It’s been a difficult few years for me with Final Fantasy. As a fan of what I consider the glory days I’ve found it increasingly difficult to accept the changes the franchise has undergone. Massive worlds to explore have been swapped for a supposedly more story driven experience. There hasn’t been much in the way of upgrading weapons and items for a while either. And now we have just one party member. Lightning’s a good character but like many I was concerned she couldn’t manage all on her own.
As far as battles go I am glad to say everything is fine. There’s a new system called ‘Schemata’ that allows you to create totally customizable setups for Lightning, three of which you can use in battle. It’s quite similar to the Paradigm system except offers more customization at the expense of party members.
It certainly adds some tactics to your battle setup and allows those who want it a chance to return to the old days where character setup actually mattered. Unfortunately it’s the only thing that matters and once you’re in battle you will merely need to hold one of the 4 face buttons down to perform an action. All actions will use up your ATB gauge and once it’s run out pressing ‘R1’ or ‘L1’ will switch to a Schema with some ATB left. When you’re not using a schema it will recharge ATB. It’s not all that deep and quickly becomes quite boring, especially where random encounters are concerned.
Did you ever think not getting XP for defeating bosses was bad? Then you’ll love how now you don’t get XP at all. There are no levels and no fight on the game will improve Lightning in any way. The only way to improve is to complete quests. After about 30 minutes random battles become nothing but an inconvenience. If you’re lucky you might get a useful item but otherwise battles are just a dull obstacle.
Some of the tedium is alleviated due to the fact that early in the game you will be more or less allowed to go where you want. But this does come with it’s own problems. The entire game is timed. And despite the fact you will unlikely run out of time it does take all the joy out of exploration. There is finally a world to explore and if you do you can leave yourself stuck with very few options to proceed.
For some reason certain areas are only accessible during certain hours. So if you go off exploring a little and miss your window you can’t progress until the next day. This is not helped by the fact that all the missions require you to either painfully search an entire city for something or carry out endless fetch quests. Fetch quests can have their place but in Lightning Returns they are just a euphemism for boring side quests.
For example I struggled finding one of the very first objectives on the game. After I’d found it I couldn’t finish the objective until the next day. So I went to complete some other quests. A lot of the quests where too difficult for my low-level character and because there is no option to grind there was nothing I could do. I started as many quests as possible, and was allowed to finish a few but most where either locked until a certain time or just above my level.
With no other option I returned to my main objective, which I eventually completed, and carried on. And then the enemies got too difficult again. With the clock ticking and me not able to complete any objectives to level up there was nothing I could do to progress. All because I chose to explore and pursue side quests instead of the main objective.
The time system is absolutely the most stupid thing I have ever seen in any Final Fantasy title ever. Having some areas inaccessible at certain times does nothing but stop you from completing objectives in the order you want. Nothing else at all. If I want to go to a certain area to do what I want (or need) to do, I have to wait. Not for anything to happen, not for the landscape to change just for the clock to count on. It doesn’t make things feel tense it’s just very very annoying. I need to level up to progress, but it’s not the ‘right’ time so I can’t do anything at all because my stats aren’t good enough. It basically ruined my game. I wish I’d just stuck to the main objectives like a good boy.
The plot is unfortunately mediocre as well. I enjoyed the characters’ interactions and actually found this version of Lightning to be my favourite. She’s burdened by her knowledge and duty which complements her already sometimes melancholy state of mind. For better or worse, there are even some attempts at humour in keeping with older Final Fantasy games that sometimes leave you asking ‘what the hell just happened?’. But as the grand finale to the Final Fantasy XIII saga Lightning Returns is remarkably lack lustre.
Graphically things are very much what we have come to expect from Final Fantasy XIII. For a PS3/XBOX360 title it looks very good but there will be nothing that astonishes or surprises. There is a noticeable step down from previous FF XIII games presumably due to the more populated world but it’s well worth it to actually have people walking around a city.
Without the idiotic time mechanic Lightning Returns would have been much more entertaining. Unfortunately it is so core to the game that everything is tarnished by it. A pathetic system of physical gates ensures you stay on the path the game wants you to. If you don’t want the player to have freedom then make it linear. Pursuing quests that result in you getting to a door that basically says ‘come back later’ is infuriating. It’s even worse given that that’s is the only way to level up. All progression felt so tedious and awkward that I enjoyed very little of the time I was on Lightning Returns. Follow the main objectives and forget all about the side quest and you’ll be a lot better off.
Lightning Returns left me thinking only that I wish they’d hurry up with the FFX and FFX-2 HD remakes. I can’t wait to go looking for side quests without fear that they ruin the main story. Not so much having to grind but being able to level up will be great. I’m not afraid of change and Final Fantasy has been going so long that change is needed. The problems aren’t because Lightning Returns isn’t an old Final Fantasy, but that almost every part of Lightning Returns is wrong.
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