Finally, my soul is free to be reborn in the world without Lightning.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 was a pleasant surprise (even if not the greatest game) after the horrible pointlessness of XIII. So you could expect Lightning Returns, aka XIII-3 to be even better. Nope, it completely destroys everything that it could’ve had going for it. While being absolutely sure it’s doing great.
The premise and ideas are absolutely fantastic – the world is ending, events of XIII and XIII-2 just postponed/lessened the impact of what the main antagonists were trying to do, but they essentially got what they wanted. People lived for 500 years stuck at the age they were when the ending of XIII-2 happened, no new people are being born. The awakened God chooses Lightning as a Savior to help the chosen souls to be reborn in a new world. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?
Side-quest stories can be so amazing as well with a main story like this. You’ve lived for 500 years, not dying of old age, but afraid to die a violent death and never to be reborn. An eternal child has unrequited love for someone who only sees her as a child (despite hundreds of years of age). A man living the exact same way day after day to erase memories of horrible events of the past. People living in fear of retribution for the mistakes they’ve made centuries ago. This can be good.
But it’s all wasted. There’s no consistency, no logic, no reasoning. Some children act like children despite being hundreds of years old. Some act their age. Some feel the pains of events from hundreds of years ago as if they happened yesterday. But every problem ever is fixed as soon as Lightning steps in. Usually by doing the blandest fetch quests. All told through dry and badly written dialogue, and acted with as much excitement as your typical Metroid: Other M monologue.
The game has no tone, no mood. It sets it up through some cutscenes and through the premise and then proceeds to ignore it immediately. Every main story quest is completely isolated from every other main story quest and the events in it are immediately ignored and forgotten for the rest of the game. Characters can range from actually nicely designed and written, to something that looks like a joke freak MMO character people would create in a game from 2005.
Combat system is completely different now. Some people seem to praise it but I felt like it was pretty weak. Sure, it tries to be more “action”, even uses a concept of a perfect block. Yet, it’s still incredibly tedious. Still needs to load/unload the combat area. Lacks any speed and excitement of an Ys game. Any tactical positioning of Parasite Eve II or Vagrant Story. And fighting is needed just to grind some loot or completing the side-quests, since you can’t actually level up through fights. Even more bizarrely, a lot of mechanics for combat can be upgraded and tweaked… but only in New Game plus. And part of those is only available only on a harder difficulty. I mean, it’s cool when additional features can be available for replaying games, but in this case it’s like an essential part that could make the game at least somewhat fun is just locked away after you suffer through it once without it.
The game is painfully boring and manages to fail at things that were perfected years ago. For example, I occasionally felt that the game reminded me of Valkyrie Profile from Tri-Ace, except worse in every possible way. And hey – Tri-Ace worked on this game. Shame that the similarities only reinforce how much better that older PS1 title was. Hell, it often looked nicer too, even if far less technologically advanced. So many NPCs are downright ugly and horrifying, so many Lightning costumes (that work like “jobs” in this game) look ridiculously fan service.
The story also features a 12 year old gothic lolita character. Yes, there’s a story explanation for it. No, it doesn’t excuse how stupid this is. I’m not against the concepts or the style, mind you, as long as it fits the game or the story or has whatever reason to exist, rather than an excuse to exist. Though… come to think of it, this entire game is just an excuse to put Lightning in different dumb situations and make her “look cool”, isn’t it? It’s not a story, it’s a pathetic fanfic about “the best 2d waifu”. And it’s pathetic, because it lacks any passion. It’s a completely dry wet fantasy.
XIII-2 gave this game potential. The premise gave this game potential. There is an amazing game that was never made. Instead we got this. Even more pointless, even more unnecessary project than XIII was. A tombstone to whatever the “Lightning saga” could ever become. If you have any self-respect, don’t play Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
P.S. Ah right, PC port… It’s good. I guess, it’s nice that at least something about this trash is good. Though, all online features were cut, but who cares, really.
