Come January and fans of the epic franchise would be able to lay their hands on Final Fantasy XIII-2. According to a tweet by Square Enix, the game will be released in North America on an undisclosed date in January next year. Attending to some of the criticisms on the previous title, this sequel apparently puts forth a new game engine and a tweaked battle system.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 was on display at this year’s E3 and is said to be ‘player driven’ rather than ‘story driven’. Unlike the earlier version which used many pre-rendered scenes, this title will contain mostly real-time scenes. The story can be completed in approximately 40 hours of play-time. Moreover, it can be replayed in a ‘new sort of way.’ The number of minigames has also been increased over the earlier version.
Five years after the story of Final Fantasy XIII ended, Lightning has gone missing in an unknown world and her younger sister Serah Farron along with a young boy named Noel Kreiss must find her. Similar to the previous game, players will be able to return to Cocoon, and jump to old places which have changed in appearance. Another modification which can be witnessed in the sequel is that monsters no longer roam the map, while instead they randomly appear on the field when the players get close.
There’s no word yet on the European release of Final Fantasy XIII-2 but the game will release in North America in January, 2012. In Japan, the title will come out in December this year.