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This contains massive spoilers, so don't read until you've completed the game.
I enjoyed the game a lot and I'm working on the Platinum. I wish there was more jumping around, since the story itself was still pretty straight. But it was still very enjoyable. Though the ending was surprising with everything that they did. They didn't just give a little bad or anything, it was just all doom and gloom. It is pretty much the worse possible end they could have gotten, even though everything looked like it was fine. I liked the ending, but its rough to deal with knowing that we're going to have to wait couple more years for the conclusion. Almost makes me wish that they put the whole thing in one game. It was only a 25 hour story. This is tons of side stuff to do though.
The only really bad part of the game was the heavy metal chocobo song. After a while it was less annoying, but it was still a terrible song. Where they used it I think made sense, but still they could have picked something a little better suited.
The end conclusion I've come to is that FFXIII-2 is like the Empire Strikes Back. When you get into all of the little things that happen in the story, it is pretty grim and dark. FFXIII has some dark things going on, but with all of the stuff that happens XIII-2 feels a lot darker overall. There are some really terrible timelines with just plain bad stuff happening. There are betrayals and deaths along with some very human things going on. Caius felt so much more like a traditional Japanese villain than any other FF villain in the entire series, that I've played anyway. He's a man out to destroy the world as we know it sure and he is presented that way at the start. However, the longer you go the more you find out about him and in the end, he actually is pretty sympathetic for a villain, totally misguided and all, but you can understand him. You actually believe what he is doing and that unlike so many others, he's not empty. He's got a lot of passion and emotion, even for living for hundreds or thousands of years. He was a very enjoyable villain, though he did manage to achieve everything he set out to do as well. Which aside from Kefka, as I understand it, is the only other FF villain to actually achieve his goals.
Unless they do not make XIII-3, his goals will eventually be undone by Noel and likely Lightning and Serah, though in their states it is going to be interesting to know how they resolve that. I can see Lightning's situation being an easily fixed one. Serah the other hand is a different matter, though she does seem to still be alive in some aspect, since she sent a message to herself after it all happened. I'm guessing the easy solution is to make her like Yuel, though they did state that she would not revive like Yuel did. But I could see Hope and Noel doing something so that she will be like Yuel, even knowing that she will die. In fact, they could even end up building into the gameplay where you just get need Serahs as critical points in the game.
I suspect that Hope and Noel will end up being the primary characters in XIII-3 with maybe Sazh, who only makes a cameo. Though with all of the women removed from the story as playable, they might end up introducing someone else or use Alyssa. However, I'm not sure I would want to considering what she did, even though I understand why she did it.
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