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What's the consensus on Lightning from Final Fantasy 13?

I typed out a whole big comment, but honestly Lightning is bland as watching white paint dry. Just deeply uninteresting as a character.

As an aside I think people remember Cloud as much more bland character then he actually was in VII.
 
Would have been bland and completely forgettable if she didn't keep being trotted out because she was the director's wifu. Now she's just the focus for a lot of people's annoyance with the FF trilogy that wasted a console generation.

Always liked her design in XIII though.
 
She's a fantastic waste of potential. Up to release, the developers were keen on pointing out how she was going to be so different from the usual "good" protagonist. I seem to remember them saying her actions would almost be deemed those of an antagonist at times.

But no. She was a slightly negative shell of a character. Angry. Haughty, and wanting for growth.
 
Awesome art design, farcical character. Constantly angry moron with no consistent logic to what she does. Her storyline and arc are as dull as ditchwater.

I only played the first two, though. Perhaps all is redeemed when she 'returns'. But I doubt it.
 
I like her.
Strong female MCs are still pretty rare in video games. I think S-E pulled it off pretty well with her design and personality.
Sure, she could've used some more of the latter, but I still loved playing as her through all 3 games.

ArkhamFantasy said:
Great character design, ok character, generally disliked trilogy because people really wanted Versus and not multiple XIII sequels.
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This is spot-on.

Overall, I think XIII-2 suffered from having Serah as a lead instead of Lightning. Noel and Caius were pretty great additions though.
 
I'm glad she was the lead over Snow or Vanille, but that's lowwww bar to clear. Square Enix was 20 years late to the Tough Chick Trope-a-thon and they still didn't get it right.

There are some goofy moments in Lightning Returns, but not enough to justify playing it. The game also explains why she is such a boring character:
apparently she locked up her mischievous younger personality so that "she could be strong" or some shit.
 
Lightning is a dull character that got pushed too hard. There isn't a lot to say about the character herself; she's more an indication of how out of touch and creatively bankrupt Square was last generation. In the absence of any actual good ideas, we got three games of Lightning.

Hopefully we've seen the last of her, dumb cameos aside. Actually, I hope the cameos are over too.
 
Griss said:
Awesome art design, farcical character. Constantly angry moron with no consistent logic to what she does. Her storyline and arc are as dull as ditchwater.

I only played the first two, though. Perhaps all is redeemed when she 'returns'. But I doubt it.
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If I remember correctly one of the plot points is that "the goddess" took away her and Hope's emotions, (and also made Hope young because reasons), so every single conversation is extremely monotone. Like it's so bad. Such a wasted character design.
 
Reveirg said:
I like her.

Strong female MCs are still pretty rare in video games. I think S-E pulled it off pretty well with her design and personality.

Sure, she could've used some more of the latter, but I still loved playing as her through all 3 games.
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I think they nailed it with Serah. She was very intelligent, had a can-do attitude, and never came across as helpless.
 
Lightning only had a character in the first game, and even then, her development stopped early on.

FFXIII-2 just supplanted her 13 self entirely for a unappreciated goddess person with no real defining characteristics(remember the lightning who didn't surrender her existence to a higher being? lol)

And in Lightning returns, she was even worse with only a self the player grafted onto her, and even then she wasn't anything.

I dont think Cloud was anywhere near as bad as Lighting. Crisis Core Cloud was very emotive and an actual human being, FF7 cloud was a cipher as he was supposed to be, but he wasn't emotionless, and he gained back a lot of that humanity by the end. And in AC he was in a depression he got himself out of.

Even in dissidia 012, he was very depressed similar to his AC self, only due to the plot of the game,
going through the same tragedy 12 times will make you closed.
 
Lightning was alright. Nothing super special, but there was nothing about her to really hate all that much (at least for me). Not the worst FF protag, but definitely not the best. She had a bit more personality in LR in some of the quests (
despite the story itself saying otherwise
).
 
i was out sick for like 2 weeks when this game came out.... i couldnt finish it because i hated everybody especially lightning...

never bothered with the other 2
 
She's a fine character in FFXIII. She starts off feeling angry/frustrated about her sister being branded and basically being exiled from society, and guilty because of how she treated her briefly before all of the stuff went down. Didn't like that she was planning on marrying Snow when they haven't been seeing each other for all that long, so she wasn't really fond of him that much at the beginning of the game. She wanted to do things alone and felt like the rest of the group was slowing her down. When she was off with Hope, (from what I remember) she sympathized with him a bit but also found him to be a burden while also feeling guilty that he came with her just to get branded himself. Then at one point she ended up realizing that she's not better off being alone, develops a big sister/little bro relationship with Hope, decides to embrace a more leadery role, and ends up opening up to the rest of the cast and has a tighter relationship with them without all the abrasiveness throughout the last half (or maybe like 3/7th) of the game. Over the course of the latter parts of the game, she gains more respect for Snow, and basically approves of him as an SO for Sarah by the end.

yUxjSTX.jpg
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I never played XIII-2, but I like her. She's not my favorite character or anything. She has a pretty bland personality, which i find somewhat entertaining, especially when she's faced with absolutely ridiculous, goofy tasks in Lightning Returns.
 
Love her visually, personality is only ok shes pretty barebones after all the stories are said and done also we know basically nothing about her actual life before the games events compared to others in the ff universe.

Agree with others though, she would be more well liked if she was not forced on us so much. I like in general though.
 
Nice abs
Likes Cake
Waifu material
Likes authority
Hates hipsters
Anger issues
Was an actual Goddess
Pays her taxes
Has a goddam house
Has a job...surprisingly a government sanctioned job. Last time that happened was probably FFVI...if you can count being a mind slave as a job. Corporate slave, mindslave, meh.
Anger issues
Might like old men
Probably likes young boys
Makes it rain...pain instead of money. Which is weird because she has money.

Looking at the list I'd say Lightning is a middling character.
 
Meeeeeeeeeeeeh.

I litteraly can't say anything good about her. But at the same time I can't say anything bad either.

Ask me how I felt about Hope instead.


Edit: haven't started -3 yet. Is she actually worth the time? I'll probably play it one day just to see for myself but one cab always ask.
 
Im personally tired of the broody characters. It was ok with Cloud and Squall but it isn't as interesting anymore to me.

I am playing 13 for the first time right now and the characters are all over the damn place. Hope is horrible so far, snow is annoying but I kinda dig his character design, I forgot the guy with the guns name, just came across as Danny Glover I'm too old for this shit. The girl that hangs around hope is all over and they really over exaggerate everything she does. Lighting is just too moody, it ruins an overall ok design they had for her.

I'm having a hard time continuing. The battle system just feels like it is on auto pilot. I do kinda like the idea of shifting roles during battle but I dislike only controlling one character.

I feel Square is kinda out of touch anymore and some of that shows in Lightning herself to me.
 
I think she's fine. Not the best FF character but nothing too offensive. The biggest issue by far was just having her shoved down our throats.
 
I like her look, I don't really feel very strongly about her personality one way or another, but the way in which they handled her has caused a stigma that I don't think she'll ever recover from, but that's not the character's fault because I felt initially there was real potential there.
People are generally just being overly dramatic about her.

Mostly I just want SE to move on from her.
 
Japan actually isn't as big into her as square would have you believe, she's an empty she'll of a character that was created simply to look cool.
 
I like Lightning. her character design and Odin were great, her personality may be perceived as cold, emo, battle hardened lady. But I think SE was trying to tell the player that she has a softer more loving side thoughout the trilogy with her interactions with her comrades and with Serah. -Dont think I've ever seen her laugh though :D

ps. On the contrary, I wasn't very fond of the Serah x Noel combo in FFXIII-2. Too cringeworthy
 
I have no opinion either way. I find her more tolerable than say Vanille or Serah, but I wouldn't say she's a great character.
 
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