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Final Fantasy XIII-2: Time Paradoxes, Serah’s Background Story, New Character, Blood Damage, Chaos, and More!

Famitsu answers a few of the questions that still remain since the Tokyo Game Show regarding Final Fantasy XIII-2′s story and gameplay. This week, Famitsu held interviews with director Motomu Toriyama, battle director Yusuke Matsui, as well as character designer Tetsuya Nomura.

Below you will find a full summary of the Famitsu report for FFXIII-2:

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Serah’s Background Story

The Tokyo Game Show trailers for FFXIII-2 give us a snapshot of Snow and Serah together for the first time, which was also when Snow was newly introduced to us. In the official FFXIII-2 trailer, both Snow and Serah have been reunited after two years.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Serah and Noel

Serah is the only person who recalls Lightning as being alive, while everyone else (including Snow) thinks that Lightning is either dead, or has been turned into crystal form.

Snow takes Serah’s word for it and goes off on his own to find Lightning. Snow doesn’t return, so Serah and Noel begin their journey together to complete the mission.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Time Paradoxes

Toriyama says that time paradoxes are a key aspect of FFXIII-2 which holds true for both the gameplay and story. In terms of gameplay, we have already seen how the Historia Crux time travel system has been integrated into the game.

In terms of FFXIII-2′s story, Lightning has disappeared from the world due to the impact of a time paradox. As previously mentioned, Serah is the only one who has a memory of Lightning’s existence in the world. Perhaps the reasoning for this will become clearer as the story continues…

Time paradoxes affect different parts of the world in varrying ways. For instance, a time paradox in the Bresha Ruins causes “Atlas”, an enemy, to appear. Essentially, time paradoxes in each area are disguised as mysteries that you will have to uncover while you play the game.

Once the world of FFXIII came to an end, time paradoxes were created to prevent anyone from being able to transport themselves to an earlier period of time.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Characters

First, as mentioned in one of my most recent news articles, Hope is a character who is shown in the FFXIII-2 trailer. He is 24 years old and presents himself 10 years after the events of FFXIII. In FFXIII-2, he is a leader of a group called Academy, which is searching for energy in absence of fal’Cie. If you played FFXIII, you will know that the fal’Cie beings were the primary sources of all human livelihood. Hope is a consistent researcher who is aware that Serah is traveling through time.

In the most recent FFXIII-2 trailers, both Snow and Hope appear differently.

Second, Kaias was introduced to us in the Tokyo Game Show trailers. He is a male enemy character who has an influence on Valhalla (the world where Lightning exists) and the normal world where Serah and everyone else exists. Similar to Noel Kreiss, Kaias also comes from the future.

Speaking of Noel… He is from a world that has very few people. This explains why he has a fragmented way of communicating with others. Noel is extremely friendly and is happy to meet new people. Because of the time paradoxes, Noel’s memory has become vague, which causes him to question whether or not something catastrophic had happened in his time.

In the FFXIII-2 official trailer, Lightning and Noel are surrounded by black smoke which has been identified to be “Chaos” and is somehow connected with Valhalla.

Finally, the trailers also show a new character by the name of Yuru. She has a close relationship with Kaias and is one of the main characters in FFXIII-2. In Famitsu magazine, Nomura shares with us that the character design for Yuru was done by Hideo Minaba. Also, Minaba created the designs for Hope’s adult clothing.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Monster Collecting

Matsui’s comments with the magazine revolve around FFXIII-2′s monster raising feature. The developers are putting a lot of time incorporating this component into the battle system for the game.

Moreover, FFXIII-2 has rare monsters that will have a low encounter rate (or are simply difficult to capture). However, it turns out that players will not be able to add giant monsters to their party.

In terms of commands, different monsters have different difficulties. Even if a player fails at inputting a command, the monsters will still attack. On the other hand, succeeding with a command will cause greater damage.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Battle and Character Growth

FFXIII-2 has a “Blood Damage” component in battle. Basically, every time a party member is hit with blood damage, that person loses a portion of his/her max HP. In FFXIII, if a healer was present in your party, you had the capability of recovering from damage without any trouble. In XIII-2, however, you cannot recover from blood damage at all, so you have to be sure to kill the enemies quickly.

Toriyama says that the FFXIII-2 staff is currently making adjustments to areas that insist may be too hard for players to figure out. However, the final version of the game has an easy mode, and you can switch to it as you see fit.

In addition, FFXIII-2 gives players the ability to change their battle leader (the person you’re controlling) whenever they want during battle. When that person dies, players are automatically switched to another controllable character. This is much different than FFXIII’s battle system, where the game ended if the leader died.

Players can also assign attack AI routines, choosing either “normal,” “concentrated” or “scattered.” This is all a part of the new FFXIII-2 “Paradigm Tune” system.