Mediguard is actually super useful, you just need to pair it with another guard move to actually take the hits. Would have been nice to have some normal healing, but mediguard absolutely gets the job done.
This is the first actual video I found on Lightning Returns. It's actually interesting to listen to the opinion of someone who was actually familiar with the franchise before playing the game. Lightning Returns was actually my first final fantasy game, and I actually think it had many great ideas that could be worked on in various ways if it had been polished just a bit more. Also, the game did have healing while you walk around, you just have to not choose the highest difficulty of the game. Now about my experience, while there was a lot of padding and fluff, I did actually find the story and questing fun. It was a confusing mumbled mess, and since it was my first introduction to the characters, it didn't feel that out of place, and I was a bit of a completionist, I had to go through it. Also, I really liked the character of Lumina and what she represented, maybe I'm a masochist, but I had a lot of fun while my friend gave up on the game halfway through the story since he got lost and moved on. I agree with a lot of what you said and it's mostly all valid criticism, but I still like the game and it has a special place for me, simply because it introduced me to the franchise as a whole, and I understand why other people will most likely never feel the same way about it.
Interesting opinions on Lightning Returns, I don't necessarily agree on many of them but I applaud you gave them all a chance. XIII to me was a questionable FF game, and an alright game in general. XIII-2 I thought was kinda meaningless in general, by the retconning of the ending of XIII, and how XIII-2 ended, by also implementing 'Chaos' was created by the ending of XIII-1, just made me kinda lose what the heck it was trying to do. It felt like that B-team quality sequel for a cash grab. This is all a matter of my opinion : XIII-3 was a huge surprise to me. I felt the story was at it's best for the trilogy, for cleaning up XIII-2 and expanding what felt poor in XIII-1. Lightning was expanded upon the most for who she was since XIII-1. Lightning, who was known to have cut off her own emotions to protect Serah in XIII-1, and then losing part of her emotions to Bhunivelze, and slowly re-covering it back through XIII-3 is really neat imo. Lumina is hinted to being Serah is some form or way, but the player doesn't understand or know why, until it is found out that Lumina is what Lightning tried to cut off originally in XIII. If anything, I look at this as them trying to fix Lightning's original character. FF fans didn't like Lightning's character for being emotionless or abruptly cold since FF XIII-1, and while I disagree a bit, I can understand why people would dislike her. I feel Noel had purpose in this title way more than XIII-2, but that could easily just be because I felt XIII-2 was meaningless in design, but that could easily just be how I took XIII-2's story. I honestly loved the gameplay but I can understand why some couldn't. To me, it's an advanced Majoras Mask. There's so much to watch out for and keep track of, to where it felt so satisfying to complete. I know some people felt that the game running under a clock, would feel that they couldn't complete all that needed to be done, or that they couldn't relax and enjoy it. I understand that, but I was able to complete 90% of the side-quests ( I think?) on my first playthrough and still had a few days left to spare. The final boss is very challenging, but it also depends on how your schemata's are implemented, as for it will offer many different types of play styles. Which can also just make the whole experience difficult too if they're not implemented properly. Anyways, solid video, good work.
WOW, that's my first comment this big and I actually appreciate that a lot. I'm glad you could enjoy the game more than I could. One of my favorite things in RPGs is how different players can come out with such different interpretations. I think during the past few months since I published this video I've become a tad bit more positive towards it, but I do still stand by most my core points, if not regretful of my tone. Thanks you so much for sharing your thoughts!
@@NovaZoneTV Hey I 100% agree about having different interpretations of RPGs, they're my favorite genre for how they can be differently played or experienced. Keep up the good work and I'll see what else you put out in the future. Also good work on the editing, you had some clever audio cues lol.
I have a strong bias when it comes to pokemon type games so the fact we can use monsters as part members made me love 13-2. Storywise it had his moments, but it was definitely the weakest part of the game.
I'm in the middle of playing 16 rn, and it's insane how many comparisons/contrasts I've been thinking of towards XIII here. Which you wouldn't expect when it's the first time in a since 13-1 that the mainline single player games had nothing to do with Fabula Nova Crystallis.
@@NovaZoneTV Although Final Fantasy XV was my first game on PS4 and introduction to the Final Fantasy series and I love it faults and all, Final Fantasy XVI is definitely my favorite Final Fantasy game, especially narratively. There are weird parallels to being submissive or rebelling fate that you can tie back to XIII. However, there is a more blant questioning of humanity's over-reliance on magic and potentially harmful nature of the crystals. I do not remember if any previous Final Fantasy game addressed magic/crystals being potentially detrimental and have negative impact life aside Final Fantasy XIII.
I was prepared for the ending of 13-2. When I played through KH as a kid, the ending had me in tears and yelling at the screen as to why Sora and Kairi aren't together.
Since this is my oldest public video and people come here to start, I wanna add a quick blurb: I don't agree with almost everything that I said in this video. The process of making this project has a special place in my heart, and I still in general didn't enjoy Lightning Returns which is why I've left it up. It's on my list of games to eventually redo, but kinda low. New Edit: I REALLY fucking regret the joke at 25:22. Back when I was starting I tried to put in a few more "edgy" type jokes, which never went too far, but this one was definitely past what I deem reasonable. It is insane to me that I thought that was okay. Even if it was just a voice clip from an (H)anime and I censored it at that. I know mentioning it only brings more attention, but it's kinda something that I remembered a few days ago and it's bothered me.
What exactly is going on with the "joke" at 9:07????? Turned the video off and scrolled through the comments and 0 people seem to have mentioned this bit. Extremely off-putting, especially immediately after an ad-break before even 10 minutes in.
@fireant353 I forgot about that. Yeah, I'm not really liking that joke either. The text says, "What act got Fl-fl-fl-Flan taken off of every tv station". I think I was going for a "lol, he pulled a Kramer at the laugh factory" type of thing. But again, this just comes off as juvenile forced edge. Honestly glad you pointed this out, because that may be the worst one I've ever done. I've never done this with the other jokes I regret, I've just put in a comment saying I regret it, but I actually just went and cut it with RUclips's editor. It'll leave an awkward cut, but I really don't want that there anymore.
@@NovaZoneTV good to know, I appreciate you responding because it was really quite jarring. I'll leave this video where I stopped due to the fact that you mentioned not holding many of the same thoughts anymore. I was planning to listen to your 3-hour kingdom hearts re-cut but didn't because of the aforementioned joke. I'll be checking out some of your more recent content, in hopes that you have grown as much as one can in 4 years time. I hope you have a good rest of your day (and maybe you'll see me in the comments of something else!) Edit: dunno how long it takes for a change to go into effect but that clip is still unfortunately showing up in the video at the current moment, jsyk.
Honestly I love them and they were my introduction into the series. IX is my current favorite though. I think the trilogy was just a case of an over ambitious project with a unfortunate development. Most of the development problems were in the first one yes but you can kind of see it bleeding into the other two as they weren’t decided on making it a trilogy at the time, wanting to focus on Lightning which would explain why third one happened after a bad ending. The difference in gameplay was wholly intentional as they wanted it to be a new experience altogether when they started its development but that’s my knowledge on it. I love how the cast grew and changed while it may be contradictory at times it felt multifaceted. I still need to read the tie in novels so I don’t know if the change was instantaneous or not though since we have years to centuries of time spanning the games it’s not impossible. Also I personally don’t think Serah is a bad character. Yes she acts more like an end goal for Light and Snow but she’s meant to be a reference to Princess Sarah who’s literally a damsel in distress in FF1. Plus you got to admit she’s one of the more consistent characters as even when she took up the spotlight as heroine of her own game it never contradicted her self sacrificing and caring nature. Yes it ended the world (which was more Noel’s part) but it also led to the finale we had in Lightning Returns and it’s 10 part novella sequel/epilogue FFXIII Reminiscence: Tracer of Memories.
Quick, pedantic aside - until FFXIV more or less acknowledged it, the connection between Vagrant Story and Ivalice was an invention of the American localization team. There was never an intent to have these games set in the same world.
I’d say Tidus being alive at the end of X-2 retcons the ending of the original. He didn’t even actually exist in the first place, so how does he come back?
i know this video is old. it's actually pretty good on its own. i didn't really disagreed massivelely in any of your points. the only thing is that the XIII/XV story were originally connected, if you dive deep into the original lore then you'll understand how they tried to salvage it, time travel and LR were last minute plan to keep making the sequels without including Type-0 and XV. that's why these games on their own makes no sense at all.
I decided to try and replay this game again because I thought “oh, it’ll be fun, and I enjoyed replaying thought the first two games!” Sufficed to say I didn’t make it out of the first area before I got tired of playing it and quit.
I feel the same, but I guess people have their own likes, and this trilogy is not the same as they used to play in their childness/teenage years. But I also think the hate is going down with the years, I think today it has more fans than haters.
You can tell Hope is God from the beginning because he, every chance, attempts to steer Lightning in the direction he wants, and manipulate her into thinking they're her choices. Plus he completely lacks certain information that Hope would know. As if he didn't fully research his subjects. Like how he says "oh that's right you fight together years ago" And Lightning's like "uh so did you". Then God/Hope is like "right right yes. I meant it like___" (I'm paraphrasing these quotes, but you get the gist)
No matter how I tried to love it, I couldn't go past one half or third 13-2. I somehow got to finish 13 and it was... Ok. No need for sequels at all. It's not the fact that it's "different" because 12 also was and it's my favourite (gold medal together with 6, so I ALSO love the classics), but 13 never clicked with me. I didn't also play 15 or 16, so can't talk about them.
I forgot everything I said in this video specifically because I know I disagree with most of it today, but that's not the point. I'm coming close to the end of 16 (which still means like 10 more hours because it's fucking big). I fully recommend it. I get SUPER sucked in everytime I play. I've been only allowing myself to play it on full days off now because I just become engrossed in it if I try to play late at night, or in the morning.
Well I'd have to disagree on a lot of points, but the main ones I can outline follow. I wouldn't question Lightning's going along with Bhunivelze in LR, because it's again one of those situations where people always like to say what a character is doing is "Wrong" but could hardly come up with a feasible alternative that's "Right". In this case, Lightning was given a fair sounding deal, took it, but was fully ready to shank her business partner if need be. Lumina hints at this from the first few days, though Lightning tries to deny it. But even apart from that, her given task would've been something a supposed "hero" would want to do anyway. And speaking of heroes, Snow's markedly different, but not out of character to me at all. We can't forget that during his arc in XIII he had about 2 depressive spots. Snow in LR is just Snow unable to get out of his depressive spots as before. And for good reason, because on top of the emotional lonely pain, he has the whole cie'th and chaos thing going. While he wasn't very present in LR, LR at least made me take Snow more seriously than I did in previous games, and had me sympathize with his predicament. As for healing items, the limit on those to me were actually one of the best things they did for balance. Having had a fair share of RPG's where most things can be solved by throwing items at the problem, those that limit your usables like LR or KH etc. just get a stamp of approval from me. Even fighting Caius with as little as 5 items sounds like a totally fair challenge, because at the end of the day the point is to make it so you don't need to use those items. Your capacity to do so lies in your schema build, which to me is a highlight of this game. And with that I'm sure one can guess that I loved Bhunivelze as a fight, cause finally, something challenging that feels worthy of the end of a trilogy. Beating him on Normal was a good challenge, but beating him on Hard mode + was a journey in efficiency and perfection that I craved from action RPGs, and one day hope to do again. When it comes to core themes, the one I took away from mainly the ending is that whole "Rebirth of Lightning" thing. I can say that that theme stuck out more to me personally, because I can relate a lot to parts of Lightning's personality throughout the 3 games. And addressing her own lack of emotion as a defense mechanism in responsibility, and resolving that hit home hard for me. Wouldn't expect it to do so with people of different personalities and life circumstances. But even then, I think the game is satisfying enough as a bookend for those who liked the characters, especially Lightning. Her casually coming off the final train with a smile is a reward in itself depending on your investment in her.
So I know no one will see this, but this FUCKING game. I remember seeing that they put the difficulty in wrong. So what we saw as easy and normal, was really normal and hard. I got HARD stopped at the last boss. Chances are those guides you see were talking about fighting on the “normal” difficulty first, THEN you do new game plus to beat him on “hard”. I literally snapped this disc in half I was so pissed when this happened.
I dont understand your obsession with having a consise ending lol. Like I get that it’s generally a good idea to do. But Square Enix is one of the most experimental AAA publishers ever. I mean look no further than KH. They tried to do a mini marvel. They didnt stick the landing or the flight imo. But dammit if it wasnt a fun trip with plenty or content. And great music.
I wanna start by saying I don't 100% agree with how I portrayed my feelings towards LR in this video anymore. I wrote it much more emotional than most of my other videos today where I try to strike a middle between objective and subjective opinions. My issues with the ending is more so that XIII-1 DID have a concise ending, but they chose to go forward anyways. But then as soon as they went forward in XIII-2, they took a few too many safe steps back in LR. In KH's case, even the first game ended on a cliffhanger. It didn't have to retcon anything for the sequels. I have come around a bit with the battle system, but I still stand by most my points with the story. Just not how I portrayed those points
The theory I heard about XIII’s linear maps was because the party felt stuck in their Focus. The devs wanted the player to also feel stuck and kept the map linear to force the player forward. When the party decides they can choose their own fate, the map opens up. Great idea, not so great application. Unless you’re me, who plays these games for the stories and can adapt to gameplay.
I liked the video and how you kinda made fun of things, but in the end this is how the story went in the development: They wanted to make the Fabula Crystalia with 3 games that had in common the Fal´Cie and L´Cie, or the gods that use humans for "reason", this project turned out to change somehow. FF XIII was seen as a bad game and FF, which put SE in a bad shadow. When they did FF XIII-2, they were kinda failing so that´s why they put different outfits in the game, just to make a crossover with other successfully games like Assassin´s Creed and a lot of DLC compared to XIII, besides improvements. Lightning Returns was not supposed to be there but a lot of people complained about how the ending of XIII-2 went and the DLC of Light was not good enough to explain more. So the they decided to make one last game that focused on Lightning (which was also the first game I pre-ordered, 2nd is now Crisis Core Reunion). At this point I disagree with you about having only one party member because it´s all about Lightning. I did everything in the game and the Side Quests were funny to play and see how the world has changed in these years. One last thing about the finale is, maybe we saw it in different ways, that Light has changed a lot, from a human to a Goddess. I saw it the first time and every time I play the game, I can see her character and how che changed, both physical and mental. And the post credit scene gave me chills the first time I saw it
I don't think LR has a message lmao. I think its just tryna be eerie and existential. Make us, who became familiar with the world and characters, suddenly feel offput and psyched out. And then we kill God and it's implied that the real world is born from the events and it's like "okayyy???". I mean, I love it, it's epic. But yea I don't think there's why message. Just a bunch of payoffs, some tropes, and a whole bunch of mystery.
Honestly, I really liked the XIII series. It reminded me of X, which is one of my favorite games of all-time. XV to me was the weakest FF of the main-numbered titles - I didn't like it. Didn't feel like an FF to me.
I think Bhenevelze was Hope the whole time, and being the God of basically the "fantasy catholics" - he's an extreme pervert. Hence why he turned Hope back into a boy before possessing him, and gifts Lightning slutty armors.... This whole game is actually very disconcerting.
Personally I love the ending of XIII-2. The game establishes extremely early on that 1. Changing the future triggers Serah's visions 2. These are the same as the visions Yeul has, which are instrumental in the early death every incarnation of her suffers 3. The more significant the changes to time are, the more catastrophic the effects of the visions 4. Caius is trying to die and killing him will execute his plans And then nobody in the entire game ever brings this up until Serah keels over. I just about died laughing. All of you discussed this, how did you /not/ see this coming!?
Ah, FFX-2, unoffical sub tittle, :J-pop or you get the glock. Too long working tittle :Give me back my boyfriend you jerks, what do I have to do a little number to get him back!? YES?! fine! The advertising slogan should have been :I killed god, here I am two years later, you won't believe what's changed!
I love X-2 and LR! Yall just don't like X-2 cuz you're not comfortable with the girliness. And LR, if only it's combat was different, would be akin to The Witcher 3 style games. (Can only think of TW3 in that style).
lightning returns seems too complicated and intimidating, I don't think I will ever play it. Either way it is a very interesting trilogy of games that are fun to rip apart and analyze.
Lightning Returns very much doesn't like being nice to you. XIII-1 definitely has the most story-telling value and I think any FF fans should at least give it a shot, with the mindset of "This was the series low-point".
LR is giant middle finger for the complainers of FF13 and FF13-2. oh, the game is auto attack mashing? here you go. leveling system is linear and boring, here you go. i cannot manually move in battle, here take this. you think you want it, but you dont. easy mode is freaking easy. normal will make you sweat and reset to day 1 multiple time. they took pity and let you retain the stat and item you get, so it will get easier after some dozen of reset. some mobs attack is telegraph, some can use feint, figuring out the block timing is essential for higher difficulty. there is a limit how many each monster can spawns, i reset to day 1 because the item i want from the specific monster dont drop but they extinct, so reset again. map system is amazing, they know the game re-re-replayable, so we can put marker on the map.
FFXIII Type-0 is kind of bad. FFXXIII also is _not_ completely terrible. I'd also say Final Fantasy XII is easily a worse game. FFXXIII-2 and FFXIII Lightning Returns are some of the best Final Fantasy games there are actually. Right up there with the PSP game Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.
I just wish LR had more outfits and weapons that looked similar, that, or, the option to disable schemata switching. Like to make it so it's just switching the abilities but not the look. As it is, it kinda irks me how she's spastically switching outfits every few seconds.... It's not so bad when you choose outfits that look similar, but even then, they're not similar enough, and a lot of the similar ones have different(unswappable) colors.
Low skill floor high skill ceiling. You can if you want to. Swap paradigms in a way that you rapidly juggle attacking and defending if you want. If you want to spend your time on the skill floor that's on you bud. The music, visuals and sound design are the winds beneath your wings as you play the game the way you want to. If you wanna spam X, you can but that's on you bud. You can make it challenging if you want to.
That has been proving wrong over and over again. You can’t beat the game by pressing one button. The people saying that are probably noobs who played on easy.
I like everything about LR but the side quests are soooooo boring for me and time managment mixed with terrible map layout and backtracking really makes it hard for me to play the game and I've tried twice. Reading all the comments here I'm surprised to see more dislike from 13-2 thought everyone liked that one
By the way, Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns awards you a full extra day if you complete like 40-ish side quests, and you start with like a week where finishing main quests earns you an extra day. With enough quest management on part of the player, you're not likely to run out of time. A completionist will hate the game though, as it can't be 100%-ed. But for a good ballpark estimate of what will be a successful playthrough, you kind of need to finish 1 main quest per day. That's one main quest per real-time hour. It should be doable. However, that's not to say I don't dislike the harsh time limit too. I think it should allow for more exploration of a world that's pretty freaking decent. Oh and the game should cut down the amounts of time Lightning is referred to as 'the savior', that's shit is annoying. Oh and I forgot to mention, but failing the game through the time limit, means you can keep your stats in the next play through. In some ways, it was intended to be played multiple times.
ok ok we are half way through just starting lightning returns i just wanna say I loved ff13 and 13-2 but hated lightning returns the whole time limit thing bugged the hell outa me.
That clock fucked me so much. First time I played, I didn’t understand it and just got a game over while I was playing. I’m just 😒 returned that game fast.
Yeah, going to be honest, I haven't played ALL of the Final Fantasy games but to date the 13 trilogy is my most disliked. In fact i never finished any of the games, I played them hoping that the next one would bring me in more then the last, but none of them really gave me that feeling to keep playing. It just missed something for me to really want to spend time finishing them. Regardless good video.
I hated 13 2 ending.i was like wtf is going on.i was like wait you just made a trilogy without telling any1 smh.then I never even bothered with lighting returns
I thought FFXIII-2 was better than 1 but I had a feeling Lightning Returns was dogshit within the first hour of gameplay so I quit and came to watch this video to get the cliff notes and seems I was right, Lighting Returns is dogshit and they should have pulled it from the shelves and redone the entire game like they did FFXIV. The reason why I feel that FFXIII-2 is better than FFXIII-1 is because I didn't feel like there was much story to it and the gameplay was far too constrained, it was more like one of those side scrolling games where you could only go a certain path and there was nothing to explore. There was a lot more exploration to do in XIII-2, but I felt a bit off. For example, Serah mentioned how she almost gave up multiple times and yet I saw no experience that would be proof that was the case, I did dislike the ending and honestly they should have just ended it there with how bad XIII-3 was but ya know if you end on a cliffhanger people will give you money for the rest of the story no matter how bad it is. Also, in XIII-1 I felt like Snow was a shit character, I hated his bandana until I saw him in XIII-2 and there I reconsidered and though yeah maybe keep the bandana, at the same time I was surprised by how disconnected the relationship between Serah and Snow was. At one point in time, she referred to him as a good friend when she met Noah rather than fiancee, and I was concerned they were going to have Noah and Sera fall in love and break his heart and I was going to be pissed after all the stuff we had to do in XIII-1. However, the tone of their interactions since XIII-2 make no sense and make his character in XIII-3 make even less sense. I'm glad I'm not wasting my time playing Lightning Returns since I'm really just interested in the story.
Mediguard is actually super useful, you just need to pair it with another guard move to actually take the hits. Would have been nice to have some normal healing, but mediguard absolutely gets the job done.
But this past year, FF13 Trilogy getting a lot of loves suddenly
Now its the 13th anniversary year of the OG
Lightning Returns is one of my top 3 favorite FF games. Lightning becomes soooo powerful.
But why does that make it your favorite?
@@731freeman I like chain casting Elementa 🤷🏾♂️
Yeah combat was toptier, but maaan the story was such a let down and the ticking clock element was a bad idea.
This is the first actual video I found on Lightning Returns. It's actually interesting to listen to the opinion of someone who was actually familiar with the franchise before playing the game. Lightning Returns was actually my first final fantasy game, and I actually think it had many great ideas that could be worked on in various ways if it had been polished just a bit more. Also, the game did have healing while you walk around, you just have to not choose the highest difficulty of the game.
Now about my experience, while there was a lot of padding and fluff, I did actually find the story and questing fun. It was a confusing mumbled mess, and since it was my first introduction to the characters, it didn't feel that out of place, and I was a bit of a completionist, I had to go through it.
Also, I really liked the character of Lumina and what she represented, maybe I'm a masochist, but I had a lot of fun while my friend gave up on the game halfway through the story since he got lost and moved on.
I agree with a lot of what you said and it's mostly all valid criticism, but I still like the game and it has a special place for me, simply because it introduced me to the franchise as a whole, and I understand why other people will most likely never feel the same way about it.
Final Fantasy Franchise as an whole is experimental
I want The XIII Trilogy ports on PS4/5&Switch
The 13 trilogy is the most convoluted story I've ever heard in history, not just in gaming history, but film and book history included.
Kingdom Hearts? What's that🤓
Interesting opinions on Lightning Returns, I don't necessarily agree on many of them but I applaud you gave them all a chance. XIII to me was a questionable FF game, and an alright game in general. XIII-2 I thought was kinda meaningless in general, by the retconning of the ending of XIII, and how XIII-2 ended, by also implementing 'Chaos' was created by the ending of XIII-1, just made me kinda lose what the heck it was trying to do. It felt like that B-team quality sequel for a cash grab. This is all a matter of my opinion :
XIII-3 was a huge surprise to me. I felt the story was at it's best for the trilogy, for cleaning up XIII-2 and expanding what felt poor in XIII-1. Lightning was expanded upon the most for who she was since XIII-1. Lightning, who was known to have cut off her own emotions to protect Serah in XIII-1, and then losing part of her emotions to Bhunivelze, and slowly re-covering it back through XIII-3 is really neat imo. Lumina is hinted to being Serah is some form or way, but the player doesn't understand or know why, until it is found out that Lumina is what Lightning tried to cut off originally in XIII. If anything, I look at this as them trying to fix Lightning's original character. FF fans didn't like Lightning's character for being emotionless or abruptly cold since FF XIII-1, and while I disagree a bit, I can understand why people would dislike her. I feel Noel had purpose in this title way more than XIII-2, but that could easily just be because I felt XIII-2 was meaningless in design, but that could easily just be how I took XIII-2's story.
I honestly loved the gameplay but I can understand why some couldn't. To me, it's an advanced Majoras Mask. There's so much to watch out for and keep track of, to where it felt so satisfying to complete. I know some people felt that the game running under a clock, would feel that they couldn't complete all that needed to be done, or that they couldn't relax and enjoy it. I understand that, but I was able to complete 90% of the side-quests ( I think?) on my first playthrough and still had a few days left to spare. The final boss is very challenging, but it also depends on how your schemata's are implemented, as for it will offer many different types of play styles. Which can also just make the whole experience difficult too if they're not implemented properly.
Anyways, solid video, good work.
WOW, that's my first comment this big and I actually appreciate that a lot. I'm glad you could enjoy the game more than I could. One of my favorite things in RPGs is how different players can come out with such different interpretations.
I think during the past few months since I published this video I've become a tad bit more positive towards it, but I do still stand by most my core points, if not regretful of my tone.
Thanks you so much for sharing your thoughts!
@@NovaZoneTV Hey I 100% agree about having different interpretations of RPGs, they're my favorite genre for how they can be differently played or experienced. Keep up the good work and I'll see what else you put out in the future.
Also good work on the editing, you had some clever audio cues lol.
Just finished the trilogy for the first time. Loved FF13 and LR; and liked 13-2
I have a strong bias when it comes to pokemon type games so the fact we can use monsters as part members made me love 13-2. Storywise it had his moments, but it was definitely the weakest part of the game.
I like how Final Fantasy XV and Type-Zero abandoned XIII. Then, in Final Fantasy XVI, it is literally "Let's destroy those damn crystals."
I'm in the middle of playing 16 rn, and it's insane how many comparisons/contrasts I've been thinking of towards XIII here. Which you wouldn't expect when it's the first time in a since 13-1 that the mainline single player games had nothing to do with Fabula Nova Crystallis.
@@NovaZoneTV Although Final Fantasy XV was my first game on PS4 and introduction to the Final Fantasy series and I love it faults and all, Final Fantasy XVI is definitely my favorite Final Fantasy game, especially narratively. There are weird parallels to being submissive or rebelling fate that you can tie back to XIII. However, there is a more blant questioning of humanity's over-reliance on magic and potentially harmful nature of the crystals. I do not remember if any previous Final Fantasy game addressed magic/crystals being potentially detrimental and have negative impact life aside Final Fantasy XIII.
I was prepared for the ending of 13-2. When I played through KH as a kid, the ending had me in tears and yelling at the screen as to why Sora and Kairi aren't together.
Since this is my oldest public video and people come here to start, I wanna add a quick blurb: I don't agree with almost everything that I said in this video. The process of making this project has a special place in my heart, and I still in general didn't enjoy Lightning Returns which is why I've left it up. It's on my list of games to eventually redo, but kinda low.
New Edit: I REALLY fucking regret the joke at 25:22. Back when I was starting I tried to put in a few more "edgy" type jokes, which never went too far, but this one was definitely past what I deem reasonable. It is insane to me that I thought that was okay. Even if it was just a voice clip from an (H)anime and I censored it at that. I know mentioning it only brings more attention, but it's kinda something that I remembered a few days ago and it's bothered me.
What exactly is going on with the "joke" at 9:07????? Turned the video off and scrolled through the comments and 0 people seem to have mentioned this bit. Extremely off-putting, especially immediately after an ad-break before even 10 minutes in.
@fireant353 I forgot about that. Yeah, I'm not really liking that joke either. The text says, "What act got Fl-fl-fl-Flan taken off of every tv station".
I think I was going for a "lol, he pulled a Kramer at the laugh factory" type of thing. But again, this just comes off as juvenile forced edge. Honestly glad you pointed this out, because that may be the worst one I've ever done. I've never done this with the other jokes I regret, I've just put in a comment saying I regret it, but I actually just went and cut it with RUclips's editor. It'll leave an awkward cut, but I really don't want that there anymore.
@@NovaZoneTV good to know, I appreciate you responding because it was really quite jarring. I'll leave this video where I stopped due to the fact that you mentioned not holding many of the same thoughts anymore. I was planning to listen to your 3-hour kingdom hearts re-cut but didn't because of the aforementioned joke. I'll be checking out some of your more recent content, in hopes that you have grown as much as one can in 4 years time.
I hope you have a good rest of your day (and maybe you'll see me in the comments of something else!)
Edit: dunno how long it takes for a change to go into effect but that clip is still unfortunately showing up in the video at the current moment, jsyk.
@fireant353 It takes an hour or 2 to process (probably more for longer videos). The longer the video the longer it takes.
@@NovaZoneTV of course, that makes sense. Thanks for clearing everything up! 👍 (scrolling your other vids as we speak)
Lightning Returns is a good game and I still like the original Final Fantasy XIII
Ah, Wally West. I see you're a man of culture as well.
Honestly I love them and they were my introduction into the series. IX is my current favorite though. I think the trilogy was just a case of an over ambitious project with a unfortunate development. Most of the development problems were in the first one yes but you can kind of see it bleeding into the other two as they weren’t decided on making it a trilogy at the time, wanting to focus on Lightning which would explain why third one happened after a bad ending. The difference in gameplay was wholly intentional as they wanted it to be a new experience altogether when they started its development but that’s my knowledge on it. I love how the cast grew and changed while it may be contradictory at times it felt multifaceted. I still need to read the tie in novels so I don’t know if the change was instantaneous or not though since we have years to centuries of time spanning the games it’s not impossible. Also I personally don’t think Serah is a bad character. Yes she acts more like an end goal for Light and Snow but she’s meant to be a reference to Princess Sarah who’s literally a damsel in distress in FF1. Plus you got to admit she’s one of the more consistent characters as even when she took up the spotlight as heroine of her own game it never contradicted her self sacrificing and caring nature. Yes it ended the world (which was more Noel’s part) but it also led to the finale we had in Lightning Returns and it’s 10 part novella sequel/epilogue FFXIII Reminiscence: Tracer of Memories.
Quick, pedantic aside - until FFXIV more or less acknowledged it, the connection between Vagrant Story and Ivalice was an invention of the American localization team. There was never an intent to have these games set in the same world.
I felt like bhunivelze was extremely easy but I could see it being difficult without the ultima weapon
Introducing Lightning's sister as styrofoam is the best Serah troll I've ever heard. 👏👏👏
but...i liked sarah
I’d say Tidus being alive at the end of X-2 retcons the ending of the original. He didn’t even actually exist in the first place, so how does he come back?
13 series is the best Final Fantasy and I’ve been playing them since the beginning
I agree with you. The Universe is so rich with lore.
i know this video is old. it's actually pretty good on its own. i didn't really disagreed massivelely in any of your points.
the only thing is that the XIII/XV story were originally connected, if you dive deep into the original lore then you'll understand how they tried to salvage it, time travel and LR were last minute plan to keep making the sequels without including Type-0 and XV. that's why these games on their own makes no sense at all.
I decided to try and replay this game again because I thought “oh, it’ll be fun, and I enjoyed replaying thought the first two games!” Sufficed to say I didn’t make it out of the first area before I got tired of playing it and quit.
I loved FFXIII-3
i love the 13 trillogy, i never understood the hate ... they are great games ♥️
~
almost 50 min of video lenght omg😍
I feel the same, but I guess people have their own likes, and this trilogy is not the same as they used to play in their childness/teenage years. But I also think the hate is going down with the years, I think today it has more fans than haters.
Did you HAVE to play Blinded By Light in the BKG?! Freaking blasted me back to like the ps3 era. I feel old now.... love it
You can tell Hope is God from the beginning because he, every chance, attempts to steer Lightning in the direction he wants, and manipulate her into thinking they're her choices.
Plus he completely lacks certain information that Hope would know. As if he didn't fully research his subjects.
Like how he says "oh that's right you fight together years ago"
And Lightning's like "uh so did you".
Then God/Hope is like "right right yes. I meant it like___"
(I'm paraphrasing these quotes, but you get the gist)
Dude This is the 13 2 retrospective
13,2 in 10..? it 10,3 looks like 5 but there are many in 10,2
question as correctly not like asking confused still 3. 😅😈🤓
No matter how I tried to love it, I couldn't go past one half or third 13-2. I somehow got to finish 13 and it was... Ok. No need for sequels at all. It's not the fact that it's "different" because 12 also was and it's my favourite (gold medal together with 6, so I ALSO love the classics), but 13 never clicked with me. I didn't also play 15 or 16, so can't talk about them.
I forgot everything I said in this video specifically because I know I disagree with most of it today, but that's not the point.
I'm coming close to the end of 16 (which still means like 10 more hours because it's fucking big). I fully recommend it. I get SUPER sucked in everytime I play. I've been only allowing myself to play it on full days off now because I just become engrossed in it if I try to play late at night, or in the morning.
I finished xxiii and xiii-2 but I’m sorry I couldn’t finish lightning returns due to that god awful timer it was a deal breaker for me
Well I'd have to disagree on a lot of points, but the main ones I can outline follow.
I wouldn't question Lightning's going along with Bhunivelze in LR, because it's again one of those situations where people always like to say what a character is doing is "Wrong" but could hardly come up with a feasible alternative that's "Right". In this case, Lightning was given a fair sounding deal, took it, but was fully ready to shank her business partner if need be. Lumina hints at this from the first few days, though Lightning tries to deny it. But even apart from that, her given task would've been something a supposed "hero" would want to do anyway.
And speaking of heroes, Snow's markedly different, but not out of character to me at all. We can't forget that during his arc in XIII he had about 2 depressive spots. Snow in LR is just Snow unable to get out of his depressive spots as before. And for good reason, because on top of the emotional lonely pain, he has the whole cie'th and chaos thing going. While he wasn't very present in LR, LR at least made me take Snow more seriously than I did in previous games, and had me sympathize with his predicament.
As for healing items, the limit on those to me were actually one of the best things they did for balance. Having had a fair share of RPG's where most things can be solved by throwing items at the problem, those that limit your usables like LR or KH etc. just get a stamp of approval from me. Even fighting Caius with as little as 5 items sounds like a totally fair challenge, because at the end of the day the point is to make it so you don't need to use those items. Your capacity to do so lies in your schema build, which to me is a highlight of this game.
And with that I'm sure one can guess that I loved Bhunivelze as a fight, cause finally, something challenging that feels worthy of the end of a trilogy. Beating him on Normal was a good challenge, but beating him on Hard mode + was a journey in efficiency and perfection that I craved from action RPGs, and one day hope to do again.
When it comes to core themes, the one I took away from mainly the ending is that whole "Rebirth of Lightning" thing. I can say that that theme stuck out more to me personally, because I can relate a lot to parts of Lightning's personality throughout the 3 games. And addressing her own lack of emotion as a defense mechanism in responsibility, and resolving that hit home hard for me. Wouldn't expect it to do so with people of different personalities and life circumstances. But even then, I think the game is satisfying enough as a bookend for those who liked the characters, especially Lightning. Her casually coming off the final train with a smile is a reward in itself depending on your investment in her.
So I know no one will see this, but this FUCKING game. I remember seeing that they put the difficulty in wrong. So what we saw as easy and normal, was really normal and hard. I got HARD stopped at the last boss. Chances are those guides you see were talking about fighting on the “normal” difficulty first, THEN you do new game plus to beat him on “hard”. I literally snapped this disc in half I was so pissed when this happened.
I dont understand your obsession with having a consise ending lol. Like I get that it’s generally a good idea to do. But Square Enix is one of the most experimental AAA publishers ever. I mean look no further than KH. They tried to do a mini marvel. They didnt stick the landing or the flight imo. But dammit if it wasnt a fun trip with plenty or content. And great music.
I wanna start by saying I don't 100% agree with how I portrayed my feelings towards LR in this video anymore. I wrote it much more emotional than most of my other videos today where I try to strike a middle between objective and subjective opinions.
My issues with the ending is more so that XIII-1 DID have a concise ending, but they chose to go forward anyways. But then as soon as they went forward in XIII-2, they took a few too many safe steps back in LR.
In KH's case, even the first game ended on a cliffhanger. It didn't have to retcon anything for the sequels.
I have come around a bit with the battle system, but I still stand by most my points with the story. Just not how I portrayed those points
The theory I heard about XIII’s linear maps was because the party felt stuck in their Focus. The devs wanted the player to also feel stuck and kept the map linear to force the player forward. When the party decides they can choose their own fate, the map opens up. Great idea, not so great application. Unless you’re me, who plays these games for the stories and can adapt to gameplay.
I liked the video and how you kinda made fun of things, but in the end this is how the story went in the development:
They wanted to make the Fabula Crystalia with 3 games that had in common the Fal´Cie and L´Cie, or the gods that use humans for "reason", this project turned out to change somehow.
FF XIII was seen as a bad game and FF, which put SE in a bad shadow. When they did FF XIII-2, they were kinda failing so that´s why they put different outfits in the game, just to make a crossover with other successfully games like Assassin´s Creed and a lot of DLC compared to XIII, besides improvements. Lightning Returns was not supposed to be there but a lot of people complained about how the ending of XIII-2 went and the DLC of Light was not good enough to explain more. So the they decided to make one last game that focused on Lightning (which was also the first game I pre-ordered, 2nd is now Crisis Core Reunion). At this point I disagree with you about having only one party member because it´s all about Lightning.
I did everything in the game and the Side Quests were funny to play and see how the world has changed in these years. One last thing about the finale is, maybe we saw it in different ways, that Light has changed a lot, from a human to a Goddess. I saw it the first time and every time I play the game, I can see her character and how che changed, both physical and mental. And the post credit scene gave me chills the first time I saw it
I don't think LR has a message lmao. I think its just tryna be eerie and existential. Make us, who became familiar with the world and characters, suddenly feel offput and psyched out.
And then we kill God and it's implied that the real world is born from the events and it's like "okayyy???".
I mean, I love it, it's epic. But yea I don't think there's why message. Just a bunch of payoffs, some tropes, and a whole bunch of mystery.
Honestly, I really liked the XIII series. It reminded me of X, which is one of my favorite games of all-time. XV to me was the weakest FF of the main-numbered titles - I didn't like it. Didn't feel like an FF to me.
Snow can be found around town just like Noel after his mission is complete.
Yeah XIII-2 sucked but goddamn the music was fire. Full Speed Ahead is still my favorite soundtrack!
I think Bhenevelze was Hope the whole time, and being the God of basically the "fantasy catholics" - he's an extreme pervert.
Hence why he turned Hope back into a boy before possessing him, and gifts Lightning slutty armors....
This whole game is actually very disconcerting.
At the very least this game explains why they got turned back from crystal at the end of XIII. That would have been a huge plot hole…
Personally I love the ending of XIII-2. The game establishes extremely early on that
1. Changing the future triggers Serah's visions
2. These are the same as the visions Yeul has, which are instrumental in the early death every incarnation of her suffers
3. The more significant the changes to time are, the more catastrophic the effects of the visions
4. Caius is trying to die and killing him will execute his plans
And then nobody in the entire game ever brings this up until Serah keels over. I just about died laughing. All of you discussed this, how did you /not/ see this coming!?
Ah, FFX-2, unoffical sub tittle, :J-pop or you get the glock. Too long working tittle :Give me back my boyfriend you jerks, what do I have to do a little number to get him back!? YES?! fine! The advertising slogan should have been :I killed god, here I am two years later, you won't believe what's changed!
I love X-2 and LR!
Yall just don't like X-2 cuz you're not comfortable with the girliness.
And LR, if only it's combat was different, would be akin to The Witcher 3 style games. (Can only think of TW3 in that style).
lightning returns seems too complicated and intimidating, I don't think I will ever play it. Either way it is a very interesting trilogy of games that are fun to rip apart and analyze.
Lightning Returns very much doesn't like being nice to you. XIII-1 definitely has the most story-telling value and I think any FF fans should at least give it a shot, with the mindset of "This was the series low-point".
I was watching and dying laughing at the costumes lighting had in in lightning returns clips.i never wanna play lightning returns
LR is giant middle finger for the complainers of FF13 and FF13-2. oh, the game is auto attack mashing? here you go. leveling system is linear and boring, here you go. i cannot manually move in battle, here take this. you think you want it, but you dont. easy mode is freaking easy. normal will make you sweat and reset to day 1 multiple time. they took pity and let you retain the stat and item you get, so it will get easier after some dozen of reset. some mobs attack is telegraph, some can use feint, figuring out the block timing is essential for higher difficulty. there is a limit how many each monster can spawns, i reset to day 1 because the item i want from the specific monster dont drop but they extinct, so reset again.
map system is amazing, they know the game re-re-replayable, so we can put marker on the map.
i for one liked sarah in ff 13-2.
Gamer
FFXIII Type-0 is kind of bad. FFXXIII also is _not_ completely terrible. I'd also say Final Fantasy XII is easily a worse game. FFXXIII-2 and FFXIII Lightning Returns are some of the best Final Fantasy games there are actually. Right up there with the PSP game Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.
I lost interest in this game halfway through. The forced side quests and the time limit killed me and the story also confused me.
I just wish LR had more outfits and weapons that looked similar, that, or, the option to disable schemata switching. Like to make it so it's just switching the abilities but not the look.
As it is, it kinda irks me how she's spastically switching outfits every few seconds....
It's not so bad when you choose outfits that look similar, but even then, they're not similar enough, and a lot of the similar ones have different(unswappable) colors.
XIII-2's battle system was severely dumbed down. It was literally just press X to win. Oh and shitty QTEs. Thank fuck LR brought back the nuance
Low skill floor high skill ceiling. You can if you want to. Swap paradigms in a way that you rapidly juggle attacking and defending if you want. If you want to spend your time on the skill floor that's on you bud.
The music, visuals and sound design are the winds beneath your wings as you play the game the way you want to. If you wanna spam X, you can but that's on you bud. You can make it challenging if you want to.
That has been proving wrong over and over again. You can’t beat the game by pressing one button. The people saying that are probably noobs who played on easy.
I like everything about LR but the side quests are soooooo boring for me and time managment mixed with terrible map layout and backtracking really makes it hard for me to play the game and I've tried twice. Reading all the comments here I'm surprised to see more dislike from 13-2 thought everyone liked that one
By the way, Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns awards you a full extra day if you complete like 40-ish side quests, and you start with like a week where finishing main quests earns you an extra day. With enough quest management on part of the player, you're not likely to run out of time. A completionist will hate the game though, as it can't be 100%-ed. But for a good ballpark estimate of what will be a successful playthrough, you kind of need to finish 1 main quest per day. That's one main quest per real-time hour. It should be doable. However, that's not to say I don't dislike the harsh time limit too. I think it should allow for more exploration of a world that's pretty freaking decent. Oh and the game should cut down the amounts of time Lightning is referred to as 'the savior', that's shit is annoying. Oh and I forgot to mention, but failing the game through the time limit, means you can keep your stats in the next play through. In some ways, it was intended to be played multiple times.
ok ok we are half way through just starting lightning returns i just wanna say I loved ff13 and 13-2 but hated lightning returns the whole time limit thing bugged the hell outa me.
Destiny is destiny
That clock fucked me so much. First time I played, I didn’t understand it and just got a game over while I was playing. I’m just 😒 returned that game fast.
Yeah, going to be honest, I haven't played ALL of the Final Fantasy games but to date the 13 trilogy is my most disliked. In fact i never finished any of the games, I played them hoping that the next one would bring me in more then the last, but none of them really gave me that feeling to keep playing. It just missed something for me to really want to spend time finishing them. Regardless good video.
Play lighting returns a full 9 times to unlock more stuff but most importantly you can become over powerful.
I hated 13 2 ending.i was like wtf is going on.i was like wait you just made a trilogy without telling any1 smh.then I never even bothered with lighting returns
Ahh, another one playing Japanese games with English dub... *sigh of disappointment* Oh well, nice vid though.
Japanese language is DLC on the PS3 version. I'm not paying extra on a game I didn't like.
@@NovaZoneTV Sorry, didn't know.
No, I will not hear you out.
I thought FFXIII-2 was better than 1 but I had a feeling Lightning Returns was dogshit within the first hour of gameplay so I quit and came to watch this video to get the cliff notes and seems I was right, Lighting Returns is dogshit and they should have pulled it from the shelves and redone the entire game like they did FFXIV. The reason why I feel that FFXIII-2 is better than FFXIII-1 is because I didn't feel like there was much story to it and the gameplay was far too constrained, it was more like one of those side scrolling games where you could only go a certain path and there was nothing to explore. There was a lot more exploration to do in XIII-2, but I felt a bit off. For example, Serah mentioned how she almost gave up multiple times and yet I saw no experience that would be proof that was the case, I did dislike the ending and honestly they should have just ended it there with how bad XIII-3 was but ya know if you end on a cliffhanger people will give you money for the rest of the story no matter how bad it is. Also, in XIII-1 I felt like Snow was a shit character, I hated his bandana until I saw him in XIII-2 and there I reconsidered and though yeah maybe keep the bandana, at the same time I was surprised by how disconnected the relationship between Serah and Snow was. At one point in time, she referred to him as a good friend when she met Noah rather than fiancee, and I was concerned they were going to have Noah and Sera fall in love and break his heart and I was going to be pissed after all the stuff we had to do in XIII-1. However, the tone of their interactions since XIII-2 make no sense and make his character in XIII-3 make even less sense. I'm glad I'm not wasting my time playing Lightning Returns since I'm really just interested in the story.