RPG Diary

Lightning Returns

Lightning Returns is the third and final game in the Final Fantasy XIII series. While I did not enjoy Final Fantasy XIII, I was pleasantly surprised by Final Fantasy XIII-2, so I was cautiously looking forward to this game. I bought it on release, but I abandoned my initial playthrough about halfway. I don't remember much about the game, but it's time to finally play it start to finish.

Title	Lightning Returns
Year	2013 (US 2014 )
System	PS3 360
Developer	Square Enix
Publisher	Square Enix

Lightning Returns is very different from the previous games. After a brief prologue, the game becomes non-linear: there are five quests in four areas which can be completed in any order. There is not much information or guidance given upfront, so you must explore the world to figure out what to do. Additionally, the majority of the game occurs under a doomsday clock — the main quests must be completed before the clock runs out. The clock gave me a lot of anxiety as I was constantly afraid of running out of time. Ironically, the clock is actually quite generous (on easy mode at least). I had so much time to spare that I literally slept through the last few days at the inn to get to the ending.

The plot is a mess, although it is not surprising given how the previous game ended. Still, the God and his savior story felt like it came from out of nowhere with little explanation and I did not care for it. After the prologue, the game felt very dull and boring to me. Most of the game is focused around "saving souls" which is just a polite way to say "banal fetch quests for generic NPCs". While many RPGs could be described this way, the difference is that instead of cutscenes advancing a main story, there is just a bunch of filler dialogue with NPCs about their personal lives. To be fair, there are a few scenes fleshing out the main story, but they seemed to be gated by the doomsday clock instead of quest progress, so I didn't see some of them until I was almost finished with the game. The ending chapter has the most developed and interesting story, but it takes 30+ hours of gameplay to get there.

Every major character from the previous games makes an appearance in this game. While I thought Snow and Noel were written well, the rest were a mixed bag. Hope is inexplicably a child again. Sazh has become somewhat of a joke now as he is yet again separated from Dajh. Caius is somehow still alive. Strangest of all, the legion of Yuels is revealed to be the Great Chaos that destroyed the world. The ending also made little sense to me as it felt like a lot of handwaving to resolve everyone's issues.

I generally enjoyed the battles in this game as they felt fast-paced. Lightning has three schemata slots (equipment and abilities) and you can switch freely between these during battle. Each schemata has its own ATB bar, but the active schemata's ATB bar does not charge. This means many battles require frequent switches. There are bonuses for timing attacks and guards well which makes battles more engaging. I tended to overcommit to attacking though, so I was terrible at guarding.

I was disappointed with the soundtrack this time. I thought many of the new songs are bland and forgettable, especially compared to the soundtracks of the previous games. Several memorable songs from those games are reused again here, which I think exacerbates the issue.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I did not enjoy this game, but I did not hate it as much as Final Fantasy X-2.