Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, The Last 13 Days

[Yggdrasil]

Lightning Returns staff talk story, gameplay, and worldview -- Source: Nova Crystallis

"Famitsu took another turn with the Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII development staff in an all-new interview this week. With the title expected to launch some time in 2013, Director Motomu Toriyama, Producer Yoshinori Kitase, and Game Design Director Yuji Abe sat down to discuss new and future developments for the final chapter in Lightning’s journey"

I think that a large amount of flack that Squeenix has been receiving has stemmed from the fact that, at one time, the Final Fantasy series was one of the leading franchises of JRPGs and that for the last decade now they've basically let the franchise go.

They have never let the franchise go, if they had I'm pretty sure FF would have been over a long time ago and not with XIII or XIV.

The fanbase is alienated beyond repair and whatever Square Enix does either good or bad their are gonna get crap for it all the time and I doubt that's gonna change even if they let the "vocal minority" of the Internet happy with future installments.

Versus has turned into the next Duke Nukem Forever.

I would say that The Last Guardian wins over that title more than Versus. Either way, the hopes that a lot of fans have over Versus being "the ultimate FF" is not the best type of hype that this game can have...

[Aeolus]

I think that a large amount of flack that Squeenix has been receiving has stemmed from the fact that, at one time, the Final Fantasy series was one of the leading franchises of JRPGs and that for the last decade now they've basically let the franchise go.

They have never let the franchise go, if they had I'm pretty sure FF would have been over a long time ago and not with XIII or XIV.

The fanbase is alienated beyond repair and whatever Square Enix does either good or bad their are gonna get crap for it all the time and I doubt that's gonna change even if they let the "vocal minority" of the Internet happy with future installments.

I meant that in the 'letting one's own figure go' sense rather than just straight up abandoning it like they did with SaGa and Mana (social games do not count, dammit).

[Prime Mover]

Really? I thought FF13-2 was brilliant. Best game in the series since FFIX.

[Mickeymac92]

Really? I thought FF13-2 was brilliant. Best game in the series since FFIX.

I dunno if I'd go that far, despite having a lesser opinion of FFIX than you do. I'd definitely say it's very good, at least, even with the mostly awful story. I certainly liked how the gameplay all came together, fixing most of the issues I had with XIII, and while the story may have taken a hit, I'd say it's more of a sacrifice for the good gameplay than anything else. I generally enjoyed it, perhaps about as much as I enjoyed FFX or XIII, both of which I'd say I enjoyed more than others here (at least from my observations), yet that only leaves FFXII and FF6 as lesser games in my eyes. Story aside, it also had some bad music, and there are a few stupid decisions here and there, at least as far as completion goes (I have to play the freakin' slots to get a fragment?! Ugh!). I also hate the cliffhanger ending and the DLC (but at least that's optional). At the very least, I'd say it isn't up to FFIX's level, and I liked FFXI and perhaps FFX more.

[Yggdrasil]

XIII-2 is the most fun I've had with FF since IX as well.

[Dice]

I thought X was a lot of fun when a lot of the beginning was out of the way.

[Mickeymac92]

I thought X was a lot of fun when a lot of the beginning was out of the way.

Final Fantasy X was pretty fun for me until, like, the last quarter of the game. Granted I haven't gotten to the final boss fight (got some caves and Zanarkand left to do), but that's because it's been such a slog recently.

[Prime Mover]

I thought the story progression sapped all the interest out of it for me. I sometimes refer to it as "Final Fantasy: The Progress Bar". The entire story is a journey from point A to point B, and you know the game is going to end soon after you get to point B. People complain about FFXIII being linear, but at least they keep things unexpected, FFX telegraphed everything so much that there was no excitement for me.

That said, there are elements of FFX that were very strong: the overall story was one of the best in the series, the battle system was fine (though I'm glad they've returned to ATB), and the feel was very intense (unlike FFXII). But the characters were very weak and a lot of the dialog was terrible. Not sure why it gets so high praise as the second-best to FFVII. In any case, I had fun with it, but the whole experience was kind of dull.

[Eusis]

Combined with the huge jump in graphical fidelity FFX gave a sense of going on a journey that I really liked, but I don't think that's something you can really capture again without trying a very different route, and the linear design has NOT worked as favorably for other RPGs.

[Aeolus]

Combined with the huge jump in graphical fidelity FFX gave a sense of going on a journey that I really liked, but I don't think that's something you can really capture again without trying a very different route, and the linear design has NOT worked as favorably for other RPGs.

It also helped things by making the entire point of the plot all about the journey rather than chasing after the latest long, silver haired bishounen villain.

That said though, I find myself preferring FFIX's journey more due to actually recognizing the concept of your party being made of playable characters rather than mere PCs to serve your MC's beck and call just by having them go off and do their own things in different corners of the world. My one critique would be to give players the ability to choose whom to send where when the plot demands a route split.

[Prime Mover]

Agreed. I don't know why S-E can't look to full cast games like FF6 and FF9 for more inspiration, I felt that those had the best progressions of any games in the series. They had an ideal BALANCE of linear vs. branching. Everyone seems to be about extremes these days. It just kills me that I find large problems with FFXII and FFXIII but for opposite reasons. If S-E would just simmer down and create games with a nice balance of their existing traits, they'd be much better off.

[Humbert Humbert]

Their focus needs to be on bringing Final Fantasy to the western standard - a story devoid of all the melodrama, branching dialogue trees, a killer score (imagine if they'd gotten someone like Hans Zimmer to compose an Inception-styled soundtrack?) and environments similar to the ones seen in the PS1 entries (in terms of non-linearity). Allow for a larger cast of around 10 characters and offer exposition on various party members through numerous side quests. There's no reason Square couldn't accomplish these things.

[Aeolus]

^Lolololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol....olololololololololol....ololololol....ololol....ol!

But seriously though, WRPGs are not inherently superior to JRPGs. Both have their strengths and weaknesses and both have their excesses of phoned-in cash-grabs.

Agreed. I don't know why S-E can't look to full cast games like FF6 and FF9 for more inspiration, I felt that those had the best progressions of any games in the series. They had an ideal BALANCE of linear vs. branching. Everyone seems to be about extremes these days. It just kills me that I find large problems with FFXII and FFXIII but for opposite reasons. If S-E would just simmer down and create games with a nice balance of their existing traits, they'd be much better off.

To be fair to FFXIII-1, it also tried to have everyone in your party do their own thing, but it wound up conflicting with the battle system and ended up making players feel like they were in some sort of massive tutorial due to the overall lack of characters or options. Even FFIX gave you members of Zidane's bandit troupe or other stand-ins like Beatrix so you weren't constantly missing a full third of your options for the majority of the game.

And it really didn't help matters by making the entire party split business be completely overwrought with drama with such thrilling conclusions like "WE'RE ALL PETS!!!" :byodame:, "I'm no hero, because a real hero doesn't go round shouting "I'm a hero", which I won't do anymore because I'm a hero!" :downs:, "Operation Kill Snow: aborted" :saddowns:, or "You turned my son into a hideous lawn ornament I'll kill you!" :suicide:. But then neither did the complete lack of direction, goal, or plot structure help things.

[Eusis]

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But seriously though, WRPGs are not inherently superior to JRPGs. Both have their strengths and weaknesses and both have their excesses of phoned-in cash-grabs.

Half of that I can actually agree with... because it was there in prior entries. The other half either comes off as going too far from what helps give FF its flavor, or is outright abhorrent to me (no no no GOD NO to the soundtrack bit). But you're right, earlier this generation/late last generation I was really feeling like WRPGs were going in places that were far more interesting than JRPGs, but as this generation wore on it's clear they have their own unique set of problems, especially regarding stuff like turn based combat that's deemed "too archaic" for a big retail game. A notion hopefully the likes of Xcom are shattering at least.

I do suspect the Kickstarter RPGs will start turning things back around for me though, I think in general it's really more a weariness of big AAA development.

[Kevadu]

Type-0 did a lot of interesting things with the FF formula, including some of the things Humbert Humbert is asking for.  On the other hand there's also an almost a Persona-esque aspect to it with regards to how you manage your time between missions.  Very cool game.  Too bad we'll never see it here...