Quick Look: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

There seems to be no focus, theme, or singular heart behind these games, just a mishmash of whatever they could think of.

I still stand by the notion of "Why did these sequels need to be connected to the FFXIII universe?". These sequels do nothing but hurt themselves and the original game by their complete lack of sensible continuity and logic.

It's a shame, because the bare mechanics of each are at least a little bit interesting to me. I might have bought into them if they were each a properly unique universe.

Lighting returns! to do peoples busy work and look for some numbers to open a door.

i was waiting so long for Jeff to mention persona. and it happened. i am elated.

Normally when the crew gets stuck in a quick look I am screaming at the screen but I'll admit that given just what we saw here I had no more idea about what they were supposed to do than they did and looking through the comments it seems like no one else did either. That's super shitty quest design, especially as the very first quest in the game. I think I said it somewhere else but this game reminds me a lot of Valkyrie Profile for the PS1. It has the whole ticking down to the end of the world thing and quests that can only be completed at a very specific time (which the game doesn't always make clear) and if you don't complete those quests you might as well just start over because you can't get the good ending no matter what else you do.

Valkyrie Profile, though, had a very interesting story and well realized characters that made we want to press through. Plus when you saved a soul you got to actually see their backstory and thus you cared about the characters. Strange, honestly, how similar this game is to that one.

I almost fell asleep watching this. Where the hell were those numbers!? And what do the numbers mean, Mason!?

You know the funny part? They ran past two numbers lol

I have to assume that, having played many jrpg's, I just have a different way of approaching quests, like the Zomok quest for example: Thought it was pretty obvious that it's the road behind her was where the beast was. Guess not.

The games not bad, but they definitely make this game look way worse in this quick look :(

It's also arguably the hardest FF I've played in a long while, gameplay wise. Brad not upgrading his schema from the starter stuff is going to catch up with him fast. Irregardless of how OP the Cloud garb is for 60% of the game.

Drunk in 20 minutes, drooling by the end.

I still want to play the game though. The "weird" game mechanics seem new and interesting to me.

This game looks weird, in a potentially cool way. Sort of a bummer it's linked to 13, I just couldn't get through the 12 hour tutorial or whatever that one had.

I really want to talk shit about the XIII games but I still like Kingdom Hearts so I can't really be on my high horse.

I hope it is as well. Too bad it isn't cross buy because while I'd love it on the Vita, I think I'd rather play it on the big screen. Still deciding on that one

Either way, I'm just glad I get to play it again and it not be a horrible blurry mess on an HD televsion. Plus trophies...trophies are always good

What.......the.......F

@yadilie: OKAY gotcha, not as overblown a leap of video game or fantasy story telling as people make it out to be.

I have to question the merit of doing QLs like this where they have no interest in the game and haven't done any preparation beforehand. It almost always ends up with them fumbling around aimlessly and complaining about everything. It's not funny or informative in any way.

@dexterkid said:

They often do quicklooks of games in which people are interested even though they themselves aren't interested. On the point of preperation, Brad had been playing the game for several hours, so I'm not sure what you're asking for here. The numbers thing couldn't have been known beforehand.

Whatever a persons opinion of VII and VIII considering those to be when Final Fantasy went bad simultaneously ignores the depths FFX plumbed, and unfairly ignores how good IX was.

Convoluted story and Japanese weirdness I can deal with. Why can't Japan ditch turn-based combat? I'm sure it made sense at some point but so did a horse and wagon but I'm not gonna drive one in 2014. Step your game up, Japan. It especially doesn't make sense when it's barely turn-based anymore like this appears to be.

@graf1k: I didn't know all of japan was responsible for turn based games.

I agree, it wasn't entertaining in the least. It was clear Brad had tunnel vision and wasn't looking around or talking to folks during that trivial piece together the code quest.

If a game is bad, that's fine and dandy, but you have to show a little about why. What we saw was dismissal of the game since he wasn't paying attention to it. The locations weren't glowing on the map or HUD, so he gave up on it. Brad does so much better when he prepares a bit.

Man, remember back when systems in FFX seemed strange?

Do you think those chocobo ladies were just dressed in Chocobo costumes, a consequence of some strange breeding practices that arose in the last 500 years, or a result of genetic experiments? Whatever the case may be, I think I'm firmly in the "this ain't the JRPG for me" camp.

Bought this because my friend recommended it to me (I hadn't played XIII or XIII-2). Huge mistake. I love FF games in general but after about 5.5 hours of playing this I just have no will to play it any more. I hate the countdown mechanic because I like to take my time and explore every area in games, but the countdown stresses me out that I'm constantly running out of time. The combat is decent but not good enough to carry the rest of the game. The costumes are alright but messing around with them got old pretty quick.

My biggest problem (as Brad and others have already touched on) is that the quests are just not fun at all. The one Brad talks about where you stalk the cult guys AC-style was a perfect example because they apparently have ultra vision and can spot me peeking around a corner from across the zone, stopping everyone in the group and having them sprint over to me, causing Hope to repeat his "BE CAREFUL THEY DONT SEE YOU LIGHTNING" speech over and over and over again. The side quests I've done were all boring fetch or "go talk to that guy, then talk to another guy" quests (one quest had the NPC saying she lost someone and wanted help finding them, I walked for maybe 5 seconds and found the lost person standing like 10 feet away).

If XIII and XIII-2 were anything like this game then I consider myself lucky to have never played them. I just wish I could return this and get my $60 back. What a bummer.

Not defending this game or the unappealingness of it to a lot of people but I just wanted to point out everything he listed can be said about every game ever if only you switch around a few words.

Chocolina is heavily implied to be the future form of the chick living in Sazh's fro. She just looks that way because of a glamour. Don't know about the others though.

So does this mean Square Enix is finally, finally done with FFXIII?

Also, calling a dude Hope is a little strange. That might just be me though; my grandmother's name was Hope.

Remember when Cloud had to dress like a lady to rescue Tifa from Don Corneo? Wacky times!!

anime

The really unfortunate part is that once he talked to those NPCs, the locations WERE on the map. He just wasn't paying attention to what the characters were saying or where they were, probably because they were recording and trying to make a feature.

I just think about how complicated it is for Final Fantasy characters to get dressed every morning.

No

Where are those pesky numbers

melodrama and the worst menu interfaces any in RPG, ever. Yep it's FF.

Looks downright dreadful.

I'm glad it's over. I hope this is the last we ever see of Toriyama's waifu.

Bravely Default is a new video game.

Holy hell, that quick look soured me on the game completely. And I've dumped 30-40 hours into each of the other XIII's. This is just painful. Maybe when it's $15 I'll throw down. But that's a big maybe.

This is sad, as I was looking forward to a console JRPG. I can't get into them the same way on handhelds.

@arbitrarywater said:

One moment of the Persona 4 Endurance Run I remember very well for some reason is when Vinny made the Freudian slip of referring to Personas as Espers. It told me just about all I needed to know when it came to the staff's recent JRPG experience, God love them.

Of course, it should be noted, I still think this trilogy is trash.

So... is this game basically like the "Majora's Mask" of Final Fantasy games??

Oh man, the best quick looks are of games that suck and are crazy stupid.

You could use the dialog of these games to torture people.

Why do your outfits change when you change class in any other Final Fantasy game? Claiming they're getting inspiration from Hatsune Miku as opposed to half the other games in the franchise is kinda hilarious.

@turambar: http://www.p4rgaming.com/motomu-toriyama-admits-he-wants-to-marry-lightning/

That proves literally nothing as far as game design inspirations.

Godamn that FFVII music at the end of the battle. Make the HD remake for christsakes!

Two guys playing a rotten game they can't be asked to give a shit about. And yet knowing I think that FF is garbage made by terrible people, I sit and watch the whole thing.

Even I could see the goddamn numbers.

I continue to be saddened that Square Enix's evident talent in visuals and music continues to be hand-cuffed to such incompetent, pointless stories from their writers. Imagine such care and attention to detail married to equally talented story-tellers with something worthwhile to say.

This is a fantastic observation.

So this pretty much guarantees she'll be making more cameos until Toriyama dies.

Godamn that FFVII music at the end of the battle. Make the HD remake for christsakes!

Not to mention the bland and sometimes outdated mechanics. The character movement of the FFXIII series is the opposite of intuitive.

Also as someone else pointed out the melodrama.