Oh, Lightning.
You’re strong. Gorgeous. And now you’re basically Jesus with pink hair.
So how in god’s name are you still so dull? The X-III games have managed to take a protagonist with unimaginable potential for growth and development and turn her into the kind of person you’d die of boredom talking to within the first minute of conversation. Even Cloud Strife, king of the miserable tormented anti-heroes, had more depth than Lightning. In FFXIII she was offset by the motivations and personalities around her – Snow’s brashness, Hope’s quest for revenge, Sazh’s difficult relationship with his son, and in its sequel, Sera and newcomer Noel did very much the same thing. But the entirety of Lightning Returns is all Lightning, all the time, and it only serves as a reminder of how much wasted potential the character now represents. She’s a strong, independent female character with less personality than a plank of wood.
In Lightning Returns, the world is ending, and there’s an omnipresent timer ticking away. Which really, really sucks, because for once, the pre-apocalyptic wasteland seems like somewhere ripe for exploration. Instead, you’re kept on a leash, and not in the good way.
Visually, the game is a treat, obviously. Cutscenes are a full on balls-to-the-wall experience packed with gorgeous detail and fight sequences on the same level as Advent Children. The atypical Final Fantasy style collides with a grungy apocalyptic theme, that, again, draws some interesting parallels to FFVII. The in game combat is alive with magical explosions and some frankly beautiful effects cutting a stark contrast against the often grim and dystopian backdrops and enemies. It’s in the new real time battle system where Lightning Returns really makes an impact – it’s all real time, with Lightning expending an action gauge to dodge, block and attack, swapping between ‘Schemata’ (collectable customisable outfits, be still your beating weeaboo hearts) on the fly. It’s a wonderfully versatile way of handling skill management.
Schemata are essentially weapons load outs with skimpy clothes and hair bows. You can tart Lightning up however you fancy, choosing outfits that offer certain skills and bonuses, equip her with weapons and shields, and map skills to the face buttons. These can all be swapped between on the go, and all have their independent action gauges. So you can build Lightning as a tank to absorb the brunt of an enemy’s attack, switch to a spellcaster to gain some distance and throw out some spells to stagger them, before swapping to a rogue-type outfit to close in for the kill. It’s just elegant. There’s no other word for it. Whereas in previous entries you’d have to set other party members up to automatically fulfill these roles, now you can do it all yourself, and look stylish as hell in the process.
The downswing of this is that combat is pretty much irrelevant. You don’t gain experience from battles, only completing quests, so combined with the aggressive timer, you’ll find yourself avoiding the most entertaining part of the game to pursue the objectives that level you the fastest. There’s no real justifiable incentive to pursue combat with time quickly running away around you.
The costumes are also an overwhelmingly obvious dose of blatant fanservice. Which is understandable, considering Lightning is basically an emotionless Japanese sex doll. It’s a bit gutting from a progressive point of view to have possibly one of the first female Final Fantasy characters who isn’t sexualised in some way to an uncomfortable degree reduced to bouncing around in skirts so short you can see what she had for breakfast, but I guess they had to do something to keep the tired designers interested in the character. You can also find some Doll Wives for a complete different life-like experience for your sexual fantasies.
Battles are fun and fluid, it’s just a shame that the story and exploration cradling them is so mediocre. To extend the amount of time left until the world ends Lightning has to save souls by completing sidequests. Some of these will be genuinely fun and emotionally engaging, but the majority are just MMO-style fetch quests. I can’t help but feel a little indignant when someone asks the woman who’s meant to save the world to go and get their friend for them when he’s standing in plain view just down the street. It’s like asking Mother Teresa to pop down to the shops to get you a pint of milk. Or on another kind of power scale, asking Hitler to change a lightbulb.
In short, Lightning Returns is fun, and an essential entry for fans of Lightning’s journey so far, but the timer which essentially puts a limit on how much fun you can have really screws over the general experience. The story isn’t anything spectacular, although it is great to revisit the characters of the XIII saga and have some definitive closure with all their interconnecting storylines. Combat and the (vaguely exploitative) Schemata system is fantastic but without any real incentive it can’t carry the game by itself, leaving only a cast of tired, angst-ridden characters and a startingly beautiful world that you don’t have the time to enjoy.
A good effort, but plagued by story flaws and characters that are hard to form any real attachment to. If you absolutely must have closure on the XIII saga, it’s worth investing in. But it doesn’t offer much else besides great combat and pretty clothes.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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