JRPG Journey 2023: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (February)

January’s game: Chrono Trigger

March’s game: Ys: Memories of Celceta

At long last, with only a few main series Final Fantasy games left to play, I’m finishing out the much-maligned XIII trilogy with Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. As you may know from my previous videos, I rather enjoyed both FFXIII and XIII-2, so I was eager to play this one, yet at the same time hesitant. See, I’d heard it was way different from the first two, more action-focused, more difficult, and with a time limit to boot. That was enough to get me to play on Easy mode, which many folks online recommend, but for reasons I’ll explain later, I wish I’d played on Normal, and as of writing this review I’ve gotten far enough into a second playthrough on Normal to compare.

Alright, it’s weird to start by talking about difficulty settings, of all things, but they’re very relevant as you’ll soon see. Due to how Lightning Returns is structured, playing on Easy impacts the rest of the content, outside of combat, as much as the combat itself. See, the whole game is on a timer, and unlike in Majora’s Mask, there’s no rewind feature. You’ve got thirteen days to get as much done as you can, and that’s it. Since most quests are time-dependent, it can seem a little overwhelming even though there’s actually plenty of time to do everything. Despite that, on occasion I found myself stressing to reach a destination in time, which is where EP comes in. EP is a resource for special character abilities, one of which pauses time for a minute or so. That might not seem like much, but you can cover a lot of ground in a full minute, and for only 1 EP. That’s pretty great, and damn useful when going for 100%.

The thing is, EP only gets restored by battling, yet it’s also a key part of battles. It’s used to trigger this game’s version of Limit Break or Overdrive mode, or to fully heal you, or, most importantly, to escape from battles. Yeah, you have to pay 1 EP to escape a battle, and with dangerous monsters roaming the open areas you gotta explore, that can be a problem given how precious EP is. Low on HP an run into an enemy beyond your capability? Hope you saved recently. Here’s the kicker, though: on Easy mode, escaping battles is free. You also get double the EP from battles, a massive cushion. These two changes alone make the game itself more manageable and for me more fun. In that respect, I’m glad I played on Easy first. I may be flying through Normal mode now that I know the game well, but I could see myself getting a little frustrated on a first playthrough.

On the other hand, combat is just about the only interesting part of the game, and the EP-boosting changes I mentioned kinda made it feel like I was cheating. Enemies have less HP, but other than that, stats and the actual combat are the same as on Normal, so all Easy mode does is let you cheese through many battles that would otherwise require strategy. Here’s why: on Easy, you can spam your strongest attacks and get through most common enemies and even bosses by hitting them with elements they’re weak against (and by using Imperil first, if needed).

This spam strat doesn’t often work on Normal, but on Easy it’s so simple and effective that I couldn’t resist using it as a staple, blasting through most enemies with my high magic build. Then, I hit a wall on a boss and finally had to figure out the stagger system. To be fair, Lightning Returns uses a new stagger gauge that’s confusing as heck until you get used to it, and bosses now have strange “stagger requirements” you can achieve to move them to a higher stagger stage, letting you deal more damage. There’s also not much visual indication of when enemies enter or leave the stagger state — you really have to pay attention. That’s all OK, though — once I got the hang of it, crafting strats to take down bosses became way more fun, and the battles way faster. Looking back, I should have played on Normal instead of listening to silly opinions on the internet. Everyone said XIII was tough too, but I had a similar experience with that. Lightning Returns is not difficult once you understand the stagger system.

However, it IS worth acknowledging that these are a lot of changes for an entry in a long-running series to make, let alone the finale of a trilogy after two games with near-identical combat. I ended up having a ton of fun with the combat, but changes like these clearly mark the start of an even more action-oriented direction for the series that makes me wary. I play plenty of action games, no doubt, but I’d love to see Final Fantasy embrace its turn-based roots in some respect going forward. At least FFVII Remake’s combat system gives me some hope, and we’ll see what XVI ends up doing.

Lightning Returns mixes and mashes ideas from its own trilogy as well as older games, combining XIII’s paradigm changes with FFX-2’s dresspheres. Now, instead of three characters with different roles or jobs, you play as just Lightning, with three different schemas to switch from, which are basically outfits with their own gear, bonuses, and abilities. These look super sick, and there’s a ton of ’em — something like eighty, I believe. I swear, Square put more resources into making Lightning look sexy in these getups than into making their environments look even halfway decent. Oh, well …

In a fix to a common complaint about XIII’s paradigms, switching schemas happens instantly. Thank god. This does make Lightning Returns more action-oriented, but with that comes the ability to optimize — my favorite! Instead of giving every schema a guard option, I gave guard to just one schema and switched to that whenever I needed to avoid a boss attack. The game’s fast enough to keep it, so it worked great. I’ve never seen this kind of risk/reward in a Final Fantasy game before, so there’s obviously merit to Square’s approach. I like to think I’m a pretty open minded fan, so Square’s current direction won’t bother me as long as their systems remain fun.

Unfortunately, the rest of Lightning Returns lands with a thud in “meh” territory. Below average, even. The world is bland and boring, nearly all the quests are throwaway or even banal nonsense, and there’s not much story to speak of — it’s all at the start and end. Se hundreds of years after the events of XIII-2, humans no longer age or reproduce, and the world has come to a standstill, as everyone waits to die. The ultimate, big daddy god Bhunivelze, mentioned in previous games, chooses Lightning to save people’s souls so they can live in a new world he plans to create. And all I can say is … holy cow. Just like with XIII-2, we’re diving into a completely unrelated plot that just happens to include the characters from the last game. Man, what a weird trilogy. All the little details and threads present since the first game make it apparent the writers planned out at least some of this from the start, yet each game feels disjointed, tied together by fraying threads. I guess they were going for something more thematic and epic, attempting to tell a grand story on a universe-altering scale, but the lack of a cohesive, singular narrative kills that for me. The themes of hope, trust, and overcoming so-called destiny with the help of those you love did hit home, and I felt a little something inside watching those final scenes, but there’s not enough actual plot otherwise to get me excited. Lightning Returns is a podcast game, through and through — turn on a podcast or some music, chill out while busting through sidequests, and you’ll have a good time.

But back to Lightning herself — she’s got more personality this time; she’s sarcastic, even sassy, and while she’s never annoying, this shift in tone doesn’t work for me. It’s like she’s a different character instead of the cold, gruff Lightning I’ve come to love. It has been five hundred years, so I can explain it away in my head, but that’s not satisfying. If anything, I would have expected her to grow even colder during all that time. And if you’re wondering how the heck she saves souls, well, it’s by finishing quests. In fact, that’s the only way to raise your stats. Yep, there’s no experience points in Lightning Returns. The more quests you do, the stronger you’ll get, so on higher difficulties, saving time in the overworld matters, since you’ll want to finish all the quests you can squeeze in before the end. While most of these quests are dull, I at least enjoyed running around the world for the 40 or so hours of my first playthrough, despite the downright awful visuals compared to Final Fantasy XIII. I like how each region of the map has its own gimmick to keep gameplay from feeling too same-y, for example. Luxerion’s the home base city with lots going on, Yusnaan is the only other major city, the Dead Dunes give you Fang as a party member plus let you warp around via Cactuar statues like in XIII-2, and the Wildlands let you ride a chocobo.

That’s a nice variety, but it doesn’t save the world from feeling lifeless. By around halfway through I was going through the motions, skiping through quests instead of hanging on to every word of dialogue like I usually do with JRPGs. Overall, Lightning Returns feels … unnecessary. XIII-2 didn’t need a sequel — heck, XIII didn’t — and this whole Fabula Nova Crystalis project seems ill-conceived from the start. While I love the first two entries, and I like this one OK, none of them achieve the heights I think the devs were aiming for.

That’s all for Lightning Returns and February, folks. Join me next month, when I’ll tackle Nihon Falcom’s modern remake of the fourth Ys game, Ys: Memories of Celceta.