Squeenix Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

[yes plz]

IX was the last one I really enjoyed. FFX's Sphere Grid and battle system were nice but the story, cast, and world were banal shit boring, I didn't really enjoy any part of XII, and haven't even bothered with XIII as not a single aspect of it appeals to me in the slightest.

I am, though, currently enjoying the DS remake of FF4.

 

[felipepepe]

 

[felipepepe]

From Kotaku's review of the game:

I have one piece of advice for those of you planning to buy Lightning Returns: Make sure you preorder to get the Cloud Strife FFVII costume. Now, I have no doubt that many of you will be doing this anyway for your own Buster Sword and FFVII victory music. Hell, for nearly three-fourths of the game, the Buster Sword was the best weapon I had. However, why I say the Cloud costume is a must buy is because, while I have many costumes that are stronger “on paper,” Cloud's costume is the single most useful costume I have found in the game. This is thanks to the fact that it has a limit break. When you break an enemy's defense, the heavy attack that is attached to the Cloud costume becomes Cross Slash. The damage increase is staggering: I went from doing 3,000 damage per hit to over 25,000 damage per hit. From pretty much the moment I discovered this, I built my costume selection entirely around this attack—and it worked quite well most of the time. In other words, this is not a costume you want to be without.

 

[SCO]

retards

 

[Black]

It should've died at FF I.

 

[Echo Mirage]

I'm still amazed FF 13 was ever green lighted.

 

[TigerKnee]

Now, I have no doubt that many of you will be doing this anyway for your own Buster Sword and FFVII victory music. Hell, for nearly three-fourths of the game, the Buster Sword was the best weapon I had.

Don't buy this game, it has Cloud's Sword in it.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

Now, I have no doubt that many of you will be doing this anyway for your own Buster Sword and FFVII victory music. Hell, for nearly three-fourths of the game, the Buster Sword was the best weapon I had.

Don't buy this game, it has Cloud's Sword in it.

IE: BUY THIS GAME! IT HAS CLOUD'S SWORD IN IT!
- Buster Sword fan

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I have one piece of advice for those of you planning to buy Lightning Returns: Make sure you preorder to get the Cloud Strife FFVII costume. Now, I have no doubt that many of you will be doing this anyway for your own Buster Sword and FFVII victory music. Hell, for nearly three-fourths of the game, the Buster Sword was the best weapon I had. However, why I say the Cloud costume is a must buy is because, while I have many costumes that are stronger “on paper,” Cloud's costume is the single most useful costume I have found in the game. This is thanks to the fact that it has a limit break. When you break an enemy's defense, the heavy attack that is attached to the Cloud costume becomes Cross Slash. The damage increase is staggering: I went from doing 3,000 damage per hit to over 25,000 damage per hit. From pretty much the moment I discovered this, I built my costume selection entirely around this attack—and it worked quite well most of the time. In other words, this is not a costume you want to be without.

Would be cool as an unlockable after you beat the game, but why would you want to trivialize the first time like that? Damn xenos.

 

[lightbane]

So, what about the actual game itself? Has anyone tried it? Does it have something that makes it fun, or is it an unbelieveable piece of trash? The costume part reminds me of FFX-2, which is not a good sign.

 

[Elthosian]

It would be interesting to read some codexian impressions about the game, at the very least (from what I have read) it appears to have the best combat system/encounter design in the entire series, Final Fantasy Tactics aside of course.

Btw, that quote from Kotaku makes me want to cry, do people really get enjoyment from making their playthroughs easy as hell?

 

[TigerKnee]

Never played it, but I looked at a Japanese aggregate review site for fun.

FF13 - Median 60, User Rank "C"
13-2 - Median 53, User Rank "D"
LR - Median 70, User Rank "C"

So I guess it's technically an improvement?

That being said, the score is kind of skewed at this point because of the number of data points collected.

A whooping 449 people took the time to score FF13, but by 13-2 it dropped down to a pretty anemic 66 people. LR currently only has the data point of 8 votes, so I guess even the Japanese couldn't really give a shit about the series at this point of time.

Btw, that quote from Kotaku makes me want to cry, do people really get enjoyment from making their playthroughs easy as hell?

A lot of people do enjoy that instead of a challenge. Look at all those "optimal Wiz 6/7 class-changing strategies" and things like that.

That being said, if it isn't in the game without having to pay for it and if you didn't figure out the strategies for yourself, it's kind of pointless making the game easy.

 

[nil]

why would you want to trivialize the first time like that?

Maybe the same reason you'd want a guillotine to be sharp?

 

[felipepepe]

The game came out like two weeks ago in Japan, seems too soon for a verdict.

I really liked XIII-2's combat, were you can swap party members & capture pokemons, not sure how reducing it to only 1 playable character will feel after that... guess I'll find out n February.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Duraframe300]

XIII-II was my favourite FF since IX so looking forward to the game.

@ The video infinitron posted. makes me sad when I look at how shitty the mobile ff remakes look.

 

[Kruno]

I have pre-ordered FF13:LR. I will however not be using any overpowered pre-order items, as I like my games hard.

FF13 was bad, and I mean really bad. If you've seen Spoony's reviews of the game, the game is worse than that.

FF13-2 basically threw out FF13's story. The designers have thrown FF13 under the bus and decided to forget about it. The story in FF13-2 wasn't that great, but I enjoyed it for what it was worth. The story was not deep, didn't develop the characters enough, if at all, and left a lot of questions unanswered. At least they got rid of all the emo rubbish from FF13. The game-play in FF13 was faster paced, and involved slightly more micro, and a bit more organisation, at least given how I played, so it wasn't as bad as FF13. Hopefully LR will improve greatly on the gameplay, and make the game a lot more difficult.

I will see how FF13:LR turns out, and I will share my thoughts here.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Man i am a huge tool. The Demo was kind of fun so i am going to buy it.

 

[felipepepe]

I'm definetly buying it.

 

[StaticSpine]

I'd hopefully buy it too, but when it has some decent discount, too broke to buy it on a release date. Still want to play it, because I've walked through XIII and XIII-2 and pretty much enjoyed them.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

XIII was ridiculously overbashed, sure it strays a lot from other games in the series, but still something pretty neat was achieved with the battle system. Just skip all the cutscenes.

 

[StaticSpine]

XIII was ridiculously overbashed, sure it strays a lot from other games in the series, but still something pretty neat was achieved with the battle system. Just skip all the cutscenes.

I liked the paradigm systems, and actually I liked the cutscenes, the characters and the story (it was confusing at the beginning to get into that fal'cie - l'cie stuff, but when I understood that it became pretty good), though the game was pretty much a straightforward line of equal fights.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Yeah honestly without the Alexander O Smith cliff notes between chapters I wouldn't have understood anything of what was going on in the game except there were a lot of whiny characters.

 

[StaticSpine]

Yeah honestly without the Alexander O Smith cliff notes between chapters I wouldn't have understood anything of what was going on in the game except there were a lot of whiny characters.

Actually only Hope was whiny, the others were pretty okay, even Vanille.

 

[Kruno]

Yeah honestly without the Alexander O Smith cliff notes between chapters I wouldn't have understood anything of what was going on in the game except there were a lot of whiny characters.

Actually only Hope was whiny, the others were pretty okay, even Vanille.

They were all whiny. The game felt like it was aimed at 13 year old girls. Sailor Moon had a better story, and character development than FF13, and that was aimed at 13 year old girls.