Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

It's a pity that a lot of players have been so fixated on the perceived gameplay weaknesses of each of the games in this trilogy, because in doing so they've really missed the broader philosophical richness of the story of Lightning and her ragtag crew of allies and antagonists. Ironically, those people will also find Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII the weakest game in the series, when thematically speaking, it's actually the most powerful.

Even with its mediocre plot and heavily emphasized fan service aspects, I really enjoyed Lightning Returns. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve followed the series since the beginning, or because I’m a sucker for the characters and their relationships between one another, but this game made me experience a range of emotions that I haven’t experienced from a game in a long time.

It’s not an excellent product but it is a gem for the future and at the end of the day I'm happy to say that Final Fantasy is still for me.

Lightning Returns has some genuinely great ideas as far as modern RPGs are concerned, and despite being let down by a shoddy story and some graphical issues, it remains a shining example of how dynamic battle systems and thoughtful character customisation can save an otherwise trite, lifeless game.

Plenty of depth there for those willing to make the most of it, but too many barriers for those not already predisposed to like it.

One step forward and two steps back for the XIII saga and will only attract those looking for fan-service or high-octane combat.

It’s just a quickly thrown together mess of mechanics that feels like it’s trying and failing to be an open world American style RPG. Frankly, you aren’t missing anything if you totally pass this title up.

A very unique game. I have never seen such a thing. the world is ending and you have a limited time to do the quests and save the world. if you fail the game will be restarted but you will keep all your items and level so the second run will be a lot easier. Very unique and cool. I loved it.

Lightning Returns is a strange game, the battle mechanic has promise but the flow of combat feels very sluggish like you're wading through treacle constantly with Lightning slowly plodding about rather than utilizing her speed and jump skills as she does in normal world traversal, thus, the best I can say about the combat is that it's better than XIII and XIII-2, but it's still not great as aside for the aforementioned problems the battle camera gives you a very poor view of things when facing multiple enemies meaning timing your blocks becomes a real annoyance. Being able to customise your combat gear is pretty intuitive and nice as the game goes on you'll end up putting together some pretty awesome sets. In terms of performance there is a fair bit of slowdown where you wouldn't expect there to be any, the game for the most part doesn't look especially good for a PS3 title and the areas you explore are typically narrow and not especially large in scope leaving the performances drops as somewhat of a mystery. Much like the first game particularly the game is rather linear and the side quests you do feel little more than forced busywork that you feel obliged to do in order to earn stat increases for Lightning as there is no classic level up system. The story isn't awful but for a Final Fantasy it can't hold a candle to the likes of 7,8,9, or 10, the time mechanic feels like the did their own spin on Ocarina of Time and unfortunately Lightning still has all the personality of a corpse. It also irritated the hell out of me that Hope just would not shut up often speaking over other dialog that was already difficult enough to hear because there's no way of turning the volume of the in-game music down. You'll probably enjoy the combat of this game but likely not much else as everything about Lightning Returns just screams "serviceable", not "good", and absolutely not "great". The game is clearly trying to be an action RPG and is so close to almost being a good ARPG it hurts, if only Lightning could run and jump in combat like in normal world traversal and the camera in combat was more responsive and followed you around the combat alone could have been good enough to elevate the game to 9/10, but alas, it was not to be. If you want to play a great action RPG go play Ys VIII on the Vita instead.

Very interesting time concept, which I truly enjoyed. I guess, after seeing the characters for three games got me to kind of care for them. But still the theme and overall gameplay doesn't make it a good game for me. Otherwise it was alright.

The story is bad The combat is fine (not my thing but it is more engaging, that's a fact) But the time limit just kills the game. At the start you get 6 real life hours to complete the game, with possible extensions as you go on (up to 13 hours). If this clock runs out, you'll have to start over (but you keep your equipment etc.) what makes the timer even worse however, is how the game puts time restrictions on certain missions. For example, go to that person in that part of the city between 7 and 9 pm, making you essentially waste some of that precious 6 hours waiting. all in all, skip this game unless you're invested in the FF 13 storyline

This installment is probably the worst Final Fantasy of all time! They are really losing a lot of fans with this game. Very disappointing game and very disappointed in Square Enix's work on this.