LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII

59/100

Total garbage! I rather play all other FF games than this ♥♥♥♥!

Lightning my beloved

[b]Lightning Returns[/b] has always been considered the black sheep within the Lightning saga. It's a very bizarre and ambitious title and some would even argue that the ambition was never fully realized. I am [i]not[/i] one of those people. I can see the arguments for it being a lesser-than title from its predecessors, but in my opinion it is the 2nd best game in the trilogy. Right behind Final Fantasy XIII, and honestly overall, [u]one of my favorite Final Fantasy games in general.[/u] The new battle/traversal systems, the return of Lightning as the protagonist, the music, the worlds, all of these things just clicked for me and worked so well together that it’s hard for me to see how this game isn't anything other than an accomplishment. I personally never found an issue with the forced timer. By the time I was done with the Main Scenarios for every location, I still had about 5 days left to do side quests. Which was more than enough time to finish most of the bigger ones and give Lightning some very nice stat boosts. And where do you put those stats to use? In the new combat system of course! In conjunction with the garb system, the new Action RPG-like playstyle was genuinely such a fun change of pace, especially coming from the XIII and XIII-2. While I love the combat in both of those games for different reasons, there is just so much more freedom and depth to be had in build crafting in this entry. One of the things I really enjoyed in this entry was the almost soulslike combat system of the guards and perfect guards. Dark Souls was even cited by some developers as inspiration for the combat system, and you can really tell! It rewards fast reactions with full damage negation, and sometimes even staggering enemies outright. Also, as a side note, some of the garbs are just so stylish man I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to play dress up with [i]the[/i] Lightning Farron? In regards to the story set up however, I will say that the Main Scenario’s of each primary location are great. They have good mystery, great character reunions, and progress the story at a good pace. My personal favorite was Luxerion’s Main Scenario Quest, but I’m a sucker for a good gothic city, what can I say… Each location felt like it mattered. I never felt like I was just checking lists and moving on to progress the narrative or to get more stats. However the real heart of this game lies within it's side quests. 70% of the game is spent saving what little remains of humanity’s souls, in the form of side quests. This would be incredibly boring if it weren’t implemented in such a good way. The fact that Lightning has been stripped of her emotions in becoming the Savior, allows her to figuratively gain pieces of herself back when saving others. Because of this, I was incredibly curious throughout my playthrough to know how these cities and locations have been affected by the Chaos. How has humanity changed? What has 500 years of stagnation done to civilization? Why do some people seek absolution, while others seek the destruction of the Savior? How do they grieve? Mourn? Even just live? All while knowing you have less than two weeks until [i]everything[/i] is gone. It’s bleak to say the least, but it makes for some really memorable moments and some great character studies. Another thing that's insanely memorable about this game and the trilogy in general is the music. I could talk for hours about how much of a genius Hamauzu is but I'll keep it brief. There are some incredible stand out tracks like Ouroboros Festival, Divine Love, Savior of Souls, and of course Almighty Bhunivelze, which is just an insane 13 minute song *filled* with easter eggs spanning across the entire trilogy. That and the fact that this game gets the privilege of pulling from the previous two games makes it a joy on the ears and I'm glad the trio from XIII-2 being Naoshi Mizuta, Mitsuto Suzuki, and Masashi Hamauzu came back and created a lot of great new music for this entry. So many big story beats are accompanied by variations of Lightning's Theme, one of my favorite tracks in gaming all together, and it works some incredibly well. Speaking of story beats, let's get into one of the bigger points of contention with this game. It's story. Lightning Returns concludes a four year journey that started all the way back in 2009 with Final Fantasy XIII. It’s a story that, to me, is about what it means to *be*. The world has been frozen in time for 500 years, and soon, it’ll be gone. God is destroying this world and remaking a new one is his image. Yet, at the end of the day, Lightning just wants her sister back and to fully be herself again. What I love about this, is how a lot of this is shown throughout the side quests as I mentioned before. Lightning was stripped of her emotions to become a “perfect” soldier for Bhunivelze’s will, but as she helps the souls of others, she helps heal her own soul. Her emotional arc being woven through the stories of regular, ordinary people despite being a near godlike being, is such a special aspect of the story telling for me. It hits even harder when you remember her connection to Etro, the Goddess of Death who cared deeply for humanity. It’s tough to articulate everything I love about this story and this world but I’ll finish it with this. I am [i]absolutely[/i] satisfied with how it ended. I can’t think of a single plot point or character narrative that didn’t get resolved in a way that I wasn’t happy with. When you beat the final boss of the game, you get met with potentially the most incredible CG cutscene in any FF game, and when you get to that big reveal at the end of it… I tear up just thinking about it, it’s magical. Despite my positive feelings about the ending and the story of the trilogy overall, I’m not so blind that I can’t see that not everyone is a fan of Motoru Toriyama’s storytelling. I was raised in the streets of Kingdom Hearts, so this kind of non straight forward and, somewhat convoluted, storytelling is *right* up my alley. I totally understand if it isn’t for you though. Lightning Returns encapsulates for me what it means to be a fan of video games as a medium. This story, world, music, characters, all mean [i]so[/i] much to me that it’s hard not to overstate. There hasn’t been a month that goes by where I don’t think about this trilogy at least once. I am forever grateful that Final Fantasy XIII was my entry point into the franchise, and that I finally worked up the courage to finish the trilogy proper. Is this game perfect? [b]No[/b]. I like it [b][i]because[/i][/b] it isn’t. It’s got problems, sure, but it’s unapologetically itself. I will never forget this trilogy for as long as I live, and remember, don’t ever be afraid to hope in the face of despair!

The time constraint isnt that big of a problem. I used guides tho, but still manageable even without it. Gameplay wise, it's so different from the first 2 entry. But easier to learn, i think. The superbosss is still hard as hell tho. Even with all maxed out. I kinda like the ending. What bugs me is.... why only give lightning and snow their new outfits but not everyone else? It would have been cooler to get them all new drip. Come one, square!!

Sem tempo irmão

[h1]The ending made it worth it.[/h1] Like the other two games in this trilogy, my opinion kept going up and down. I wasn't going to recommend this until I got to the very ending. It was truly satisfying, and emotionally speaking, it got to me. Look, I'm going to be honest: this piece of work is half-baked. A vast number of design choices here are questionable. [list] [*] The graphics just barely look ok. [*] Character models are UGLY. [*] Audio mixing is ♥♥♥♥ at times. [*] Difficulty scaling is atrocious. [*] The story at first feels like the writers ran out of ideas AGAIN. [*] And yes, mobs will almost always randomly spawn near you again... [/list] The XIII trilogy is a mess and all I really wanted to know is what's the Lightning's story is. [h3]The only spoilers you need to know before picking this up: there's a time limit and Lightning can't die.[/h3] Whereas in XIII-2 you never really got to play as her, now you do and only her. And I appreciate the choice the devs made to insinuate a sense of urgency in the game. It's brave yet it drags the game way too long. Once you've run of out of time, it's game over. Not that you have to worry about that, you get much more time than needed. But you'd always ask yourself, "Is this enough? Will the game get easier now? Will I be ready?" Nope, not always. Maybe on [u]EASY[/u], but [u]NORMAL[/u] it can be brutal. Spare yourself the challenge. I finished playing on normal and yeah no, I wanted the game to be done halfway through. [u]The gameplay[/u]: I like it. To an extent. It's still ATB, but now it pleasantly surprises me how similar it is to [b]EXPEDITION 33[/b]. Only with way less polish. Where in previous XIII games, you can switch between different paradigms and you'd find yourself switching to [u]SENTINAL[/u] to block attacks. This game you do that too with GUARD skills. You can pretty much mitigate all damage depending on your builds or timing. I'd say keep in mind to always have [b]"-ra"[/b] spells ready since they're really consistent in staggering enemies. I wish the spells will switch themselves like auto-selecting in the previous games; you will always, always be switching skills back and forth depending on the enemies you're about to fight. It's not always necessary but I dreaded being in a fights for more than a couple minutes. They are numerous and many outstay their welcome. Overall, while I could endlessly nitpick this game, it really feels like a journey you've partaken with Lightning and the cast across this trilogy. As cheesy as this sounds, pick this game up if you wanna see a happy ending. Just be mindful it's not for everyone.

FF13: Big sister saves little sister. FF13-2: Little sister saves big sister. LR: Big sister saves little sister and the entire world (because why not). What a ♥♥♥♥ show. Out of the entire trilogy, this was the game I actually looked forward to the most — and somehow it ended up being the worst one. My save file hit 17 hours, and I didn’t enjoy a single minute of it. From the very start, the plot felt completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥. I almost quit after the first hour. There’s no coherent continuation from the first two games. Suddenly you’re a “saviour chosen by GOD,” and your mission is to save the world so you can get your sister back. Please. Don’t force a fake, weak god on me and make me do his chores because he’s too useless to do anything himself. The whole religion angle is so cringe I could never take the game seriously. You’re 500 years in the future, yet every character from the first game is still wearing the exact same clothes. I guess the entire budget went into Lightning’s wardrobe, because her outfits are amazing. Honestly, that’s the best part of the game: dozens of outfits to choose from. Sadly, you don’t pick them based on looks — you pick them based on stats. So you end up wearing outfits you hate just because they’re numerically better. You no longer level up by fighting. Combat is only for loot now, because spells and skills come from drops. You level up by doing quests instead. And here’s the problem: early on you fight a boss that’s weak to fire. The game expects you — without telling you, without showing you, without guiding you — to already have fire abilities. I didn’t. So I was completely screwed. Ten attempts later, I had to cheat. I didn’t realize this until the end, but I should’ve picked easy mode. I never beat a single human boss without cheats. Even the first boss has around 350k HP while you’re sitting at 2k, dealing damage in the low hundreds. The combat is unfair. If I was in prison for life and they forced me to play this game again as punishment (God please no), I would cheat in every ability from the start. There is a learning curve. Perfectly timed guarding requires knowledge and attention to attack patterns. The game wants to be Souls-like, but it forgot to actually be good at combat. This game introduces a lot of new ideas — but every new idea comes packaged with a massive flaw. 1. Huge maps If you played the first game, you remember how linear it was. Great, right? Now they cockblock the player with a ticking clock, a countdown, a timer, a DAY SYSTEM. When the day ends, you get teleported home to talk to Hope. Yes, Hope — the kid who went from child to adult to child again, still wearing the same clothes 500 years later. It doesn’t matter if you’re at the end of a quest. It doesn’t matter if it took you 30 minutes to reach that spot. When the day ends, you’re teleported out and then teleported back to the start of the map. Have fun running all the way back. There is no point in exploring. The maps feel fake and disconnected. I never felt immersed. 2. Combat Fast, fluid, no downtime. Ruined by the awful ATB system that forces you to constantly switch builds just to attack. You’re locked to whatever abilities your current outfit has. 3. Quest design Don’t even get me started on the quest design. If you’ve played RuneScape, you might know the infamous quest One Small Favour. This entire game is “One Small Favour.” Someone needs help. Go do 500 side quests to do the main quest to help the one who needs help. This game goes so far as to make you farm a vegetable which take 6h ingame and you need like 12 of these 4. The gates (sections of the maps) are cloes based on the hour of the day (insert Higuruma from JJK meme here) The whole game revolves around the houses of the day. It is just a terribe game design. Ultimately, I didn’t enjoy this game at all. I could almost cry writing this review — tears of joy. ♥♥♥♥ this game. ♥♥♥♥ this trilogy. It’s finally over. I HATED IT. Some positives: - I did not fall asleep during combat (I just cheated every boss fight because I couldn’t be bothered). - You can save any time you want. - The game is stable (I used mods) — 0 crashes. - Outfits. MODS used: Huge thanks to Cielos’ cheat table (table Update 13.6) at Fearless Cheats. Without this, I would have gone insane. - Nova Chrysalia mod launcher - Controller prompts as default - X360 button prompts - DLC restoration: Aerith Garb - DLC restoration: Outerworld content - HD fonts and GUI - Better FMV audio (EN) - Free teleport and chronostasis - Gameplay tweaks (without bt_ability.wdb for 0EP teleport and Chronostasis to work) If your friend gifts you this trilogy, he’s your enemy.