Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII General Discussion and News Thread

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Omegaflare

AVALANCHE Warrior
Sep 28, 2013
256
68
41
Oldenburg, GERMANY
#1
Similar to the FF XV thread, I thought it would be cool to have a general discussion thread for the next big Final Fantasy game that will be out.



Lightning Returns is the 3rd (and final) installment in the Final Fantasy XIII - Saga, as well as the 4th installment of the Fabula Nova Crystallis - Compilation. Its is the very first 2nd sequel to a FF game and to make it fresh and distinctive from its predecessors its enormously different in virtually every aspect.

Set 500 years after FF XIII-2, LR features an entirely new world known as Nova Chrysalia. The entire original playable cast of FF XIII will be featured in the game along with Noel from XIII-2 and several new characters such as the female Lumina who bears a striking resemblance to the late Serah Farron from the the two previous games. the game will apparently have a much darker and grittier tone and in great contrast to the original game have a vast freely explorable world, with also lots of sidequests and optional challenges, pushing the powers of the current gen consoles to limits that werent possible with FF XIII in 2009.

Two major changes are the fact that Lightning returns (hence the title) as the sole playable character and the fact that the player has only a limited amount of time to save the world and is racing against a "Doomsday clock". Another big change is that the world is not always the same, depending on the time, allowing access to locations or events only at very specific moments for instance.

Lightning herself has been awakened from her crystal sleep by the supreme god Bhunivelze himself to be the "Savior", Bhunivelzes champion to save the souls of the new world from complete annihilation and ensuring their rebirth in a new world once the old one is gone for good. To ensure the rebirth of Serahs soul, Lightning agrees to take on the role of the Savior. This new life of hers brings her into conflict with old allies such as Snow or Noel.

Snow is now a more bittered, darker character, still reeling from the loss of Serah (and suffering over 500 years from that surely can take a toll) and the mayor of a city and apparently also still a Lcie. Hope is back to his original look from FF XIII and is Lightnings greatest ally, who aids her in an "Oracle"-esque kind of way (Batman fans will understand the comparison^^) on her mission. Sazh, once again is fighting for his son and is more desperate than ever and Fang and Vanille (both painfully missed in XIII-2) are back in full as well. Fang is part of a band of thieves in the Dead Dunes while Vanille can now hear the dead and is involved with a religious order in the city of Luxerion. Noel is now a vigilante, trying to prevent a prophecy of doom.

The most notable feature of LR is the new battle system which (like FF XV) abandons the traditional battle screen and goes instead for a much more dynamic and action oriented battle system which by the looks of it will also be more versatile and demanding then the paradigm-system in XIII and XIII-2. Most notably Lightning has now a large amount of different outfits, each presenting her with different skills and abilities and their own ATB gauge. Much like in FF X-2, she can change these costumes mid-battle and several of the costumes are based on famous Final Fantasy characters such as Yuna, Aerith or Cloud.

The game is produced by many of the same developers who also worked on the two predecessors. Its directed by Motomu Toriyama and produced by Yoshinori Kitase.

The game will be released on November 21, 2013 in Japan and in February 2014 worldwide for Playstation 3 and X Box 360.



 

yeah_93

Warrior of Light
Sep 27, 2013
1,512
570
Venezuela
#2
Does anyone mind if I post my demo impressions from SDCC?
I'm no mod, but if this is a thread of general discussion, I say you are welcome.

OT, I think the story is beyond saving now. Nothing in XIII-2 seemed to make sense and the game forced you to go along with it.
 

Omegaflare

AVALANCHE Warrior
Sep 28, 2013
256
68
41
Oldenburg, GERMANY
#3
Yes I too had some major gripes with the story in XIII-2, though I LOVED the ending of it and didnt mind the "to be continued" at all (after all God of War II did that too, thats why its a saga). Actually I think the story premise of LR is pretty awesome. I like how the mythology of Bhunivelze, Lindsei etc. is brought into it (I think Bhunivelze is even that "maker" that Barthendelus wanted to call back in XIII) and I think moving the story ahead for 500 years was a good choice to start fresh in LR.

Most of all I really like it that the maincast from XIII seems to have greater roles now then in XIII-2 and I LOVE that the focus is back on Lightning who is after all the greatest character in that universe (To me anyways. She is up there with Cloud for me as an iconic main character and the best scenes in XIII-2 were the ones were she was featured. She is the heart of this universe, like it or not).

What excites me the most however is how the characters have changed and how Lightning must now face some of them like Snow even in battle. I love where they are going with Snows character in this game and that whole sequence from the trailers where he confronts Light is enormously epic. I like what Serahs death has done to Snow, its great character stuff and somehow a Light/Snow confrontation has been building up since FF XIII and now with Snow being much more serious and darker - seeing that clash was really exciting. Sure we have to deal with all that big time-stuff again but I doubt that LR will be as confusing or dragging as XIII-2 was and will deliver a big finale to the saga. I want the epic stuff again like in XIII that I missed in XIII-2 (except for the ending and opening) and I think LR will deliver on that, now that the focus is back on the right characters. They learned in XIII-2 from their mistakes in XIII and I think they learned in LR from the mistakes in XIII-2. And with the pretty amazing looking and action-oriented gameplay that will make Light more of a cinematic heroine in the battles by the looks of it and all the different costumes and customization options plus multiple playthroughs and an open world concept - I think this might be indeed the best PS3 - FF yet.
 

Zack

Somniac
Moderator
UFFSite Veteran
Site Staff
Jul 29, 2013
160
55
36
#4
I have extreme qualms about the story and characters in FFXIII that it started to become a real struggle to advance in the story. Eventually, I will get around to beating FFXIII and FFXIII-2 and moving here. Maybe when it's $20.
 

Leon Aether

ShinRa SOLDIER
Sep 26, 2013
177
68
33
Corfu, Greece
#5
What I like in this game is the total transition of the cast. The story and all characters are really serious this time!

I believe XIII-2's story was not decent, but excellent! That's right! Excellent! The way they decided to move on with this second sequel was a bit weird to understand during the first playthrough, but while playing for a second time the story seemed to me that it progressed in a very interesting way, as there is now really so much depth in it!

The great finale seems promising so far and it's nice that finaly a huge part of the FNC mythology has become the actuall main scenario of this saga. A bit too late if you ask me but gladly they decided to expand the world and strain this myhtology. Better late than never.
 
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APZonerunner

Network Boss-man
Administrator
UFFSite Veteran
Site Staff
Jul 25, 2013
1,134
926
35
Solihull, UK
www.rpgsite.net
#6
We're giving away tickets to go and play this game early and meet the devs: http://www.mognetcentral.com/posts/2982/

In addition, anybody who answers the competition question will get a special edition one-time Mognet Central LR trophy. Even if you can't make the event in London, it's worth answering the question - just leave a note saying you can't make the event and are just entering for fun!
 

Omegaflare

AVALANCHE Warrior
Sep 28, 2013
256
68
41
Oldenburg, GERMANY
#9
Doesnt surprise me. There is just not the capacity for having 2 different spoken languages in the game. Maybe FF XV will do it because I guess there will be more capacity on a next gen console but I never expected Lightning Returns to have japanese audio in the western versions
 

APZonerunner

Network Boss-man
Administrator
UFFSite Veteran
Site Staff
Jul 25, 2013
1,134
926
35
Solihull, UK
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#10
One of the larger problems is due to the culture of anime being huge in Japan voice acting is a much more prolific and well-paid profession there, and a lot of them have contracts which stipulate carefully about things like overseas release, meaning in a lot of cases companies would have to pay some of the more famous members of the Japanese cast royalties for copies sold in the West when only a tiny percentage of sales there would pick Japanese voices. This isn't really a thing in the West.

One of the ways to get around this is with DLC; if they have DLC, they would only have to pay royalties for the people who download it, and you could even charge if you wanted. Problem is you then have to build additional infrastructure into the game and it just for many companies isn't worth it. It's a shame.
 

d750

Stiltzkin's Apprentice
Oct 10, 2013
2
0
33
#11
I wasn't talking about western versions. I was talking about a chinese/hk/korean version. There was japanese with english subtitles for ff13 ff13-2.
I know that it was annouced that the chinese version of lightning returns, will only have chinese subtitles.
altough there was two opposite news:
december 2012 annoucing english subs http://www.novacrystallis.com/2012/...sion-of-lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiii/
july 2013 annoucing that there will not be english subs http://www.atmaxplorer.com/2013/07/asian-edition-of-lightning-returns-wont-get-english-subtitles/

so i'm still hoping, that maybe there will have some news since. The announcement i guess is only for the chinese version that will only have chinese subs. But maybe the korean version will have english subs?

if there really is no english subs on every version, it will be a loss, for everyone that wish to have japanse voice....
 

Kagari

神羅カンパニー社長
Administrator
Site Staff
Jul 25, 2013
255
192
37
United States
www.novacrystallis.com
#13
I wasn't talking about western versions. I was talking about a chinese/hk/korean version. There was japanese with english subtitles for ff13 ff13-2.
I know that it was annouced that the chinese version of lightning returns, will only have chinese subtitles.
altough there was two opposite news:
december 2012 annoucing english subs http://www.novacrystallis.com/2012/...sion-of-lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiii/
july 2013 annoucing that there will not be english subs http://www.atmaxplorer.com/2013/07/asian-edition-of-lightning-returns-wont-get-english-subtitles/

so i'm still hoping, that maybe there will have some news since. The announcement i guess is only for the chinese version that will only have chinese subs. But maybe the korean version will have english subs?

if there really is no english subs on every version, it will be a loss, for everyone that wish to have japanse voice....
The Chinese version won't have English subs now since they want to get it out in November. Originally it did and once they delayed the western release, they decided not to put in English for that version.
 

Amicitia

Balamb Garden Freshman
Sep 26, 2013
19
13
#14
Anyone have any thoughts on this game's antagonists? From the recent news on Vanille it's strongly implied that Bhunivelze is a Big Bad, but I don't think he's the final one.

Or is this better discussed in a separate story thread?
 
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Joshua

Sphere Hunter
Oct 7, 2013
231
47
43
California
#15
There are two major things that excite me about this game as it approaches release:

1) Conclusion of the story and seeing where all the major characters end up. Given what we've seen from the XIII saga so far, almost ANYTHING could happen.

2) Seeing major SE staffers - including Toriyama (yes, I know) - freed up to go work on a new major project. Some of these guys have been locked up on the XIII saga for 7 years now, it will be interesting to see the shift and the new projects that come along with it.
 

Omegaflare

AVALANCHE Warrior
Sep 28, 2013
256
68
41
Oldenburg, GERMANY
#16
Anyone have any thoughts on this game's antagonists? From the recent news on Vanille it's strongly implied that Bhunivelze is a Big Bad, but I don't think he's the final one.

Or is this better discussed in a separate story thread?
Its a general discussion thread, therefore you can talk about anything related to the game in here. Thats the whole purpose of the the thread so we dont need a hundred seperate threads all over the place ;)
 

Amicitia

Balamb Garden Freshman
Sep 26, 2013
19
13
#17
Its a general discussion thread, therefore you can talk about anything related to the game in here. Thats the whole purpose of the the thread so we dont need a hundred seperate threads all over the place ;)
Okay, I was just worried about potential spoilers in story discussions. :p
 
#19
I believe there was something on NeoGAF not too long ago about a leaked trophy list for the game. And lo and behold, one of the trophy was something about defeating the
God of Light, who I think we can all infer to be Bunnybells
who is most probably the final boss.

I had a short conversation with someone a while back about why Hope has mysteriously returned as a kid for no apparent reason. It could have some bizarre and probably nonsensical in-game explanation serving some purpose or another, OR it might not be Hope at all, but some sort of pretender; perhaps an allegorical viper trying to win the trust of Lightning before sinking its uhh, fangs(?) into our pink-haired messiah. I can't remember what deeper mythology-related thing the person I was talking to brought up to make the idea seem somewhat compelling however...

EDIT: My personal preference is the Wildlands, though you seem to be right about the power level of the monsters there. I think aesthetically and visually, the Wildlands is the most appealing, commanding a sense of scale and scope I've always wanted, with - even better - a village full of Moogles! <3
 
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Omegaflare

AVALANCHE Warrior
Sep 28, 2013
256
68
41
Oldenburg, GERMANY
#20
I generally avoid watching gameplay footage (except for trailers) or all too spoilery descriptions of the games footage so its WAY too early for me to say what I do first and where in the game. So far I know a lot about the world and locations and characters but its all very fragmented and I dont really know the game well enough yet to be able to make such decisions already 4 months before I will ever play it. I will probably study the official piggyback guide(I LOVE those books, whenever I buy a new FF, I generally buy the piggypack guide along with it) first, especially the gameplay and strategies section and I am sure there will be a 100 % perfect guideline in there like they did with XIII-2, so I will most likely use this as my guideline.
 
Likes: Sapientia