LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII

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.

7.5/10
This one was surprising. I initially thought I would had liked lighting returns the LEAST of the 3 in the xiii trilogy, but after finishing the game, doing a ton of the side quests, even doing the superboss for this game, I truly think that lightning returns is the best of the 3 games... even though like its other 2, is flawed to their core.

Story
This one is what people always point at, and quite honestly I am in the middle of both opinions. Is the story amazing? no. Is it the best of the three? better than xiii-2, but structure wise prob the weakest of the three. What I liked about xiii's story was honestly the writing, even though it felt like them attempting to do the nier automata's side quest approach of doom and gloom, but with a worse writing style that doesn't hit nearly as hard as that game. For the main story, it feels like a super streched out 10 hour story forced into a 30-40 hours long game. The main concept of the story is how little time Lightning has to reverse the destruction of the world by a god that created it all. It has a TON of themes surrounding how death affects the current living souls, religion and religious power abuse, and the effect of living for 500 damn years without aging, losing your loved ones and how they affect that person. Honestly I feel like this was such a strong base for a story, but it was obviously not given the time it was needed to polish the story, which is why I feel like they decided to add the time mechanic, and have a ton of the story content being side quests. The side quests were the more interesting aspects, and was actually worthwhile compared to the previous ff games just for the story, even if they weren't written as well as other games I have played. The main story has a ton of issues I didn't like, like how each character had 1 main story chapter dedicated to them, and once they were finished, they legit don't show up at ALL till the very end to help lightning. Apart from that I feel like I did enjoy this story way more than xiii-2 purely for the writing, even if the structure was pretty wack.

Characters
This one is a bit mixed for me. The one thing I like is the even though they tried to make lightning "stripped of emotion", I honestly liked her way more than in XIII. I know this game is practically JUST her on focusing on their character development, while xiii had to balance multiple party cast members. Even tho... she was kind of a bitch in XIII and yes she does develop, but I found her in lightning returns to be way more interesting of a character who struggles with the fact that she can't even feel sad about her missing sister anymore. I still don't think she is a top tier written character, which is sad considering she had THREE WHOLE GAMES to develop, and i've cared more for those with just 1 game, but it is what it is. What I believe is weaker this game around is the other party members. I know they aren't shown much screen time but man they are just casted aside so much in this game, even then aren't written that well. Hope was stripped of his emotions as well, returned to his younger xiii form (why?), and even though you hear his voice for 3/4 of the game, was soooooo damn bland compared to his xiii counterpart. The other cast members were also not that interesting. Noel was weak asf in this story and feels a bit rushed for his character, even if I understood his motives. Snow was the best of the returning casts for having the most interesting storyline, and honestly I liked him the most. Caius was meh in xiii-2, and was meh in this game as well. They try to flesh out his motives in a good light in this game but it wasn't that strong imo. Fang and Vanille were pretty interesting for their dynamic, and I liked their development in this game. Sazh, poor dude, had pretty good scenes for the what, 10 minutes of cutscene he has in this game. They cut his involvement in xiii-2 and they did it again in this game, like cmon I like his character premise so much but he barely does anything in this game AGAIN. The side quest characters were short, but had some good highlights, they were probably the better aspects of this game, but did feel like an extra budget and time would had made them REALLY good (which this game didn't have, obviously).

Gameplay
For the huge shift towards action, quite honestly I liked the system a ton. It is a sudden change from the paradigm system from xiii and xiii-2, but honestly I liked it better overall. I liked the paradigm system, but it did have some issues that grinded my gear like how unresponsive some actions felt like turning around, being stunlocked (even though this happens still in this game), and how samey the encounters can be esp in xiii-2. It isn't perfect, I wasn't the biggest fan of some enemy designs, some of them were designed purely to waste your time and such, and the shop system being completely worthless (first playthrough), and the GOOD items being so damn expensive you will NEVER afford them till you have already finished the game was just a tease. The good aspects tho, perfect guarding was such a good mechanic, and adds a ton of enjoyment for making fights purely off of skill instead of just higher number scaling. Talking about scaling, lightning's power scales from doing side quests instead of grinding, which I liked a ton. The three character archetype shifting was so damn good, and can get pretty busted with stuff like 100% damage reduction styles and such. Apart from combat, the time mechanic was such a cool idea at first, till you realize there is so much damn time that honestly makes the time mechanic practically worthless apart from working around quest schedules and one dungeon. I did all the main questlines, did like 93% of the side quests, and still had 3 days to go that I honestly just rested through. I would vastly prefer the time lightning had to be BARELY enough to do everything and talk about how you can't do everything you want to do, but nope, its just there to be scared of at first, then be forgotten till you remember its there so you can sleep till the final day. Lastly the pacing of the game from main story to side quest was a bit jarring, and just feels like they had so much they wanted to do, but with the limited budget with shows a ton with the cutscenes being mainly real time rendered, with generic animations and such that was nowhere near the quality of xiii and even xiii-2, which kinda sucks.

Music
Good, but wasn't as good as xiii-2's ost. There were still some pretty good songs I liked like the Ark theme, Wildland theme, Luxerion theme and the final boss theme I liked, but nowhere near as good as the top tier final boss themes from other FF games. Still, I liked the OST for this game, but for how amazing xiii-2's ost was, I was a bit unfair to compare to.

Final Positives/Nitpicks
- PC Port was ALMOST perfect compared to the dogshit xiii-2 port, with the only MAJOR complaint apart from wack method to change graphic settings, was the lack of kb+m support. (previous 2 had kb+m, why couldn't this game have proper support?)
- Some of the side quests (and Sazh's quest) were wayyyy too annoying to do, some of them wanted you to travel so damn far, wait apart separate days, and weren't worth it story and reward wise.

Conclusion
Lightning returns was honestly a pretty good game comparing to the other 2 games. While I did complain a ton in this review, I still honestly think this was the best of the three. While the story wasn't as strong structure wise, I enjoyed the writing the most, the combat the most and believe if it were given the proper budget and time, would had been up there as one of the better FF games easily. Instead we are left with a bit of a mess, with a time mechanic that gives too much time to matter, and the padding with how little story they had to tell prevents it from being a great FF game... but compared to the other flawed xiii games, still stands out as the great XIII game.
7.5/10

I wish Hope would shut the fuck up.

The question whether this game is good or bad my answer is HELL NOOO. I have never played a game that is more trash than this game it was boring from start to finish the only reason I played it was for the story. The combat in the game is horribly designed, it's nowhere near as good as in past Final Fantasy games. The side quests are so bad it seems like another job, the time system is even worse. So instead of being able to go and explore the world, get stronger, you are locked behind a time limit in which you will do short main quests and then go on boring side quests if you want to have a chance against the final boss. If you run out of time, you have to go to the new game + where you have to do all the boring quests again. i have 100% beat FF12,13,13-2 but this one there is no chance I will try to finish the same 100% I would rather watch the paint on the wall drying.

Get it if its on sale the game runs terribly and the story should have ended at 13 but the game is fun

Good FFs = 7,9,10,14,15!

Ima cry

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☑ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☑ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

My favorite game of all time. Beautiful environments, exciting combat, and endless replay-ability. Would love to see this remastered someday.

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Unironically, one of my favorite Final Fantasy games of all-time. The time mechanic is nice, the solo-battle system with stance changes based on outfits is a semi-unique take (inspired by X-2), and Lightning and the story isn't too shabby either if you played the first one. Highly recommend.

Highly recommended if you have a fetish for hot chicks with overexposed armpits.

My hair was thinning before I played LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII. After playing through the 5 main story quests, my hairline grew back and I cancelled my trip to Turkey for a hair transplant. Miss Lightning gave me my youth back, only fat and elderly FFVII fans pan a game as influential as this.

just watch the story on youtube

Dont buy it

Much better than the previous Lightning games...

Very new game and system that's wildly different from the previous two installments. They tell you two different things for the time system and don't explain it til the first day is done, and they say you have thirteen days left on day six, so that could've done for some earlier explaining. That initial flaw can be overlooked, but they make it out as if you're wasting time if you don't immediately do the first main quest they give you

Beyond that, the combat is great, the builds rock, I like the new premise, and the music might be the best in this amazing trilogy. The outfits do make it a waifu sim, and I do find that to be a bit goonish of Mr. Nomura, but I'll have to accept it for what it is so I can finish my favorite FF series. It's not Dead or Alive Extreme or some trash like Lollipop Chainsaw, so make of that what will you

I've been putting this third act off forever and I'm very glad to finally get to it. I love the XII series. I'm the first man running up to bat for it and land a homerun, never listening to the low level naysayers and "video essay game critique" jerk-offs. This is an excellent game so far and, now that we can get a clear picture of the time system, I always look forward to playing it on my days off. God bless whoever is reading this and I hope you find Christ in your life

【English & Spanish】


➥ English review:

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII stands out as a masterful conclusion to the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, offering an exceptional gaming experience that excels in both gameplay and storytelling. With its bold approach and innovative mechanics, the game firmly establishes itself as a masterpiece in the JRPG genre.

From the outset, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII captivates with its audacious reimagining of time management within the game. The story unfolds in a world on the brink of collapse, with a 13-day cycle that players must navigate to save humanity. This unique time-management mechanic not only introduces a new layer of strategy and urgency but also deepens immersion by placing the constant pressure of the clock at the forefront. The time-based mechanic adds a fresh and stimulating challenge throughout the experience.

The narrative in Lightning Returns centers around Lightning, who has undergone significant evolution since her introduction in Final Fantasy XIII. Now cast as a savior destined to redeem the world, her character faces trials that reflect both her personal growth and unwavering determination. Lightning is portrayed not just as a formidable heroine, but as a profoundly complex figure with a story that culminates in an emotionally powerful conclusion. Her development throughout the game is a testament to her strength and resilience, making her one of the most memorable and charismatic protagonists in the series.

The combat system in Lightning Returns shines with its dynamism and flexibility. Based on a real-time costume-changing mechanic, the system allows players to adapt their strategies on the fly, enriching the combat experience and maintaining constant engagement. Each costume offers unique abilities and can be customized to fit various combat styles, enabling players to tailor their approach and explore a wide range of tactics. The fluidity and intensity of combat feel more satisfying and thrilling than ever.

Visually, the game is stunning, with a scenario design that reflects the beauty and desolation of a world falling apart. The attention to detail in the environments, coupled with a poignant soundtrack composed by Masashi Hamauzu, contributes to an immersive atmosphere that perfectly complements the game’s narrative and tone.

Beyond the main gameplay, Lightning Returns offers a variety of side quests and optional content that expands on the story and world of the game. These additional elements not only enrich the experience but also provide greater depth and context to the plot and characters.

Personal Conclusion: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is a brilliant and emotionally powerful culmination of the Final Fantasy XIII saga. With its innovative gameplay system, an exceptionally well-developed protagonist, and a narrative that intertwines despair with hope, the game provides a unique and fulfilling experience. With a rating of 10/10, it is a title that not only concludes the trilogy with grace but also leaves an indelible mark on players. Its blend of groundbreaking elements and deep emotional connection makes Lightning Returns a masterpiece worthy of its place in the series.

➥ Reseña en español:

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII es una entrega que cierra con broche de oro la trilogía de Final Fantasy XIII, ofreciendo una experiencia de juego que no solo es impresionante en términos de jugabilidad y diseño, sino también profundamente satisfactoria en lo que respecta a la narrativa y el desarrollo de personajes. Con su enfoque audaz y su innovadora mecánica, el juego se establece como una obra maestra en el género de los JRPG.

Desde el principio, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII sorprende con su audaz reimaginación del concepto de tiempo dentro del juego. La trama se desarrolla en un mundo al borde del colapso, con un ciclo de 13 días que el jugador debe gestionar para salvar a la humanidad. Este enfoque único de gestión del tiempo no solo introduce un nuevo nivel de estrategia y urgencia en la jugabilidad, sino que también profundiza la inmersión al poner en juego la presión constante del reloj. La mecánica del tiempo añade una capa adicional de tensión y desafío, que se siente fresca y estimulante a lo largo de la experiencia.

La historia en Lightning Returns está centrada en la figura de Lightning, quien ha evolucionado significativamente desde su introducción en Final Fantasy XIII. Ahora, como una salvadora destinada a redimir el mundo, su carácter se enfrenta a desafíos que reflejan tanto su crecimiento personal como su determinación inquebrantable. Lightning es presentada no solo como una heroína formidable, sino como una figura profundamente compleja con una historia que culmina en una conclusión emocionalmente poderosa. Su desarrollo a lo largo del juego es un testimonio de su fuerza y resiliencia, haciendo de ella una de las protagonistas más memorables y carismáticas de la serie.

El sistema de combate en Lightning Returns se destaca por su dinamismo y flexibilidad. Basado en una mecánica de cambio de trajes en tiempo real, el sistema permite a los jugadores adaptar sus estrategias sobre la marcha, lo que enriquece la experiencia de combate y mantiene el interés constante. Cada traje proporciona habilidades únicas y puede ser modificado para ajustarse a diferentes estilos de combate, lo que permite a los jugadores personalizar su enfoque y explorar una amplia gama de tácticas. La fluidéz y la intensidad del combate se sienten más satisfactorias y emocionantes que nunca.

Visualmente, el juego es impresionante, con un diseño de escenarios que refleja la belleza y la desolación de un mundo que se desmorona. Los detalles en los entornos, junto con una banda sonora evocadora compuesta por Masashi Hamauzu, contribuyen a una atmósfera envolvente que complementa perfectamente la narrativa y el tono del juego.

Además de la jugabilidad principal, Lightning Returns ofrece una variedad de misiones secundarias y contenido opcional que expande la historia y el mundo del juego. Estos elementos adicionales no solo enriquecen la experiencia, sino que también proporcionan una mayor profundidad y contexto a la trama y a los personajes.

Conclusión personal: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII es una culminación brillante y emocionalmente poderosa de la trilogía Final Fantasy XIII. Con su innovador sistema de juego, una protagonista excepcionalmente bien desarrollada, y una narrativa que entrelaza la desesperación con la esperanza, el juego ofrece una experiencia única y satisfactoria. Con una calificación de 10/10, es un título que no solo cierra la saga con elegancia, sino que también deja una marca indeleble en el corazón de los jugadores. Su mezcla de elementos innovadores y su profunda conexión emocional hacen de Lightning Returns una obra maestra digna de su estatus en la serie.

I love this game. Some of that love is nostalgia, but having just finished it I do think it holds up. The side quests are really not as bad as a lot of people make them out to be and many of them can be completed without much effort. The open world and ability to do the mainline quests in your preferred order is really nice (I do like to spend a lot of time in the Wildlands).

The very first time I played this game when I was younger I missed a mainline quest unknowingly. This did cause me to be unable to complete the game and had to move on to NG+, so just look out for that.

The atmosphere of the game is very cool and fun, the combat system is easy to use and feels decent, and the characters are great. I cannot recommend it enough.

After playing the alpha (xiii) and beta (xiii-2) you can finally play a (almost) complete version of final fantasy xiii.

I'm still finding code lol.

Sadly not as cinematic as FFXIII, with a story which is barely hanging on by a thread at this point.

It's an interesting take on a mostly solo character FF game, which is a general rarity among the franchise. The costume swaps are very similar to dress spheres from FFX-2.

Unfortunately, the only way to realistically get stronger is by completing side quests, none of which are particularly unique or interesting. I also woefully misunderstood that the game was ending in 6 days instead of 13, so I completed everything, then had nothing to do but to have Lightning sleep at an inn for a week. Which, considering the circumstances, was a bit comedic in its own right.

A solid improvement on the two games before it.
New action combat system was extremely enjoyable and felt like a natural improvement on the ideas of the previous two FF13 games. More varied attacks, weakness and strengths combined with a guard/perfect guard system helped keep each enemy and encounter engaging. The Schemata system was a lot of fun to personalise and use to buildcraft against specific harder enemies.
The immediate freedom of an entire world to explore, being able to take on the main story in any order and even being able to do certain story steps out of order (mainly finding key items) was a real joy and meant I never felt restricted. The simple act of choice makes this a much more engaging video game for me.
The story remains the typical level of Final Fantasy grandure and invented Nouns but it was told with less cutscenes, more talking while continuing to play and provides more understandable explanations even for events from previous games that this was when I felt the most engaged with this universe and characters.
The existence of the time system put me off for years but I found it far less oppressive than I expected, I was finished the entire main story and most of the side quests by the end of Day 4 out of 13. There is a limited ability to freeze time and just keeping a good track of NPC positions and times meant meant I finished well under estimate.

The only downsides for me are minor. There are some gameplay options arbitrarily locked out until later parts of the game, the biggest one being the ability to upgrade spells using items dropped from enemies but I had already finished most of the content so I just had less upgrade material. Ultimately, none of this really affected my playthrough it was just a bit disappointing seeing options I wouldn't be able to fully engage with due to how late they came.

This game fucking sucks. It’s absolutely nothing but padding and clearly exists because the studio needed to release something while their other projects were stuck in development hell. The main story is about 5 hours of content, padded out to 30 due to the game forcing you to engage with side content and wait for events and all thai bullshit. It’s the first game to go fully real-time action based which I think is a pretty engaging and interesting system, but it is absolutely 100% bogged down with meaningless numbers and statistics. I enjoy playing dress up, I do not enjoy trying to “”maximise my build”” or whatever to it’s full extent. I never feel like I’m doing the right thing and I constantly feel like I’m missing out or something. I hate sifting through menus just to exit and realise I’ve fucked everything.
In terms of story it has potential to be something, but the fact it’s so so padded out with so much absolute yapping, just endless fucking talking in circles like you heard them repeat them same shit 100 times through the game. There’s so many cutscenes that literally feel endless because the characters have to talk about every single detail of their situation to absolute nauseam.
It’s an interesting game with a lot of interesting ideas, but all of it catered to padding out the game as much as they absolutely could and I think it blows.

Fun combat, like the time management, setting's interesting, story is irrelevant. Will not be finishing because I find the side quests boring and apparently I've got to do them for 8 in game days.

A final nail to a bloated and rotten coffin of a trilogy. Once again, a lazily made game full of reuse assets that is trying out something new for a final fantasy game.

The pros first; The time limit and the freedom to do the missions in any order as well as events being available at certain time of the day in combination with failure leading to having to repeat the loop again while retaining all the stats upgrade that have been accumulated so far can make for a very interesting JRPG gameplay loop (not original; its been done better in Zelda Majora Mask) and a costume based combat with skills tied to change of costume would be interesting, in a magical girl game, not in the third game of an already established franchise with already established mechanics and lore. I would actually love to see this costume change combat system be implemented in a better game.

The cons: Once again, reuse assets. There's so much reuse assets, character models and enemy models, it's simply just lazy at this point. And the freedom afforded by the time management system is severely limited because each events are highly linear and forced the player to just play them in order and all in the way that the game dictates anyways, which defeats the point of giving the player this freedom in the first place. And the story, though better than base FF13 and FF13-2... is still mediocre and nonsensical.

Not recommended. Give me back the time I spent on this game.

nice game, too short if u only focuses on the main story, but yeah its gud

Storywise, the story is just as amazing as others. Gameplay is different as it is not really much of timed base battle anymore, combat is more fast paced. One thing to add, this game is also very tedious since you have to beat it under a time limit. If you die, you have to start over on the main quests. Similar vibe to Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask with the time limit.

I would recommend playing this, but after playing the first 2 since this story connects with the rest. If not a fan, you can always look up the gameplay yourself if you prefer to skip it.

This is the last chapter of the Lightning Saga in Final Fantasy 13.