Final Fantasy XIII-2 (2011)

Y'all I have an hypothesis:
Final Fantasy 13-2 is Chrono Break.

Here's my flimsy evidence:

• Japanese trademark for Chrono Break lapsed in 2012. FF13-2 released late 2011.
• FF13-2 not only features time travel as a core conceit, but heavily leans into the ideas of divergent timelines as introduced in Chrono Cross, and expands on how those divergences might affect one another.
• In the original 2001 trademark filing for Chrono Break, it's indicated that "script and story ideas were currently being considered."
• Hironobu Sakaguchi, the gigachad himself, indicated around this same time that Masato Kato strongly wanted to make another Chrono entry. Kato would continue to work at Square until 2003, around the time of the merger, though he would continue to work with them as a freelance scenario writer into the late 00s.
• In 2006, FF13 is announced, meaning development has already been well underway at this point.
• In 2007, producer Hiromichi Tanaka states that a new Chrono game would likely require a reunion of people who previously worked on the series, but reassured interviewers that a continuation was certainly not out of the question.

My hypothesis is essentially as follows: The concept for a third Chrono game began in 2001, but due to the extreme turmoil in the company during this time, it simply never happened. However, a core scenario concept, if not a full story, was pitched and perhaps kept alive by Kato. Around 2007, Kato either leaves this idea with Square-Enix staff, or people find an old pitch and decide to use FF13's assets to make it happen while FF Versus 13 (later FF15) languishes in development hell.

I also think that the heavy use of time travel and alternate timelines in games like FF7R and Kingdom Hearts began as attempts to get something Chrono going, they just couldn't make it work. So in a roundabout way, I ponder if the desire for a new Chrono game within the company is so strong that it's essentially leeched into other projects.

Initial thoughts:

1. Who is there Sora looking MF Noel?
2. They’ve created a more conventional baddie because, reasons? I enjoyed that FFXIII is essentially about the dismantling of systemic inequity and social and economic stratification. It’s overly simplistic like all Final Fantasy games are, but what matters is the human journey of the characters as they each grow as individuals and as a community fighting to basically take down the rich capitalist bozo gods. I hope this Chaos dude doesn’t just deliver the standard sexy Final Fantasy villain trope.
3. It’s pure evil removing Lightning from the gameplay equation. Why do people keep doing that to Ali Hillis only to realize they need to bring her back for the third game in the trilogy? God, is it going to get worse? Are Fang and Vanille not coming back either? Oh my God, I hope that’s not true.

Beat on loan from my coworker. I had Serah focus more on being a commando and ravager and controlled her. Noel was more commando, synergist and medic. I found it odd that they seem to be good at roles opposite to their personalities; Serah seems like the typical sweetheart white mage, not a butch warrior type like her sister, while Noel seems like the typical brash hot head warrior. At one point early on when multiple paths opened up, I went the wrong way and hit a huge difficulty spike. I stuck it out though and insisted on completing everything possible one area at a time. Good thing you can save anywhere instead of only at stupid save points. By the time I went back to do the other path I found it way too easy. Definitely should have went that way first. The game overall was quite easy and I did not really feel the need to optimize the party. I was not a fan of the pokemon style monster companions. I used whatever and only near the end of the game specifically went out of my way to get the best monster set up. Pretty sure it was 3 chocobos but I don't own the game to check the details in my save file. I have considered buying the game but seems pointless when I did everything. I more or less 100% completed the game; all sidequests and paradox endings, but never did much with monster infusion.

The game was fun and made some improvements over FF13, but I overall found it slightly worse than its predecessor. The combat was good and I liked the many user unfriendly features, like the kinda new game+, but the story was mostly a mess. I did not like the ideas behind the dlc. Why is changing outfit even in the menu if the only way to get new outfits is to spend real money?

7.0/10