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Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII |OT| Toriyama's Bizarre Adventure

I

ironcreed

Banned
Perfo said:
Ok. This friend of mine is really hyping the shit out of me. I'll say sorry for the translation but google translate took care of it because I don't have time to translate it properly, but you get most of it even this way. This particular player is not really a fan of Final Fantasy (or jRPGs, except for the likes of FFIV and few others from the past), but loves hardcore games, especially Nintendo's stuff, Zeldas, Witchers and so on. Few updates he posted on his experience with the game:
Click to expand...

"Skyrim, Majora, Xenoblade, Shemnue, here is basically a fusion with these four and Final Fantasy."

This one line is enough to excite me (even though I never played Xenoblade). If this is anywhere close to being accurate, then I know I will love it.
 
C

Community Forum

Member
Yes, yes, YES! Can't wait for tomorrow!

Downloaded the soundtrack on iTunes... $19.99 was a steal compared to what I could find a physical copy for online, even though I have physical copies of the other two soundtracks.
 
Yoshichan

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Had a fight with my local video game store :( Guess I'm not getting it early.

FHASuiofhsauifgnakvbsdijfhpaiwufafgas
 
J

Jolkien

Member
According to ps3trophies the platinum require 2 playthrough and should take around 40-60 hours to complete. Not bad, I platinumed XIII-2 in 62 iirc.
 
Yoshichan

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Do we know if Piggyback is making the guide, and if it'll be available at launch like with FFXIII-2?
 
C

Chance Hale

Member
Yoshichan said:
Do we know if Piggyback is making the guide, and if it'll be available at launch like with FFXIII-2?
Click to expand...
91NJNH2K3XL.jpg
Click to expand...
With so many things to be accomplished and uncovered in a game world teeming with opportunities, this book will be a teacher with boundless patience, a savior when things seem bleak, and a wise friend always on hand to offer the advice you need. It is encyclopedic, yet unfailingly accessible. Our longtime partner, Piggyback, has accomplished miracles in creating this authoritative (and beautiful!) companion tome.
Click to expand...
- Motomu Toriyama
Director, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Amazon Link
 
J

Jolkien

Member
Yoshichan said:
Do we know if Piggyback is making the guide, and if it'll be available at launch like with FFXIII-2?
Click to expand...

It will be available on lauch day. It's Prima this time.
Edit: Nvm. Ebgames.ca list it as prima publishing but Amazon states Piggyback. I'll trust Amazon.
 
L

LuuKyK

Member
I am so buying the guide. The XIII-2 one is extremely well made and written. It helped me a lot.

Closer than ever now. Sooo excited.
 
J

Jolkien

Member
LuuKyK said:
I am so buying the guide. The XIII-2 one is extremely well made and written. It helped me a lot.

Closer than ever now. Sooo excited.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm grabbing the collector edition guide since I'm a sucker for extra art and I prefer solid cover.
 
N

nOoblet16

Member
dramatis said:
He writes for a publication. A degree of professionalism is required; if he were a more adept writer, he would have been able to express his saltiness in a better way. As it is right now, his review is merely leaking with "haters" "hate" "duh". (Assuming the writer is a he.)

From a different standpoint, one can argue that the defense force is ignoring legitimate criticisms under the arbitrary and automatic dismissals of criticisms as "hate". So what is the situation, really.


Let's not be deliberately obtuse here. A prime example of artificially created character problems would be Cloud in Advent Children; his character developments and resolution in FF7 are undone and Cloud himself is cast into a mopey, hesitant, reclusive role that does not logically follow from the end of FF7. Even though the Geostigma explanation and whatnot are provided, those reasons are not solid or developed enough to give the viewer who played FF7 a path to follow from the Cloud at the end of the game and the Cloud at the beginning of the movie. That is an "artificially created" character issue, one that undoes previous developments in an illogical way.

Lightning has never had a schism in her personality. What she has instead is confusion: a child pretending to be an adult that throws tantrums when things get bad (the punching Snow scene, the immature act of taking on another name to try and dump "the child" behind, lashing out against Sanctum without a real plan, "worst birthday ever"), who suffers a sudden and illogical epiphany about how she was just a pet to the fal'cie and how she shouldn't fight against Sanctum.

You write your own version of Lightning. "An obedient soldier in the Guardian Corps"? Lightning started in 13 against Sanctum, for her personal reasons (Serah). She never followed orders. "Who also had it in her to rebel against the commands of the fal'cie"? What rebellion? Lightning ran away (which I suppose you can argue was the "only choice", but I think a better writer would have written proactive protagonists) and returned to Cocoon only when the fal'cie made a threat. You count sitting in Valhalla dumping a bunch of responsibilities on Serah and Noel as Lightning "being a free spirit and doing her own thing"? The contrasting jump from "We live to make the impossible possible! That is our Focus!", a clear declaration of the difference between humans and fal'cie and the establishment of a cause for humans made by a human, immediately to the submission to Etro as "warrior of the goddess"—that jump does not demonstrate a schism, it demonstrates how a character established in one story has been upended to fit in a differently shaped hole.

Lightning Returns
addresses no schism; it manufactures a Lightning with deep-rooted issues of loneliness that somehow physically manifest into a goth loli. Lightning in 13, who ended with the assurance that her friends will stand with her; Lightning in 13-2, who ended chasing 'atonement' for some nebulous not-past—these are not Lightnings resolved by "lonely Lightning" or even connected to "lonely Lightning".

13 has 9 chapters of padding. The individual stories of Lightning, Snow, and Hope have very little to do with the main story of 13 (I only count Sazh because he can be considered a significant influence on Vanille) and their stories are essentially padding out the length of the game. "Tons of depth" do not exist in the individual character stories. The mythology is also far less deep than you claim, it is just the mountain of stupid decisions made by one of the chief figures in the mythology that stupefy the audience. Only a small part of the simple mythology makes it to the screen—because the actual mythology is so meager there is very little to show or explain. The claim of stories in the 13 saga being the "opposite of padded" is unfounded.
Click to expand...
And? Isn't its purpose more about providing character progression? If you don't have it then there won't be any character progression at all (and the haters will still hate it and claim that it has no character progression, but at least the fans get something to follow on to as far as the protagonists are concerned)
 
Yoshichan

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Thank God for Piggyback! FFXIII-2 guide was one of my favorite!
 
S

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
I asked in another thread but this one seems more active. Regarding FXIII:

I'm up to about Chapter 8 of FXIII (just got control of Fang). So far, the story seems to be a pretty straight forward attack on America's War on Terror; nothing complicated or completely ridiculous so far. Even so, most folk say the story is needlessly complicated and really stupid... Without spoiling the specifics of the plot, have I got some kind of FFVIII Orphan-style twist to come and knock me for six or did most people think the story had already gone to shit by Chapter 8?
 
Y

Yaoibot

Member
What's the consensus on the story? I found XIII-2 nearly incomprehensible; not because I wasn't paying attention, but because it was so loose and full of holes that it bordered on farcical. Story is a rather big deal to me, even if its over the top JRPG-style melodrama, it needs to make sense. Does the story make sense?
 
N

Nohar

Member
The story is far from being complicated (I never understood the people saying the different terms of the games, namely fal'cie, l'cie and cie'th, confused them). However, it does get convulated at times, and the ending of FFXIII disappointed me a lot because of its very confused nature and because it's
full of Deus Ex Machina
, something that thanksfully/sadly got lampshaded in FFXIII-2, since it's (FFXIII-2 spoilers)
because of Etro (a Goddess) intervention that everything went south: her divine intervention is the direct cause for the plots of FFXIII-2 and FFXIII-LR (though, without her intervention, the protagonists would have failed).

Not to mention (FFXIII huge spoilers)
the whole Fal'cie thing about wanting to get destroyed to summon the creator, and needing the L'Cie to do it, despite the fact that it doesn't bother them at all to summon monsters to wreck havoc in Cocoon, and that said monsters could probably destroy them in the long run... No, really, the whole "I can't self-terminate" thing and "I want to summon Ragnarok" didn't click with me at all.
 
Caffeine

Caffeine

Member
Screaming Meat said:
I asked in another thread but this one seems more active. Regarding FXIII:

I'm up to about Chapter 8 of FXIII (just got control of Fang). So far, the story seems to be a pretty straight forward attack on America's War on Terror; nothing complicated or completely ridiculous so far. Even so, most folk say the story is needlessly complicated and really stupid... Without spoiling the specifics of the plot, have I got some kind of FFVIII Orphan-style twist to come and knock me for six or did most people think the story had already gone to shit by Chapter 8?
Click to expand...

I personally feel the story is straight forward up to chapter 13.
 
M

MarkusRJR

Member
djplaeskool said:
Played through XIII-2 in 8 hours this weekend (ghetto-speedrun strats).

I'm as ready for LR as I'll ever be.
Click to expand...
That's pretty insane. I thought XIII-2 was pretty long, but maybe that's because I explored a ton when I played it. I can't even understand how you'd do it so fast. :eek:

Sioen said:
Is Etro the enemy in Lightning returns?
Click to expand...
Spoilers for FFXIII and FFXIII-2:
Etro was the goddess holding back the chaos from the other side (basically the afterlife). In FFXIII-2 she dies. Her dying ended up causing the chaos to be freed. So no, she won't be the enemy in lightning returns.
 
K

ktynn

Banned
I've played this game for a few hours and it really boggles me how a developer/game can do so much good and so much bad at the same time.

The customization, graphics (mainly monsters & lightning), the battle system and art direction are amazing, right up my alley and loving it. But holy shit the over-complicated narrative & story; combined with dated and irrelevant gameplay mechanics are frustrating!

You spend the first few hours doing Assasins Creed styled 'tailing' and solving irrelevant 'side-quests' during a freaking apocalypse - WHEN - playing as a messiah -> Lightning.

I've decided not to continue playing for a while now, it got to the point where it just pissed me off. Not to mention the whole 'timer' scheme. Goddang
 
M

Mesharey

Member
I've been searching for hours for the last tablet in the desert, any clue? :/
Edit: found it finally after 4 hours in Atomo's Sands.
 
K

Koozek

Member
Ahrrgh, last night I just wanted to play for 2 hours max because I have to study right now but I got so sucked into it doing sidequests in the first city and went to bed at 10am in the morning :D Man, the battle system is great. Had some really hard fights even on Normal where my heart was pumping and I was smashing buttons and switching shemata like a lunatic.
I really don't care for the story and have basically zero investment in it. Having no expectations helps enjoying it for what it's worth, with all its obvious flaws and silliness^^

Btw: Ehm, am I the only one noticing that those Children of Etro guys in Luxerion look like the unknown white cape dude from FFXV? Especially considering that Etro is a big part of XV's story, too.
 
F

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
How does the timer mechanic work in this game? Do you tell it when you want it to advance, or is there a constant clock ticking away so you're constantly rushed and may fail the game if you try to sidequest for too long?
 
G

Gaz_RB

Member
FlyinJ said:
How does the timer mechanic work in this game? Do you tell it when you want it to advance, or is there a constant clock ticking away so you're constantly rushed and may fail the game if you try to sidequest for too long?
Click to expand...

The latter. I've heard that it's not so bad though, because doing side quests and stuff gives you more time
 
F

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
Gaz_RB said:
The latter. I've heard that it's not so bad though, because doing side quests and stuff gives you more time
Click to expand...

Yikes. There is nothing I hate more than arbitrary timers in games.

Even worse are arbitrary timers in games that you can give more time to by doing things, but have no idea how much time the things you do will add.
 
G

Gaz_RB

Member
FlyinJ said:
Yikes. There is nothing I hate more than arbitrary timers in games.

Even worse are arbitrary timers in games that you can give more time to by doing things, but have no idea how much time the things you do will add.
Click to expand...

Yeah, LR doesn't seem to be a game for everyone.

I guess I'm a masochist with games sometimes.
 
S

SoraanTribal

Member
Liferebooted said:
Yay, Amazon shipped mine. :D
Click to expand...

Mine hasn't shipped yet... :( What's the hold up?! It's supposed to snow/ice bad where I live the next couple days (Georgia), so I bet I won't even get it tomorrow. Not that it matters too much since I'm gonna finish Bravely Default before starting LR anyways, but ya know.
 
B

BuckRobotron

Member
I at the last minute made a pre-order for the 360 version yesterday and it shipped from Amazon. Have always pointed out I've enjoyed the series despite the issues, of which LR appears to have many to deal with. May pop in here and there if I feel like wading through the extremes of hyperactive hate and blind love these LR threads often dip into.
 
R

RS4-

Member
FlyinJ said:
How does the timer mechanic work in this game? Do you tell it when you want it to advance, or is there a constant clock ticking away so you're constantly rushed and may fail the game if you try to sidequest for too long?
Click to expand...

Something like 3 seconds in life = 1 min in game clock.

The only time it pauses is when you're talking, shopping, cutscenes and
at the ark

You can advance it yourself by resting at the inn; and with some sidequests, they're only available at certain hours. Whether that's due to inaccessible areas or people you have to meet for the requirements.

And yeah, there are some quests you can fail/miss all because of the time.
 
T

TheGrue

Member
Anyone get their CE from SE yet? I know mine shipped last week, but I couldn't figure out how to use the tracking number it gave to get anything valuable (tried FedEx and USPS...number didn't look a like a UPS one). Hopefully getting this today or tomorrow.
 
G

Gaz_RB

Member
So how connected is the 13 series to 15?

Is the new world Lightning is bringing people to the world of 15?
 
B

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Gaz_RB said:
So how connected is the 13 series to 15?

Is the new world Lightning is bringing people to the world of 15?
Click to expand...

Zero (they will probably share gods and other non-tangible elements).

No.
 
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