, which we detailed and talked about to death in our past previews. Long story short, we entered the timeline, checked out the branching paths of each corridor of the dungeon, and beat down Atlas with ease after shutting off the nearby generator. When in towns, you can initiate conversations with anyone in tow, be it to open up side quests, or just find out what interesting titbits they have to say.
As we took a trip through time, we ended up on the Sunleth Waterscape in 300AF, where we met a bandanna-less Snow. We can't divulge the nature of his appearance, but we can tell you what he was up against: a goliath-sized Flan made up of other Flans appearing from some unknown time-warp portal. Fighting the giant wasn't that hard, but we still had to search for a means to stop it from being big and obstructing our path.
We also checked out the Archylte Steppe, where we had to wander around the giant sandstorm-filled field to help fix a time anomaly. After doing a few quests to fetch and "kill a specific number of monsters" here and there for a nearby hunter's settlement, we were finally given permission to fiddle around with the settlement's weather-changing machine. Not only did this determine the type of encounters that we'd be facing, it also helped reveal the culprit behind the aforementioned anomaly: a giant Feryl sucking in Flans through its mouth. As we set the weather to a clear blue sky, an Adamantoise stood in the way. Killing it at our current level was akin to committing suicide, so we had to change up the weather patterns to make it go away.
After that was settled, we fought the Feryl. While it possessed the Great Roar skill, which buffed itself while de-buffing our party members, we took it down with the usual paradigm shift, job-changing mechanics. We let Serah take a backseat in buffing and ranged attack duties, while Noel and our beast of choice, the Flan, took the offensive. Killing off the beast will alter a particular timeline, but, for spoiler's sake, we won't reveal anything specific. We did get to take down a weakened version of the aforementioned giant Flan, though.
Speaking of combat, the game introduces a new concept called Blood Damage. Sometimes you lose a sliver of your maximum health as you keep getting damaged during battle. While a healer can help solve the problem temporarily, you are encouraged to end battles as soon as possible, unless you would rather have your character still fighting a tough enemy with just a quarter of his health left. During our play through, we didn't feel hampered by its effects, but we would wager that future boss fights will be challenging with this system in place.
Gamers can also toss the moogle to grab far-to-reach items. This handy feature was introduced during the Sunleth Waterscape stage, while our party had to ride a behemoth through an inaccessible path. The catch is that since the moogle is in the midst of procuring items, you are left vulnerable against enemy ambushes, since there's no access to the moogle clock.
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