Square Enix had no shortage of Final Fantasy news on the show floor at E3. Between the rebirth of the MMO, A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV and the official announcement of Final Fantasy XV, fans of the franchise had plenty to sink their teeth into. With that said, this doesn’t mean the next game in the series didn’t hog a share of the spotlight for itself. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII was on the floor and fully playable, so I made sure I got to delve deep into the Goddess’ final adventure.
The demo threw Lightning into a very different version of her world; one that is on the verge of destruction. As the E3 trailer showed, she’s at odds with her former teammate, Snow, and was forced to fight through waves of enemies in order to keep up with him. With tactical assistance from everyone’s favorite whiny brat turned Otakon wannabe, Hope, the trailing of Snow had commenced!
Lightning Returns touts a real time battle system that is more action based, but this was the first time I was able to put it to the test. Familiar aspects return, including a renamed version of the paradigm shift/job systems and the Active Time Battle mechanic, but with a new twist. Since Lightning is riding solo in this adventure, her skill set has expanded substantially. Split amongst three battle types, (with different costumes to match,) Lightning can switch between them on the fly. Having three attack options and a guard button, players can manually make her move towards and away from the enemy while timing defending, magic and physical moves. Each move spends a certain amount of the ATB bar, and once it’s empty, you’ll have to wait for it to recharge. However, instead of other games in the series where you were forced to twiddle your thumbs while waiting for the bar to fill, each class has its own ATB bar. So all it takes is a simple press of the shoulder button to switch to another style while the drained one charges in the background. That’s pretty sweet if you ask me.
One of the most strategic aspects of the XIII series was the staggering system, where timing attacks and exploiting weaknesses caused enemies to be temporarily disabled in various ways. I’m happy to say that staggering is back, but it works differently this time around. While elemental weaknesses still play a part, it’s not enough to just level enemies with constant attacks. The best way to stagger now is to attack during an enemy’s attack animation, so while you risk taking damage, you’ll be rewarded with a window of opportunity to inflict a huge amount of uninterrupted damage if you’ve managed your ATB bar properly. And trust me, to efficiently beat the boss at the close of the demo, you were going to have to take advantage of any exploit you could.
I’ll admit, I’ve been a big critic of the XIII franchise. After being greatly disappointed by the original and its sequel, which took plenty of steps in the right direction, but still fell short in the game play department in my opinion, Lightning Returns is well on its way to change my mind. Controlling only one character eliminates the party member AI issues and the updates to the battle system fit in perfectly with the real time combat. The only big issues that have yet to be resolved are with the story and characters, but we won’t really know much about either until the game releases early next year. I can also do without the completely out of character “sexy” posing the stoic and serious Lightning does after winning a battle in her magic costume, but that’s a conversation for another day.
Look for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox 360 and PS3 on February 11th.