Lightning Returns Thread

13 was a movie with autmomated gameplay
13-2 was an actual game and it was awesome, play it and don't give a fuck about the story unless you're into that
LR is the best one and features gameplay that 13 should have had from the beginning.

You don't even need to worry about it. All three games are relatively detached in terms of anything that's important to keep track of. LR can be treated as standalone but you'll get like one or two big spoilers from XIII-2.

I tried playing it but when I started up Snow was some kind of evil emperor and Serah was a BDSM fairy or some fucking thing and I figured I had to double back to XIII-2. Or is that simply some fucked up SE cold open?

Technically true, as Lightning created the Zohar and the Relics of God, which Wilhelm had Klaus use to create the pocket dimension and Monados.

Snow was actually Brahms. Lightning Returns is Valkyrie Profile Hrist with FF13 on top of it for some reason.

Wait, that means that Lenneth literally is Kos-Mos. Holy fuck.

Yeah, my biggest issue with Lightning isn't that she's poorly written, it's that she isn't written at all.

I mostly watched FF13/13-2 but from what I remember like, none of that is really lead up to in 13-2.

I really like the music in all 3 games.

LR takes place hundreds of years after the end of 13-2, and in basically no way does 13-2 even hint at or lead into anything in LR. All of the FF13 games can be taken as independent of one another since the plots are so seperate. The only one that marginally relies on another is 13-2 to explain the relationship between Serah and Lightning, but that can be skipped with pretty much "My sister is a hero but died, there's this weird guy who said he met her recently, and I'm gonna go looking for her now."

Care to elaborate? Was it even made by any of the same people?

Can you elaborate on that? I mostly heard FF13-2 fixed a lot of the problems of the original but everyone seemed to have stopped paying attention by the time 13-3 came out. I have no idea what the gameplay actually entails relative to the other two.

FF13's plot, Serah does some shit, Lightning and co go on a roadtrip to save her. They end up destroying their world and everyone migrates to the world they almost crashed their planet into, everyone lives happily ever after except two people who get stuck in crystal and can't have anyone to roadtrip them out because they hold up the old planet and getting them out would destroy the new one.

Timeskip 3 years ahead to 13-2. The ending of 13 is retconned by a previously unmentioned god and Lightning is now in Valhalla endlessly fighting some dude, everyone thinks she died. Some guy falls out of the sky into Serah's world and they then go on a time travelling roadtrip to save Lightning and end up 500 years after the end of 13 with a new world being launched because the world they're on kinda sucks. Serah dies at the end, Lightning lost her neverending battle in Valhalla and ends up trapped in crystal.

Timeskip a few hundred years and Lightning Returns. No retcon this time, but a previously unmentioned god is going to destroy the world after 13 days and Lightning can help people to delay it or something. The new world launched at the end of 13-2 is now the home of Lightning and the new god and everyone still lives on the shitty planet. They no longer age, give birth, or die of natural causes, but there's still monsters that kill them. Lightning has visions of a BDSM fairy that looks like Serah and goes on a roadtrip to save her, and all the original members of the roadtrip are off doing things by themselves.

As far as I know, 13-2 and LR are both based on unused assets for 13 that they decided to make games around because it was in development for so goddamn long. I like LR quite a bit because of how it handles character advancement. You get more powerful by finishing quests, you get magic by defeating enemies, enemy spawns get more powerful as time goes on. There's a time limit on the game that is ridiculously generous and can be delayed. I have no clue what happens if it runs out, presumably it just lets you reset time and start over with all your stats, and there's a time reset thing before the final boss that lets you do all the quests again for even more stats.

I heard it was better gameplay wise, so what I want to know is whether it can be played without playing the first two.

Well, it's a lot different, but it's great. It's a game where most of the content is quests for random people and with each quest completed, you get stronger and have 4 big areas to explore. Very non-linear, you only play as Lightning, but the battle system allows you to actually move around instead of using the menu like the previous two. You can customize Lightning with costumes that have abilities locked onto them with space to add more. You make 3 different combinations and switch through them like paradigms from the previous two game's battle systems. So, for example, you can customize a form for Lightning with magic power in mind for putting the enemy in stagger faster, and another one will have physical power in mind for taking down health faster after a stagger, and a third form for buffs/debuffs/defense.

The quests, aside from the main story, are fairly light-hearted and involve straight-up helping people, it's very comfy. There's a time-limit, but you get a lot of time and can get power to slow down time and not ever have to worry about it. If you do somehow manage to fuck that up, it lets you do new game +, I think, but when I played, I had a lot of time to just mess around and enjoy the areas like it was real.

There's also a secret part of the game where there are limited numbers of every monster, and you can eventually kill them all ala Undertale- don't worry, everybody wants these things dead because there's a system in place where less of the population dies when you fight more. What's interesting about it, though is that the last of every type of monster is extra strong, and you get some sort of weapon or really good item when you beat them.

Some main-storyline bosses are hard as fuck, too before you can even unlock hard mode. You're gonna want to be ready for Caius and the Final Boss in particular. Also, if I recall, certain character bosses are stronger if you fight them near the end of the game.

PC version includes all the dlc, but if you use any of them right away, you'll break the early game and enemies will be a joke. I suggest saving most of the dlc for new game plus (which you might actually want to do).

It was literally Noah's Ark

The Chaos isn't a god, also it's the same thing that's ending the world in LR.

The Big God of Light/Everything enlists Lightning to save souls for a new world he's making to cover for the Goddess of Death's fuck up.

Etro and Bhunivelze are kind of a big deal in the Fabula continuity

The story is completely retarded and doesn't matter so yes.

The game is really about dicking around in some open world maps and dressing up the tranny, the combat and exploration are pretty fun so the core gameplay can withstand a lot of repetition without becoming boring.

Be advised though, first impressions won't be good because of the 4 maps available, the one you start in is by far the shittiest and ugliest one.

I do like the battle system in Lightning Returns and how equipment is critical in your fighting style.

Fuck is Lightning an insufferable character to dress up and play as.

This makes me smile

I really fuckin' liked it.

Fun as hell combat, great muzak, and a story so bad it was good. What's not to like?

oh fuck this game.

What now?

You forgot to mention Lightning ending up in our world's Paris at the end.

The story is so fucking retarded only Squeenix could approve it for release. It's like the literary diarrhea of a schizophrenic being sprayed onto pages that are then shuffled at random, bound, and finally distributed and sold as a travelogue.

X-2 is a better game in both story and gameplay than any of the FFXIII games.
Some of the music was even better than FFXIII's music.

So this?

Hated both XIII and XIII-2
Should I give LR a try ? Also why does Lightning sound like she had a lobotomy?

God stole her emotions. For real.

Sort of liked the gameplay in this one but can't get over the fact that you're timed for everything you do outside of battles, even if there is a new game+. I like taking my time exploring shit.

GONDOLA IS NOT FOR SEXUAL!

Bhunivehlze wanted to make Lightning his new wife, so he stripped her emotions and even changed her face.

No, it's all complete garbage.

Kos-Mos is actually cute, fuck you.

When I see Lightning, you know it always brings me down.

On a serious note, is the game moddable? Are there any mods to give me something more attractive to dress up, or am I stuck with female Cloud with pancake ass?

This made it unplayable for me.

There's just so much shit that's easy to miss. You have to be in certain places at certain times to get certain things done. The clock's always ticking. I picked up a walkthrough to avoid missing out on things, and shortly thereafter I stopped playing the game.

Seriously, fuck this. If I can't run around and explore shit when I want, it's not Final Fantasy, and I'm never in the mood to be sodomized by the clock.

What sorcery is this

Source?

This isn't the games fault it's yours. You'd think Majora's mask and Atelier are shit for the same reason.

Takeo chan bukkairoku

Arigato

He supposedly did, yet she basically cries over Snow at one point. I'm convinced the Japanese do not know what having no emotion actually means.

To be fair about Majora's Mask, its time cycle is short and infinitely repeatable. You don't have to worry about being terribly autistic if you want to see everything.

Realistically, how much stuff do you miss in LR by not being autistic, and how important is it ?

I only played Mana Khemia and it didn't have this kind of problem.

Breath of Fire 5 sucked balls for the same reason.

Also games that grade you on how well you did in battle (FF13, FF15) or how much time you take (the modern Sonics) are shit for the same reason, seriously, fuck you Japan, I stopped going to school many years ago, I don't feel like being fucking graded or fucking timed, if you want to make something hard that's fine, but unless I'm playing actual race you can kiss my ass

It is in Lightning Returns too, you keep all your stats and gear if you run out of time. You can go through the full cycle as many times as you want.

Honestly you sound like a bit of a wet blanket.

Also Mana Khemia is as much an Atelier game as Federation force is a Metroid game.

Yeah, but it takes a long ass time to get through compared to MM's three days. You don't have as much control over time as MM, either.

So you're a baby who can't handle being told he sucks.

You can use inn's to advance time, but really that just shows how little of a problem the time limit is.

I think the only people who don't like it are those who autistically approach games with an imaginary checklist of how they're supposed to be played. A time limit sends all the neatly piles boxes in which they fit their enjoyment askew.

Honestly, I don't even get why it exists. If traditional leveling via battling was still in the game, it would be a neat way to make the player really think about how much he wants to grind for levels. Instead, with just about everything coming from doing quests, the time limit really doesn't add anything that interesting.

From what I read, the time limit was originally much stricter, which combined with the time specific areas/quests forced the player into making more choices about what they should do in their run. The Japanese play testers thought it was too difficult and so the time limit kept getting eased up until they could complete the game and all or most of the sidequests in one run. Thanks Japan.

Not only can you use the inns to advance time, one of the first skills you get stops time for awhile. You can recharge it several times over while it's stopped so you can finish everything in a few days game time with plenty of wasted time to spare.

Lenneth Valkyrie is beautiful . Kos-Mos is her post VP2 form as Anima.

Because it is literally Valkyrie Profile.

The ending is one of the silliest ones I've seen in a game. Truly a fucking masterpiece.

You might miss a good amount. The game is somewhat designed around doing multiple ng+ cycles.

There's a dungeon at the end of the game that you're probably not gonna complete unless you've done multiple cycles.

I played the shit out of the game just because then uninstalled when it looked like I wasn't going to finish the final monster dungeon with time to spare. You can beat it if you rollback and find the quickest/efficient way to beat each monster or failing that just go back and murder each one in the wild as you end up skipping the floors of monster you already made extinct. I had 8 days to spare or some shit when I skipped to the end, hardest difficulty. Then I just uninstalled.

The game was never good. Most of it is a non-game with lots of autistic shit. There are 2 battle areas which are mostly dull. The battle system is convuluted for the sake of with special actions only becoming available under certain circumstances like lifting them into the air. The UI is shit because all you get is a fuzzy line to know if you're being effective. Mostly you just want to grab a combo that can cheese through everything as you can fuck yourself over easily if you don't have the best gear for each battle.

Almost, the only difference being if Homer actually created the world

The plot twist is she lobotomized herself, ask her loli counterpart, Lumina

Who was based on his mother, yeah…