Lightning Returns advice

[TRI Mike]

Hey guys, I just got Lightning Returns and spent most of my saturday playing it and more than anything trying to understand it. I need advice on several things in the game. More than anything on how to aproach the time-limit thing, which I gotta admit pisses me off a little, like in the Atelier games. From what I understand, Lightning gets stronger from completing quests instead of killing enemies but I fear that focusing on strenghtening her might make me lose too much time and not being able to make it to the end of the story.

I had huge problems beating Noel, who I finally managed to defeat by staggering him and spamming the Buster Sword's exclusive melee attack. I had to complete a few quests in Luxerion before I tried the battle because it was getting on my nerves. Now I'm wondering if it's safe to go visit Yusnaan and the other areas.

Now, there's some help I also need with the costumes. I'm currently using two melee-focused ones and one magic-based. Any recommendations there¿ I need advice on how to block because I suck a lot doing it, I usualy try to attack a lot and don't have much time to block which ends up in Lightning being hurt. The recovery items are also a problem for me so in general I'm having difficulty getting used to the game which is ironic since I loved XIII and XIII-2.

 

[Alleo]

Can´t help you much but at what level of difficulty do you play? Did you start on normal or easy. If it´s easy then you should have no time problems because you can spam Chronostasis a lot. I did start at easy and had enough time to finish all the main quests and a lot of the side quests. But even at that difficulty some boss fights were quite hard. If you started at normal maybe you should make a NG+ game with easy? I remember that Square Enix recommended to start at easy to get the hang out of it. If you only do side quests and no main quests then you could have some problems later because you need to finish main quests to gain more days. But it should not be a problem if you don´t finish a main quest each day. My last one was finished on the ninth day because I could not defeat the boss before that and needed more side quests to become stronger. So I would recommend to do a lot of them but at the same time try to finish the main ones too.

You may want to go to Yusnaan next. Wildlands and Dead dunes have quite some hard monsters (especially the dunes) so it may be the best to go to the other city first.

About the costumes: I always use a meele one, a magic one and a costume with debuffs. It´s a lot easier to fight monster with debuffs (at least for me). I´m also someone who can´t block perfectly all the time. Try to watch your enemies moves. Some like Anubis are quite easy to block because they have a nice attack order, others are much harder. You need to use block only seconds before the attack hits you and it often happens to me that I´m too late. The only thing you can do is to start training using the block abilities. You get better with time.

Hopefully I was able to help a little.

 

[Nikolasvanitas]

There are 2 accessories that grant you huge resistance to physical and magical attacks,combine them with a defensive schemata like Paladin and along with mediguard you can create a ''Sentinel'' schemata for reducing damage
Then have a schemata for only physical or magical attacks,the ''Commando'' and one for debuffing with some additional spells for staggering

Having a tank scemata really helped me,I could just take big hits from bosses and receive minimum damage just by standing without guarding ,just think of the schemata as the paradigms in FF13 and focus on creating the necessary schemata for each battle,each schemata is suited for a particular role like saboteur,ravager,sentinel

Also if you want to get perfect blocks the only thing I can advise you is to pratice,there will always be a sign before a blockable attack so try to find the correct timing or you can just mash repeatedly the guard button,sometimes it worked really well for me

 

[TRI Mike]

I'm playing on Normal and some fights are quite hard. The main problem here seems to be that I can't understand the stagger system correctly. For example with Noel the Libra said he was weak to Thunder and I could stagger after blocking perfectly or immediately attacking after his own moves but I did that and he still took a LOT of hits before getting staggered, it was a pain.

I think finishing the Luxerion main quest only gave me an extra day...

 

[Ehren]

Each main quest gives you enough or almost enough Eradia to add 1 Day to the end of your total. You start off with 7 days, so by the time you beat the four main scenarios you should be up to 11. Or 12, if Sazh's little side mission gives you a good bump of Eradia. Then you do some sidequests to get the 13th day, or try and complete the majority of them for the 14th day. For the record, the missions you get from the Prayer Canvas do not extend the life of the world. You get stat bonuses, gil, and adornments off of them but they give you no Eradia. Since the majority of Canvas quests are to collect items commonly dropped by common enemies within the continent you accept them on, you should try to coincide your attempt to do them with extinction efforts or gil/ability grinding. Going to a high-spawning area in Luxerion at night, for example (after 8PM but before 4AM would be my suggestion) and keeping time frozen with Chronostasis should allow you to gather Canvas items, abilities, and gil for better equipment pretty soundly. Flamestrike or Heat Blitz in particular are helpful here- Gremlins are weak to physical attacks, while Niblets are weak to Fire.

I'll come back to type more when I can.

 

[TRI Mike]

I honestly don't get what's going on in this game. I admit I'm not an expert with FFXIII and XIII-2 story but I remember a lot of stuff and this doesn't seem to make much sense. If Lightning was Etro's knight in XIII-2, why is she fighting her followers in Luxerion¿ When in XIII-2 did Fang and Vanille wake up¿ I really don't remember that. Why is Hope a kid¿ Why hasn't Snow turned to a Cie'th after 500 years¿

I'm not saying this game is bad, it's just weird and I haven't gotten used to it yet. But am I the only one who thinks XIII-2 and LR should have been their own games instead of sequesl to XIII¿ FFXIII story was pretty cool imo and it ended well, there was no real need to milk the game like this. And the graphics suck. Bad. I always praised XIII and XIII-2 for their high-quality visuals but Lightning Returns doesn't even reach XIII's visual quality. It's sad.

 

[Ehren]

Well... You've clearly not beaten even a decent portion of the story, but okay fine. Let's give you some exposition. Major story spoilers, so spoilers within spoilers.

Spoiler

Lightning may have been Etro's protector, but the Etro cult in Luxerion don't know that. Etro is dead, and they have no means of communicating with her. They are worshiping the idea of the goddess, that's all. And as Lightning is the Savior, whom they believe to be evil, even if they DID know (which again, they don't) they would likely assume what Snow thought of in passing- that perhaps this "Savior" is a fake using Lightning's form and voice.

Fang and Vanille don't wake up in XIII-2, and this claim is never made. The pair woke up from crystal sleep 13 years before the start of Lightning Returns, after the world had already been Nova Chrysalia for 480+ years. Fang should say as much when you meet her, and I believe Vanille also mentions they didn't wake up all that long ago.

Hope is a kid because Bhunivelze made him that way, for reasons Hope himself does not know. The reason is discovered in the course of the main story.

Spoiler

Bhunivelze, like many deities obsessed with the idea of purity and cleanliness, believes the human form of 'child' to be the least tainted. He turns Hope into a child in order to be his servant, because anything less is offensive in the eyes of the God of Light.

Snow is not a Cie'th for any number of reasons. For starters, his Focus is to protect the fal'Cie Cactuar (for some reason called Pandemonium in English?), so as long as the fal'Cie isn't dead Snow is not failing his focus. The precedent for this is set by XIII-2, where Guardians of the Seeress Yeul before Caius and his Heart of Chaos were l'Cie whose Focus appeared to be protecting the Seeress from harm. As long as their charge remained okay, they kept their l'Cie powers and could continue to protect her. Furthermore, with the absence of time Snow's brand appears enlargened and multi-stage. The clock no longer ticks, so it's unlikely the Cie'th transformation could be triggered by time even if Snow weren't fullfilling his Focus.

Spoiler

Last but not least, non-time trigger for Cie'thform is physical or emotional trauma. A particularly stressful event for both mind and body could cause even a strong person to turn into a Cie'th, which is essentially what happens to Snow during the course of his story. The combined stress from his depression and the effort of absorbing Chaos directly turns him.

I have plenty to say on the other subjects, but this isn't really the place for it.

 

[TRI Mike]

Good, but now. I'm honestly having quite a lot of problems with the gameplay. I just agree with everything Erren said in her import review. The game just doesn't have an identity. It tries to be a lot of things at the same time and ends up being nothing. I like the battles but I just suck at them I guess. I lose too much HP when fighting enemies I'm not used to. I don't like the healing mechanics, I ran out of potions in ONE battle in Snow's palace and just had to fail and go to the Ark. I'm seriously worried that I might not have enough time to finish the game.

My main complaints about Hyperdimension Neptunia (shitty healing) and Atelier (time limit) both fuse in this game. I'm finishing some quests but every time Lightning goes to the Ark, I don't get any new days. I'm down to three left and I honestly don't think I'm gonna make it. People in reviews say that battles are easy but that's definitely not the case for me. I'm very pissed off because I never have problems with RPGs like this. In fact, I usually play "Tales of" in Hard mode alone and manage to survive. Lightning Returns is being really unforviging with me.

Quests feel out of place, they just don't fir. I've been with a facepalm all night after hearing Lightning say "Choco-boco-thingie-boco" or whatever the secret code for the FFXIV costume was. And the cook's story in Yusnaan was just ridiculous. I loved FFXIII deeply and am probably one of the very few gamers who genuinely liked and defend the game. But LR is making this very hard.

 

[Alleo]

Hm maybe you should really play it on easy? If you already have problems in a normal battle in Snows palace then maybe this would be the best solution? On easy you will regenerate your health while walking (or waiting) and you get a lot of points for monster battles that you can use to stop time. (Or use to regain some health) This way you should not have much problems with the common monsters (even though that still depends on the place like their are much harder in the dead dunes) and you can train your blocking skills. I´m not so good of a figher myself (in all games) but I did not have much problems on easy and I did panic a little at the beginning because it looked like the time was moving to fast, but thanks to chronostasis this was not a problem in the end. (Even skipped the last day ) So maybe you should try it out on a different level of difficulty?

You only get new days after finishing the main quests so side quests are only helpful if you want to level up.

I laughed at that line it´s nice to have some side quests that are a little sillier because most of them are pretty sad.

The only tip that I can really give you is that you play on easy. If your still only in Yusnaan then you have enough new things to explore if you start a new game and it might be more fun for you too. And for the story parts, Ehren explained them very well but don´t worry if you feel a little lost about it at the beginning, most of them will be answered throughout the game. Some might not be that obvious but that makes it fun for me .

 

[TRI Mike]

So I restarted the game in easy mode and now everything is TOO easy. Normal was a pain and Easy is a cakewalk, no middle ground which is not good. Still, I'm now enjoying the game as I understand the stagger system a little more so I'll most likely give it a second run in Normal before putting it to rest.

I'm currently trying to heal the white chocobo in the Wild Lands, I already defeated Snow and Noel in their main quests. But I'm having a hard time finding the items necessary to cure the bird. I picked up a bunch of fertilizer but it's already night so the farm is closed down and I can't geow any Ghysal Greens. Someone in a chat told me the glowing flowers work too and I've picked up quite a bunch but the chocobo doesn't seem to want them. What's wrong¿

 

[Princess Lenna]

You can plant Gysahl Greens any time at the farm. Look for patches on the ground; you unlock them by handing fertilizer to the NPC there. Once planted, you'll have to wait 6 hours for them to grow.

I personally did not find Normal to be too hard =/ Got pretty OP towards the end of the game.

 

[TRI Mike]

OK so I already saved Noel, Snow, Sazh/Dajh, fought Caius and that monster thing along with Fang in the desert. All 5 main quests are done and supposedly, all I have to do now is wait until the final day to stop the ritual that will kill Vanille. Can I relax and just do random quests until then¿