Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, The Last 13 Days

[ZeronHitaro]

There's also the option to just do as many side quests as possible, let the world die, and use the New Game+ feature to start over with all your bonus stats intact. So technically if you wanted you could just have a run at all the easier side quests, sleep at the inn non-stop, and do it all over again.

If you're decent at blocking attacks I found my general 'go-to' option for most fights, including Noel, is to spam the crap out of Heavy Strike while keeping enough AP in reserve for guarding. Heavy Strike slowly builds up the stagger gauge and once it breaks and you're dealing bonus damage just keep pumping in Overclocks. It worked for Normal Difficulty Noel with minimal side questing.

Doubt it would work on a Hard run-through though. XP

[Klutz64]

I forgot to mention in the Game Journal thread another aspect of the ending I really liked: Lumina's reveal at the end completely turned my opinion of Lightning from all three games on it's head.

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There was also some nice parallels there with Lightning's final battle being to prevent Bhunivelze from turning all of humanity into the apathetic, unfeeling drone she had turned herself into.

[Yggdrasil]

Classic Final Fantasy and Samurai DLC out for Lightning Returns today -- Nova Crystallis

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Rejected Garb Designs:

[Starmongoose]

They rejected the penguin costume?

I am disappointed.

[Dice]

3, 8, and 9 would have been cool.  Meh to the rest

[Kevadu]

They rejected the penguin costume?

I am disappointed.

Me too, man...

[Yggdrasil]

#TeamPenguin is strong over here I see. Nice. :)

[Dice]

I'd expect some serious Blazzagaing out of it.  And any reason they'd come up with for why it didn't make it would be hogwash.  Dammit Japan, you had to put a cat girl in...but omit a penguin design.

That's racist.

[Kevadu]

More like specist!

[Dice]

More like specist!

To-may-to
To-mah-to. 

But yes!  This specism is so barbaric

[Cyril]

I like the penguin, too, but the Cait Sith next to it just looks abysmal.

[blackthirteen]

I've tried the demo on the PS3 and I must confess I was really impressed with the visuals (very nice light effects), the storyline seems intriguing as well. I guess I'll have to give XIII-2 another chance and then play Lightning Returns to catch up with the storyline.

[Dice]

I've tried the demo on the PS3 and I must confess I was really impressed with the visuals (very nice light effects), the storyline seems intriguing as well. I guess I'll have to give XIII-2 another chance and then play Lightning Returns to catch up with the storyline.

It's hard to explain this and I don't know to what extent people would agree (if at all), but I love that Japanese have a real thing for "pretty" and "beautiful" that really shows off in their art, their graphics, and so forth.  Japanese 3D (at its best) likes to create aesthetically attractive looking models, I think, that shines through better than US videogame's best in graphics (who were otherwise, IMO, the bigger juggernauts of console gameplay).

For instance:

[blackthirteen]

I never had the chance to play Mass Effect, that women on that screenshot looks stunningly well-done. I suppose there isnt many storyline segments in Mass Effect, probably why I'll never play it. It's another reason why I loved Japanese RPG more than the western ones, although most recent JRPG were a letdown. Only Hideo Kojima can still deliver a solid storyline with a massive amount of cutscenes these days.

[Yggdrasil]

^MGS as a series is very self-aware of what it is and it plays with whatever expectation the player might have, an RPG doing that kinda goes against what the genre has established over the years.

Then again, a lot of games nowadays are hybrids...