14 DAY TRIAL // Final Fantasy XIII-2 aims for accessibility and one of the main focuses for the team working on the title is making the narrative line easier to understand, while also offering depth for all long term fans of the franchise.
Speaking as part of a bigger interview with the Members club of Square Enix fans, Motomu Toriyama, who is one of the producers working on the game, stated, “As far as the story of Final Fantasy XIII is concerned, the most important mission for us was to express the game’s unique universe — including l’Cie and fal’Cie — and therefore some difficult terms had to be used in the story-telling. We have taken a lesson from it and employed a different story-telling style for Final Fantasy XIII-2.”
The developer says that the Time Paradox that sits at the center of the story should be more familiar to gamers while the elements taken from Final Fantasy XIII are there, in the background, available for exploration for all those who are interested.
The Square Enix executive added, “Meanwhile, we have taken strong inspirations from one-shot TV dramas and opted for a different plot structure where smaller pieces of drama take place quickly one after another. As a result of these changes, the Final Fantasy XIII-2 story has turned out to have a glimpse of a more contemporary drama and is easier to follow in comparison to Final Fantasy XIII.”
The game will focus on Serah, the sister of former main character Lightning, who needs to get help from both old and new characters as she seeks to unravel the mystery of her sibling’s disappearance.
Final Fantasy XIII has been criticized by gamers for aspects of its battle system and for the limited freedom that players had for much of the game and all the reported problems are supposedly fixed in the sequel.
The game is expected in the West in late January and early February.