Quick Look: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

It's so strange that this is the one game in the 13 trilogy I actually like and everyone else seems to disagree completely.

Combat in this looks just interesting enough that I may get it on sale. Also, I can't stand Lightning talking for more than a single sentence. Just so boring and passive about everything.

@turambar: I wasn't claiming inspiration. I said it was LIKE that and that Hatsune Miku game was the first game that came to mind that has that sort of thing.

The more Erodica the bigger the tree.

@skunkdragon: youd think so , but no thats not the numbers

Plot twist, Hope is Nidhogg.

Does this game take place in Space Italy?

As much as I love him "Brad is bad at games" and can never do a game justice when he is doing a quick look and its kinda unfair to the developers. I bet jeff would have found the thing if you just passed him the controller! brad is one of them people that when you watch them play you just want to grab the controller out his had because "Brad is bad at games"

@milkman:It's hard to imagine something any less appealing than this game.

Did you watch the dbz quick look from the past couple days? I know this game looks weird and Japanese plus it has the negative of being part of the FFXIII line, but at least this looks playable.

Combat looks interesting at least, but the whole time aspect with MMO style quests looks so... eh. Will wait for a bargain bin price to place in my super modest collection.

The simple fact is that JRPGs are long and involved, and require lots of dedication. Video game critics haven't got the time to sit down and really immerse themselves in them. Telling a good JRPG from a bad one is something that can only really be done by playing it for hours and hours on end. Practically all of them start slow, and take forever establishing the world and lore etc.

At a certain point in any JRPG, you just 'know' if its for you. Either you break through that pain barrier and find you actually are immersed and engaged, or you reach a point where you give in and realize its just not doing it for you. But they need that time to develop - you can't just play the opening hours and make your decision on that, because that's not how JRPGs work. If you judged a whole book on the first couple of pages, you might find it a bit lacking - same deal here.

I've made my peace with the fact that critics just don't have the time or mindset to properly engage with JRPGs these days. The ferocious pace of games criticism, previewing and interviewing etc in this age of the internet and 24 hour media is not conducive to the slow burn of JRPGs. Its not that I'm saying all JRPGs are great (far from it) - just that critics who are permanently in a hurry, are not in the best set of circumstances to judge them on any but the most shallow and ultimately inconsequential terms.

For example, playing any JRPG at the same time as you are playing 2-3 (or more) other games in a strict time window between release dates of big AAA games, is not the ideal climate for playing long, story heavy games. I still remember when Brad declared he would be playing Persona 4 Golden on his Vita - on the bus to work. That is about the worst way to play that game I can imagine. If you;re just grinding in dungeons, then fair enough, But the rest of the game?!

If they were able to give significant time to playing these games, then whether they liked the games or not, their opinions would at least have some validity. Just sticking in the 3rd game of a trilogy you have barely played, and on record as hating so much you want it to end, is not I would suggest a credible or fair way to go about it.

Why not simply ignore the game, if you don't want to play it? No JRPG fan would begrudge you - you don't have time to play it and you don't want to play it. That's fair enough. Just going through the motions and then blaming the game for not being a different type of game entirely, with a different name etc etc helps nobody.

And I'm telling you playing dress up with FF characters as you change their classes is something that predates anything related to Lightning and has been with the franchise since the first few games. Attributing it to anything other than something that is actually expected in a class change system would be incorrect at least in part, if not in whole.

I'm always impressed by how patient Jeff is when he's watching Brad play...

Seems like the Cloud costume is kind of OP.
I'll probably pick this game up after a year or so, I haven't even bought the 2nd one yet. I also thought the combat in XIII was kinda enjoyable.

Jennifer Hale is great and all, but it doesn't sound like she's trying very hard here.

That Niblet enemy looks like a Langolier dressed as a bunny!

Lightning is voiced by Ali Hillis. She also did Liara.

Ok this is officially one of the most frustrating quicklooks I've seen. Two guys on it and they don't spot the waypoint that pops up after talking to the one guy who mentioned "the code on the wall over there" which probably leads to a cutscene and unlocks the other coded walls they found already but couldn't interact with.

Also, Brad not wanting to stop to talk to side quest characters toward the end and avoiding combat... so he could wander around the same areas looking at walls for a quest he's obviously not going to figure out on camera. Arg.

Edit: Did they just meet a girl standing in front of a gated area saying, "Don't come this way, there's an awful monster that killed 12 people!" and they were like, "Yeah, let's do that! ...It's back the way we came, right?"

@zombieslayingin3d: Not responsible but they cling to it like it's their fucking balls. Dark Souls and a few outliers aside, the vast majority of JRPGs refuse to go real-time combat and for the life of me, I can't figure out why, especially with the market supposedly stagnating sales wise.

Everything after FF12 is a bummer. Good thing for Bravely Default. Loving the FUCK out of it. It's way more Final Fantasy than whatever this game is.

@graf1k: Who's they? I certainly hope you aren't generalizing an entire country's industry. This is a fault with the genre, not a people.

What I gleaned from this quicklook:

Things I like:

- The way Lightning's robes swoosh around when she runs

- The aesthetic of the environment

- The violins that play at the start of battle

Things I don't like:

- When any character talks

- Figuring out the crazy world and it the crazier plot within

Things I still don't understand as well as I'd like before making a purchase:

- The combat

- The countdown timer thing

Well, it's official. MMOs aside, this is the first FF game I will not play or buy. I've played (and enjoyed, for the most part) every other one.

My wife and friends thank you for not sucking me away from the world for two weeks, Square.

@mithical: You can get the Japanese voice track from the PStore for free for the first two weeks after release, they say. So download the voices now, buy this questionable title when it's on sale for 20 dollars?

I'm starting to forget what it was that I used to like in Square games. It seems like a million years ago.

It's really not that fun watching someone who isn't interested in a game in the slightest, play a game and sigh about it over and over. I mean it wasn't that informative and not super funny or anything either. Jeff asked a few questions that could have been interesting if Brad had answers for them, but he didn't.

Also they ran past the number a few times.

Anyways, no hate, but it would probably be more interesting of a quick look if you somewhat enjoyed playing the game. Or even the flip side, you absolutely hated it. At least then there would be some form of passion one way or another.

kill it with fire

Seems like a game suited to play along side a video walkthrough

@modernmoriarty: You liked the game. Everyone else is wrong for not liking it. Got it.

@mithical: Pretty much all of that. The game looks beautiful, but everything else about it seems dreadful.

The time limit and that you can't do all in one playthrough reminds me a lot of the Atelier games.

I don't understand much of this game. I think I rather play FFX again in the HD collection.

Man finally watched this. Right before Brad got on the train all he had to do was LITERALLY turn the camera around and he would have found a number. He also almost found another one twice when he started to go down an alley way only to not follow it down.

Final Fantasy XIII is such nonsense, and I love it so much, ha ha.

@doctorfaust said:

It's funny that you mention a bad story, because as generic as the quest in Bravely Default is, the voice acting and dialogue script is pretty good, and even if it's not novel, it's still probably the best story I've seen in an FF game since XII, and before that since VI.

The "dead end" that Jeff told him to turn away from had one of the numbers. You gotta talk to people. They'll give you hints and stuff.

It's a bummer this Quick Look was a downer. I didn't expect otherwise, but people are gonna see this and think it's indicative of the proper game. I'm really enjoying it. I urge people to give it a shot.

Oh, if only they'd found that one number. That would've made this game good.

Why are they doing this at all if they aren't interested in this in the slightest? Brad does these games but he seems to space out and simply not give a shit. Either do it right or don't do it all. Oh wait i forgot, need to feed the "all final fantasy games nowdays are bad" circle jerk. Dumb me.

I feel like this wasn't the best part to show in the quicklook.

After living in Japan for almost 2 years now, I can say that the Japanese have some weird fetish with Italian and French culture. This isn't the only game that's set in Space Italy. You've got every Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, and 2 out of 3 JRPGs have Space Italian backdrops.

I'm not gonna lie, this game looks pretty cool. It makes me want to finally trudge through FFXIII.

Brad should try to play some good RPG's, Final Fantasy isn't the end all be all of JRPGS. Persona, Tales, Xenoblade, SMTIV; they still make really good JRPGs.

This series continues to make no sense.

Wow.......Bard is pretty bad at games.

@rotnac: Except for the part it's not nearly as good.

everyone complains about them not covering ALL THE GAMES. well here ya go!

I never understand why they always pick the 360 version and complain about it. PS3 is where it is at for FF.

LOL Jeff - "SHUT. UP." Yes.

I pretty much share the same sentiment that Brad and Jeff had in this quicklook. Thinking back to when the main objective in a FF game was "Find the Gnomes so you can modify your airship to fly to the moon" and was a better time. You could honestly look at every FF game since 7 and see how they were all slowly getting crazier and crazier. I don't want oversimplification, but at the same time I can't stand all this "Chaos engulfs the world cause a god blah blah blah and you're the savior blah blah blah and you gotta do all this stuff blah blah blah"

Man, this makes me wonder how Brad would play Skyrim without quest objective arrows...

Despite the convoluted dialogue/plot (What the hell, FF writers?), the game looks like fun to me. Will probably buy.

@joshua1prince19212: You mean every FF since IV.