PREVIEW: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII By GeekComplex (Tyler Pederson)

It’s been a long, long road. Beginning in 2006 with a promise, evolving over three years of hype and speculation into what is widely regarded as the most disappointing Final Fantasy installment of all time. Turning things around before it crashed and burned with it’s sequel, which still ranks among my favorite JRPGs of all time, Square Enix now enters 2014 with the final chapter of Lightning and gangs story, but not the final chapter of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Tetralogy. They have defied fate, and changed the future, yet the question remains, will the overhaul of the battle system and world building truly hit the sweet spot between XIII’s linear art gallery and XIII-2s time traversing epic?

Diving into the demo, quite literally actually, we are presented with the usual opening cut scene complete with credits laid over top. This is, unfortunately, exactly the same as the cut scene that will play once you begin the demo, minus the dialogue to explain what the hell is going on. This is a personal gripe, but i’m here to see the cut scenes also, but force feeding me the ones you clearly want me to watch just so you don’t feel your time is wasted defeats the purpose. Moving on, the demo begins at the end of said cut scene with what is both the most confusing and yet simplified battle system I've seen in ages. Allow me to explain.

The changes to the battle system are numerous, and leave it almost unrecognizable as a part of the same series. This time, unlike in the past, you may actually be glad for the handful of tutorials, though they are much less prevalent here than in either of the prior XIII entries. Additionally, forget everything you knew about those games, at least in terms of battle. Not only has lightning lost her ability to use summons, she has adapted the dress sphere style of combat used first, and as far as I know, exclusively, in Final Fantasy X-2. Fitting I suppose, that it would make a return equally as out of left field as it’s original appearance. I digress, The whole thing comes off a bit scatter shot at first glance, seemingly missing the point of the style of game itself is trying to be. Only once you realize that the free movement and single character play brilliantly into the combat strategies necessary to take down tougher enemies, it goes from being a button masher to a seriously quick thinking JRPG, a sentence I would never have used to describe any game sporting the Final Fantasy title before.

Where many extended sit downs with XIII and even it’s far improved sequel boiled down to little more than having a decent selection of foods one can eat with one hand while alternating between mashing A and pushing forward with the joystick with the other, I am both impressed and somewhat dumbfounded to say that doing those things won’t get you too far here. While you can probably still call large parts of the game linear, at least given my impressions from the area explored in the demo. Admittedly we are led to believe is a small area surrounded by the 4 sprawling free roam areas, but the area traversed in the demo was little more than a winding hallway. The combat from XIII, with the exception of the names of attacks/buffs have seemingly all been scrapped. Not retooled, not modified, scrapped. In their place is a non recovering HP system, adding a layer of depth to the game that both XIII and XIII-2 missed out on entirely, resulting in many of the more difficult fights having medics and potion spamming interchangeable.

Additionally, as mentioned, the return of the dress sphere style (here called Schemata) of combat results in a single character to control, who’s attacks, guards, buffs, and debuffs, are all mapped to face buttons. If on paper it sounds a little bit messy you wouldn’t be wrong. To be completely honest it’s so genuinely different from the past games it just feels out of place. It’s not bad, in fact I’d go so far as to say I really like it, but it feels as if it were created for another game entirely, and worked in. Again, I want to stress I really don’t think it’s bad, and really consider it to be the leap Lightning needed to take to come off as actually being in my control, but comes off as a golden egg laying atop a messy pile of the uninvolved button mashing that was the entirety of the original XIII’s “Auto Battle” system. I won’t hold past mistakes against the latest installment of course, but it comes off as the control I should have had all along if I was going to be restricted to a single player controlled character, rather than feeling like a real accomplishment.

The demo tells almost nothing of substance in terms of story, which, for those following, has more loose threads than even the most dedicated of Japanese seamstresses could try to finish up neatly. There are returning characters who speak to lightning, apparently after much time, as if no time has passed at all, and the ever confusing voice of Hope quite literally inside your head. Lightning Returns is a big leap into a new direction for not just Lightning herself, but for the Final Fantasy series as a whole. With footage of XV showing all kinds of fast paced, live combat, it’s possible we won’t see a return to the “traditional” turn based format any time soon. While not completely pulling me in as one would hope a glimpse into a Final Fantasy tale would, it’s certainly a very interesting new direction for the series to take. The Schemata (Dress Sphere) style of combat in addition to a single character may seem unfamiliar, but don’t let unfamiliarity turn you away from this one. I plan to give a full review when the game is finally released come February, but until then, check out the demo and see how you like Lightnings new direction.

Be sure and stay tuned for my full review of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII come February! Thanks for reading!

TBD