Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, The Last 13 Days

[Yggdrasil]

How will you spend your final days? (*)

Director: Motomu Toriyama
Producer: Yoshinori Kitase
Designer: Yuji Abe
Programmer: Naoki Hamaguchi
Lead Art Director: Isamu Kamikokuryo
Composer(s): Masashi Hamauzu, Naoshi Mizuta & Mitsuto Suzuki

Platform(s): PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360
Genre: Action RPG
Release Date(s): November 21, 2013 (JP), February 11 (NA), February 13 (AUS), February 14 (EU), 2014

Official website(s): Japan / International

Story:

In the year 1000 AF (five hundred years after the ending of Final Fantasy XIII-2), Lightning wakes from her crystal sleep in the world of Nova Chrysalia, which is doomed to be destroyed soon. Bhunivelze - the god who created the fal'Cie deities - Pulse, Lindzei and Etro - chooses Lightning to be the Savior, a demigod figure destined to free the burdened souls of Nova Chrysalia and lead them into a new world set to appear when the old one ends. The souls of people not rescued by the Savior, including those who died before the release of Chaos, are destined to fade forever, as though they never existed.

[Kratoscar2008]

I could withstand Lightning in an action game but Hopes constant precense will be insuferable.

[Aeolus]

・This will be Lightning's last game and will end with a happy ending. The game has just one ending.

・The first FFXIII was story driven, meaning that the story pulled the player along. FFXIII-2 was player driven, meaning players selected the story. Lightning Returns is World Driven, meaning players have to consider how they interact with the changing world.

I'll believe this when I see it (unless they're actually promising no more Dissida, Somethingsomethingryhthymandsomething, or promotional tie ins to shit like The 3rd Birthday).

Also I would say that FFXIII-2 was more 'paradox' driven than 'player' driven. Also the only real point where you can sequence break is early on and it involves hitting the brick wall that tells you to go back and do the things you just tried to skip over (not like you aren't strong enough to take said section immediately after you unlock it or that if the RNG rolls favorably you could end up with a minion that would help you bypass the challenge of the next section without missing a step; but then you wouldn't be getting enough of Squeenix's loving Caius Ballad).

[Dice]

Clocks counting down to the apocalypse in a city where people don't age..... well then.
Quite the crap-sack world they've really made... =/

[ZeronHitaro]

Ugh, I'm in a 'razzing' mood tonight and so much about this game just begs to be made fun of.

・This will be Lightning's last game and will end with a happy ending. The game has just one ending.

Oh, cool. Way to drain any dramatic tension from your narrative right out the gate. Not only does this lessen my desire to read your story since you already spoiled it; but really 'happy ending' plus 'JRPG' just screams 'Oh look, a miracle!' all over again. XP

・The first FFXIII was story driven, meaning that the story pulled the player along. FFXIII-2 was player driven, meaning players selected the story. Lightning Returns is World Driven, meaning players have to consider how they interact with the changing world.

Yeeeeah...I don't buy it. Sorry SE; you're no Bethesda. And even they don't really deliver on anything more then 'your choices don't really effect the world outside of a few kilometers beyond where X event takes place'.

・The game's in-game time works out to one day being the equivalent of one to two hours of real time. There will be increases and decreases in time.

Ephemeral Fantasia called. They want their game mechanic back.

・The game is meant to be played and cleared multiple times. The volume is not such that it will take many tens of hours to clear once.

Sooo...short, piddly narrative with pointless 'what ifs' just to place the 'false reward replay value' card on the table? You already said the game has one ending. That pretty much kills the 'I want to play this again' factor.

・Depending on your actions, the remaining life of the world could decrease, and the game could end before the 13 day limit.

So...you lied? If you have 'Bad Endings' then your game totally has more than one ending.

・There are some times when helping someone will decrease the life of the world.

・Defeating some enemies and clearing some quests will increase the life of the world.

In other words; your game mechanics cancel each other out and the whole 'worry about making choices regarding effects on the world life span' is meaningless since any dilemma is negated by the fact that I can go kill 50 brown wolves and magically the world lives another day.

・Lightning has become a considerably more refined person.

...*facepalms* Really?

・You can freely move around during battle. Some elements of the battle system are timing-based.

The 'Tales of X' series called. I think they're in EF's camp.

・The battle system is close to action. There's an ATB gauge.

Dude, you've got the wrong game. Paradoxes belong in XIII-2. Oh wait...you're being serious...

・During battle, you don't select menu commands. Instead, you select abilities which have been assigned to buttons.

So...you were too lazy to design a new battle engine so you just ripped off Kingdom Hearts?

・Hope will give guidance to Lightning via wireless com.

Nerdy scientist gives advice to action hero via sci-fi transmission system...give me a second...

Lightning? Can you hear me? Lightning!? Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiightniiiiiiing!?

...sorry. >>;

・The city has clocks everywhere showing the constant progression of time.

Ephemeral Fantasia just filed a police report over your kleptomania. :-P

[Kratoscar2008]

Ugh, I'm in a 'razzing' mood tonight and so much about this game just begs to be made fun of.

・This will be Lightning's last game and will end with a happy ending. The game has just one ending.

Oh, cool. Way to drain any dramatic tension from your narrative right out the gate. Not only does this lessen my desire to read your story since you already spoiled it; but really 'happy ending' plus 'JRPG' just screams 'Oh look, a miracle!' all over again. XP

・The first FFXIII was story driven, meaning that the story pulled the player along. FFXIII-2 was player driven, meaning players selected the story. Lightning Returns is World Driven, meaning players have to consider how they interact with the changing world.

Yeeeeah...I don't buy it. Sorry SE; you're no Bethesda. And even they don't really deliver on anything more then 'your choices don't really effect the world outside of a few kilometers beyond where X event takes place'.

・The game's in-game time works out to one day being the equivalent of one to two hours of real time. There will be increases and decreases in time.

Ephemeral Fantasia called. They want their game mechanic back.

・The game is meant to be played and cleared multiple times. The volume is not such that it will take many tens of hours to clear once.

Sooo...short, piddly narrative with pointless 'what ifs' just to place the 'false reward replay value' card on the table? You already said the game has one ending. That pretty much kills the 'I want to play this again' factor.

・Depending on your actions, the remaining life of the world could decrease, and the game could end before the 13 day limit.

So...you lied? If you have 'Bad Endings' then your game totally has more than one ending.

・There are some times when helping someone will decrease the life of the world.

・Defeating some enemies and clearing some quests will increase the life of the world.

In other words; your game mechanics cancel each other out and the whole 'worry about making choices regarding effects on the world life span' is meaningless since any dilemma is negated by the fact that I can go kill 50 brown wolves and magically the world lives another day.

・Lightning has become a considerably more refined person.

...*facepalms* Really?

・You can freely move around during battle. Some elements of the battle system are timing-based.

The 'Tales of X' series called. I think they're in EF's camp.

・The battle system is close to action. There's an ATB gauge.

Dude, you've got the wrong game. Paradoxes belong in XIII-2. Oh wait...you're being serious...

・During battle, you don't select menu commands. Instead, you select abilities which have been assigned to buttons.

So...you were too lazy to design a new battle engine so you just ripped off Kingdom Hearts?

・Hope will give guidance to Lightning via wireless com.

Nerdy scientist gives advice to action hero via sci-fi transmission system...give me a second...

Lightning? Can you hear me? Lightning!? Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiightniiiiiiing!?

...sorry. >>;

・The city has clocks everywhere showing the constant progression of time.

Ephemeral Fantasia just filed a police report over your kleptomania. :-P

Thats funny :) :) :).

[Aeolus]

・The city has clocks everywhere showing the constant progression of time.

Ephemeral Fantasia just filed a police report over your kleptomania. :-P

You know where they're not going to have those clocks. Where you can't keep an eye on it without having to dive at least three menus deep (whereas Majora's Mask did the same thing except that it had a clock front and center that told you precisely what time it was).

[Yggdrasil]

@Kratoscar2008: Why did you have to quote the whole thing?

[Maxximum]

Just to make sure, this and FFXIII-3 are separate games?

[Dice]

Just to make sure, this and FFXIII-3 are separate games?

Sweet fuck, if they don't finish this series with this game, I'm going to Squeenix HQ in Japan to slap whoever thinks continuing this series was an honestly good and conscious decision.

[Bytor]

@ZeronHitaro...that's some funny shit, having said that I'll still buy it, as (no pun intended) hope springs eternal, lol

[Parn]

・Lightning has become a considerably more refined person.

This is the most pathetic feature touted for a videogame, ever.  You know you've hit rock-bottom when you use an established character that is almost universally seen as vapid and useless, and have to explicitly tell everyone that they aren't as bad anymore.  It'd be the equivalent of George Lucas rolling with "Jar Jar Binks has become a considerably more refined person" as a bullet point for hyping up the upcoming release of Star Wars: Episode II.

[Aeolus]

・Lightning has become a considerably more refined person.

This is the most pathetic feature touted for a videogame, ever.  You know you've hit rock-bottom when you use an established character that is almost universally seen as vapid and useless, and have to explicitly tell everyone that they aren't as bad anymore.  It'd be the equivalent of George Lucas rolling with "Jar Jar Binks has become a considerably more refined person" as a bullet point for hyping up the upcoming release of Star Wars: Episode II.

At least Lucas had the decency to regulate Jar Jar to background fodder by the second movie (and like all of two scenes during Panda Bear's funeral just to cap off his worthless existence).

[Agent D.]

I think Parn's just mad cuz they haven't mentioned anything about Snow yet. After all, that was his "favorite" character.

[Klutz64]

Adding time management to a series that never had it only worked in Majora's Mask because of the easy to access reset button. Timed objectives is what keeps me away from series like Atelier, and now Square Enix is basically saying I'll have to bring time management skills in order to finish the story I've invested about 80 hours into. It's like if Activision announced that in order to be successful in the next Call of Duty, you'll have to work on your RTS resource management and whatnot.