that line is actually taken from an article in october slightly spun
http://kotaku.com/lightning-returns-video-shows-a-different-class-of-fina-1444879382
That's incorrect, it's actually from the import review, which has the quote in its entirety.
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Lightning Returns Review Thread
- Thread starter Kagari
- Start date
That's incorrect, it's actually from the import review, which has the quote in its entirety.
I agree completly with you. I just said that the game came out with an honorable score. I never said that the game was polished or worth of its title of "Final Fantasy", and I sincerely hope that we will never suffer from something as sad as this trilogy in the future.
Again, it's best to consider this game as a spin-off and leave it at that (though this is no excuse for creating a subpar RPG).
I wouldn't even say the score is honorable. It's like skating by in school with a D.
There was a time when something in the 90s was expected of a FF title. Now mediocrity is praiseworthy?
I had a passing interest in the title, but these scores are dismal and I already know I hate the entire cast. If there was a greater variance in missions and a better sense of exploration, I probably would have picked it up. Now I'll wait until it's 15 dollars used, which should take about 3 months.
It's a damn shame any way you slice it.
Caffeine
Member
ah i found it they also forgot the continuation of the quote "in terms of gameplay"
SolidSnakeUS
Member
Time and Eternity still takes the cake on suck.
Remember, the same friend that things LR will be good is one that thinks that Time and Eternity looks good.
It's still a direct sequel and a RPG.
Square Enix considered this a AAA title.
*sigh* I miss Squaresoft. It may be nostalgia talking, but at least something like that would never have happened if Hironobu Sakaguchi was always at the head of the company.
And FFXIV v1.0 would never have happened either. That thing was an outrage. It's a miracle Yoshida managed to salvage this (I guess I have to admire him for that).
And FFXIV v1.0 would never have happened either. That thing was an outrage. It's a miracle Yoshida managed to salvage this (I guess I have to admire him for that).
There are still people in the company that can do work like that. FF14 is proof of it and proof SE just needs new blood working on content.
FF XIV proves there are still many people at the company who understand this franchise. They just happen to not be a part of the good ol' boys club that runs the mainline stuff nowadays.
I'm simply saying that I personally am enjoying the game, regardless of the numbers slapped beside it by critics. Metacritic ratings are not a measuring stick for me and do not dictate what I deem enjoyable. I play whatever appeals to me and if anyone takes issue with that, then that is their affair to sort out. I just don't care.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
Also why I have huge faith in FFXV. People working on it show that they care and know what makes FF games/RPGs great.
You should, because those 'numbers slapped beside by critics' influence sales which then influence the direction of the company/series you care about. There was a time when a FF release meant something- That isn't the case anymore. And it's thanks to the 13 series.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Well, when you've been flunking every course since your junior year, getting a D is like a step up!
Napalm_Frank
Member
I was honestly expecting this to score around 75-80 in MC but I guess I had too high hopes for it.
Well, I don't care. Sorry. All that matters to me is if I enjoy a game. Sometimes I agree with critics, other times I don't. I'm not saying it's the greatest game ever, I'm simply saying that I think it's fun and I am not going to go against my own opinion just because the flock tells me that I'm wrong for enjoying something they hate. To each his/her own, friend.
I went directly to the low scoring reviews because I like drama. So far I've only read two.
Gamespot says one of the biggest drawbacks is that the game slows you down so much that you can't possibly have enough time to complete the main quest within the allotted time on your first playthrough.
Game Republic complains that there is so little content that you won't even need more than 7 of the 13 days that you have to complete the main quest.
Love it
Gamespot says one of the biggest drawbacks is that the game slows you down so much that you can't possibly have enough time to complete the main quest within the allotted time on your first playthrough.
Game Republic complains that there is so little content that you won't even need more than 7 of the 13 days that you have to complete the main quest.
Love it
daninthemix
Member
I feel slightly aggrieved by Eurogamer awarding an 8 to all 3 games of the trilogy. They're usually good at scoring fairly but I think in vastly overrating the first title they felt the need to not back down with either of the sequels for fear of admitting their mistake.
Sometimes I wish they could go back in time and branch the Final Fantasy series right after 6. And instead of going down the path of 7 which led to style over substance, maybe things would be different. Maybe they could have hung onto the core things that made Final Fantasy good.
I'm sure other people would branch the series at games other than 6, but for me, 6 was the last one I enjoyed and finished.
Or maybe they just enjoyed their time with it. People can have different opinions... or so I thought.
The thing I dont understand lately about LR threads is the "sqe gives us this crap instead of new mainline FF games" thing.
XIII-2 and LR exist because of the development hell and terrible missmanagement surrounding XIII, XIV (they released a terrible game and restarted it from the beggining for 2.0) and Versus (now XV). They are relatively low investment with minor polish and reuse of a lot of assets just to gain time while they try to fix their internal chaos. If you like them or not is up to you, but I think some people have lost the perspective and the hate has gotten ridic imho
On topic, I don't need an anthologic masterpiece to enjoy a game, and I certainly enjoyed what they've been releasing. There is pretty much a consensus about the new battle system and I'm excited to play it. The story won't be good, but as well as XIII-2, it seems to not take itself seriously and I don't mind the humour for a change.
XIII-2 and LR exist because of the development hell and terrible missmanagement surrounding XIII, XIV (they released a terrible game and restarted it from the beggining for 2.0) and Versus (now XV). They are relatively low investment with minor polish and reuse of a lot of assets just to gain time while they try to fix their internal chaos. If you like them or not is up to you, but I think some people have lost the perspective and the hate has gotten ridic imho
On topic, I don't need an anthologic masterpiece to enjoy a game, and I certainly enjoyed what they've been releasing. There is pretty much a consensus about the new battle system and I'm excited to play it. The story won't be good, but as well as XIII-2, it seems to not take itself seriously and I don't mind the humour for a change.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
I have to ask, how does 7 not have substance?
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
I went directly to the low scoring reviews because I like drama. So far I've only read two.
Gamespot says one of the biggest drawbacks is that the game slows you down so much that you can't possibly have enough time to complete the main quest within the allotted time on your first playthrough.
Game Republic complains that there is so little content that you won't even need more than 7 of the 13 days that you have to complete the main quest.
Love it
No exactly a contradiction if you see the GT review: there is a way to stop time and use that a lot. The problem is that the game is unbalanced in content and days before the end that you realize that the quests are trivial.
Riposte
Member
Everything I've read seems to imply it is an improvement over, or at worst, on level with, XIII-2, but does it surpass XIII's combat (that is, in its better moments) in terms of difficulty and balancing (visuals is a lost cause, obviously)? I still want a game that delivers on some of that potential. I guess I could stomach a game that isn't as messy as XIII-2 though.
Final Fantasy has always been a style over substance series. It is a series, even in its days before 7, more famous for its art and music and the nature of its battle system rather than what it actually does with that battle system. No need to hijack the word "substance" and make it mean "what I like" for fanboy wars.
Final Fantasy has always been a style over substance series. It is a series, even in its days before 7, more famous for its art and music and the nature of its battle system rather than what it actually does with that battle system. No need to hijack the word "substance" and make it mean "what I like" for fanboy wars.
I tell ya...this trilogy was tough...tough going for Square.
I agree with some posters above. FF14 2.0 shows that there are some people around the office that do understand Final Fantasy. Art, Story, Music...all were there. Im not an MMO guy and playing for the solo experience and I enjoy it alot.
Square really needs to focus on writing a good story for FFXV (though Im thinking FFXVI will be better...FFXV has had too difficult of a development cycle).
One of the HUGE issues with this trilogy is that is was damn near incomprehensible to anyone, and worse, unrelatable to Western gamers.
I agree with some posters above. FF14 2.0 shows that there are some people around the office that do understand Final Fantasy. Art, Story, Music...all were there. Im not an MMO guy and playing for the solo experience and I enjoy it alot.
Square really needs to focus on writing a good story for FFXV (though Im thinking FFXVI will be better...FFXV has had too difficult of a development cycle).
One of the HUGE issues with this trilogy is that is was damn near incomprehensible to anyone, and worse, unrelatable to Western gamers.
what as that got anything to do with it
15 hours in and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I keep saying this, but I really feels like an RE6 kind of thing. A break away from the series, but still really fun and those who skip it due to review scores may find themselves missing out on something they really may enjoy. I fear that many people have gotten jaded and overly critical of games as they've grown older. But that's normal I guess.
I also liked 13 and 13-2, so take that as you may. I tend to see the positive and fun aspects in games rather than their drawbacks.
I also liked 13 and 13-2, so take that as you may. I tend to see the positive and fun aspects in games rather than their drawbacks.
In the end, that's all that matters. Reviews are only made to inform people about a game, and to get some perspective, but it isn't going to dictate how you interact with the game on a personal level.
UtterlyPerplexed
Member
True, but it was Toriyama comically stated at one point that this would be the most polished and complete game in the series. You wonder why it's easy to mock him and the game. You couldn't make it up.
Even their own PR is far from polished.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
I remember that he said that he wanted Lightning and the XIII series to be on the same level as FF6/7 (or at least he believed it was), in terms of legacy and greatness... yeah that guy is way too far up his own ass lol.
CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
Wrong thread.
I didn't say it had no substance. I think it lead to the series having no substance. It feels like this was the first game where Square started to emphasize big, expensive cutscenes. Final Fantasy 7 still had substance, but it felt like it became the template for which all the later Final Fantasy games were striving... and failing. It has turned into a series of macguffins, plot obfuscation, and characters I can't relate to or enjoy.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
A lot of people seem to forget FF7 was thrown together by a wild group of people who weren't quite sure what the were doing, it was uncharted territory. After that each mainline FF game seemed to have a thousand cooks throwing stuff into the pot producing a big glorious mess.
Only FF12 feels as if it has a mostly clear, cohesive vision about what it wants to be. Perhaps Matsuno's influence even if it was finished up without him.
badcrumble
Member
I adore FF12, but I'd never make that claim about the game, personally.
neoism
Member
Damn glad I started playing FF14 when 2.0 was on... Was 1.0 totally different..
Also lol yeah this is my first FF game I'm skipping
I my get it this summer if its 20 bones by then I don't have an HDTV in my room anyway,,, But Bravely Default and FF14 is plenty awesome enough so I'm good..I still don't know about only having one player in the battle system, but the customizing and costumes looks like the draw for this game...
Well, IMO the reason there was a golden age of JRPGS (the 90s) is that they delievered good stories. The combat was never particularly compelling. Though servicable.
In recent years, few JRPGS for the big home consoles have delivered a good story, especially one relateable by western gamers. Usually, every review says something along the lines of "normal JPRG cliches" etc.
RPGs can have alot of sins overlooked if the story is good. Good story and servicable combat can really make for an overall good experience.
Because other games can deliver good stories now, JRPGS have alot of ground to make up.
yes all of that is true, but what i was asking in my previous post was, what has the development cycle got to do with presenting a good story
badcrumble
Member
For what it's worth, FFXIII is probably the most polished and well-balanced FF title ever published; this comes at the price of a lot of freedom and customization-depth and at the price of having a fleshed-out postgame, but that doesn't make that polish and balance *not* an achievement. Most FF games are extremely breakable (and often in some pretty fun ways); FFXIII isn't. Personally, I missed the breakability, but I understand that the game's rigorous polish, rigorous balance, and rigorous difficulty curve were an artistic choice and one that *did* pay dividends even if I disagree with them.
I don't like FFXIII a lot but I think it deserves recognition for how polished and balanced it was.
FFXIII-2 gives you a lot more freedom, but at the price of a lot of that polish and balance and especially the difficulty curve, IMO.
LR doesn't really use the same battle system at all so I won't bring it into this comparison (but it looks like it goes that much further in the more-freedom, less-balance direction, so I might like it more even though it probably strays a lot from what FFXIII fans loved about the original, if one makes the charitable assumption they loved it for its design/mechanics and not for its miniskirts).
You summed up my thoughts about FFXIII perfectly. I loved the difficulty of that title. If only the story wasn't such a letdown... *sigh* Though, I do have my grief about the Crystarium. That's one of the most uninteresting leveling system I ever saw.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
They might as well have just had a semi-static screen with paying for the next level up.
PshycoNinja
Member
Oh hey Perfo kept his end of the Avatar Bet. I trusted him to keep it so I am glad my trust wasn't misplaced.
Your new avatar looks good man.
Your new avatar looks good man.
badcrumble
Member
I mean, you do get to pick which Role you're leveling up, but given that all of your statistics get added together anyway that's much less interesting of a choice than it sounds.
The leveling and equipment-upgrade systems in FFXIII are really just about dumping points into a bucket, and the only choice you get is which bucket to dump points into first.
Part of the point of that, though, was that it allowed the game designers to have an extremely good idea of exactly where your statistics would be at any given point in the game and fine-tune the difficulty accordingly. I completely disagree with that choice because it took tons of freedom out of the hands of the player, but it is what it is.
I don't think that any other FF could have had FFXIII's level of challenge without making similar sacrifices, though. It reminds me of FFIV in that sense (also very much about attrition-based battling, also very controlling of who's in your party at a given time, also very much about managing in-battle flow, also very challenging while being quite controlling - though that game does it more through equipment than through level caps).
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Reviews are all over the board. I think if I enjoyed XIII-2 (and I am currently!) I will like this especially since LR seems to fix the 'complaints' I had about that game (no actual overworld, no real dungeons, etc).
Sorry for the late answer, went to sleep.
Normal mode. My main worry is actually -finding- some of the quests and quest items. I imagine I'll have to check up some FAQ eventually.
The trick for the the time is pretty simple, you fight loads of battles you quickly accumulate EP, which allows you to stop the time. I've found it quite easy so far to prolonge days considerably.
Rodolink
Member
I'm playing the first FFXIII and it has been grueling, the characters lack personality, the story is lame, dialogue damn, FMV ok though, music!? man the music is totally out of context when it needs to be, I don't plan on playing FFXIII-2 and was inclined to try Lightning returns but thanks to the reviews I don't have to, FF died for me since FFX. My hope now is on FFXV :3
FF13 was atleast new and shiny and blinded reviewers due to the prestige of FF. But since that has been destroyed over the past few years now they are getting rated what they deserve.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Oh hey Perfo kept his end of the Avatar Bet. I trusted him to keep it so I am glad my trust wasn't misplaced.
Your new avatar looks good man.
Best thing of it that she looks still hotter and more interesting than that Sasuke's copy you sport.
When you say loads of battles you mean hours of battles or just some?