Is Final Fantasy XV Chapter 13 Verse 2 Any Good?
“Verse 2” is what Square Enix has decided to name its retrospective addition to the Final Fantasy XV story, and it’s available to everyone right now for free. It’s not a redo, though the same patch did add in buffs for Noctis’ magic ring (which we’ve not taken a look at). But Chapter 13 Verse 2 is something different. It is free, though.
Accessing it from the main menu (under special content), will inform you that there is no saving in Chapter 13 Verse 2, and that it won’t have any bearing on your main game. Which is already a flag that it might not be massively significant considering you’re expected to play it through in one go. Verse 2 follows what Gladio and Ignis were doing when Noctis was running around all of those samey corridors in what I will now refer to as CHAPTER 13 PRIME.
The timings don’t add up all that much, though, as Gladio and Ignis manage to meet up with Noctis within about 30 minutes of play (which is when Verse 2 ends), while I seem to recall spending roughly 100 years playing Chapter 13 as Noctis, so I’m not really sure how that worked out.
Gladio and Ignis begin by mostly retreading Noctis’ steps, working their way through an only slightly reshuffled version of the beginning of Zegnautus Keep from 13 PRIME. They’re assisted by Ardyn, as he prods them into the right direction, and generally seems to zip about as he tries to tie up loose ends with the story and deliver exposition. At one point we seem him deliberately showering Ravus’ body with lore notes for Noctis to pick up later.
As Gladio and Ignis make their way through the Keep they stumble upon some handily placed radios that tell you what’s happening to the city (being attacked by demons), and also find some CCTV footage that’s actually CG cutscenes that were presumably cut from the game’s initial release, or were quickly put together to explain more about the story, and what was happening in Chapter 13. Some of the specifics about what happened to the King of Niflheim and Ravus are answered on a surface level. But you’ll still have questions as to why.
You control Gladio throughout Chapter 13 Verse 2. It acts as a sort of primer for how Episode Gladiolus will play. You may as well watch the video if you want to see specifics, but basically he has a shield/parry system, and his own sort of finisher meter. Ignis doesn’t even have a health bar, so while he can help out, he won’t be getting into any trouble that will annoy you. None of the battles are very challenging, but when it works the parry system can lead to some nice back and forth. Just when it feels like it’s about to get going, Verse 2 ends.
Is it good? Not really, all in all. Is it a nice little thing to have? Oh, certainly, especially considering it’s free. It does have the awkward effect of, after quite a lot of people complained about how hard the story was to follow during Chapter 13, of going too far in the other direction. After watching a cutscene on the CCTV monitor, for instance, Ignis and Gladio then take the time to stop and very clearly tell each other what it was they had just watched. Whether any of this is based on cut content from the main game, I don’t know, but it does feel quite reactionary and not in a great way. But, with that said, Ignis does have a pretty funny line about the Empire and “alternative facts”, so at least they tried to have even a tiny bit of fun with the script and the situation.
Rating: FREE/5. We will not actually be rating this free bonus content. But you can check out our review of the main game, and of Episode Gladiolus below.
– Final Fantasy XV Episode Gladiolus Review
