Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most different things Square has done with the series in years and I like where it is going.
This game visually looks really good but is still basically like how XIII looked. What sets it apart is the battle system. The game appears to be just Lighting running around and battling enemies all by herself. In battle she has several different schematas that let her use different attacks.
In the demo each schemata had three different attacks and one defensive skill that were mapped to the face buttons. I’m sure that in the full game all these skills will be customizable. The three different schematas that Lightning had in the demo ran the normal range of mage to fighter. However, in battles you could freely move around the battlefield but I didn’t quite know how to change targets or dodge. I bring up dodging specifically because moving Lightning around was slow and she would just run to the appropriate area when a skill was used anyway.
All that aside, having a fast paced actiony system worked very well. It was fun using all the attacks and switching schematas is all handled very well. But all I was really doing was using up all the MP for one schemata and then going to another in an endless loop (MP slowly regenerates). There is going to have to be more to the system to stop it from just becoming monotonous, even though I had a great time with the demo. And I’m not quite sure how much more there could be to add since there were already 3 MP bars with the HP bar, and every attack was so flashy and interesting it was distracting enough already. I know that all sounded somewhat negative but it was a lot of fun and very different from what I’d expect a Final Fantasy game to feature.
The battle system also lets you stagger the enemies and that lets you wail on them for a bit for hitting their weakness repeatedly.
The overworld traversal now lets you jump, attack, and even dash around. It is almost like an action game and there was even a chase sequence shown off.
So the battle system might have a lot going on and the traversal was just ok but I am now very interested in this game. I skipped out on XIII-2 but I may have to pick this one up just because Square seems to be trying something a little bit different. It also doesn’t hurt that it was pretty enjoyable.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is set to release on February 11th for PS3 and Xbox 360.
