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‘Lightning Returns’ in a flawed but better than expected ‘Final Fantasy XIII’ sequel If you ask a Final Fantasy fan what their favorite game in the series is, I would be surprised to hear them say Final Fantasy XIII. You’ll get a lot of FF7s, some FF4s, maybe even some FFXs (or, if the fan is smart, they’ll say FF6), but Final Fantasy XIII, with its linear gameplay and its convoluted story, failed to resonate with most fans. But Square Enix had big plans for what it announced as the Fabula Nova Crystallis series of Final Fantasy games, and by golly they were going to keep trying. And to their credit, XIII-2 was generally better received than its predecessor. The awkwardly titled Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has arrived to finish the XIII trilogy, and with it, I find myself wondering, “What is Final Fantasy now? What does that title even mean?” Lightning Returns is much less linear that Final Fantasy XIII, and it changes the formula enough that it’s sometimes unrecognizable as Final Fantasy. Still, by throwing out so much of what didn’t work about FFXIII, Lightning Returns is a more interesting and better game, despite its flaws and moments of confused identity. Lightning returns at the end of the world. Literally. There are 13 days before the world as she knows it ends, and god of light has woken her up from a 500 year slumber to name Lightning the “Savior,” in charge of redeeming lost souls before the world ends. Because she hasn’t been through enough already in the hundreds of years that this story has been taking place. What you do with those 13 days is, in a lot of ways, up to you. There are a few main quest lines that you must finish before time runs out, during which you will cross paths with many familiar Final Fantasy XIII faces, but it’s up to you to tackle them at your own pace. The clock is always ticking, though, and certain quests can only be completed at certain times of the in-game day. This makes Lightning Returns feel, at times, less like an RPG and more like a time management simulation. Even though you can cheat the system to some degree by spamming a time-stopping spell, you always need to keep an eye on the clock lest you miss an important event. This isn’t a bad thing. Much of the popular Persona series of RPGs is devoted to a similar “What will you do today?” sort of mechanic. But it’s very different than what fans of the series generally expect, and that’s only the start of what’s changed. It’s funny, I played Lightning Returns pretty much back-to-back with Bravely Default on the 3DS – another Square Enix RPG that harkens back to the things that most people actually think of when they think about Final Fantasy. That game reminded me why I got into Japanese role-playing games in the first place. This game? It’s… very different. In the first few hours with Lightning Returns, I didn’t spend nearly as much time fighting monsters as I did looking for clues to solve a murder mystery, looking for numbers hidden around city streets and looking for a secret way into a party. Yeah, that’s a lot of “looking.” When you hear from people who strongly dislike Lightning Returns, one of the big complaints is likely to be how much time is spent (wasted?) on fetch quests. Hours upon hours are taken up by being told, “Go here, do this thing, then come back.” And a lot of those tasks are incredibly mundane, involving little to no action and, usually, nothing in the way of worthwhile story. And you can’t easily ignore such quests, either. Not if you want to succeed, anyway. Unlike other games in the series (heck, unlike most RPGs in general), you do not gain experience points from battle. All of your permanent stat increases are rewards for completing quests and smaller, miscellaneous jobs from the “Canvas of Prayers” (basically a job board). Your choices of clothes (yes, clothes. Lightning has more outfit options than my sister’s Barbie dolls ever had, some of which are uncomfortably revealing) and other equipment affect you power and abilities as well, but completing quests is definitely the way to personal growth. I hope you’re not just here for deep plots or intricate dungeons, however. Most side quests are incredibly straightforward, and some require almost no effort – only time. Now, it’s not like prior games in the series haven’t had the occasional simple side quest … but those side quests make up the vast majority of Lightning Returns. That alone isn’t going to sit well with everybody. And truth be told, the fact that you don’t gain EXP from fighting actually makes a lot of the combat feel worthless. I guess there’s something to be said to the fact that you don’t have to “grind” through battles in the traditional sense, but I’m not sure this alternative is going to be universally welcome. In a weird way, Lightning Returns feels more western in its RPG design than any Final Fantasy before it. I picked up and tackled quests the same way I would in an open-world RPG like Dragon Age, and while I’m not sure that’s the direction I want the series to go permanently, I didn’t mind it here. If I’m being perfectly honest, Lightning Returns is a sequel I never wanted. It’s got faults — for every praiseworthy element (such as its non-linearity) there is a groan-inducing caveat (such as the overall lack of environments and enemy types overall). But I also kept playing it. Willingly, no less. Something about the flow of the game just hooked me. Being let loose in the game’s open world was refreshing, especially in the open environment of the Wildlands. I didn’t hate the fetch quests nearly as much as I maybe should have, and while I normally hate time limits in games I was able to manipulate time in such a way that I felt powerful rather than weak. Credit should also be given to the real-time, action-heavy battle system, which is far more interesting than previous incarnations, giving you much more control over your actions than the other Final Fantasy XIII games did. Maybe it’s just because I went in with relatively low expectations, but I’ve genuinely enjoyed Lightning Returns more than I expected to. Taken as a spin-off rather than a major sequel, Lightning Returns is interesting at the very least. It makes a lot of experiments and ends up being relatively unique as a result. I can’t imagine it’s going to make every fan happy, and I’m certainly not itching for any more games with this cast, but there’s some fun to be had here if you can see past the flaws. It’s a weird end to a weird saga, but one that ends on a better note than expected.
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U veljači sljedeće godine nova Final Fantasy igra pojaviti će se na europskom tržištu, nekoliko mjeseci po izlasku u Japanu. Na žalost mnogih obožavatelja franšize, u Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII će moći uživati isključivo vlasnici PlayStation 3 i Xbox 360 platformi. Radnja igre nastavlja se izravno na Final Fantasy XIII-2 i scenarij se i dalje fokusira na Lightning koja se budi nakon pet stoljeća kako bi spasila svijet od potpunog uništenja. Bilo kako bilo, Square Enix upravo je objavio čak pet trailera iz kojih ćete dobiti prilično dobar dojam o tome kako će igra izgledati;