Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

[ShinkuDragon]

in FF13 he went from a guy who just talked big, to someone who backed his choices and all the consequences they carried, who wouldn't give up. i liked his change the most after hope, but that's because hope was a HORRIBLY ANNOYING character to begin with, and then he got very good (although so so corny, snow was corny too tho)

linked the game to FB, but no garb for me, please tell me i don't have to link it to twitter too :(

edit: the demo... seems nice enough i guess, i kinda liked having to watch over three hp bars, yoou can cheat the game hardcore by using lancet to heal on every fight, then switching to locke suit and avoiding, which meant zero damage. against the final boss you could roll mediguard if you wanted, jump with blizzard potion did INSANE damage.

[Razmos]

linked the game to FB, but no garb for me, please tell me i don't have to link it to twitter too :(

I don't think it actually tells you that you unlocked it, there's no reward message or anything. But as long as you published the Battle Rewards somewhere, i'd imagine that if you linked that same account to the full game, you'll get the garb.

And I liked all the characters in the original FFXIII. I thought the characters totally made the game for me.

Wasn't that big of a fan of Lightning, but she was a good strong character who rallied the party like a good leader, and her moments with Hope and Snow were great.
Sazh was great as comic relief, and so his breaking point with Vanille was especially good characterization.
Vanille herself was a much deeper character than she initially appeared, and behind the annoying moeblob exterior she was an interesting character. And it was good to see her develop from a coward who fled from her destiny to someone who was willing to sacrifice herself for her friends, after seeing how determined they all were.
Hope was a good character, I thought his desire for revenge was childish and immature, and I think that was the point. That he got past that, got over his issues and kept on fighting was really good character development.
Fang... I think the fact she didn't join the party until much later kinda left her to get overshadowed by everyone else and their character development, but I suppose she learned to trust in others.

The story and characters in FFXIII were amazing in my opinion, something that I thought the sequel lacked (with the exception of Caius)

[Jon]

I rather enjoyed the demo, so I finally started playing XIII-2 (which I've had for months but never actually played); loving it. Will likely wait for a price drop for LR, though.

[ShinkuDragon]

I don't think it actually tells you that you unlocked it, there's no reward message or anything. But as long as you published the Battle Rewards somewhere, i'd imagine that if you linked that same account to the full game, you'll get the garb.

And I liked all the characters in the original FFXIII. I thought the characters totally made the game for me.

Wasn't that big of a fan of Lightning, but she was a good strong character who rallied the party like a good leader, and her moments with Hope and Snow were great.
Sazh was great as comic relief, and so his breaking point with Vanille was especially good characterization.
Vanille herself was a much deeper character than she initially appeared, and behind the annoying moeblob exterior she was an interesting character. And it was good to see her develop from a coward who fled from her destiny to someone who was willing to sacrifice herself for her friends, after seeing how determined they all were.
Hope was a good character, I thought his desire for revenge was childish and immature, and I think that was the point. That he got past that, got over his issues and kept on fighting was really good character development.
Fang... I think the fact she didn't join the party until much later kinda left her to get overshadowed by everyone else and their character development, but I suppose she learned to trust in others.

The story and characters in FFXIII were amazing in my opinion, something that I thought the sequel lacked (with the exception of Caius)

i'll have to check when i can play again then, my bro hoggin' the PS4.

i loved the characters in XIII mind you, it just that the way they started was god-awful, with the exception of sazh, every single member of the party (except fang, but she comes LATE) was annoying as hell. i understand well where hope came from, but i think they overdid it. the moments between him and lightning were great however, and THAT part made me start liking lightning a lot more, but before that? "ugh you're all idiots i'm the best" attitude.

XIII-2... yea, noel was nice enough if you ask me, i have no clue from where snow came from, or where he went, nothing got explained and i don't even have the DLC, Caius was an A++ character, except for when he left the guys live, that was a dumb move... i think? the special ending made it seem like it truly all was planned.

on an unrelated note, pineapple GETTING THAT SPECIAL ENDING. freaking casino just for 13 more seconds of video, dear god.

@above: don't overtrain your mobs much, i literally whupped the ass of the final boss, wasn't even a challenge, just be careful of not using any of the special mobs and you'll be fine. i liked the pokemon aspect of it, merging skills into other monsters and all that.

[Evilince]

Played the demo today, looks really good.
On the facebook app under stats there is a counter for souls saved, however in the demo, I didn't see anything about saving anyone, I may just not remember it though. Where do you save someone in the demo?
Also does anyone know what exactly the stats are counting down to? Is there a reward or something when they all get to 0? Some of them I can't see hitting 0 any time soon.

[Razmos]

Played the demo today, looks really good.
On the facebook app under stats there is a counter for souls saved, however in the demo, I didn't see anything about saving anyone, I may just not remember it though. Where do you save someone in the demo?
Also does anyone know what exactly the stats are counting down to? Is there a reward or something when they all get to 0? Some of them I can't see hitting 0 any time soon.

I believe souls are saved by completing their quests, because then they can face the end of the world with no regrets or something like that.

[Evilince]

I didn't see any quests in the demo though. Was there and I just missed it somehow?

[Razmos]

I didn't see any quests in the demo though. Was there and I just missed it somehow?

No there wasn't, but I think the app is the same as the one that's going to be used for the full game, so it still had the soul counter there despite the fact you couldn't get any. I imagine they didn't want to create a separate app just for the demo.

[Evilince]

That makes sense.

[Zodiac]

Eh. As corny as his lines were, I actually found Snow pretty tolerable. Probably because he shares the same VA as Yuri Lowell.

While we're on the subject of characters, I found the overall playable cast of XIII pretty decent for the most part. But one thing that really bugs me about the original was the lack of a strong supporting cast. I thought characters like Cid Raines and Jihl Nabaat were just wasted potential. Is it just me, but I felt absolutely nothing when

Spoiler

Cid Raines "betrayed" the party, because before his boss fight, I swear he only appeared in two scenes total (once where he captured Snow, another when the cast meets the Cavalry before trying to save Sazh and Vanille) and the game somehow treats this like a shocking revelation and a tragic death. And there's Jihl, who doesn't even get the honor of a boss battle before she's unceremoniously killed as part of the worf effect to make way for Mr. Evil Space Pope.

This is another reason I preferred XIII-2 over the original. I found the nonplayable cast (Caius, Yeul, Hope, etc.) had more build up and story presence than in the original. Even with that, I say XIII-2 needed more Sazh

[ShinkuDragon]

Eh. As corny as his lines were, I actually found Snow pretty tolerable. Probably because he shares the same VA as Yuri Lowell.

While we're on the subject of characters, I found the overall playable cast of XIII pretty decent for the most part. But one thing that really bugs me about the original was the lack of a strong supporting cast. I thought characters like Cid Raines and Jihl Nabaat were just wasted potential. Is it just me, but I felt absolutely nothing when

Spoiler

Cid Raines "betrayed" the party, because before his boss fight, I swear he only appeared in two scenes total (once where he captured Snow, another when the cast meets the Cavalry before trying to save Sazh and Vanille) and the game somehow treats this like a shocking revelation and a tragic death. And there's Jihl, who doesn't even get the honor of a boss battle before she's unceremoniously killed as part of the worf effect to make way for Mr. Evil Space Pope.

This is another reason I preferred XIII-2 over the original. I found the nonplayable cast (Caius, Yeul, Hope, etc.) had more build up and story presence than in the original. Even with that, I say XIII-2 needed more Sazh

i found XIII much more enjoyable on my second playthrough, but mainly because i actually knew to look for nabaat and cid (well, i knew i had to look for cid due to his name). that thing with nabaat though, that REALLY was wasted potential, to the fact you had to PAY in part two just to fight with her.

[Razmos]

Gotta admit though, the scene where Jihl was killed by Superpope was a really good scene, and one of the best in the game. I actually watched it again a few days ago.


A really cool and really dramatic scene, and then of course comes the epic Barthandelus boss theme.

[ShinkuDragon]

Gotta admit though, the scene where Jihl was killed by Superpope was a really good scene, and one of the best in the game. I actually watched it again a few days ago.


A really cool and really dramatic scene, and then of course comes the epic Barthandelus boss theme.

i didn't like it, jihl had been shown as a cold and arrogant peach for the whole game, and then just moments before her death she's going left and right wondering about which color the alert should be, rather than bossing everything like a... well, cold and arrogant peach.

[Zodiac]

I think the effect they were going for with that red alert scene was that beneath her arrogant, peachy exterior, Jihl isn't nearly as composed or experienced as she appears to be when faced with a situation beyond her control. In other words, her bark is worse than her bite. Still doesn't excuse the waste of a perfectly good antagonist.

I still found that scene rather poor. I saw Space Pope coming miles away after playing Grandia II and Tales of the Abyss. I dislike how Jihl was hyped as some important recurring antagonist from the promo trailers, and all she does is serve as worf effect bait for introducing Evil Space Pope. Heck, I see no reason why they couldn't give her the dignity of a proper boss fight first then have Space Pope blast her away for her incompetence and reveal himself after, and the end result is still the same.

I just find it completely asinine they made her a DLC boss in the sequel. She could easily have made the cut in the original.

[Razmos]

Okay, this garb is one I never expected.

[Razmos]

Bumping this thread back up now the game has been released. I've been playing it the last few days, and it is REALLY good. It was a bit confusing at first, and then it got really, really hard, but I think I kinda went to the harder areas before I should have done.

Battles with every different kind of enemy feel unique, and they are all dealt with in different ways. There are different ways to block, different ways to evade, ect ect. Basically combat is a lot of fun.

The world is massive, and really detailed. It's really easy to get lost. The story is pretty good too. There was one quest that really made me sad:

Spoiler

You meet a robot called Bhakti who has been trapped in some ruins because he ran out of fuel, and he says he has friends on the other side of the locked door next to him, and that they will probably require fuel too. So you go searching around for fuel for him to use. He's really grateful and excitedly opens the door so he can see his friends again, and he is disappointed when he can't find them, and he wonders if they have gone into sleep mode. Lightning asks about his robot friends, and he says they aren't robots, they are humans. And lo and behold, you find their skeletons around the corner huddled in a pile. Bhakti doesn't understand what has happened to them, he thinks he can just repair them by getting them new parts, and Lightning has to explain to him the difference between robots and humans and that "when we die, we can't wake back up" and consoling him about not being able to save them. and then Bhakti finally shuts down after being able to see his friends one last time.

Then there is a conversation about whether a man-made machine can actually have a soul, and it's concluded that it may be possible that something resembling a soul developed through his interactions with humans.

So yeah, really sad.

I'm really getting into the swing of the game now, and i'm really enjoying it. I've even ran into 2 bosses that I simply cannot beat, the Earth Eater which halfway through the fight suddenly starts doing a quarter of your health per hit and hitting 3 times, and then a devour attack that even when blocked does around 2000-3000 damage.

The other boss was a Cactuar with an Afro who my attacks were doing only 1 damage against, and he was spamming kicks which knocked me up in the air, and spamming Aeroga and Thousand Needles. Very difficult.

Battles became slightly easier once I got an accessory that auto-casts Haste at the start of battle, at the cost of 5% HP.

[Grey]

The story is pretty good too. There was one quest that really made me sad:

Spoiler

You meet a robot called Bhakti who has been trapped in some ruins because he ran out of fuel, and he says he has friends on the other side of the locked door next to him, and that they will probably require fuel too. So you go searching around for fuel for him to use. He's really grateful and excitedly opens the door so he can see his friends again, and he is disappointed when he can't find them, and he wonders if they have gone into sleep mode. Lightning asks about his robot friends, and he says they aren't robots, they are humans. And lo and behold, you find their skeletons around the corner huddled in a pile. Bhakti doesn't understand what has happened to them, he thinks he can just repair them by getting them new parts, and Lightning has to explain to him the difference between robots and humans and that "when we die, we can't wake back up" and consoling him about not being able to save them. and then Bhakti finally shuts down after being able to see his friends one last time.

Then there is a conversation about whether a man-made machine can actually have a soul, and it's concluded that it may be possible that something resembling a soul developed through his interactions with humans.

So yeah, really sad.

Spoiler

Isn't Bhakti that robot that belonged to Fang and Vanille that you had to repair in the first game when you got to Oerba? =/

[Razmos]

Spoiler

Isn't Bhakti that robot that belonged to Fang and Vanille that you had to repair in the first game when you got to Oerba? =/

Spoiler

Yeah, I think so, he looked all rusted though. There was no mention of him being the same robot, but i'm pretty sure he was.

[Coogi]

I thought this was game was the worse of them all, can't even force myself to play it. battle system is better but that's it for me.

[Eos]

This game upset me.

If you start it on normal mode with no clue what you're doing it basically sets you up for failure because the objectives are unclear and the clock is counting down and the very first thing it does it shove you into places where you can't do anything until a certain time and if you're still too weak to easily grind for EP to keep the clock stopped, or too inexperienced to even know how to at that point, and leaving the area & story you're working on to go to a random place you know nothing about feels counter intuitive, especially when some of those places have critters that will stomp you flat in a blink, further stealing your time, it's a very frustrating play.

More so, when you realize it's one of those games you're not really intended to do well at the first play through, but are expected to repeat over and over again the exact same crap just to build up power enough to be able to do it easily/well, that upsets some people. Especially from a series that's never really done anything like that before.

Yes, when I did a new game + so I actually had some power when doing stuff and knew where everything was, I had more time and was able to do things more easily, but I have zero interest in doing this a third time or more, and I ran out of content on day 9 this time leaving me 4 days of hoping for new stuff to do or grinding aimlessly hoping for a few more Omega kills.

The story is OK, but not worth watching over and over for no reason, and if you do things out of the order it expects you to do them in their are gaping incongruities in the cutscenes.

I frankly enjoyed #2 better and would've been a lot happier if they'd just done that game properly and made it so that you can actually win a happy ending with enough effort. I'm a firm believer that anything I do as a form of entertainment should have a way to achieve an ending that makes it feel like what I did was worth it, not that it was all in vain because no matter what I did (in a game about changing time, no less) the outcome was inevitable.