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Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
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About this item
- Your own Lightning - Upgrade Lightning's look, abilities and actions through hundreds of game-changing weapons and outfit combinations
- A constantly moving world - Nova Chrysalia moves to the beat of a relentless 24 hour clock resulting in a different journey for every player
- All new battle system - Master a completely overhauled battle system to control Lightning like never before by being able to block, dodge, and counter with precision
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Product information
| ASIN | B00946FSIA |
|---|---|
| Release date | February 11, 2014 |
| Customer Reviews |
4.7 out of 5 stars |
| Best Sellers Rank | #9,850 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games) #89 in PlayStation 3 Games |
| Pricing | The strikethrough price is the List Price. Savings represents a discount off the List Price. |
| Product Dimensions | 0.57 x 5.31 x 6.85 inches; 0.8 Ounces |
| Binding | Video Game |
| Language | English |
| Rated | Teen |
| Item model number | 91302 |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Item Weight | 0.8 ounces |
| Manufacturer | Square Enix |
| Date First Available | September 1, 2012 |
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Product Description
The world of Gran Pulse is sinking into the sea and what remains is now called Nova Chrysalia. With only thirteen days remaining until the end of the world, Chaos reigns in a world that never ages. New life cannot be born. People need salvation. As Lightning, it is your mission to save as many souls as possible so that they may be brought to the new world. Along the journey, you will encounter familiar faces and engage new foes in all new lands. You must ultimately choose which souls to save and which to abandon and fully understand Lightning's true destiny. It all ends here.
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Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviewed in the United States on June 27, 2018
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Story 7/10
I personally think XIII was perfectly fine as a standalone title and XIII-2 was an awkward attempt to prolong the story so I was very worried how Lightning Returns was going to make any sort of competent story with now majorly convoluted story. The good news it LR mostly wipes the slate clean and gives you a simple set up, if you don't try to over think it: The world has been thrown off balance by the events of the last game and is so bad that God (with a unnecessarily hard to spell name) has decided to start anew and has chosen Lightning as his savior to save the souls of as many people as she can, including her old friend, to bring into the new world he's making and she only has 13 days to complete the task. No knowledge of L'Cie, Time travel. Eidolons or Etro is needed to play the game and the game sticks to its clean slate approach, for the most part. Lightning, as the entire XIII trilogy, is a divisive character for many with some seeing her as a monotone, boring character and the idea of her as the only character you control and will be going through the game would be torture to them. Personally, I think Ali Hallis does a astounding job of inserting humanity and personality into a strong, stoic character that other less talented VAs would end up as what Light's detractors say. She does a great job narrating this often confusing story and makes many lines that ought to be dry as funny, sarcastic quips from Lightning. Ali has shown this wonderful job of adding those small details into a stoic charter like she did with Dr. Liara T'Soni from the Mass Effect triliogy, another character who first comes off as too reserved and stoic but grows on you. The story dips up and down in quality from the different main stories, each of which is centered on a main character from the past games, I'd say spoiler but all these characters have been prominently shown in the trailers so up to you if you want to go in blind or not. Some doing a good job of book ending some charters problems in the past games like Snow and Noel while others felt rushed and not much thought put into it, with Yeul/Caius, doing their best to make the story incomprehensible, and most saddening Sazh, a character that has been the universal beacon for the XIII games that everyone has loved and enjoyed, getting such a lame plotline, I thought it was a joke at first and unfortunately WAS a unfunny one. I'm happy once the main missions where finished and things kicked into the climax, the story improved and really showed some shining moments for Liightning's character and we get some of the best moments of the character that she is much more then the stoic warrioress she lets on to be. The ending becomes a nice nod to Persona, and runs back with the theme that was introduced in XIII, rejecting authority , the most powerful one at that, and emphasizing on the necessity for humanity to fight and live for themselves, needing only friendship, not gods. Its a wee bit anti-religious but that's nothing new to those who have played Final Fantasy games or many other JRPGs series like Persona and that's either a plus or minus to you from your personal tastes. It's overall a bit sketchy, and outright stumbling at times, but overall it could have been much worse and ends up being a competent story, which is too bad for a Final Fantasy game which are known for 10/10 stories but thankfully this game has a lot of leverage to lean on for its serviceable plot.
Graphics 8/10
Animation is varied in most scenes and rarely uses repeated animations outside of NPC conversations. It's inconsistent though, oddly for Square who are known for very polished graphics. Some areas like the Wildlands and Luxerion are beautifully detailed and has wonderful art direction that stands out from typical JRPG fare. The quality dips though during NPC moments where it seems it was rushed and some character designs look lazy and almost PS2 era of detail. Very stark when looking at the wonderfully, detailed and animated Lightning. Animation in battles are sublime though and everything looks wonderful from the hit detection, spell effects and attacking motions and the CGI cutscenes are what you'd expect from SE, top of the line along with Halo and Mass Effect.
Music/Sound 10/10
Along with Sazh, the next most respected aspect of the XIII trilogy has been its amazing music and LR doesn't deviate from the amazing streak Masashi Hamauzu has been on, along with Mitsuto Suzuki and Noashi Mizuta adding in modern, electronic flavor to the soundtrack. Hamauzu brings his stelar bag of tricks, with lush, sweeping orchestral pieces that oozes with emotion and flair with Humanity's Tale, Song of the Savior ~Grand Finale~, and Luxerion showcasing his utter mastery of orchestral compositionm with some of the best symphonic pieces I've heard since Joe Hisaishi's goosbump inducing work on Ni No Kuni. What really stands out though is how much Suzuki and Mitzuta have grown as composers and take on so much of the grunt work on the soundtrack and are comparable to Hamauzu's work, something I didn't think when they where brought in on XIII-2. The Wildlands, The Savior, Yusnaan Palace and Dead Dunes really cements Mitzuta as the thinking man's composer, deftly combining symphonic and electronic elements together and really makes this soundtrack his own next to the other two. As much as I've loved the battle systems and art design, the music throughout the XIII trilogy has ended up being my favorite part of the games and will go down as some of the best work music last gen next to Ni No Kuni, Halo series and Journey imo.
Gameplay 10/10
And now the meat of the game and I'm glad to report this is the best its been in the series. I thin the developers must have been playing some Dark Souls after XIII-2 because the difficulty has spiked up considerably and there is almost hand holding this time, The game flings you out and expects you to manage your health, money, and time off the bat and most the quests will expect you to do some research and speaking to NPCs to complete it. This is a wonderful response to the linear nature of the series and I appreciate Square put out such a hardcore game for a mainstream series like this, trusting Western gamers to handle, though it definitely has caused some whining, especially in the time management. I've seen 1 and 2 star reviews based solely on how hard the time management is and quite honestly, that's complete garbage. I've been a life long gamer so I might not be speaking for everyone but I kick my butt handed to me from Dark Souls and Super Meat Boy so definitely no the best and I was able to complete all the main missions and complete 50 side quests and STILL HAD 6 DAYS LEFT!! It simply takes the most basic of time management, fighting monsters for EP (basically tech points), using chronostasis (stopping time) and completing main mission s and you'll be perfectly fine with time to spare. With that cleared up, you'll also be happy to know this is one of the most fluent, elegant, fun experimentation of the ATB battle system I've ever played. Mixing X-2, Chrono Cross, Kingdom Hearts and even Paper Mario, you'll have a set-up of 3 schemata (jobs) to switch in battle where you'll have a ATB bar to use up with each attack or magic spell will take a amount of points of your bar until its near zero and you switch to another to use while the other will slowly regain ATB points while its on standby. It practically becomes an action game with how much hinges on your timing to use spells, block attacks and switch to new jobs on the fly. Its a wonderful take on ATB system that focuses a lot of action game reflexes but still have the strategy and management from a classic RPG.
Overall: While the story leaves much to be desired, there's a challenging RPG here to sink your teeth into with a masterfully crafted battle system with beautifully polished open worlds to explore. It'll push you and demand good strategy in your fighting and customizing your classes while being lenient enough for you to explore the 4 big worlds even with a time clock to keep some pressure on you. 8.5/10
Without going into spoiler territory, I’ll just say that Lightning Returns takes place 500 years after the events of XIII-2. Time has stopped, and for those 500 years people live on the remnants of the world without aging and waiting for the world to end. Lightning, having encased herself in crystal, awakens to have the god Bhunivelze make her “The Savior”, tasking her with saving as many souls as possible during the last 13 days so that the next work will be populated. As a reward, her sister Serah will be brought back to her. Right off, this is a pretty confusing beginning for players, as the actual ending to XIII-2 didn’t go into why Lightning was crystal. You would’ve had to have downloaded and completed the tedious DLC for XIII-2 called Requiem of the Goddess to see how Lightning’s story began. Anyway, Lightning and former companion Hope now reside in The Ark, and oversee the last few days of the world. A lot of new, unrelated story elements are thrown at the player during the opening hour, and it may seem a bit of an overload of “what the heck!?” moments, but rest assured all will be explained during the course of the game.
The game’s main quest takes place over five stories and a concluding chapter across the world’s four lands. Each one involves one of the main characters: Noel, Snow, Sazh, Caius and Fang, ending with Vanille’s fate on The Final Day. Outside of those main quests, there are several side quests available throughout the world. After a brief introductory chapter, you pretty much have access to all areas. Hope acts as a guide, giving suggestions and elaborating on story and side quest elements. You, as the player, then have 13 in-game days to complete all main quests and as many side quests as you can before the world ends. This is the dreaded game mechanic…a countdown clock is always shown on-screen depicting the current time. At 06:00 every day, the day ends and Lightning is returned to the Ark no matter what she’s doing. One in-game minute is roughly 2.5 real-life seconds. I’ll say it right now, the time limit is invasive and more than a little stressful at times (especially during some of the many fetch quests). It stops you from properly exploring everything, and something as seemingly-harmless as missing a jump and having to backtrack feels rage-inducing as it wastes minutes of your in-game time. It’s not without a little reprieve though…time stops during battles, during cutscenes and conversations, and while in the menus. Also, you gain an ability called Chronostasis which stops time’s passing for a little while which can be incredibly useful at times. Should you manage to not complete the main chapters in 13 in-game days, it’s Game Over, and you will be given the option to restart the game in New Game + with all your equipment and abilities intact.
As far as I handled the time limit as a player, I’ll freely admit that at first I was completely disgusted with it. And I will always believe that no matter what, this mechanic should not exist. However, it turns out that you actually do have plenty of time to complete the main quests and most of the side quests. Then again, full disclosure, I used the strategy guide. I found myself out of quests to do by around day 8. But for those who don’t have the guide, I can imagine you might cut it close.
The battle system is one of the best aspects of Lightning Returns. Gone is the party system of prior games, instead Lightning fights on her own for the majority of the game (two story chapters give you an AI companion). You set up three schemata for Lightning, which is basically a costume with unique battle abilities, a weapon, a shield and 2-3 other abilities of your choosing. Mixing and matching garbs and all equipment is essential, and the possibilities are almost endless. You pick three schemata and can switch between them on the fly during battle. Each one has an ATB bar, and each ability uses up a portion of that. When it runs out, you must switch to another schema while the ATB bar for the prior one recharges. It’s a frantic system reminiscent of Final Fantasy X-2 and its dress spheres, and is highly engaging. Battles are fun, fast, flashy and something I definitely looked forward to. Unfortunately, battles only do two things: give you gil/items and give you EP, which is used for certain abilities like Chronostasis. You do not gain experience points. Furthermore, escaping a battle costs you one in-game hour, which adds to the stress. Experience points to not exist in this game. To enhance Lightning’s HP and abilities, you must complete quests.
And that’s pretty much the crux of the gameplay. Not terrible, but that time limit can be off-putting for some, especially considering that open world RPG’s should allow the player to explore at their leisure.
Polish is another area where this game is severely lacking. You can plainly see where the developers (Square-Enix and Tri-Ace) decided to spend the most time and where they cut corners. Main story quests are interesting and move the story along fantastically. Side quests are bland, boring, overly dramatic and poorly written. As they are necessary to ensure you’re not under-leveled by the endgame, this tends to drag down the game a bit. A lot of quests consist of “Talk to X character”, “Bring me X number of this ingredient and Y number of this other one,” or “Find me this special item.” A couple of the more combat-oriented ones are fun though. Graphically, this game is not the prettiest. Character models for townsfolk are hideous, and the same model is used ad nauseum. Creature design is poor and look decidedly prior-generation (as in, PlayStation 2). Monster variety is very anemic, with just a tiny fraction of what’s in the prior two games. Textures in towns are HIDEOUS. As in, textures practically do not exist. Again, looks like an upscaled PS2 game. However, main characters look markedly better, and the game’s final moments are breathtakingly beautiful and detailed, making for a stark contrast to the rest of the game. Compared to how the first Final Fantasy XIII looked pristine at every moment, this is a disappointment here…especially when you flashback to that game’s story and clearly see a huge improvement in visuals. Finally, the music. The tiny amount of new tunes are very good, but most of the music is just recycled from XIII-2. Lightning Returns is so obviously a rush job at times, I’m surprised Square-Enix would allow it.
Cosmetic issues can be brushed aside, however, and I can’t say that the game wasn’t fun. It just didn’t engage like the past two games did. Rest assured that gamers who stick with it till the end will be treated to one of the most explosively exciting and phenomenal endings in Final Fantasy history. I will recommend this game freely to anyone who enjoyed XIII and XIII-2. If you’re new to the Final Fantasy XIII series, this is not the game with which to jump in. Start with and endure the linearity of the first game, trust me! For everyone else, Lightning Returns turns out to be a satisfying conclusion to this saga, even if it has an uncharacteristically large number of rough edges for a Final Fantasy game.
Top reviews from other countries
Pra quem quer conhecer mais do jogo antes de comprar, recomendo ver o vídeo do Filipe Ramos sobre ele no youtube, até se já jogou o 13 ou o 13 - 2 pq ele tem algumas mecânicas diferentes dos dois.
Reviewed in Mexico 🇲🇽 on April 23, 2017





















