FFXIII: Lightning Returns

I'll stick with my Golden controller thanks :o

I actually don't like the design much, the bit on the directional pad is kinda interesting but not the blue lightning art.

it might look diff with one actually in my hands tho

Your hands will totally cover up most of the pattern, unless you have extraordinarily small hands. :0 also to me, I'd probably think my controller was dirty and try to wipe off the lightning for the first few days of possession xD

the blue lightning part looks pretty bad, yeah. very few special controllers are all that appealing ):

pink n64 controller 4 lyfe

(not official, custom design by someone)

I could use a new N64 controller :o

Quina was fine because she was there as a fluff character who became like the puppy dog of the team. It's hard to hate someone who has the singular goal of wanting to be the best chef ever and isn't taking the adventure too seriously.

IX had enough characters with utility to the plot. The problem with XII was that half the playable characters were throwaway. IX had Quina and Amarant but at least Quina was likable... and useful in battle. Amarant was supposed to be a homage to Shadow anyway so I guess his loose attachment to the plot was intentionally built in.

All those nom nom nom'd Grand Dragons laid waste by Level 5 Death though.

I enjoyed Amarant.

Amarant shouldn't have been thrown to the side. Of course, that's my bias for Monk-types speaking.

Fran ought to have been more a part of FFXII. The relationship that Viera apparently have with the Mist, for instance, was touched on but never developed. Actually, the whole Mist idea in general was just sort of there without serving any real purpose. I suspect it was a casualty in the developer shuffle. Vaan and Penelo ought to have been introductory characters at best, in lieu of Reks.

I think part of why I don't like Quina, though, is that on top of her being throwaway by design, she was also the Meg Griffin of the party. It's not uncommon at all for characters to say something like, "Oh, damn, I forgot you're still with us." Non sequitur and butt-monkey just makes the character hard to tolerate as a part of the cast as a whole.

Penelo shouldn't have been in the game at all. Cut her in favor of another non-hume character.

I don't see why Square thought the audience wouldn't be able to connect with Basch who was at one time billed to be the main character.

Did they see how many fans ***themselves over Auron, the 'old guy' in the X roster? Guess not.

I know a lot of folks here in the US like Auron, but did he have the same success in Japan? Square-Enix designs for the home country and I kinda thought it was Japanese presentiment that made them use Vaan over Basch or Balthier (or, heaven forbid, Ashe -- a female character with a personality and a story arc? no no, couldn't do that).

It just seems like the shonen manga aesthetic rules the roost when it comes to JRPGs, so obviously you can't have a complex and seasoned character at the helm of yet another coming-of-age hero's quest.

No he didn't. In the US it was Auron > Yuna but in Japan Yuna was way, way more popular. I think she is the 2nd most popular FF character in Japan.

Pretty sure (correct me if im wrong with actual sources) that Auron equally went over well in JP land. It seems like corporate meddling to play it safe and use a teenage protagonist rather than take chances with an adult.

The story still firmly revolves around Ashe with everyone supporting her story arc anyway and it's not like Final Fantasy hasn't been a female centric franchise for quite a few entries now. VI, X, XI, XII, XIII-3.

Vaan's a pretty terrible shounen as he isn't someone you'd aspire to (cept that 6pac at 16 yo), he rarely got the spotlight, was portrayed as being firmly a child (to Ashe's adult) and eventually copies Balthier's thing (clothes and everything) with Penelo as his winggirl in Revenant Wings.

I get why he was there but SE did a pretty good job convincing me he was lame. Not even a good haircut, odd haircolor, a badass sword or anything.

Auron was the 3rd most popular FFX character, according to Famitsu's Top 50 characters. So yeah, he was well regarded, just behind Yuna and Tidus.

Also, Lightning is pretty big in Japan.

The stories make use of their women, but their status as main character is where things get murky.

FFVI had no main character, it has an ensemble cast and at least half a dozen of them can credibly claim to be important. Terra was just a lynchpin between the Espers and the humans, but as a character I found her underdeveloped.

FFX was all about Yuna, but Tidus hogs the spotlight and, of course, is the player's avatar.

FFXI... I'm really not sure how to interpret FFXI. It certainly has lots of strong women and the player character is treated as somehow incidental to the story (which I find really annoying -- I'm not there to be an alsoran), but only a few stories have a single lead. Chains of Promathia had half a dozen options. Treasures of Aht Urhgan was definitely about the Empress, so that one certainly counts, as does Wings of the Goddess. Rise of the Zilart... I don't even remember the story. The original campaign had Lion in it, but it sort of meandered.

I'll give Square credit for having women be a part of its stories, but when it comes to the player avatar and consequent focus, it seems like it is too often a dude. FFXIII with Lightning as the main was a welcome breath after pointless Vaan, annoying Tidus, and then the PS1 trio of Cloud, Squall, and Zidane.

... I liked that none of the characters looked silly. Compared to the fashion abominations of FFX or the SD style of FFVII, I enjoyed that they all just looked like people.

Lightning wasn't even really the main character. Vanille was. Similar to the way that Vaan was the main character but wasn't, so too, was Lightning.

I was about to say too bad they had to give us the pointless Vanille.

Demo went up today. Time to plug that PS3 back in, I guess...

Yeah, the demo is free on XBL and PSN.

And to no surprise its bad. They went all out with the character customization I will say, with what will likely be a huge amount of classes and skins, and you can choose the colors for all of them. That said they have replaced the dragoon helmet with a horrible pair of sunglasses, I'm betting each outfit will have something hateable that comes with it. But you can just tell the story is going to be bad, and the voice actor for Lumina is awful.

I don't understand why you forced yourself to play the demo when you already have a bias against the game. There is no way it is going to please you so why waste your time. I personally thought the demo was fun and can't wait to buy the game.

Just throwing this out there, FFXIII-2 is 6.6 dollars on XBL it seems.

Probably for the same reason I bought and played Skyrim, despite not liking Morrowind or Oblivion. One bad game doesn't immediately equal a terrible franchise/series.

For example, I didn't like X/X-2 as much as 4,5,6,7,8 or 9 but I still bought 12. Didn't like 12, but I bought 13, didn't like 13 but I waited a while to see what 13-2 was like. Didn't like that, but I got it cheap, so I didn't complain.

By my count, I really didn't like 3 games in a row - I won't be buying 13-3 unless it's stupendously good, so when I get the chance I'll be downloading the demo and seeing what sort of game is currently on the plans for SE.


As a gamer, I think it's only fair that each franchise is given another chance, especially when it's a series that I thoroughly enjoyed for a long time. I didn't like Driver, but I bought Driver: San Francisco - enjoyed it, albeit it being annoying at times. Didn't like Tomb Raider, but I bought the reboot - loved it. Didn't like D1/D2, but I bought Diablo 3 when it was out on console - really enjoyed it.

It's not always about playing something once and deciding. As with everything, there are good and bad markers. So while I don't like some of SE's previous work, I'll still be hoping that what they pump out next isn't tripe.

Pft this doesn't make any sense. No one plays games to hate them, you might have a general idea of it but if you play it it's cause you wanna give it a chance, "hopefully I'm wrong and it's awesome". Just cause it matches the low expectations doesn't mean it's due to bias.

Sorta, or expectations of things colour our experience with them. If I pick up a game expecting it to suck it won't matter that I hope I'm wrong, I'm far more likely not to enjoy it then if I went in with a positive outlook on it or neutral. It's just one of the ways our brain works, it does the same thing with food as another example, or when you look at yourself in the mirror your brain makes small adjustments to make your look more like you think you look to yourself.

I haven't played the demo because my PS3 is starved for memory space so I can't comment on the game, but when I do play it I'll be sure not to go in without any preconceptions.

Just my opinion, but if you want to leave this game with any sense of respect for Final Fantasy as a whole, you'll quit before you reach the final cutscenes.

Oh please, it took less than 5 minutes to download and 15 minutes to play, only because of all the cutscenes. It takes longer to fill shout groups. SE is clearly trying to say "look at all the flashy lights and costumes!"