LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII

Nope. Just nope.
I have played FF13, it is one of my favorite games of all time and even then I admit it wasn't great. Then FF 13-2 came around and manage to be a disaster, being the first step to ruin the original FF13. Now LR completely buries it.

The controls in this port to Steam are awful, the world is completely messed up, the graphics are a gigantic downgrade from the first one, and the characters aren't true to their original concept (for God's sake, can you actually imagine Lightning dressing up like a doll to fight????), the system with time is stressful and messy, the quests are confusing, the entire thing is a mess. The only positive side of this game is that it explains the lore a little bit better than FF13. We understand the subplot with the gods and fal'cie better than the original game did. This does not save LR from the awful storytelling (really, it's sufferable).

Just no. Let's forget this game exists.

One hour into the game.

You can dress up Lightning.

13/10

Best Final Fantasy ever

最高

Good Game

The game can be quite difficult at first when you only got so many days to complete the quests and story, but once you get the hang of it and the heavy use of the Chronostasis, you going to find that you can complete the main story in 3 game days, and 1/2 of the side quests, before waiting for the final day to complete the last part of the story and face God at the end of time.

absolutely masterpiece, story is breathtaking and gameplay is incredibly fun, been playing the 13 triology for so many years by now and its absolutely a game that went deep into my heart <3

Beat the game. Did a Hard Mode NG+ run and didn't have the foresight to buy elemental or hero potions for the final boss. Even with meta builds, I couldn't deal enough damage to the boss before he killed me. I had no way to purchase these potions in the endgame, either. Then the game taunted me by placing the object that restarts the whole game next to the boss door. Needless to say, I was livid.

10/10 game. Would play again.

The combat is very good even after they completely changed most of it. the story is meh pretty throw away, but overall i really enjoyed this game and the ff13 series will always have a place in my heart!

There is a permanent time mechanic and although it is very forgiving (according to people that finished the game), you are constantly pestered about wasting time. It's like the game is made to stress you all the time.

The game also throws at you very hard enemies as regular fights every once in a while, making it frustrating to have to flee from so many battles.

The battle style is ok. More like an action RPG than turn based like previous FFs. You have to be on your toes constantly in order to react to enemy attacks in real time. Very bad if you don't have good reflexes.

It's weird they call it the grand finale of the XIII trilogy when the story so far hasn't set up anything at all, and all you're doing are errands and chores for random people. I'm sure they'll come up with something convoluted and dumb eventually, but the first two games were interesting because they threw all the confusing bullshit at you from the start.
That's my problem with this game, it doesn't do anything interesting that makes me want to play it. They have simultaneously expanded on the world of FFXIII and killed it by having the game take place a week before the world ends.

The game starts by having Lighting personally tasked by GOD to save the world and you see her fighting Evil Darkness Snow. That sounds interesting! But then the evil child blocks a door and the story does a one-eighty and now you teleport and take trains all over the place just to do side quests. Judging from the screenshots and trailers, there will be a goofy FF story where people come back from the dead and stuff, but why does the beginning of the game have to be a chore?

The gameplay though? It's pretty cool. XIII had 3 party members, XIII-2 had 2, and now the third game has 1 party member. Are you seeing the pattern? Square Enix wants to cut your stomach open and rip out your guts. But I will admit, you do get a lot of customisation. You're basically playing infinity nikki when you are progressing your character. And hey the stupid ATB queue system is gone, you actually press buttons to do stuff now. And you actually get to explore now, the world is a shithole though because it's gonna end and all that, but hey, you get to walk around and be depressed! That's better than walking in straight lines like in FFXIII, and better than the empty landscapes of FFXIII-2.

The time mechanic sucks though. As a plot device it's fine, but taking it into gameplay just sucks the fun out of the game. You're already just doing chores, wouldn't it be awesome if there was a global timer ticking down every second? I genuinely encourage commenting on this review if you think there is anything good the time mechanic does for the gameplay. From my perspective it is literally just a gimmick, and the only reason it's there is because they wanted to try something new.
Everything the time mechanic does could be executed without it. The plot could still have a time limit. You could still limit areas to certain times of day by actually planning out the route for the player, instead of making the game open world and full of roadblocks.

I'm still gonna attempt to play this game. But after FFXIII pissed in my mouth, and FFXIII-2 shitted in my mouth, why would I swallow the cum of this game?
I don't know, there is just something so tedious trying to play through a trilogy that never needed more than one game in the first place.

But hey it's cheap and it runs fine so try it out, flawed games can still be enjoyable.

It is currently 09:18 pm on 02/24/25 as of writing this very review and before i start my review of final fantasy 13 lightning returns i just want to preface it by saying ive never played any of the final fantasy games whatsoever. i literally just installed this very game at 07:03 pm on 02/24/25 and it finished downloading at 07:11 pm on 02/24/25 shoutout to my parents for buying a quick internet plan and literally just watched the opening cinematic which took 3 minutes and had it running for 2 hours straight while i was on the settings menu or else the video wouldve looped. i basically afk'ed for 2 hours while watching youtube videos on my ipad pro just so i could earn enough play time to buy the myth and lightning backgrounds in the item shop. im guessing steam has it where you have to own the game and play it for 2 hours before being able to buy point shops items for it to prevent people from buying the game, point shop items, then refunding. im not a fan of artficially increasing my playtime but it doesnt matter at the end of the day. final fantasy and thousands of other games are in my backlog and i plan to get to them eventually whether its days or years. lightning is so beautiful though. im glad i was able to buy the item shop backgrounds. ill be uninstalling now and itll be in my steam library until i decide to play it again. at least i wont have to write a review because i already wrote this one! i wonder why youre reading final fantasy 13 lightning returns steam reviews in 2025 hmm what a strange life you live. did i break the 4th wall for you? haha. yeah go play final fantasy 13. i know i will some day. lightning is so beautiful. until next time, this is JNORJT, signing off! - JNORJT

p.s. this review was completed at 09:23 pm on 02/24/25

A fantastic experience.

I loved FF13 and 13-2 years ago, but didnt have a console when 13 LR came out, and honestly forgot about it until i saw it on a sale on steam. I really enjoyed going back and getting that closure from how 13-2 left you hanging.

This one pivoted a lot more into exploring the depth of human emotions, and I really liked to see lightning evolve from the cardboard cutout so many FF characters are into a real person. It was less 'I need 5 squirrel tails for dinner' and more 'I'm still trying to come to terms with the death of my spouse, if you could find a keepsake from their remains I might be able to start moving on'. The ending was super extra, but frankly its a Final Fantasy game. Idk if they invented the whole 'start off killing rodents end up killing gods' trope, but they're definitely the face of it. Also the ending cutscene was fantastically animated, honestly mindblowing compared to the game preceding it, which even then wasn't a slouch.

The time limit put me off, so I used the Nova Chrysalia launcher to manage that. I get that the idea was to limit how much the player could get done to reward multiple playthroughs, but I dont replay RPGS so I wanted to do everything I could in one run. I just cannot stand to replay a story, I dont think I did the whole dragon shit more than the first run on Skyrim.

The mix of main quests, side quests, and canvas quests was pretty interesting. I thought the whole 'Last One' mechanic was super cool. And the schema switching was a fun way to handle the loss of paradigms from mostly having 1 party member. While some things weren't perfect for me personally, I cant think of anything I'd change for the audience as a whole!

A timer.

So i'm being told not to take my time with this game? or to enjoy all the work that went into making it? and instead stress through what exact moves to make, and when, and to know where things are without searching for them? all on a time limit. from the very beginning of the game.

no.

hey piece of shit, I'm goinna kill you!!! , , , , , , , , , [Backspace] [Enter] [Enter] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] / / / / / / / // [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] [Backspace] / / / / / / / [Enter] [Enter] [Enter] [Enter] [Enter] [Enter] [Enter] / / / //
haha you died.

A fitting end for Final Fantasy XIII trilogy for fans of this Fabula Nova Crystallis series. Overall plot and story is good. Can get better with time after not playing for a long time and revisiting back. FFXIII-1 > FFXIII-2 > FFXIII-3 (Lightning Returns). This game have a good soundtrack not a joke. Can recommend get on sale for FFXIII trilogy.

100% recommended, must play

Lightning Returns has some genuinely great ideas as far as modern RPGs are concerned, and despite being let down by a shoddy story and some graphical issues, it remains a shining example of how dynamic battle systems and thoughtful character customisation can save an otherwise trite, lifeless game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3424200961

In Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, the fun extinguishes the suck. For the franchise, it marks a change from the classic turn-based combat system that has driven the Final Fantasy franchise up to this point, to a more real time, action-oriented, combat system. And it is glorious. I feel exhilarated when I overcome a tough fight. And I love the Last One game mechanic. The first time I saw a pink Reaver galloping across the field towards me, I was scared. I admit it. I also love Lightning. She has quickly become my favorite Final Fantasy protagonist. Sorry, not sorry Celes. Lightning is the gracious savior of our souls, what more can you ask for? I suppose we could ask for a consistently great game like Final Fantasy XV. The game designers of Lightning Returns seemed to experiment with a number of novel game design features. Some of it worked and some of it did not. Some of the novel features have survived to influence the design of Square games that have come out since. This game is rough around the edges, but give it a chance because it is incredibly fun to play.

What sucks? The time limit sucks, but not nearly as much as I first imagined. Don't let it be a roadblock to playing this game. I think the reasoning behind it was to prod the player into accepting this idea of multiple playthroughs to experience everything the game has to offer. I like to think of this game in terms of a multiple generation playthrough instead of new game +. The design opens up some interesting possibilities that are unavailable in a single playthrough.

Inventory management sucks. And this is one of the few Final Fantasy games that requires players to interact with, or play, the inventory management mini-game. One of the interesting possibilities created through a multiple generation playthrough is the intentional selection and variation of inventory items over multiple generations. In this game, our skills are inventory items, and there is a limit to the inventory. There is more than enough room to accommodate a single playthrough, but in a multiple generation playthrough, we quickly run out of inventory space. And that means we have to engage with the inventory management mini-game. It also means that we have to make decisions about what skills to keep and what skills to extinguish. The player has to choose which skills to keep and upgrade over multiple generations of intentional selection and variation. This process eventually allows the player's character to inherit an impressive set of skills.

This experiment, the multiple generation playthrough inventory management mini-game, did not survive past this game, thankfully, but the spirit of the experiment lives on in Final Fantasy XV with managing the inventory of our saved pictures over a multiple generation playthrough. There is more than enough space to save as many pictures as you want in a single playthrough, but in a multiple generation playthrough, we quickly run out of space to save Prompto's auto snaps. Players then have to make careful decisions about what pictures to save and what pictures to delete to make room for more pictures. I witnessed the beauty of this system and the incredible pictures it can produce. And the idea was born in Lightning Returns.

What's fun? The combat in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is entertaining and it seems to have influenced the direction for the design of combat systems in Square titles that have come out since, not the least of which is Final Fantasy XV. Instead of pushing buttons to choose options from a menu, players now push buttons to attack directly. The system is a lot more engaging than previous turn-based systems. It feels like it has the right amount of button presses per minute (BPPM) whereas a game like FFXIII-2 has too few and a game like Hades has too many. The fighting in this game is satisfying although there is room for improvement (see FFXV).

Square has defined an impressive mythology for Final Fantasy XIII. And the expression of the mythology within the game is very well done. I really like the story. There are some really interesting and thought-provoking themes. Like many modern video games, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII transcends being just a toy and instead is an interactive work of art. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, but most importantly, it makes me think.

I recommend playing Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 before playing Lightning Returns. I'll be honest, I did not like either of those games in my first playthrough.

The first one was an emblem of the the things I did not like about the franchise since VII. It was a never ending hallway with very little threat of exploration. The element of progressively opening up the larger world to explore was mostly absent from this game. It's basically, fight fight fight, boss fight, cinematic, inventory management, and repeat. That said, there are good reasons to play it. And there is fun to be had. I think I liked the game more after playing Lightning Returns.

The second one kind of reminded me of Chrono Trigger. Although, I hated XIII-2 the first time I played it. And that is partly because I played the second one before playing the first one. I didn't get the story at all and I didn't know any of the characters. It was really hard to get into. I have since played the others and although there are still some things I do not like about the second one, I have come to appreciate it. Instead of a never-ending hallway or train, this game takes a more modular approach to level design. I think the dialog was particularly unimpressive the first time through, but I grant that it was written for a younger demographic and I also admit that a fair amount of meaning is lost in translation between Japanese and English. And that's why I typically give FF a pass for uninspired vapid filler dialog. And in case you are wondering, the acting for the Japanese voice-overs is better than the acting for the English voice-overs, oddly enough. I usually play these three games with Japanese voice-overs and English subtitles. I think that is the best way to experience Final Fantasy XIII.

Overall, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is fun to play. This game is not perfect, but of the three, the Last One is the best. Also, it has fireworks. This game has more bang for your buck.

I've played this game over a dozen times on ps3 and now over a dozen on pc.
It's a good game, may not talk to everyone's tastes, but it does so to mine. FF13 is something I grew up with so I can't possibly harbor grueling hate against it. The game could've used a lot of quality of life changes though.

The final series of the FFXIII trilogy and in my opinion, the one that save the attempt to Trilogy FFXIII. Considering the failed attempt of FFXIII-2, Lightning Returns is a good end to the entire trilogy series and was a lot more concrete in the storyline, storytelling and the consistency in this one makes it clearer. Love playing as Light as she saves the world. However, the grind to complete the secret bosses? nope too old for this and too busy to do this on the PC port.

One of the best battle systems I've enjoyed in the FF series. Building schemata and taking down enemies as an 'Army of One' with Lightning is just so satisfying.

Has my favourite gameplay in a Final Fantasy game outside Stranger of Paradise which is something else entirely, unlike any other FF game. The music in Lightning Returns, likes its two predecessors, is also great. Whereas the art direction is largely uninspired, with a few standout areas; owing, I imagine, to the smaller budget, and recycled assets.
I very much liked the sombre atmosphere. The people have accepted that their world is dying. Their fated demise lingers in the horizon, drawing closer each day, and when death reaches them it will be met with apathy. It reminded me of the books Ice by Anna Kavan, and The Last Man by Mary Shelley. It feels disconnected from the events of XIII-2, however. In a vacuum the plot is fine; as a sequel it's a poor conclusion.
I mainly care about the gameplay. I loved it so much that I immediately beat LR again after completing it the first time. There are enough classes, weapons, customisation, etc. to keep you experimenting, adjusting things as you arrive at a new boss (particularly on NG+). I wish they'd make another game like this.

+

Lightning Returns is the best part of the Final Fantasy XIII series, reminiscent of Zelda: Majoras Mask due to the time limit but without puzzle temples.

At first, the time limit seems stressful, as you probably won't get much done in the first two days, but you can easily complete all the main quests in half the time. The reason for this is the Chronostasis ability, which stops time and can be used almost indefinitely as it costs EP, which can be earned through combat. There are semi-random encounters: monsters spawn in front of you, and you can usually choose to engage or avoid them. There are also some platforming elements that require you to jump and run, but these are rudimentary.

In terms of gameplay, I think this is one of the better Final Fantasy games. The best thing about this game is the customization of the protagonist: Lightning can wear different garbs, shields, weapons and accessories, each of which has different abilities and bonuses. Each garment often has a unique look, which can even be adjusted in colour.

The game features a unique action-oriented combat system based on garbs, very similar to Final Fantasy X-2. The main difference is that you control a single character - Lightning - instead of a group, and you can change your garb instantly by pressing R1 or L1 on the controller. However, I often find myself changing into the wrong costume :-). You also need to be aware that changing garbs changes your ability set on the four main buttons on the controller (argh, which button was the Blizzard again?). The combat itself requires some reaction skills, which I am pretty bad at, but it is still fun and perfect timing is not necessary to succeed. One thing I generally find annoying in the FF13 series is the rotating camera during combat. In Lightning Returns, this camera movement is even worse, as you often can't see the enemies and making it harder to react to them in time (e.g., to block their attack).

From a technical point of view, this game is a step backwards. The textures, in particular, look much worse than in previous games. The game also seems to be running on an emulator. Among other things, it supports 4k resolution, but the game still doesn't look very sharp or feel very smooth. The pop-ins in the form of NPCs and monsters are also very noticeable. Moreover, the game hints only show keyboard buttons instead of controller buttons. A proper port is needed, Square Enix!
The art style is otherwise good, but I found the starting city in particular very confusing and difficult to navigate at first due to its cramped architecture. The other areas of the game are clearer and less claustrophobic, and each area has its own look and feel. Other than that, the game is very stable, and there are no fan patches like there were in Final Fantasy XIII-2.
Musically, Lightning Returns doesn't stand out compared to the other games in the series, but it is at a high level.

Story-wise, the game is quite good. I am still disappointed that Lightning Returns has very little to do with the original world of Final Fantasy XIII. The original characters are back, but not really. I would have liked to see more interaction and more depth in their development. The same goes for the main character, Lighthing. She's cool and I generally like her, but after three parts I still don't know much about her. The narrative could also have been told in a more interesting way, it often goes on in rather static dialogues.

Apropos dialogue: Hope talks a lot - a little too much in the beginning. He usually talks via radio with Lightning, however, these conversations are almost always interrupted when Lightning interacts with something in the world (e.g., encountering monsters) and I was not willing due to the time limit to stay still and listen only to the conversation. It's a shame, but this is a design problem: the dialogues should have only taken place in isolated moments.

There are lots of quests and NPCs, which are also quite varied, but unfortunately most of them are told in a rather unexciting way. And a lot of them boil down to errand quests. I tend to complain when a game gives you random quests from random people instead of progressing with the urgent main quest, but in this game it actually fits with the story. Nevertheless, I find the first main quest to be a poor introduction to the game, as you have to search for graffiti in various parts of the city. Coupled with the initial feeling of time pressure, this quest can be a bit stressful (which wasn't necessary).

Some quests can only be accessed or completed at certain times. This makes sense thematically, but it can be annoying to have to wait. Generelly, I like when quest markers only appear on the map once you've discovered them. In Lighning Returns, however, no quest markers are created on the map at all - you have to do that yourself. Even more annoying is the fact that you have to look up the location and time period of each active quest in the menu. The menu also opens with a delay, which makes the process even more tedious. It would have been better if the game had shown this automatically on the map.

Interestingly, there are no experience points for killing monsters in Lightning Returns, only for completing quests. I think this is a good approach, as it potentially makes farming monsters unnecessary. However, there is still a lot of grinding involved in this game, as monsters drop certain resources that are needed for upgrades or quests. The ability upgrade system seems unnecessary at first, as there's little you can do with it - it's expanded a bit later on, but I wouldn't have missed it if it wasn't there.

All in all, a good game with a good story, but shortcomings in character development and quest storytelling.

.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII brings a fitting conclusion to a highly debated saga, wrapping up the story and universe with satisfying depth. While the game diverges significantly from its predecessors, it offers a fresh and unique experience. This change in direction might not appeal to everyone, especially those resistant to new mechanics, but therein lies its charm. It boldly embraces innovation, making it a distinctive entry in the series. Ultimately, it delivers a memorable finale, ending the Final Fantasy XIII saga on a high note

I was looking forward to this game more than the previous two. Lightning is an awesome character, but unfortunately this game has many issues that luckily newer titles have fixed.

Time. This is an issue for obvious reasons, but what makes the time concept worse is the way the game is designed. Example, I need four digits for a code to get through to a meeting. I am told the meeting occurs at night and I need to have the code before then. One piece of the code is locked behind a gate that doesn't open until midnight. Crap design.

Quests in general are super disappointing because there are ZERO quest markers. Absolutely dumb a game focused on doing as many quests as possible to get stronger doesn't think to add quest markers. One quest tells me to look at "north station" for the item. I found the item. Nowhere near north station. Big fail on the devs.

I know this game came out in a time where SE was in a bad period. I am glad they add quest markers and navigation now on all newer titles. Absolutely ridiculous that I have to depend on Google and YouTube because your developers are too lazy to add basic features into the game.

The game has good elements and the overall clock isn't terrible, but the time gated quests combined with no markers just makes this game a huge chore to play. Rebirth, Remake, FF 15 AND 16 all mark quests and sold much better than this game. Play those games and hope they remake these games with action combat and quest markers.

A very unique entry in Final Fantasy, and has elements of Majora's Mask time system in it.
Perfect, I should say, better than the first two installments.

Square Enix will fall like their partner Sweet baby
also if you release product in the west we have all rights to criticise you

I just finished this game. Finally finished the final fantasy 13 trilogy. I loved the combat system, its challenging especially the boss battles. I run this game with RTX 3060 ti. Throughout the game, I experienced 2 crashes in total. There are few main quest and a bunch of side quest. A lot of them was not good but still satisfactory. The great part of this game is the final day. I still recommend this overall. It was fun.

the absolute GOAT

Favorite of the trilogy, pretty good amount of customization and the combat system is fun. Time mechanic isnt a huge deal with Chronostasis.

bset game of all time

Having played FF13 and FF13-2, I found this game to be less polished in comparison. The graphical assets appear cheap or rushed, which detracts from the overall experience. Additionally, playing with a keyboard is particularly challenging, as the game doesn't seem optimized for it.

Lightning didn't do anything wrong. People weren't ready for this game when it came out. Still stands the test of time and is gorgeous. Really was fun when I got to replay it. Love the garb system. It's similar to dresspheres from ff10-2. Story's great and bosses are challenging. Also has stellar music.

Lightning is so back XIII

great Game ,TRULY wonderful.I have never seen a game with a time limited concept ,its so unique and feels so real with the story moreover i love the samurai customisations

A fairly solid game that takes itself a bit more seriously than XIII-2 and is better for it.

Centuries into the apocalypse, the world has grown used to its new situation. Nobody ages, and babies haven't been born in 500 years. With the only other option being death, the surviving population has solidified their lives into their own static personal narratives, regardless of how much misery those narratives bring them. Lightning's job, ordained by God, is to play the role of savior. By helping people break free of these self-imposed narratives you can save their souls and grant them passage to the new world as it is remade.

It's a compelling enough premise, though the game perhaps fails to use it as well as it could. The mechanics of saving souls are what you'd expect: typical video game quests, although the writing is sometimes interesting. Giving it a bit more gravitas is the time mechanic: you have 6 days (to start with, expandable up to 13 by main quests and 14 by side quests) to accomplish these tasks, and time ticks down whenever you're running around in the world. Do you have time to save this soul? Or should you leave it and focus on other, more valuble souls? Who is deserving of saving? Who is allowed to be saved? This theme echoes across some of the main quests as well, especially with regard to the Church who is nominally on your side.

The time mechanic is probably the most interesting part of the game, but you'll rarely find people who like it. Each in-game day translates to an hour IRL, with time frozen during menus, combat, and cutscenes. It's frightening at first, as running out of time means having to restart the game (albeit with your abilities, items, and stats retained), and many players have made mistakes that force them to retry several times. To help you with this, the game provides you with the Chronostasis ability, which freezes the clock for a minute or so. By fighting monsters frequently you can effectively run Chronostasis with near 100% uptime, giving you real-time hours of play out of a few minutes of the game clock, and effectively trivializing the time mechanic. On my first playthrough I had completed nearly every main and side quest by day 7 or so, and spent the next week frittering away time by sleeping at inns. The mechanic as a whole is either punishingly difficult or basically nothing, and neither are very enjoyable to experience.

The combat in the game is an interesting riff on the Command Synergy Battle system used in XIII and XIII-2, adapted to suit a more action-focused playstyle and to work with only a single party member. Combat still revolves around building stagger, but you'll also be interspersing timed guards and attacks while managing three different recharging ATB bars. While it doesn't really feel like the CSB system that preceded it, it's quite fun in its own right.

While the game does take itself a bit more seriously than XIII-2, it's still got a lot of the sillier worldbuilding concepts that game introduced, and consequently it feels even more divorced from XIII tonally. Characters from older games like Cid Raines will appear briefly in baffling ways and the game's attempt to put a capstone on the trilogy feels weak and impotent even when it does an okay job of being a sequel to XIII-2.

Oh, and you get to dress Lightning up! It's fun! Changing Serah's outfits in XIII-2 was one of my favorite things even if it was basically nothing, and here you have many more options to style Lightning up. Unfortunately, the way stats and abilities are tied to garbs means that you'll likely gravitate to a few outfits for combat purposes, but it's still fun regardless. Might've been nice to have had some sort of transmog or glamour system tho.

Technically the game doesn't perform great by modern standards, but the stuttering that made XIII-2 near unplayable is fixed. FPS is a bit low but not enough to significantly impact my experience. I didn't need any mods to get acceptable performance.

Recommend if you liked XIII-2 or action games, though I might wait for a sale.

Good game. Must play.

very good game

I really wanted to like this game as a FF13 and 13-2 vet but the game-play was not good for me and the game didn't feel polished in my opinion, not like it's predecessors. It gave X-2 and Darksiders 3 energy - just not polished enough, camera and character movement was not smooth and felt cheap. Nier: Automata had a much better feel to it - as one comparison.

I didn't like the whole dress combat system, didn't really like the timed element to the game, and the aesthetics...there was loads of potential but they didn't really deliver on the design as well as they could have.

The game universe was also just a bit too fantastical for me and I have pretty high tolerance for outrageous world ending/saving stories as a veteran JRPG gamer... this game is totally out of control with the Fantasy - truly merits the name Final Fantasy.

The zones were not that interesting to look at even though they were pretty linear,

Overall, it's okay if you just want to get in some more game time with the FF13 universe but this one is tough to get through. Hence my not getting through it. If your a FF fan, get it on sale and you can at the very least still get a few hours of entertainment.

I love this game.

As a fan of Final Fantasy games i very much enjoyed playing this and the previous games in the XIII Trilogy.

could not get into this, battle system felt even worse than FFXIII-2

Lightning returns is a JRPG, with a lot of cutscenes and a reasonably interesting combat system. You play as Lightning, the stoic soldier woman from the original Final Fantasy XIII. You will mostly play with a party of one person, but there will be a few occasions when one other member can join the party – but even then you can control only Lightning.

I started the game on normal difficulty – and the first few in game days were anything but easy. After the initial failures, I was fully prepared to fail to unlock the necessary amount of days to finish the story, but I still continued on, resigned that when I will start the next game+ on easy mode, at least I will have a lot of things unlocked for an easy playthrough. To my surprise, after 4-5 days, by completing quests, getting upgraded powers, better equipment, I actually managed to reach the end of the game even on normal mode.

The XP system is a bit unusual compared to the usual RPGs. You don’t get XP for winning a fight. The only way to level up is to complete quests. There are a lot of quests in the game for this reason. The most important ones are the main quests. They will give the greatest stat increase, and the best accessories / weapons. These are the only quests that will have location markers on the map. But also they are very hard to complete right at the start. Walking around and speaking with peoples will unlock in location quests. There are no exclamation marks on the head of the people, you will just have to talk to everyone with a dialog icon over his head, and hope for a quest. Some quest have pre-requisits, in this case you will see question marks above the head of the quest givers. There were a few cases where I couldn’t figure out the pre-requisit to start their questline.

Finally there are the board / Chocolina quests, which are mostly just kill enough monsters of the right type to gather the required collectibles, though sometimes you will have to find items in containers – without any hint of their location. Be sure to explore fully when in a zone, and open most chests. It doesn’t matter if you unlocked the quest, as such a lot of these board quests can be insta-completed if you already accumulated the necessary items.

Time management is a core mechanism of the game. You don’t progress by completing a questline, instead time passes relentlessly, and you are expected to complete enough things during the allotted time – it is entirely possible to missing out quests due to time limit. In the first half of the game the skill Chronostasis is your best friend. Whatever EP you accumulate, just use it for that, to prolong the window for quest completions. As unbelievable as it might seem after this, in the final third of the game you will gain EP fast enough to use frivolously on other skills too, like teleport, or even just to cure yourself – the higher EP limit unlocked by that time and the more rewarding enemies will help a lot in that regard.

Zones on the game maps are time gated, it is a core element of the game. Some parts are only accessible during the day, some parts only during the night. A lot of times you will run into such roadblocks when completing quests. You either do other quests in the zone, or just travel to another zone, and progress there instead. Some quest related people are present only at specific times of the day/night, it is easy to miss them. For example, one particular quest required for me to be present at night near a train station, completing parts of it during several days. I didn’t have left enough days to finish it.

The combat system is easy to grasp – but there is no hand holding in setting up your schematics. During combat you can switch between 3 dresses – they are your builds. Each dress has its characteristics, and most times one or two locked skills, out of the 4 possible ones. Early on the locked skills can be tolerated, but later on they just prevent equipping already unlocked more powerful skills. It seems intuitive to use one dress for melee, one for magic, and one for tanking and debuff. You don’t have access to explicit self buff skills, though a few accessory can add a buff at the start of the battle, usually sacrificing a portion of your health. Staggering enemies is a very important mechanism, but as long as you keep exploiting the vulnerabilities of the enemies, you will generally also stagger them. With this simple strategy I managed to get to the final boss fight – at which point I just couldn’t figure out how to stagger him. After a few attempts, I just gave up, and watched the end cinematics and credits on youtube. It didn’t help that the hard part came after fighting through 3 initial phases. In my opinion, on normal difficulty the fourth state should have been much easier to stagger, I attribute my failure not to my lack of skill (after all, I completed the game till this part), but to a misjudgment of the developers. Since I wasn’t able to finish the game, I couldn’t test out new game+.

Fighting enemies is largely a choice of preference. Most of the times you can evade the monsters spawn in the game world. Generally you just can run around / away from most dangerous foes you wish to avoid. Sometimes they accidentally spawn in your route, and running into them will initiate the fight. You cannot die during these fights – instead when your health depletes, you just evade, which restores your health to the prior to the fight level, and you regain your spent consumables – but lose one hour from that day.

Most items you gather serve mostly quest purpose. The two circle symbol items however can be safely sold to vendors, their only purpose is to be sold for money. With money you can buy better equipment, upgrade skills, and buy consumables. The game is very stringent regarding consumables, you can carry around only a few healing items. You either backtrack to a hub to replenish them (wasting time), or just try to receive as little damage as possible. As far as I know, there is only one sorta-kinda healing skill, Mediguard, which will slowly increase your health as long as you are keep up blocking with a shield – but depletes your associated energy bar, so it cannot be spammed either. Once I unlocked it, I didn’t use any other blocking skill. Early on it is unlikely that you can use EP for health regain, so each fight has a risk-reward

The graphics of the game isn’t bad, bad I couldn’t find graphical mods for it. My modded Final Fantasy XIII looked better than this game. The user interface is good enough. In the Graphics menu, frame rate submenu be sure to change to Dynamic, without that my frame rate stuttered. That menu is somewhat hidden, you must go with the mouse to the top of the start screen to reveal it.

The game starts with the Japanese voices and English subtitles. It was already the setup I use in JRPGs, so I stuck with that. The Japanese voice acting is excellent, as expected, and there is plenty of that. But I assume the subtitles are based on the localized English dialogs – there are clear differences in what the Japanese voice actor says, and what is in the subtitle. It is a common curse from the localization process of final fantasy games. They try to add flippant parts, while the original Japanese dialog is more down to earth – and more relatable for me. The music of the game is good, though I’m not sure how much was recycled from earlier games.

I played the game with a controller, which was the intended way of the game. For some menus I had to use the mouse, and eventually using Alt-F4 was the shortest way to exit.

The game autosaves after a few important story parts, like at the end of the day. But on the gameworld, most of the times you are free to save to a slot of your choice. There is no quickload though, you will have to return to the main menu for that.

The game only crashed like twice, but even that made me to save as frequent as possible.

I really enjoyed the battle system of this one. The action combat is real time mixed with ATB bar that depletes whenever you strike or block. You get the freedom of customizing skills to fit your play style. Each garb may also come with a unique passive or locked skill. But I have to complain some garbs seems totally useless or quite ugly though. The instant stagger when you successfully blocks for some enemies feels rewarding, making incentive to master enemies moves.

Many ppl are stressed out about the time mechanic but I find it ok. I'll suggest using a guide when lost. Just keep using EP for Chronostasis when you want to save time, and kill monsters to gain EP back and repeat. With that, I was left with 3 days finishing all main quest and most side quests.

Since you only play as Lightning, it may get a bit lonely but you also learn more about her inner voice and emotions as she questions her state of mind. People that does not understand her character may find it harder to understand how the plot unfolds.

The PC port for this one has no problems on running game smoothly. Only issue is that the keyboard mapping is really bad, I suggest using a controller.

"Do the impossible, see the invisible. Row! Row! Fight the power!"

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII promised an exciting conclusion to the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, but unfortunately, it falls short in many critical areas. The progression system is perhaps the most disappointing aspect, slowly rolling out upgrades in a way that feels forced rather than rewarding. Rather than encouraging players to earn their growth, it spoon-feeds upgrades over time, sapping any sense of accomplishment.

The camera work is another major issue, seemingly designed to obscure rather than enhance gameplay. No matter the settings, the camera rarely provides a clear view of the battlefield, leaving players frustrated as they try to make sense of the action.

Combat, meanwhile, is overly simplified. It often devolves into a repetitive process of holding one button and switching between "suits" to handle different scenarios, leading to a lack of engagement. The stagger system is back, but it’s as cumbersome as ever, offering a frustrating experience rather than adding depth. My one hope for Square Enix is that they eliminate stagger mechanics from future games—they are poorly executed and bring down the gameplay.

In the end, Lightning Returns gameplay is just boring, left me wanting something different and more engaging. The story is a little rough, I think there is a unique and decent idea for the story, but it never really felt well told.

6/10 would not recommend

The gameplay is pretty fun, the time mechanic is awesome. The story is pretty good for the most part, it's a decent conclusion to the trilogy. Most importantly though it genuinely has a good port, I didn't have to spend hours modding the game just to get it running (the first two games were bad for this). There is slight amounts of stuttering in places, I felt like it was noticeable but not enough to take me out the game

pretty good open world game still playable in 2024. the game is meant to be played multiple times, at least twice if you go for the good ending.

You can abandon early and carry over unlocks like a roguelike sort of.