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小説 ファイナルファンタジーXIII [Shōsetsu Final Fantasy XIII] #2
Final Fantasy XIII-2: Fragments After
After fate was changed... and changed again...
With temporal distortions and paradoxes threatening the very future of humanity, Serah and Noel have begun a journey through time itself to make things right. Their efforts have altered the course of history several times over, but they couldn't have done any of it alone. Each step of the way, friends, family, and loved ones were supporting them-sometimes in ways they couldn't see.
This collection of short stories tells the other side of FINAL FANTASY XIII-2, bringing together the different eras of the hit game!
With temporal distortions and paradoxes threatening the very future of humanity, Serah and Noel have begun a journey through time itself to make things right. Their efforts have altered the course of history several times over, but they couldn't have done any of it alone. Each step of the way, friends, family, and loved ones were supporting them-sometimes in ways they couldn't see.
This collection of short stories tells the other side of FINAL FANTASY XIII-2, bringing together the different eras of the hit game!
144 pages, Paperback
First published June 21, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 17, 2024
2.5/5
As a big XIII defender I'm upset to say this is by far the weakest of the Final Fantasy novels I've read so far. There's some good to be found but overall a disappointing stop for the XIII novels which so far have been fairly good.
Prayer and Wish
Essentially a continuation and extension of the prologue of FB and Lightning becoming the official knight of etro, we see her meeting Mog which was cute and gave us some much needed context for the origins of their relationship. Otherwise it's a fairly uneventful read with forced action sequences to pad out the page time.
Will and Choice
Another continuation of a FB story. We see Snow's further adventures with his cactuar Fal'cie it essentially tells us what happened to Snow during the events of XIII-2 when we don't see it. It has some interesting but also shallow consequences and revelations Apparently Snow has always known of Serah's fate and Lightning's current status however it doesn't do much to expand on his character and is really just fake depth as we see no hint of this in the game of any of its alternate endings. This short is when i began to realise this really should have been a short story collection branching XIII-2 to Lighting Returns as i would be much more interested in reading the story of how Snow ends up in the position he is at at the start of that game.
Back and reverse
We get a Hope story which is both the best and worst of the shorts so far. I think focusing on the fallback f the Alyssa subplot was a good call to really tie loose ends unfortunately the first half of this short takes forever to get to the real meats of the story. It's also really convoluted and maybe requires immediate knowledge of everything that happened n XIII-2 beforehand. It's been years since I've played the game so there are gaps in knowledge unfortunately, however that has never been an issue with any of the other FF books/shorts I've read so far. The sequence with Hope reading Alyssa's datalogue was by far the most interesting part structurally and narratively. The ending also has some great touching moments that actually attempted at emotional resolution
Memory and Hope
The Noel Kreiss story is by far the most consistent as it keeps things simple. We get further detail on Noel living in pulse in a dying village and his childhood growing up with the last incarnation of Yuel. This was a good short that really gave depth to Noel and why exactly he dislikes hot-headed types like Snow, this was a story that was meant to be told and also gave us some really cool Caius moments.
The Yuel interludes are also a really cool addition and made me further invested in the depth of this character who was otherwise rather robotic, it's nice knowing she actually felt emotional in her journey with Caius and i loved how her and Noel's story go in reverse. The revelation that she actually observed present Noel despite not meeting him yet and decided to live her last life with him knowing what the future holds. The notion of the future influencing the past is so interesting and oddly beautiful
Prayer and Wish - 6/10
Will and Choice - 4/10
Back and Reverse - 5/10
Memory and Hope - 7/10
As a big XIII defender I'm upset to say this is by far the weakest of the Final Fantasy novels I've read so far. There's some good to be found but overall a disappointing stop for the XIII novels which so far have been fairly good.
Prayer and Wish
Essentially a continuation and extension of the prologue of FB and Lightning becoming the official knight of etro, we see her meeting Mog which was cute and gave us some much needed context for the origins of their relationship. Otherwise it's a fairly uneventful read with forced action sequences to pad out the page time.
Will and Choice
Another continuation of a FB story. We see Snow's further adventures with his cactuar Fal'cie it essentially tells us what happened to Snow during the events of XIII-2 when we don't see it. It has some interesting but also shallow consequences and revelations Apparently Snow has always known of Serah's fate and Lightning's current status however it doesn't do much to expand on his character and is really just fake depth as we see no hint of this in the game of any of its alternate endings. This short is when i began to realise this really should have been a short story collection branching XIII-2 to Lighting Returns as i would be much more interested in reading the story of how Snow ends up in the position he is at at the start of that game.
Back and reverse
We get a Hope story which is both the best and worst of the shorts so far. I think focusing on the fallback f the Alyssa subplot was a good call to really tie loose ends unfortunately the first half of this short takes forever to get to the real meats of the story. It's also really convoluted and maybe requires immediate knowledge of everything that happened n XIII-2 beforehand. It's been years since I've played the game so there are gaps in knowledge unfortunately, however that has never been an issue with any of the other FF books/shorts I've read so far. The sequence with Hope reading Alyssa's datalogue was by far the most interesting part structurally and narratively. The ending also has some great touching moments that actually attempted at emotional resolution
Memory and Hope
The Noel Kreiss story is by far the most consistent as it keeps things simple. We get further detail on Noel living in pulse in a dying village and his childhood growing up with the last incarnation of Yuel. This was a good short that really gave depth to Noel and why exactly he dislikes hot-headed types like Snow, this was a story that was meant to be told and also gave us some really cool Caius moments.
The Yuel interludes are also a really cool addition and made me further invested in the depth of this character who was otherwise rather robotic, it's nice knowing she actually felt emotional in her journey with Caius and i loved how her and Noel's story go in reverse. The revelation that she actually observed present Noel despite not meeting him yet and decided to live her last life with him knowing what the future holds. The notion of the future influencing the past is so interesting and oddly beautiful
Prayer and Wish - 6/10
Will and Choice - 4/10
Back and Reverse - 5/10
Memory and Hope - 7/10
November 7, 2022
I just discovered there's a Fragments Before and I'm now on the hunt.
Fragments After fills in a lot of blanks left between XIII-2 (aka my favorite) and XIII-3 (aka the one everyone refuses to talk about because Square Enix isn't okay with admitting they totally slaughtered your favorite characters and didn't realize they were your favorites so they revived them to defeat a god... vibes).
Part One: Oh, the short intermissions from Yeul broke my heart.
Part Two: I didn't really care as much for Lightning's story. While I know she's kinda the driving MC of this series. Lightning was always my least favorite character. Also there's really not much new information about Lightning. We did learn more about Etro though, and I kinda don't hate her as much anymore? But I also... still feel like Caius is valid lol.
Part Three: THE YEUL WHO LOVED FLOWERS!!!! T^T Oh my poor baby, I wish to care for you.
Part Four: Oh, okay. No-no this makes sense! I totally get now why Snow became the way he is. I mean, he's a dummy who totally broke Serah's heart cause he doesn't understand emotions. But his path from good to basically evil makes a lot of sense now.
Part Five: Aw, the Yeul who liked to sing. I'm pretty sure she's the only one with hope at this point.
Part Six: I thought this chapter was going to be about my childhood husbando Hope, instead it was about Alyssa.... who tried to kill him. Not impressed.
Part Seven: Aw, poor baby Noel. He really has only ever seen death & I don't know how he managed to stay so positive when him & Serah were trying to conquer the world.
Part Eight & Nine: I'm not crying..... Seriously, though way to rip out my heart.
Fragments After fills in a lot of blanks left between XIII-2 (aka my favorite) and XIII-3 (aka the one everyone refuses to talk about because Square Enix isn't okay with admitting they totally slaughtered your favorite characters and didn't realize they were your favorites so they revived them to defeat a god... vibes).
Part One: Oh, the short intermissions from Yeul broke my heart.
Part Two: I didn't really care as much for Lightning's story. While I know she's kinda the driving MC of this series. Lightning was always my least favorite character. Also there's really not much new information about Lightning. We did learn more about Etro though, and I kinda don't hate her as much anymore? But I also... still feel like Caius is valid lol.
Part Three: THE YEUL WHO LOVED FLOWERS!!!! T^T Oh my poor baby, I wish to care for you.
Part Four: Oh, okay. No-no this makes sense! I totally get now why Snow became the way he is. I mean, he's a dummy who totally broke Serah's heart cause he doesn't understand emotions. But his path from good to basically evil makes a lot of sense now.
Part Five: Aw, the Yeul who liked to sing. I'm pretty sure she's the only one with hope at this point.
Part Six: I thought this chapter was going to be about my childhood husbando Hope, instead it was about Alyssa.... who tried to kill him. Not impressed.
Part Seven: Aw, poor baby Noel. He really has only ever seen death & I don't know how he managed to stay so positive when him & Serah were trying to conquer the world.
Part Eight & Nine: I'm not crying..... Seriously, though way to rip out my heart.
April 17, 2026
This book was a slight improvement over Fragments Before but still did not reach the heights of the first FF13 book called Zero Promises.
The book starts off from Lightnings POV and we get to follow her journey after being sucked into Valhalla by this mysterious darkness. A lot of this POV is unfortunately just recap with Lightning remembering things. The interesting things come in in the latter-half of this POV with Lightning learning about Etro the goddess and how the humans were made by her relative f'alcie using her essence. This was fun to learn about and helped shade in some of the mystery from the game.
The second POV I found to be the least interesting of the 4 POVs in this book with Snow's perspective. Lightning's POV had a lot of unnecessary recap but Snow's was basically all recap.
The third POV was Hope and Alyssa's and this was the most interesting section of the entire book. This documented the plotting and ultimate betrayal by Alyssa while revealing her true nature. This was revealed in a very well-written way that was very engrossing.
The fourth POV was Noel's. This more shaded in some things that had to be left out from the first Fragment Before book because it would of spoiled too much of the game plot. I wouldn't say much was added by this POV other than a deepened understanding of Noel, Yuel, and Cauis' relationship.
Overall, this probably could of been half the page count if it took out a lot of the unnecessary recap (who would be reading this book unless they'd recently played the game??), but I still enjoyed the bits of lore and relevant background that was missing from the first book and game.
The book starts off from Lightnings POV and we get to follow her journey after being sucked into Valhalla by this mysterious darkness. A lot of this POV is unfortunately just recap with Lightning remembering things. The interesting things come in in the latter-half of this POV with Lightning learning about Etro the goddess and how the humans were made by her relative f'alcie using her essence. This was fun to learn about and helped shade in some of the mystery from the game.
The second POV I found to be the least interesting of the 4 POVs in this book with Snow's perspective. Lightning's POV had a lot of unnecessary recap but Snow's was basically all recap.
The third POV was Hope and Alyssa's and this was the most interesting section of the entire book. This documented the plotting and ultimate betrayal by Alyssa while revealing her true nature. This was revealed in a very well-written way that was very engrossing.
The fourth POV was Noel's. This more shaded in some things that had to be left out from the first Fragment Before book because it would of spoiled too much of the game plot. I wouldn't say much was added by this POV other than a deepened understanding of Noel, Yuel, and Cauis' relationship.
Overall, this probably could of been half the page count if it took out a lot of the unnecessary recap (who would be reading this book unless they'd recently played the game??), but I still enjoyed the bits of lore and relevant background that was missing from the first book and game.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 10, 2024
I seem to be in the small minority of folks who feel that Final Fantasy XIII-2 has one of the best FF storylines of all time. As such, this book of short stories only strengthened what was already a strong plot in my eyes. Yeul's "diary" entries, Hope and Alyssa's tale, and Noel's remembrances of the past were heart-wrenching to read through. Lightning and Snow's stories clarified some background elements but were on the duller side (hence the loss of a star). If you are a FF13-2 fan, this is a must read. It'll break your heart all over again.
September 6, 2022
It doesn't have quite so much heart as Fragments Before, but I very much appreciate the way it fills in some of the big gaps in the stories of Noel, Yeul and Caius, especially. 3.5*.
May 18, 2026
The best one of the three FF13 tie-in books.
August 24, 2022
I liked Yeul’s parts- and the musical titles.
Wish it had included pictures.
Wish it had included pictures.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews