An unnecessary sequel to an otherwise great game. There's so many things wrong with this game and it's a disgrace to the first game.

❌ The game's extremely broken, you've to apply various fixes to even play it properly. It's like they didn't want people to play this game because of how bad it is. If you plan on playing it you must check this excellent guide (kudos to the person sharing it): https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2038838545
❌ Story is a complete mess. It excessively uses time-traveling like it's the most normal thing in the world. It leaves so many plotholes it's mind-boggling
❌ Horrible performance
❌ Looks somehow worse than first game
❌ Crystarium system is way worse than the first game
❌ Puzzles were so stupid
❌ QTEs were so unnecessary
❌ Main quests/Side quests were occasionally unclear at times
❌ Only 2 playable characters. You can't play with any of the characters from the first game and this was massively disappointing. They just appear in the story as NPC
❌ Combat didn't feel enjoyable as the first game as there's only 2 playable characters and the other one is for monsters which I didn't like at all
❌ Leveling up monsters felt a chore as they work too differently than the playable characters
❌ Random encounters were a downgrade from the first game

Note : You must make a save file on your PC for this game to work properly. The steam cloud back up will cause it to crash! Disable steam cloud saving, create a save file in the game directory.
There is a really good link in the community section to help walk you through the process.

Other then the fact it is very poorly ported it is a good game. The story is a bit odd and does not tie in greatly with the first game. It retains the unique battle system of FF XIII and has a feature to add a monster as a third party member. Overall, I do recommend this game but it is certainly not for everyone.

Forgot to mention, to even play FFXIII-2 properly, I installed two mods. Otherwise the game keeps crashing and runs awful. If you don't want to play a game that requires that, do keep it in mind for this review!

FFXIII-2 was a refreshing step in the right direction for the faltering FF series. FF10 was awful, 10-2 was a dumpster fire, 12 had awful combat but a good story, 13-1 had an awful cast and a bad story with mediocre combat.

13-2 remedies a lot of these things with Okay combat (sped up a lot more from 13 and QOL changes), a story that started cheesy and overdone but ended with it being unique, epic, and gripping. The characters are like-able and realistic and the fights towards the end are grand like you'd expect from a final fantasy. There are moments my jaw drops from what happens and gripped at my heartstrings. They also fixed the SINGLE song that would play during combat from 13-1, Lightnings violin song monotony is replaced by more modern music and orchestral music that changes in zones keeping the game fresh.

There's a lot of exploring to do, which depending what you view on it, can be annoying or fun finding all the secrets. Either way, 13-2 sits at a nice 7.5/10 for a Final Fantasy. Only held back by the repetitive combat, lack of depth on combat trees and some story moments that are a bit off putting. As well as lack of replay-ability for me, personally.