Square-Enix Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Announced

If a complaint won't work, maybe a petition might help change the minds of the people working at Square Enix. You never know, it could work!

 

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'Duck lips'? xDD

The 'Wear' feature reminds me a lot of X-2's dressspheres. I'm wondering how it'll effect the Paradigm shift. Like, will it only effect stats or will it allow Lightning to perform certain attacks.

 

Switching Paradigms awready alters stats, so I can't see why they would add something like 'Wear' if Paradigm shift awready does it. Unless they plan to have 'Wears' that go hand in hand with certain roles for added bonus and whatnot.

But I think they're doing it cause they like to dress Lightning up. Not that I'm complaining. ;D

 

The French websites FFDream and Finaland had an interview with Toriyama and Kitase, I translated it.

Source :

Random pics :

Spoiler

 

Waaaaaaaah, loving those images! I would really love to see Lightning is a VII Solider outfit. That'd be real nice.

WARNING! DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS!

 

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Woah, they gave Lightning a tramp stamp? This game is going in weird directions, yo

 

My personal opinions on the trailer... well, nothing mindblowing. I just think the time traveling thing is getting pretty old. Granted, the end of XIII-2 sort of forced them to have this sequel, but I really can't find this first look amazing.

But, this is just me judging a book by its cover so my opinion might definitely change when this comes out later. I mean, the gameplay (albeit all two seconds of it) looks a bit promising.

 

The gameplay is exactly like Requiem of the Goddess. Without the menus. And I really loved that DLC's battle system because it -really- made heavy use of the paradigm system.

I can only hope that we're not forced to use different clothing forever, those new costumes have a horrid color scheme. Who figured poop green was a good idea for two of the costumes? Lol.

The trailer bothers me for a number of reasons. The Gothic font used is bad. It doesn't look professional. Moreover, if this is -- really -- the last game, you'd think they would pull out all the stops and not just release a half-baked trailer.

Spoiler

Also Noel, couldn't they have bothered to give him new clothes? Yet Lightning can switch hers left and right? Square pls.

I am heavily anticipating this game, no doubt. But it looks like Square really doesn't care about presentation or details. How could they yank your party members and expect people to be okay with that? Why would they keep Noel looking the same, when designing a new costume shouldn't really be that hard? Why the lack-luster trailer? A Realm Reborn knocked this one out of the water completely.

Is there any way to get a petition or something to at least get a new game+ feature with party members that are controlled with AI? Maybe? And to please have Noel change clothes? Lol.

 

Well tbh I haven' t even bothered to watch the trailer, but "half baked" (i.e. "quick cash asset reuse") is what they were going for with XIII-2 and LR. In one of the articles libregkd linked SE confirmed that XIII-2 didn' t even sell half as many copies as XIII. God knows how well LR will fare. In case you didn' t notice, they' re short on money these days.

Well frankly I think throwing the other characters out was a wise move. It' s clearly become a solo action game, the old menus and the AI-driven allies were just getting in the way of that. At least now they stopped pretending otherwise and you can finally move Lightning around. If you want to petition them or something then by all means knock yourself out, but honestly I think catering to whatever whim happens to be the most mainstream is precisely the reason I don' t recognize the FF games anymore :

http://www.nowgamer.com/features/17...ns_the_future_of_final_fantasy_interview.html

Oh neat, did you hear that ? I can kiss the turn-based FF goodbye ! I already suspected it, but hearing them say it out loud is really depressing. T.T

If you ask me how good the clothes or the characters look has zero impact on how good the game is, but clearly that' s not mainstream thinking, so maybe you have a chance to be heard ...

 

The presentation for XIII-2 and overall exposition was much better. But it might be too early to tell what the marketing team might do. I feel like this lacks epicness. That shouldn't be the case for a final entry.

XIII-2 raked in around 2.5 million if I'm not mistaken (2.8 million copies worldwide). That is magnificent for a sequel full of reused assets. People might say it's weak compared to older Final Fantasies, yet they seem to forget how RPG's are selling nowadays.

Here's a hint: Tales of Xillia sold around 500,000 copies and that was deemed a success (it might reach the million once it graces our shores over here) The games that rake in massive amounts of dough are games like CoD. RPG's don't really measure up anymore. It has little to do with Final Fantasy XIII being horrid or bad (which is another discussion and more subjective)

In Lightning Returns' case, I think it might sell around 2-3 million copies. Which isn't bad and somewhat on-par with games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It's sad that things aren't selling as they did before, but Square seems to be trying to wrap this gen up (which they might do with their little Messiah, Versus XIII)

Don't get me wrong. It is deplorable that a company that could once bring in 10 mil from ONE game, had to make a trilogy to get those kinds of numbers again.

As with the trailer, I don't know. I've seen better fan-made stuff. I think presentation is really important. Specially if you want to make good sales.

It's more of a personal preference thing, I guess. I like characters that have interesting clothing and interesting designs. I also don't understand why they would keep the same clothes for 500 years. It's sort of weird, specially since they were all 'OMG LOOK COSTUMES' in XIII-2, yet can't bother to make some alterations in LR?

 

I didn' t mean to imply otherwise. The sales numbers of, say, Dirge of Cerberus were nowhere near those numbers.

Well I get that it' s not utterly inconsequential either, but heh, why scrap the outfits they already implemented when they can sell you alternatives looks via DLC ? Actually, now that I think about it, the less you like the originals the better for their wallets ! ^^

As for Noel, maybe they just wanted to make sure everyone would recognize him at a quick glance ? They did end up changing Riku and Sora' s trailer outfits in DDD for fear of confusion with older games. Frankly, if you want to play the realistic card (which I never felt was necessary in FF) I think FF XIII was more puzzling in that regard : what, they' re all hunted fugitives but they won' t bother changing their clothes or growing hairs ? Makes perfect sense.

 

I'm fairly certain they will probably add DLC to this game, considering how well XIII-2's DLC was received.

Oh, I hadn't considered that. I really hope they give him a variation of his outfit, like they did with Sora and Riku in 3D.

It's not really about realism. I mean, assuming it was, they never really had time to change clothes because it all happens in about a week or two and they were always on the run (and when they didn't need to run, they were safe).

But anyways, they mentioned new clothes for Snow and Hope, yet didn't bother with Noel (that we've seen) that's odd.

 

There's more info on the game on the Square Enix NA site as well. They have an extended trailer, by a few seconds, and it shows lightning fighting Noel, so I'm wondering what's going on there.
http://na.square-enix.com/lightning...urns:_final_fantasy_xiii_new_trailer__preview

At least we know it's coming out this fall now.

 

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Looks like Assassin's Creed
like
eerily so