Lightning Returns Review Thread

Ordered my collector's edition from Square Enix's online, should be arriving tomorrow. I'm hyped! I loved FF XIII and XIII-2 and am excited to see how it all ends with this one, especially after playing Lightning Returns at E3 and quite enjoying it.

I'm a little concerned about IGN's claims that the story has a really weak, inconsistent conclusion and that the game seems to have forgotten while many of these characters (Sazh, for example) were likable in the first place, but it is what it is at this point. I'm still hopeful, though... people lambasted XIII and XIII-2's stories like they were the worst abominations ever, and I quite enjoyed them nonetheless. Hoping that's what happens here too.
 
Dark_castle said:
FF's story tends to revolve all about crystals.
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They kind of abandoned that for awhile though. I suppose VI and VII still loosely dealt with them in the form of magicite/materia, but they weren't really a focal point in VI, VII, or X as I recall, with IX incorporating them more as a throwback. Then I guess at some point in the PS2 era they kicked in full force there.
 
I tracked down a bunch of examples, so I thought I'd just post it to the new page instead of making it's own thread.

Seda said:
Personally, the biggest difference between FFX and FFXIII to me is that I can actually control my party early into the game, switch members in and out and such. It's a small thing but makes a big difference to me. I hope the expert sphere grid for the international/remaster release improves party setup/possibilities even moreso. But yes, FFX and FFXIII certainly share similar structural aspects.
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They share many core story themes too. They're probably the two most religious FF games. They both have very developed mythologies and backstories for their worlds. They both have fatalistic characters that are forced to go on a quest that will ultimately lead to their death, whether they succeed or fail. Yuna is pretty much given a Focus and acts much like a l'cie. They both have two worlds with a handful of characters intermingling between them and sharing culture. They both have tragic endings, and they both have sequels that shift the story a lot. Both have a large open grassy area late in the game that opens up more exploration and side content. Both have an emotional climax in the story in the ruins of an ancient city from a lost civilization. Both have similar styles of leveling up. And Hamauzu does music on both of course.

I think it's clear that XIII was supposed to top X in every way. But Crystal Tools, HD development, and the PS3 forced them to make changes to get the project completed.

Dream_Zanarkand_in-game_1.jpg
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Run!!
Eden Under Siege

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Yuna's Determination
Archylte Steppe

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A Fleeting Dream
Dust to Dust

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Last Mission
Taejin's Tower

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Kilika
New Bodhum

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Lake Macalania
Lake Bresha

Lots of thematic and story similarities. And I think it's clear what they were shooting for with FFXIII. Had Toriyama gotten the same luxury that Nomura did, and ARR (remake the entire game in a new engine 5 years later for next gen systems), XIII would probably be seen as the best FF game. But instead, Toriyama got his game together much faster, and was still the first lead of a major HD SQEX project. And then got 2 more games out in less time and with less cost. And all the while Nomura is still making his one game.

If Toriyama had the opportunity to make another game without the same strict time and budget constraints, it would be pretty amazing I'm sure. XIII is similar to X, but has a much better mythology, characters and core story. They basically never got time to finish it, because of Crystal Tools, PS3, and HD development challenges.
 
Now we can draw the curtains on this farce and move on hopefully...FFXIII was largely a disaster.

Shinta: Personally, I think that FFXIII has much worse mythology characters and core story than FFX. But I can definitely see the parallels. FFX had a linear narrative but had direction, the narrative in FFXIII felt pretty uncoherent to me and directionless. It was a small scale character mellowdrama with unconvincingly epic window dressing...

FFXV is my last hope for the series.
 
jaxword said:
Nice details there Shinta, you do that yourself?
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Yeah. I've always thought the two games were extremely similar. I didn't really realize that some people didn't think so, so it was kind of fun to track down the pictures. I'm sure there's more examples. Snow was supposed to have a mini-game where he rides around on Shiva's bike, similar to the Chocobo game.

I'm speculating about what happened behind the scenes, but I think it's pretty obvious, given what happened to Versus XIII. That's why I think people are entirely too hard on Toriyama, and I honestly think X and XIII are the best FF games (aside from XI).
 
LuuKyK said:
Pretty good scores considering it probably came from people who are tired of the XIII games and/or felt forced to finish it. Which inevitably leads to a score completely influenced by their view of the other two games and the series on a whole instead of judging a standalone game for what it is. A good sign for the few of us who enjoy the series! Can't wait to play the game and judge it for myself.
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That's what I'm thinking too. They're bashing on the game not because of its faults but because of its name and series. FFXIII trilogy tired alot of players, and it happens many of these players are also reviewers. Also if you notice most of the reviews say the game's very fun and good to play, then they go off bashing on stories and characters revealing that they never liked them to begin with. I think all of these scores are below 9 and 8 just because of how they feel about the series.

What I like though is that I'm sure people that will buy the game will definitely like it and possibly leading to a sleeper hit appreciated by the most hardcores. The courage behind this game deserves alot of support from the gaming community, even more than safe bets like Bravely Default or ARR. The game discarded every single easy path (like XIII-2 instead did) for being its own game. This is NIER 2.0 and deserves every attention you can give to it.
 
Shinta, 10/10 post right there.
 
kneePat said:
I didn't make the rules friend.
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Not everyone follows that pattern though. I know I don't when I do my amateur reviews, but then with those write ups there's no money involved. :)

Looking forward to playing this when it hits here on Friday. I rather enjoyed XIII-2 over XIII.
 
kneePat said:
I didn't make the rules friend.
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I'm pretty sure most publications don't actually define 7 as mediocre. And give some good games 7s. But like said usually those games aren't really big games either so it may be an accomplishment for them, but a huge disappointment for a major game that was of generally high quality like FF. Doubly so if some are erring on the side of being nice given the series reputation.
Domstercool said:
Not everyone follows that pattern though. I know I don't when I do my amateur reviews, but then with those write ups there's no money involved. :)

Looking forward to playing this when it hits here on Friday. I rather enjoyed XIII-2 over XIII.
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I don't think most publications even actually MARK 7 as average or whatever, and even Game Informer seems to give some positive reviews at 7 despite being "average" for them. Some do skew high admittedly, but not the vast majority.

But then I'm also of the mind that most games ARE reasonably competently made, even if they're not the most entertaining or end up kind of boring. Not many games are outright broken or FUBAR. It's just that when it comes to blowing $60 or even $40 and spending 5+ hours on a game, never mind 50+, modest receptions can be as damning as truly bad ones.
 
Shinta said:
Lots of thematic and story similarities. And I think it's clear what they were shooting for with FFXIII. Had Toriyama gotten the same luxury that Nomura did, and ARR (remake the entire game in a new engine 5 years later for next gen systems), XIII would probably be seen as the best FF game. But instead, Toriyama got his game together much faster, and was still the first lead of a major HD SQEX project. And then got 2 more games out in less time and with less cost. And all the while Nomura is still making his one game.

If Toriyama had the opportunity to make another game without the same strict time and budget constraints, it would be pretty amazing I'm sure. XIII is similar to X, but has a much better mythology, characters and core story. They basically never got time to finish it, because of Crystal Tools, PS3, and HD development challenges.
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What do you mean same luxury as Nomura?
Toriyama literally had the whole console generation to produce his games.
I'm sorry, but extra development time wasn't gonna save the script.
Toriyama was also the scenario designer, he took an awesome mythology concept and turned it into a bad melodramatic drama.
FFXV hasn't been in full development this whole time since 2006.
Nomura wasn't just working on his one game, he was busy designing characters for other games and directing many other titles.
It's not like Nomura has it easy, he's directing two big next-gen titles for square enix.
 
It blows my mind that Final Fantasy XIII-3 is a real game, that exists, was developed, and has been released.

Like, really? Really?
 
Sioen said:
Really? Nier 2.0? I can't believe that.
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Then play it and you'll believe it :)
This is the most experimental jRPG I've seen from the release of NiER. It deserves all the love it can get. Just try it for yourself.
 
Shinta said:
I'm speculating about what happened behind the scenes, but I think it's pretty obvious, given what happened to Versus XIII. That's why I think people are entirely too hard on Toriyama, and I honestly think X and XIII are the best FF games (aside from XI).
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I just don't get people who think this way. It must be a generational thing. I think of FF as a huge, open thing that presents you with a world and a sprawling tale that has real scope, but a lot of the storytelling style and competence went out the window with FF7, and has never really recovered. They aren't novels anymore, they're structured like TV shows in an episodic fashion, which creates a tremendous narrative grind. FFX and especially FFXIII being reduced to essentially running down a long corridor for hours on end was basically the shedding of the final vestige of what appealed to me about FF.

Sad to read the reviews here, because I thought XIII-2 was very much a step in the right direction. I'll still play the game, mainly from a possibly misplaced sense of loyalty, but with the exception of most of FFXII, I honestly haven't truly enjoyed a mainline FF title since FFVI, which remains the best game in the series by a very, very wide margin in my book. I have some hope for FFXV, but I'm trying to temper expectations.
 
Perfo said:
Then play it and you'll believe it :)
This is the most experimental jRPG I've seen from the release of NiER. It deserves all the love it can get. Just try it for yourself.
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Oh yes I will get it when it releases the 14th. It does look rather good if you go in knowing the story isn't all that. Is the japanese dlc out already?
 
I have played the game for 4-5 hours and in my opinion it's the worst game of the trilogy. The combat and the soundtrack are good, but anything else is just bad. The story is total garbage: dialogue is bad, Lightning (the savior hahaha) is just bad, the world design and the time mechanics are bad. The only way to level up Lightning is to finish quests, what a stupid idea.
 
Sioen said:
Oh yes I will get it when it releases the 14th. It does look rather good if you go in knowing the story isn't all that. Is the japanese dlc out already?
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There's some preorder bonuses included with different retailers, but DLCs in Japan for now includes just 6 exclusive outfits. Nothing worth because the game already comes with 80+ outfits and none of them are less stronger than the one you find in the PSN.

Punished_Snake said:
IThe only way to level up Lightning is to finish quests, what a stupid idea.
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That's one of my favorite things. They did find a way to kill grinding/farming through staying in the same spot killing over and over the same monsters and replaced it with sidequests now not anymore "side-quests" (means now necessary to explore), surely a less boring task than fightning the same mob. People forget how boring is playing a jRPG when you're forced to waste hrs of your time repeating the same task over and over just to beat a boss. Well, they worked on a solution, finally.

ZeroX03 said:
And you don't recover HP after battles anymore do you?
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In NORMAL MODE like old games you need to heal yourself using recovery items. How's this bad?
 
Interesting, I think the sevens across the board are actually better than what I thought this game would get.

I played the demo, and I thought it was pretty decent, in terms of gameplay. It actually reminded me of some of Square's mid-tier PSOne games, which is a good thing. I'll probably wait for price drop and then get the game.
 
Seda said:
Personally, the biggest difference between FFX and FFXIII to me is that I can actually control my party early into the game, switch members in and out and such. It's a small thing but makes a big difference to me. I hope the expert sphere grid for the international/remaster release improves party setup/possibilities even moreso. But yes, FFX and FFXIII certainly share similar structural aspects.
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Agreed. I preferred how in FFX you had some control of who is in your party early in the game, and as you gained more members your options increased as well.

If I remember right, it wasn't till around chapter 10 I could finally change my party members. That's about 20ish hours in. One of the things I hated about FFXIII was how the story constantly shifts perspective to different members. It was a terribly jarring way to tell the story. I would have preferred more focus. It didn't help that the game would constantly refer back to the previous "13 days" before the purge either.
 
Perfo said:
This is NIER 2.0 and deserves every attention you can give to it.
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Nier was ultimately renowned for its story, and everything I read about Lightning Returns paints it as a god damn mess. Nier was experimental but ultimately nothing it did in gameplay has the lasting impact its story did.
 
As someone who played the first 10 hours of the LR already I have to say that IGN's review is very soft and hides many of the game's game-breaking flaws.

Announced as "the most polished FF game to date", the game is everything but polished and, most of the times, I think whomever wrote (or translated) the script never bothered to play the game. For instance, this one female bounty-hunter mocks Lightning's ability to slay a dragon because Lightning's a woman and women are week... What?? Or this other character that is so bad-ass that he doesn't need a name, but 3 seconds later tells Lightning to deliver an item on his behalf and to introduce him as <INSERT RANDOM NAME>. Who writes this??? Sigh...

Then you have the main story that plays out as a big fetch quest, with important characters having change of hearts mid-sentence (Noel's after battle scene is a prime example of this). Or the main character's expressionless faces and horrible lip-sync. Or the floating shields and weapons. Or the NPCs who have literally only 4 different models but """"look"""" different because the developers glued some random adornment on them, with some hilarious results (beards and moustaches are my favourites). Or ...

In the end, the LR is is a convoluted mess that does not make justice to the FF name.
 
The similarities to X are actually really interesting. I'm actually kind of shocked I never noticed them before.

I just wish they had better used the lore and mythology of the world. So much got lost into the datalogs and it ended up feeling like a ridiculous amount of the story was stripped away. I won't be playing Lightning Returns until tomorrow so I don't know how they decided to wrap up to the series or how much mythology and lore they dive into but there was still so much potential there, especially in the first game.

I really don't think you can give Toriyama a pass though. XIII's unrealized potential was too great to do that. Compared to all the mythology and lore they had to work with I just can't find any excuse as to how a lot of the writing turned out so poorly. I mean, XIII's story wasn't bad by any means but there was just too much stuff that only got a passing mention or went unexplained all together unless you delved into the datalogs. It just flat out could have been better. XIII-2 ran into similar issues with things they either didn't explain or things they just flat out couldn't explain (paradox this, paradox that). Like I said I haven't played Lightning Returns yet but the general consensus seems to be that the story under delivers in a pretty big way. In the end, I just don't think Toriyama is a good director at all. The XIII series was pretty much his baby and the fact that there was so much wasted potential says a lot.

It's too bad really because I still think XIII and XIII-2 are fantastic games. They get a lot more flack than they truly deserve or at least more than the most games get for their shortcomings. I do wonder if XIII will end up a lot like XII where a bunch of people were, let's say, less than enthused with the game but after some time had passed people were able to look back and see that the game wasn't so bad after all.
 
MormaPope said:
Comparing Lightning Returns to Nier is insane.
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I know. Nier actually had likeable characters that developed and a story that you didn't need to read the liner notes to understand. It also told a better story with more emotional weight behind it in a span of one game, which FFXIII doesn't even manage in a trilogy.
 
That's one of my favorite things. They did find a way to kill grinding/farming through staying in the same spot killing over and over the same monsters and replaced it with sidequests now not anymore "side-quests" (means now necessary to explore), surely a less boring task than fightning the same mob. People forget how boring is playing a jRPG when you're forced to waste hrs of your time repeating the same task over and over just to beat a boss. Well, they worked on a solution, finally.
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I don't agree. First of all, judging from my time with the game, the side quests in this game are repetitive (too many fetch quests), so finishing most of them are not fun. Also, the combat system is good and I want to fight monsters.
 
Shinta said:
I'm speculating about what happened behind the scenes, but I think it's pretty obvious, given what happened to Versus XIII. That's why I think people are entirely too hard on Toriyama, and I honestly think X and XIII are the best FF games (aside from XI).
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I can't agree with people arguing that the falling critical+market performance of the XIII games is somehow going to teach a lesson to SE, and saying they're shocked that Toriyama is on the "committee."

Toriyama was never given a generation of free creative reign with unlimited budget. If he had been, FFXIII would have come out far later than it did, and probably wouldn't have gotten a sequel. No, Toriyama's team drew the "spit out some functional stuff on a tight budget while the rest of us try to put out bigger fires" straw.

The games have a lot of rough edges, but there's no way that came as a surprise to SE's execs. Obviously their initial course for the gen was ambitious, but they've been holding to Plan B pretty steady since the shit finally hit the fan in 2008-2010, and these results seem inevitable in Plan B.

I'm not convinced that SE ever planned to phoenix their way out of FFXIII and FFXIV within the XIII subseries.
 
sleuthy said:
I know. Nier actually had likeable characters that developed and a story that you didn't need to read the liner notes to understand. It also told a better story with more emotional weight behind it in a span of one game, which FFXIII doesn't even manage in a trilogy.
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I actually wanted to say something harsher in response to that analogy, but thought it better to just point out why it's such a terrible choice of games to liken it to. But seriously, I'd need to play it for a good gameplay comparison but I'd sooner expect something like Valkyrie Profile to be an acceptable comparison given its unique gameplay and focus on a time system, though technically both ARE from the same developer mostly anyway.
 
HTupolev said:
Toriyama was never given a generation of free creative reign with unlimited budget. If he had been, FFXIII would have come out far later than it did, and probably wouldn't have gotten a sequel. No, Toriyama's team drew the "spit out some functional stuff on a tight budget while the rest of us try to put out bigger fires" straw.
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I totally agree.
 
A disgrace for ever true Final Fantasy fan.
Since the merger (Squaresoft and Enix) Square is dead for me.
What a horrible company!
 
Yeah, 7 was my guess from the start. Game looks interesting but it never was going to blow anyone away. The story being such a mess at this point doesn't help.
 
Damigos said:
They are, because they are about an epic franchise. FFIV until FFX used to be all about 9s and 10s
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Additionally, we're talking about an industry in which 7/10 is looked at as the floor.

(I'm not saying it should be, I'm just saying that it often is.)
 
FF13 nightmare is finally over. This game was only created to recoup the costs on the garbage engine it was based on. Such a fall from grace.
 
Kagari said:
That Metro review is spot on, really.
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I really think any score going below 7 is a score given on the hate the author feels about the whole series and not the game itself. Where these reviewers were when the bugged ME3 hit with his horrible story and conclusion? I've seen scores hitting high at that time. it seems reviewers play the "professionists" only when a FF title is out, and particulary with XIII trilogy. It's embarassing, really.
 
Perfo said:
I really think any score going below 7 is a score given on the hate the author feels about the whole series and not the game itself. Where these reviewers were when the bugged ME3 hit with his horrible story and conclusion? I've seen scores hitting high at that time. it seems reviewers play the "professionists" only when a FF title is out, and particulary with XIII trilogy. It's embarassing, really.
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Oh stop, have you played the game to completion? It's a complete mess even if you ignore the FFXIII part of it.
 
Kagari said:
Oh stop, have you played the game to completion? It's a complete mess even if you ignore the FFXIII part of it.
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For a game to be rated 5 out of 10 by these SAME magazines it should at least be borderline unplayable, featuring horrible style, graphics, animation, story, gameplay, bugged, crashes. A disaster on every single front. Like an AVATAR game or a ROBOCOP game. We're no speaking of Edge here, but magazines that usually all shoot together 9.9/10 for every single shit big publishers release.
Is LR that BAD? I'm not convinced.
 
MormaPope said:
Comparing Lightning Returns to Nier is insane.
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Nier was panned by the mainstream and considered Square Enix trash (until its reputation was very much salvaged by an undercurrent of fans).

I'm not sure if LR will be redeemed to the same extent, but at this point in the review cycle, LR has a better reception than Nier.
 
Perfo said:
I really think any score going below 7 is a score given on the hate the author feels about the whole series and not the game itself. Where these reviewers were when the bugged ME3 hit with his horrible story and conclusion? I've seen scores hitting high at that time. it seems reviewers play the "professionists" only when a FF title is out, and particulary with XIII trilogy. It's embarassing, really.
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You realize there was a reviewer in this thread talking about he was pressured to give Final Fantasy games higher scores than he wanted to, right? That's pretty much going right against what you're saying, the argument would be that this game deserves lower than it's getting.

Ravidrath said:
I'm not going to name names or things, but I was asked to increase the score on an FF game.

The reasons were not the best: "they would get a lot of hate mail" and "there are already a few scores on Metacritic, and yours is too far off from them." Also "guys in the office like it."

They agreed that my review text justified the score, and that I was even-handed, etc. But the score was "too low."

At that point, the minimum score you could give an FF game was an 8, BTW.

This was a long while ago, but I think the stigma against scoring mainline FF games low is still there.
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Perfo said:
I really think any score going below 7 is a score given on the hate the author feels about the whole series and not the game itself. Where these reviewers were when the bugged ME3 hit with his horrible story and conclusion? I've seen scores hitting high at that time. it seems reviewers play the "professionists" only when a FF title is out, and particulary with XIII trilogy. It's embarassing, really.
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I absolutely love that you brought up Mass Effect 3, as most people spit venom at the ending. I've seen the ending to Lightning Returns, and I guarantee you a lot of people are going to be outspoken about its' ending.
 
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