This isn’t a game about lightning striking the return key on a keyboard. It could be, if you used your imagination and all of the fancy time-shifting, dimension crossing mind-bending plot that is the Final Fantasy XIII universe, but that is not what you get here.
You get an end of the world type scenario, and an open world to explore. That open world is mixed up with a time limit for you to complete however many quests you possibly can, while the tides of time flow around you. This means you’ve got a certain amount of time to get things done.
That means you must prioritise what it is that you do. There’s not a really easy way to understand what is the most important thing to do at a glance, unless you spend a considerable amount of time in the game’s menus, studying the various tasks. As a result, this is a game where you must make sacrifice - to get one benefit over another.
That is a common gameplay mechanic, and the notion of the opportunity cost is pressed upon you at every possible opportunity.
As a result, while being forced through a somewhat linear chain of events that propels you forward through a plot, you get a choice about how to add colour to that world's events. Some have compared Lightning Returns to a rogue like, but it certainly doesn't feel that way, when an entire run through the game world would probably take twenty or more hours in its entirety.
I'm not sure about you, but with all the hour tales set in the Final Fantasy XIII universe, I am not certain that is a thing that I wish to do. There is one thing that is for certain, however, this might be the most polished game in the whole series, but after seven years of it being in the wild; I don't think that there is much else like this.
Ignoring the mind bending tale of some time rift vortex stuff, you get pretty standard Final Fantasy stuff going on here. Choccobos, Cactuars,and a myriad of references to other games set in the Final Fantasy series.
You get to play as the eponymous Lightning; and you can change your character skills, build and well, model; by changing outfits. This gives you different powers and advantages against certain types of enemies in combat, which is where you will waste the most time not completing quests.
In typical SquareEnix style, the character models and outfits are truly beautiful and in this case, the visual effects are full of dramatic (and well animated) particle effects to make combat almost feel like a Devil May Cry game, in terms of its animations, but it is largerly still driven by menu based systems.
Music is good, combat is quick; but the story is a mess. Such a mess. It is easier to follow than that of other games in the Final Fantasy XIII universe, but I feel as though this is a game entirely about ... the game - what you can and can't do really influences the options available to you at later points in the adventure.
Yet, I felt as though there was no really compelling reason to keep playing again and again. It felt like a chore, I wasn't engrossed in finding out what happened next, or doing typical JRPG tasks like pacing back and forth between two points in order to fetch object to exchange object for other object to give object to other character.
FFXIII does this through newgame+ after newgame+, and probably, as a result feels more like a MMO than a single player game. It is a fun game, but it overwhelmingly feels like a chore.
Want more content from me?
Witness my futile efforts to play my Steam Game collection in alphabetical order.
Are you aware that I love photography? Check out my work in a collection.
If you want to see my Splinterlands antics and rants live, Find me on Twitch
If you prefer sleeping in your designated time zone, go watch replays on YouTube.