FFXIII: Lightning Returns

That's not totally wrong, but you cannot deny that the latest SE (this takes Eidos into consideration) games are failing to attract new players and make a profit. Numbers are hard to be denied.

When you know that SE is synonym for a lack of quality in the industry, it says a lot.

12 had kind of a meh story but at least the world was amazing. It's like SE learned nothing from it when they worked on 13 though, just a bunch of hallways.

the first time i played 12 i got up to like halfway then stopped bc i got bored w/ story and the battle system was too much like solo player XI.

No, it's not nostalgia. Not that I expect Draylo to understand someone with a different opinion at this point.

I've played all FF titles for the consoles I've owned(most of them much later than their release because I was too young then) and actually bothered to watch infinite playthrough videos on youtube to know what those I couldn't play were about. Only FF I could feel nostalgic would be 8 and while I love it, I admit it is definetely not one of the best.

After over 20 years of FF titles we all have certain expectations from more of them. If you buy a game called Elder Scrolls, turn it on and it's instead Diablo, even if you like Diablo you'll be disappointed, not cause the game is bad for you, but because it's not what you thought you were buying. Get what I mean?

Much like I'll always buy a fighting game because I know what is the minimum I can get from it (though there are some exceptions), I think the people targeted by companies nowadays when it comes to RPGs are the same.

I know a girl for example who will buy any JRPG, period, because that's her stuff. She doesn't care that the stories are subpar/pathetic, she doesn't care that it's a gameplay rip off and so on. She just enjoys JRPGs.

I wouldn't care if an ES suddenly turned to be a Diablo in gameplay, I'd actually be interested to see Bethesda's way of making such a game.

In the end, there are good and there are bad games. That's the one and only thing. And unfortunately, it's a matter of taste.

I loved Puma Street Soccer back then yet it's objectively a terrible game.

anyone know if you pre-order the Collectors edition you get Cloud Strife AND Aerith DLC codes right?

You do get both. The Cloud Strife DLC shows up in the cart. Get ready to pay $9 for USPS 8+ day shipping though. Or $13 for 4-5 day.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Review (PS3 Import)
January 9, 2014 Written by Heath Hindman

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[Editor's Note: Review is of the Japanese version of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, purchased at the expense of the reviewer. Reviewer lives in Japan and speaks/reads Japanese.]

I was excited about Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Between the game’s concept seemingly tailor-made for my love of time control and time travel, and the apparent high amount of customization implied by the demo, I found myself looking forward to this third chapter of Lightning’s tale. Its mechanics sounded great and made for a very fun demo; I had every reason to look forward to this game. Ultimately, this proves to be yet another case of press releases, demos, gameplay videos, and trailers not being able to replace the experience of handling the final product, as I was left wholly unsatisfied and wishing I hadn’t been fooled into anticipating Lightning’s comeback.


One thing that might hook players initially is the fast-paced battle system. Players customize three outfits/jobs called “Styles” with equipment and skill sets, and each of these setups has its own ATB meter. Using skills depletes the meter at different rates depending on the action taken, after which a wise player will switch to a different Style and continue unleashing the pain. Timing your Guard is extremely important, far more so than in any previous Final Fantasy game, as is the proper juggling of skills. You won’t be pressing X to win in LR: FFXIII‘s boss battles. Its toughest enemies provide heart-pounding intensity that really test a player’s strategy as well as one’s quick fingers. These few fights, however, are the exception and not the rule. Overall, once you learn the system, too many fights become dull, rote experiences. That’s a real shame, because those few fights that do test the limits are memorable and fun as heck.

As a sucker for time travel fiction (as opposed to boring time travel facts), I was highly intrigued by its time-bending setup. The world will end in 13 days, and players must guide Lightning in saving souls, wiping out monsters, and otherwise tying up all loose ends and getting the world ready to press that big Reset button in the sky. All actions cost a certain amount of time on the doomsday clock, and the game was marketed with a hurry-up intensity as a selling point. In-game reminders abound that, in so many words, “You gotta hurry up! No time to do everything, time is of the essence!” Intensity ran high during LR‘s early moments, but quickly dwindled upon the realization that I’d completed every story quest and the majority of its optional quests before even the game’s midpoint, on Normal difficulty. There wasn't enough content to actually fill up the whole game.


Perhaps this lack of content is why player progress is so stinted. It’s exciting, at first, to customize Lightning and make her into the warrior you’d like her to be. Such customization is a key part of nearly any RPG. It becomes quickly apparent, however, that the developers worked quite well to ensure that player progress goes according to their own formula. It’s perfectly fine to have a certain ceiling on progress, but rarely do I find these ceilings smacking me in the head as I did in Lightning Returns. Other times, progress will be dangled before the player like a carrot to a horse, but isn’t actually available because there’s a missing ingredient, which can only found in Hard Mode.

That might sound acceptable, but note that Hard Mode is not available from the beginning of the game, meaning some of the best features don’t open up until a second playthrough. You have to load Normal clear data to unlock Hard. Many players might be scared out of playing Normal Mode from the start, because selecting it gives a warning that says in so many words, “Wait, are you sure? Normal Mode has this disadvantage and that disadvantage, and also this is harder. We highly recommend everyone start with Easy Mode, but hey, it’s your funeral.” Good thing I defied the warning, because the progression caps in place for Easy Mode make it sound completely boring — and no, not just because it’s easy. The producers and developers are going out of their way to funnel players into Easy Mode, and yet this is the least fun, most hampered, most broken mode. Even on Normal, one is likely to feel ripped off. Hard Mode not being available from the start is ridiculous, and so is the lack of clear descriptions between the different modes.


Other, small issues further show this game’s broken nature, and I don’t just mean the unintentionally hilarious NPC behavior. Quests that eat a ton of time and include tough battles are met with microscopic reward, whereas eyes-closed breezes yield a fortune. Shouldn't the hardest and/or most time-consuming quests yield the best rewards? Or if they don’t, shouldn't there be some kind of story-based justification for the abnormality? Not according to Square Enix.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII tells a story with all the brilliant subtlety of an ice skate to the orbital. Rather than letting the player feel like a part of Lightning’s world or feel some kind of connection to it, Motomu Toriyama and his crew basically wrote a mixture of vacuous plot points and tropes on the sides of some dice, rolled them, and then made the scenes happen.


Lightning herself shows no growth as a character, cast members loop around on the old familiar carousel of situations, and scenes that could have been killers unfold as melodrama, all culminating in an ending that simultaneously rips off Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy IX, all while ignoring everything that made those games special to begin with.

Reports that Lightning was the only party member are false, as she’s followed by two constant companions named Jagged Edge and Graphical Pop-in. In Final Fantasy XIII-2, the graphics took a noticeable step backward from the original XIII; in this third installment, you’ll see another downgrade, even on the nicest of TV screens. Crowded areas are prone to staggering drops of the frame rate, flora looks awful, and the dreaded “jaggies” ride too many edges, too many times, too obviously. While adequate on the whole, it’s hard not to look at this game and see the decline compared to the other two FFXIII games. It’s disappointing to see this near end of the PS3′s life, when graphics should be looking better instead of worse. The visuals in CG cutscenes, at least, look every bit as splendid as a Final Fantasy game should, especially in the beginning and ending.

On the bright side, at times (though not consistently), environments overall do look rather good. Final Fantasy XIII‘s general lack of townz earned it many complaints, and while Final Fantasy XIII-2 put fancy skins on shops, it didn’t exactly scratch that itch. When it comes to fun world exploration and quality towns, Lightning Returns easily claims top honors in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy.

Where up-close visuals fail, audio satisfies. LR: FFXIII features a mix of new compositions and old favorites for a pleasant soundtrack. Voice acting is consistently impressive, really giving life to any and all who speak.


But even pretty music can’t help the lasting impression of Lightning Returns, as concluding thoughts are marred by its final dungeon and awful ending. The last area is neither fun nor interesting, serving only as one last annoyance before the laughable ending comes along and insults your intelligence even worse than the infamous ending of Final Fantasy XIII-2.

This stings because so much potential was there. It was all right there, waiting to be made into Final Fantasy‘s return to form. On paper and in demos, the battle system and customization possibilities seemed wonderful, but in practice, LR: FFXIII‘s gameplay falls apart too quickly. Its underachieving graphics and nonsensical story serve only to add salt to the wounds.

Great review, exactly what I expected.

Lightning returns!

She shoulda stayed home.

As long as her *** jiggle in the Miqo'te outfit, 10/10 for me.

Just watched a trailer for that, no jiggle.

2/10, so much potential wasted.

they keep trying to be fancy and overdo everything to the point that they ruin it, Bravery Default is a better game for 3DS

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Outsells Lightning Returns Life-To-Date Sales In Japan In Just Two Weeks
BY KHURRAM IMTIAZ - JANUARY, 8TH 2014

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Earlier, we reported how Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD remaster has outsold the debut week sales of Lightning Returns. Now it appears that the game has surpassed the life-to-date sales of Lightning Returns in Japan in just two weeks.

Lightning Returns XIII was the third entry in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, it was released on November 28th, 2013 in Japan. Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD remaster was released on 26th December, 2013 for both PlayStation 3 and the VITA and it seems like in just two weeks, Lightning Returns has been outsold by Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD remaster.

According to latest sales number by Weekly Famitsu in Japan, Final Fantasy X/X-2 sold 50k units on PlayStation 3 and 35k units on PlayStation VITA in its second week. This brings the combined total sales on both platforms to 402k units. Adding the known sales of the individual releases of Final Fantasy X HD(Not counting X-2) on VITA, which is 22k in its debut week, we can safely assume that Lightning Returns – whose last known sales figure puts it below 400k units – has been outsold by Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD remaster.

Not surprised at all.

you people are on Crack Lightning was/is a great charter, alot better then cloud or sepheroth ever were. id love a FFXIII the movie the story and chars were some the best FF has ever produced.

sounds like a women answer, Cloud > all

No please, I take offense.

That's just a troll reply I think.

What was wrong with FFVII? How was XIII better?

Not even trolling, I hear people trying to throw VII under the bus too often for no other reason other than to be a contrarian.

no thats my opinion, Lightning is cool but not cooler then cloud, cooler then every other chick char yes

I think two low quality sequels are enough for ff13. Time to move on.

No, I meant the troll is the Krysten person lol

FFXV doesn't look promising.

Vivi > any other FF character :(

The low quality original was more than enough.

Balthier may have been one of the most fun FF characters in a while. I could listen to that guy read out of the phonebook and be impressed.

FFXII: The FF that could have been so much more.

I see your Vivi and raise you a Cyan Garamonde! Well... The entire cast of 6 is like cheating, and Vivi is pretty damn awesome.

Except for the rather pointless addition of Vaan and Penelo, what was missing from it? I've played the hell out of FFXII. About the only criticism I have for it is that the Zodiac job system of the International release ought to have been in the original because I really find games like FFVII, FFVIII, and FFX intensely boring when every character is a carbon copy of one another barring weapon selection and limit breaks. One of my favorite ways to replay FFIX is to figure out a party configuration I haven't used before and see how it works (it always does work, too, even with bloody Quina).

Any questions?

Shutup, it's going to be awesome and be the best ff ever!! *runs away crying*