When approaching a trilogy one must assume that some aspects of the series and its contents are likely to diminish. The issue with the Final Fantasy XIII saga however being that diminishing returns are an expectation based on the series’ history, rather than a future concern. Lightnings Return then, was it enough to bring back the core lovers of the series thus far? Did it even capture me? My opinion of Lightnings Returns is a strong one. Lets start with the opening.
Much like the revealed opening story cinematic, you are Lightning, fresh out of crystal prison and back as the servant of god in the form of the Saviour, the souls saving/stealing knight with a massive sword running around killing the monsters of the chaos and fighting against Snow, cosplaying as a character from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. After showcasing that he looks pretty good with his hair out for a second time in a row, you take over as Lightning to chase him down culminating in a transportation back up to the Ark, your “Home Base” of the game, where hope resides.
This is where a lot of simple story takes place, reveals are made as to your purpose in Gods eyes and what is needed to be done to keep the cycle of life going for Gods divine plan. The tree of Yggdrasil is what you need to keep filling to increase the amount of days you have left to save the world. How do you fill up the tree I hear you ask? Collect the souls of the people of the world whom have dire plights in need of a sword wielding emotionless Lightning, as she traverses the four major area’s of the games surface world, Plains, Desert, two cities and a Temple.
Soul collection in this game comes in the form of excessive side-questing for some minor and sometimes preachy side-quests from characters of various ages, upon completing the side-quests of NPC’s you can speak too them and they will then grant you their soul, considered saved, at which time you can continue onward with other quests. Every day at 6am you are forced to return to the Ark, meaning that you have a total of 24 hours a day (not real-time) to get as much done as possible within a limited time frame for souls.
The biggest feed of souls comes from the five major quests in the game, rescuing returning characters to tie up some loose ends as to what changed them, what plagued them and how Lightning can save them and give them a fresh new start. This also serves to give you some an insight into what really happened both between games and to other events from Final Fantasy XIII-2. But it all serves to itself overall, the story is fine and without spoiling anything, it all comes together quite nicely, certainly cleaning a very definitive finale for the heroes of three games.
But before you get there, you’ll have to fight your way through and as the game’s sole saving grace, the battle system is not to be shirked. The battle system runs fine, the schemata system is highly customisable in both look, function and speed, equipping all kinds of different weapons, shields, armour abilities and bonus’ attached to already existing skills. With three active schemata running during battle and reserves available to switch out when you aren’t fighting really serves the level of customisation and creative skills available. It is quite baffling once you start getting deep into the game and as the enemies get more challenging it serves very well to test your mettle against the stronger foes to see how you stack up.
Monsters in this game also have their own unique mechanic, wherein they can actually become extinct. Hunting enough of a specific monster type will cause a creature called a “Last One” to appear in the field. This is a considerably more powerful version of the creature you dealt with before, only its a horribly garish pink colour and is heavily resistant to anything, but its greatest weakness. Exploiting that weakness gives you a chance to gain the ever useful stagger mechanic the game constantly boasts. Once enemies are staggered, they can take huge amounts of damage from both their ultimate weakness and physical attacks as well, meaning that the right schemata set up can be the difference between stupendous damage, and a flea biting a turtle shell.
With all this praise of the battle system however, the game isn’t without its gripes. The overall base mechanic of the game is to get stronger, but the only way to do this is with all the side missions, frustratingly huge numbers of side missions that are serving offer no other purpose other than to give Lightning the busy work. Nearly every single quest in the game can be started on the first day, many of which cannot be finished until days later, the same day, or literally within minutes of starting it. With speedy quests such as this, chronostasis is your life saver. Activating chronostasis freezes time for a short period and allows Lightning to traverse the world normally and continue quests as she pleases. Once the clock resumes, chronostasis can be re-activated and continued for the price of XP.
As much as I enjoyed playing the game, even with all these side quests the world still has a strange intangible emptiness to it. Characters like Lumina serve a singular purpose that doesn’t come to a head until the most focal point, Snow, Noel, Sazh & Dahj along with Vanille & Fang are about, but not prominent until the endgame, this being the most pivotal and not overall “bad” part of the story. Here is the thing though, do you love Lightning enough to enjoy a super cosplay version of a game literally just about her helping people, with a monotone even a mime would struggle to equal?
A large number of my complaints regarding Lightning do get paid off well in the end, but the fact that most aspects of it required the explanation given screams to me that there was an aspect of desperate measure taken to sucker in any fan that wasn’t already in love with the character.
I did likem many aspects of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, the games story is not bad, the combat is decent if limited considering what we know Square Enix are capable of with games such as the Kingdom Hearts series and the future Final Fantasy XV. The Environments are beautiful, yet somewhat empty to an extent and the characters involved have some genuinely great clean ups to their stories. Its just a shame that you have to slog through so much excessive side questing to get to see parts of the game. It just feels like you spend so much time doing the needless busywork, rather then some meaningful questing.
If you have a deeply complex love for Lightning and her lack of character (she had me fall head over heels in love with her and this game) and cosplay her in your favourite clothing, don the biggest swords you can find and smack huge monsters in the face, while Lightning ends the battle with a kitty pose, then this game could be for you. But if you find the series somewhat lacking in substance, then this entry will only serve as a decent ending to a trilogy at the very least, that has suffered with some very exacerbated story problems. Lucky for you however, its less than a week before the Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster.
