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

Giolon

Member
That's exactly how the game was designed. It was going to be required to new game + the game a few times.

They added more time rewards for quests and the chronostasis ability late in development.

If you have to play again, don't stress out. And yeah, they want you to pick up as many quests as you can and then look at them and make time management decisions about the order you'll do them in, by doing things in similar areas grouped together.

That's a complete disrespect of my time. I don't want to have to play a game over and over and over again in order to beat it. When you're talking about a skill challenge, that's one thing. But this game is actively hindering you by withholding information and making it as obtuse as possible to be successful.

I don't want to play through the same thing multiple times. I want to play through once at my leisure and be done with it.

My first two days in the game are a perfect example of how fucked this game is:

Near the end of the first day, they tell you that you have to find 4 numbers around the city. The game is constantly telling you at 6AM, you have to return to the Ark, no matter what. So you gotta finish up everything by 6AM, every day.
So I'm running around looking for the numbers, and the game is constantly harassing me "OMG you only have 2 hours left", "OMG you only have 90 minutes left!", etc.
I can't find these fucking things they're nowhere. I'm off running around looking for them, running into monsters that are so hard they kill me, losing more time. So finally I give up and it becomes 6AM.
I get sent back to the Ark, and they go "ok, you're back. now it's tomorrow. you can go out again". Now the numbers are there.

If the numbers weren't going to show up until the next day, why the fuck did they make such a big deal about looking for them and made it seem like the end of the world was going to happen if I didn't find them in time?
I could have been off exploring other locations, doing side quests, etc. but they don't tell you that.

So now it's the next day right?

I find 3 of the numbers, and it takes me until about 1pm to find them all, and I find out that the 4th number is in an area I can't get to. I run around more until like 5pm trying to figure out how to get it, until I finally find out that the area won't open up until midnight
again, I could've gone to another area if they had just told me "Hey, you gotta wait for this thing. go do something else"

Also, in the first day, because I went off to a section of town where I was getting killed, I missed out on going in the opposite direction, that had treasure w/ better equipment and abilities in it

And the thing is now, because I wasted so much time on the first two days, now I feel like I'm behind on accomplishing tasks that should've already been done. I can't really afford much new gear. Enemies aren't dropping much in the way of upgrades (some of which I lost due to dying and restarting, as mentioned before).

All of this together just screams bad game design to me, and a lack of respect for my time by expecting me to have to start over and do it all again from the start.
 

ironcreed

Banned
That's exactly how the game was designed. It was going to be required to new game + the game a few times.

They added more time rewards for quests and the chronostasis ability late in development.

If you have to play again, don't stress out. And yeah, they want you to pick up as many quests as you can and then look at them and make time management decisions about the order you'll do them in, by doing things in similar areas grouped together.

Well, the battle system and customization is enough to make playing again in NG+ an attractive prospect. It's actually pretty brilliant how deep they made abilities being intertwined with the fun of customization. It's the saving grace that carries this game.
 

Loakum

Banned
The CE for this game is amazing! I can't wait to get into this game. Pumped!

Yeah, me too! My Collector's Edition just arrived 20 minutes ago.

H0Y0DmR.jpg
 

Shinta

Banned
The CE for this game is amazing! I can't wait to get into this game. Pumped!

Yeah, wow. This thing is a beast. Great packaging. I'm loving all the artwork of the costumes.

The guide seems pretty neat too.

If the FFX and Drakengard CE are this size, then they're really pretty nice.

I like that the watch has an open button lol. Kind of neat.

Well, the battle system and customization is enough to make playing again in NG+ an attractive prospect. It's actually pretty brilliant how deep they made abilities being intertwined with the fun of customization. It's the saving grace that carries this game.

And in new game + you get equipment customization. So it was definitely intended for at least 1 new game + run.
 

Isaccard

Member
You guys are missing out, XIV is too godlike; both games have the same "fetch this, go here" style quests but the dialogue and writing are leaps and bounds above anything in LR of what I've played/seen so far. Unfortunately, unlike XIV, LR is extremely vague in giving any sense of direction. Not to mention the terrible design choice that essentially forces you to participate in some of the worst optional garbage I've ever seen in any game. I enjoy the XIII games just as much as anyone else in the defense force, but the games are far from perfect, and disappointedly so far this is the worst one. :(

Still having fun with it though!
 

HeelPower

Member
You guys are missing out, XIV is too godlike; both games have the same "fetch this, go here" style quests but the dialogue and writing are leaps and bounds above anything in LR of what I've played/seen so far. Unfortunately, unlike XIV, LR is extremely vague in giving any sense of direction. Not to mention the terrible design choice that essentially forces you to participate in some of the worst optional garbage I've ever seen in any game. I enjoy the XIII games just as much as anyone else in the defense force, but the games are far from perfect, and disappointedly so far this is the worst one. :(

Still having fun with it though!

XIV quests,stories,world are excellent.The only quests that get boring there are "levelquests" and that's because they are just designed for grinding.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Just got to the ark, love the music. Does the segfried garb not have a weapon? That's weird. Also, costumes don't show up in all cutscenes, I guess most of them are pre rendered?
 

Pooya

Member
first hour or so of the game is just....
emot-words1okai.gif
is it over yet? wait noo
emot-words1okai.gif

stfu Hope! they sure wasted a lot of time to say little.
 

HeelPower

Member
Its weird that Noel says nothing about serah.He had a long ass journey with her and she died in his hands.Yet all he obsesses over is just yeul yeul yeul...come on man :p Does he not care about the one person he spent all this time with ? wtf Still enjoyed the scenes with Noel quite a bit.
 

Holmes

Member
My CE isn't here yet and the tracking number hasn't updated at all since it left Indiana on Monday night at 5PM.

:(
What shipping method did you choose? It shipped out of Minnesota for me (in Toronto) and it arrived on release day, so it should be close to you.
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
ok seriously what were they thinking ?

I don't remember FF7 or 8 having any mark on the map.

"Remove markers from videogames, I'm no noob!"

removed

"give me back the markers, I'm lost nowwwww"

mamma mia, 2014 players ~ -.-'
 

Shinta

Banned
I don't remember FF7 or 8 having any mark on the map.

"Remove marks from game!"

removed

"give me back the marks"

mamma mia, 2014 players ~ -.-'

I was kind of thinking the same thing honestly. You really couldn't go through the older games fully without a guide on lots of it. Oh well.
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
I was kind of thinking the same thing honestly. You really couldn't go through the older games fully without a guide on lots of it. Oh well.

If it was for me I would be removing also the minimap at once (edit. yes you can do it, but somehow the game is still designed to make use of it). Such a stupid videogame late invention. You now pass more time looking at the radar than at the game. Am I wrong?
 
I don't remember FF7 or 8 having any mark on the map.

"Remove markers from videogames, I'm no noob!"

removed

"give me back the markers, I'm lost nowwwww"

mamma mia, 2014 players ~ -.-'

Ah! But the difference is I had all the time in the world to figure things out in FF7 and FF8. In this you have a countdown where if you aren't utilizing your time well you get a game over and have to start all over again from the beginning

Pretty big difference.
 
I don't remember FF7 or 8 having any mark on the map.

"Remove markers from videogames, I'm no noob!"

removed

"give me back the markers, I'm lost nowwwww"

mamma mia, 2014 players ~ -.-'

Did 7 or 8 have a time limit? I wouldn't really care if there was no quest tracking system if we were free to explore at our own pace without a ticking clock.
 

Shinta

Banned
So, I'm honestly not one of those guys dissecting frame rates and image quality. Is it my imagination or does this look a little bit better now? Not drastically or anything, but that first tutorial battle just seemed more clear than before and I could really see everything easily when I thought before some of the effects were obscuring my view slightly.

I did the full install and got the first update. Might just be my imagination, or getting used to the game.

Some parts of it look inconsistent and a bit rough, but overall I still think it's actually a really nice looking game. Not on the same level as the first XIII, but I think it looks nicer than the Tales games, personally (Vesparia might be the only exception).
 

Toth

Member
Ah! But the difference is I had all the time in the world to figure things out in FF7 and FF8. In this you have a countdown where if you aren't utilizing your time well you get a game over and have to start all over again from the beginning

Pretty big difference.

You could also...save your game and reload it once you know what to do, no?
 

ss_lemonade

Member
So, I'm honestly not one of those guys dissecting frame rates and image quality. Is it my imagination or does this look a little bit better now? Not drastically or anything, but that first tutorial battle just seemed more clear than before and I could really see everything easily when I thought before some of the effects were obscuring my view slightly.

I did the full install and got the first update. Might just be my imagination, or getting used to the game.

Some parts of it look inconsistent and a bit rough, but overall I still think it's actually a really nice looking game. Not on the same level as the first XIII, but I think it looks nicer than the Tales games, personally (Vesparia might be the only exception).
It looks worse to me. In fact, I think the games seem to get a visual downgrade with every new installment, with the original XIII still looking the best out of the trilogy.
 

RS4-

Member
I enjoy the "go to whatever avenue" but it isn't marked on your map, have fun running around while clock counts down quests.
 

Gaz_RB

Member
It looks worse to me. In fact, I think the games seem to get a visual downgrade with every new installment, with the original XIII still looking the best out of the trilogy.

Yeah, it doesn't look any better than the previous ones. Worse in a lot of cases, with a very low amount of polish, relatively.

Which I don't really have a problem with given that it's open world. 13 did look amazing though, that'd be nice if we could have those graphics again.
 

Szadek

Member
I'm sort of intersted in this game.
I hated 13,but ,to my suprise, really liked 13-2.
Played the demo and the combat seems pretty good.
However,many things about this game sounds like horrible game design to me,most notably open-world rpg with time limit.
 

Shinta

Banned
There's two whole sections in the datalog that sound like they're going to be awesome.

"Mythology"
"Legends and History"

So I should fumble around for 5-6 hours trying to figure out unfun quests and once I do reload my save game to do it all over again but more efficiently? How is that fun?

The map adds the names of places she visits after the first time, and the times at which certain gates open and close. Pretty neat. Says so in the datalog at least.
 

Shinta

Banned
Didn't realize you can get a perfect timing strike on all your attacks and spells. So yeah, there's definitely incentive to not just hold the button down when attacking.
 
Didn't realize you can get a perfect timing strike on all your attacks and spells. So yeah, there's definitely incentive to not just hold the button down when attacking.

Yah, Lightning has a little gold aura around her when you get the timing right for both attacks and blocking.
 
These enemies are hard.. and the fact you don't really get all too much with winning a normal encounter :/ Unless you're lucky and they drop something at least..

Also is it only 6 recovery items for the whole game?
 

Lain

Member
Ahahahaha, I only now realized that the 14th is Friday. I won't receive the game before Monday at the earliest.
Another reason to add to my hate for SE EU I guess.
 

MarkusRJR

Member
It looks worse to me. In fact, I think the games seem to get a visual downgrade with every new installment, with the original XIII still looking the best out of the trilogy.
When XIII first launched, it blew my mind away in terms of visuals. It was still one of the most visually impressive games on these consoles until the last year or two. It still looks great to this day.

XIII-2 was pretty ugly by comparison to how visually polished XIII was, but the main character models looked great and so did the effects.

LR: XIII looks really inimpressive now, with lack of polish all around. They really shouldn't have went with the open world stuff if the engine couldn't handle it. Some of the main character models look really gross up close in gameplay, which really surprised me.
 

HeelPower

Member
I don't remember FF7 or 8 having any mark on the map.

"Remove markers from videogames, I'm no noob!"

removed

"give me back the markers, I'm lost nowwwww"

mamma mia, 2014 players ~ -.-'

If it was for me I would be removing also the minimap at once (edit. yes you can do it, but somehow the game is still designed to make use of it). Such a stupid videogame late invention. You now pass more time looking at the radar than at the game. Am I wrong?

Older FFs were drastically different with sidequests being tangential at best.Yes sidequests were hyper cryptic but they more like secrets in the game than anything else.

LR is fundamentally different from old FFs.Here its essential for leveling and there is time limit.You gotta be able to do this stuff so you can move along and accomplish things instead of wandering about aimlessly.

That being said I am adapting to the game and will try not to fret about it too much.

Every modern RPG has proper markers and instructions.

Also I am speechless about your mini-map comment.

Let's play fighting games without health bars!
 

Toth

Member
There's two whole sections in the datalog that sound like they're going to be awesome.

"Mythology"
"Legends and History"



The map adds the names of places she visits after the first time, and the times at which certain gates open and close. Pretty neat. Says so in the datalog at least.

I am happy to say that both sections are huge and give a ton more than I ever thought. The datalogs have been a joy to read this time around so I am very happy. They certainly put the mythology at the forefront this time around. Even the loss of 2 hours in each day is talked about and explained.

I also like some of the cheeky dialogue this time around.
"God does not know where the chaos comes, but He doesn't care. He's destroying the world in 13 days", etc.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Okay. I need some help. I've played for about 4 hours, seem to have wasted a day. I have 5 days left. I did a few quests, but not many. Most of my schema only has one move, like Cloud, only has Heavy Strike. I put the only spells I have on Yuna's garb. Can you buy more skills/spells or what? I knew I should've started on easy, but I went with normal. Decided to try Wildlands, and the first thing I try and fight kicks my ass. Its a Meonkoten, the flying bug. Should I not do Wildlands first?

Help?
 

Goldenhen

Member
I bought the game from Liverpool JB Hi Fi (Sydney, Australia) and yes the game is resealed but they included the DLC set for Cloud and Samurai.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
XIII-2 was pretty ugly by comparison to how visually polished XIII was, but the main character models looked great and so did the effects.

Academia remains to this day one of the most impressive fictional urban environments visually, but yeah, totally agree that as a whole package it didn't have the same baking time as XIII (for obvious reasons)
 
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