Can’t Quite Finish Strongly | Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Review

Love it or hate it, Lightning has been dominating the world of Final Fantasy for the past four years, and finally her saga is coming to a close. The third title in the trilogy steps even further away from the traditional JRPG formula. Seeing how the previous two Final Fantasy XIII games were criticized pretty heavily, is it such a bad thing for a game to change? There are too many franchises that spit out the same type of game with a new title slapped on it, so you can’t really blame Square Enix for changing up the formula. The problem in Lightning Returns is that Square Enix has gone a little too far in its changes, and may have lost focus on what’s important.

Lightning Returns takes place five hundred years after Final Fantasy XIII-2 on the last thirteen days before the end of the world. The Chaos is taking over the world and there is no hope in saving it. Lightning is the Savior chosen by Bhunivelze (often referred to as God) to collect the souls of the remaining people and bring them to the new world that Bhunivelze is creating. Western religious themes aside, the setting promises a dark and intense thrill-ride of action towards the end of the world. That doesn’t actually happen. Anyone you speak to in the game gives off a vibe that there is nothing really wrong. People walk around doing their normal jobs completely content with the end of the world. I never felt the intensity of what Lightning and Hope kept claiming would happen, and when that moment finally did occur. I didn’t care about the story anymore.

I found it hard to get into the story. There is barely any story at all until you get towards the end of the game, and half the time the cut-scenes are discussing the world, or how Lightning is trying to save Serah. That’s something I’ve known since the beginning of the first game back in 2010. I wanted something new or deeper. I know the world was being destroyed, but I didn’t care for the world as cynical as that sounds. This would be the third time the world was in danger of being destroyed—I’m use to that by now. I used to care about the characters, but Lightning Returns single-handedly ruined them for me. Every character had problems that they couldn’t resolve for five hundred years. Then Lightning comes out and resolves them in a matter of minutes. A majority of the characters have become useless and pathetic with their only hope to wait for Lightning. The only thing that saves the story and characters are the nostalgia that comes with them.

This of course means that if you didn’t play the first two games you don’t have any nostalgia to experience. While it is possible to skip right to Lightning Returns and enjoy playing it. You will care even less about the story and characters compared to the people who have invested hundreds of hours into this saga. The nostalgia is really the only thing that carries any emotional weight in this game, and it was the only time I ever grew excited. When I saw Snow, he was so angst-ridden he didn’t feel like Snow. Then he said a classic hubris line and called Lightning “Sis” and it all came back to me. Still, I didn’t like Snow because of how he was in this game. I liked him because of what he reminded me of in the past games that I enjoyed.

The same holds true when it comes to the music, because nothing hits you with that wave of nostalgia more than music. Lightning Returns’ music is beautiful and fits every scene perfectly. The music is everything it needs to be, from beautiful and methodic, simplistic and sweet, to choppy and intense. Square Enix even used some tunes from the previous games, and used the music creatively to let you know when you were about to meet a character you already knew. I walked into an area, heard the tune, and new instantly who I was about to meet. Once again, this is for people who have played the past games, and furthermore, just another point that this game is riding almost completely on nostalgia values to carry you through the story.

What always helps wrap you into the story is the setting that the story is unfolding in. After the Chaos has washed over the land there are only four islands left: a holy city, a city of pleasure, the wild lands, and the desert. The areas are big with room to explore and you can travel to any of them from the very beginning of the game. There are plenty of people walking around to speak with that will make the locations come alive, and plus all the detail incorporated into each location makes them feel even more immersive. The problem is the graphics aren’t anything spectacular. There was never a moment in the game where I stopped to gaze at the scenery, something I do in almost every Final Fantasy game.

Then again, you aren’t here to look at the scenery, you are here to fight monsters. The gameplay in Lightning Returns is completely different from the past two games. There are still some systems in place that clearly derived from the previous games, but there are many new additions and twists to make it feel completely new. The new Energy Point system to name one. Where you can slow time to land more hits, cure yourself, or even send out a decoy to distract enemies. The battles system is also creative and rewards customization, something that everyone can always get behind.

There are two main maps, the world map where you can run around and interact with people, and then the battle arena. Monsters are visible on the world map, and by striking a monster before battle you will gain an advantage, or inversely, if they strike you, you start with a slight disadvantaged. The battles follow the same formula of the past two games that involve staggering the enemy before doing devastating damage. This is done most of the time with magic or attacking a creature’s weakness. Lightning is the only character you ever control, and you can switch between three different battle setups called Schemata. Each Schema has four options and their own ATB bar that automatically regenerates. Moves cost ATB, so using an attack might take 15 ATB so now you have 85 ATB left to work with (if the full ATB gauge is 100). The system is slightly confusing at first, but you can grasp it pretty quickly. Before you know it you will be spamming one Schema then switching to another to press the attack while the first one regenerates.

On each Schema you can equip four different abilities. This allows you to create standard classes, like a mage, a sentinel, and an offensive powerhouse, but it also means you can mix and match any abilities you want. You also have to factor in the Garbs and weapons that you equip. Garbs are the outfits you have Lightning dawn, much like the dreaded Dressphere system from Final Fantasy X-2, except much cooler this time around. Garbs will come with some stat changes, and sometimes will force you to have certain abilities equipped, which makes you build in the direction the Garb suggests. You wouldn’t take a Garb that focuses on defense and try to build a mage out of it. Weapons also come with their own abilities besides their strength and magic stats. One might have a quicker stagger or a really fast ATB rate.

I cannot talk about the customization enough in this game. You can even control the colors of the outfits, and wear adornments that have no combat feature, but give a more original look to your Lightning—like a tail if you were ever so inclined. For those that don’t care about looks and only care about battle options. There are plenty of possibilities there as well. Combining different abilities from Garbs and weapons is the key to having a powerful Lightning. I easily spent hours messing with my Garb trying to squeeze every bit of potential I could out of it.

The real difference in Lightning Returns is how the game is outside of battle. I’m not talking about being able to jump and sprint. Never before has a JRPG felt so much like a WRPG, and that is mainly due to the fact that the only way to gain experience is through completing quests. Not necessarily a bad thing to focus on quests, but Square Enix went all in this department. Completing a quest isn’t the best way to level up. It is the only way to level up. You do not gain experience from killing monsters…at all.

I really don’t know why this is the standard in this game. I can understand quests give you move experience to make it worth your while instead of grinding monsters, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was wasting my time whenever I fought enemies. The game tries to make up for this by having some quests involve killing a lot of monsters. This way it won’t feel like you’re wasting your time because you are working your way to completing a quest. What I found out was that it was never really worth the effort for all that fighting, because it was never enough experience. In the end, I tended to ignore most monsters, because I didn’t see the point in fighting them near the end game.

This problem reared its ugly head when I had trouble with the final boss. I didn’t have any more side quests to do. Normally, I would fight random enemies, level up, and then try again. In Lightning Returns, if you can’t beat the final boss, you have the option of a new game plus, where you keep everything, play the entire game over again to level up more, and then fight him a second time. Needless to say I kept on trying until I beat it, because I didn’t feel like playing the entire game over again. Square Enix went a little too far with questing in this title.

The entire time you play Lightning Returns you will be doing quests, and I really mean that. Even the main story is five separate quests, and only two of them have anything that resembles a dungeon along with them. All five main quests involve you running all over the place talking to people, gathering items, and running them somewhere else. Does it sound a bit like fetch-quests? It certainly does. The entire game is fetch-quests, and no I’m not exaggerating, I did fifty-seven side-quests and they all felt like fetch-quests. They all involve running to some place, talking to someone or killing a monster, and then running back. There is also a billboard of quests to accept called the Canvas of Prayers. These give you even less experience for completing them, but you tend to complete them just by progressing through the game. They usually involve collecting some material, and while you’re running on some other errand you will most likely complete one of these quests. The only thing that makes all this questing interesting is the time element that Lightning Returns flaunts.

Let’s just call it what it is. The game feels like you’re playing Majora’s Mask. There are people that will only come out at a certain time of day, monsters spawn more at night, and there are even missable quests. Seeing the different sites at different times gave a unique feel to each location. Some shops are only open during the day, and some areas can only be accessed at night. One quest may start during the day, but you need to finish it at night. Your eye is always on the clock in this game, and if Lightning Returns teaches you anything, it’s time management skills. I would have to plan out each day as I would juggle ten different quests. I would have to talk to this person at 13:00 and at 15:00 I need to be at this other location, but I needed to access to a shop that opens at 10:00, so I should go there first. Oh wait, the train will take an hour to travel, so I need to factor that in as well. This will undoubtedly cause a few people to be afraid they will run out of time and feel too much pressure. After all, you only have thirteen days until the end of the world. Don’t worry, there is more than enough time. I finished everything I wanted to do by day six, which meant I had seven days left to spare.

Lightning Returns is not a bad game, and I had fun playing it. But it left me wondering if I really enjoyed it, or was playing it for nostalgia’s sake alone. I couldn’t get into the story, and I was even a little upset at myself for not enjoying the finale to a saga I spent so much time on and personally am a huge fan of. Questing is fun and all, but it isn’t the only thing I want to do. I want to kill monsters and feel like it was worthwhile. I want to feel like I’m on an adventure, not running errands for everyone in the world. The locations may have been big and fun to explore, but there are only four of them, so you will see everything you need to see early on. The gameplay and customization is the saving grace. You will find all your fun in building your Schemata and fighting tough enemies. The game took me about forty hours to complete. The new game plus and hard mode make it worthwhile to play the game a second time if you are a big fan of the combat. Overall, Lightning Returns didn’t bring to the table what I was hoping for in the final installment in the Fabula Nova Crystallis trilogy, or maybe it did, and I just missed it when I was trying to get the boy his rubber ball back…to save the world of course.

This review is based off a retail copy of the Playstation 3 version of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII developed and distributed by Square Enix.