Progress Update: #465 - Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Out of all the games in the XIII trilogy, this was the one I had the lowest expectations for and also simultaneously the most interest in. It just seemed so different, which if nothing else can at least result in an interesting experience even if it is bad. The time mechanics were the most off-putting aspects at first glance, but having now played it... I kind of liked it? Every NPC acting on a schedule and things showing up within certain timeframes is something that's not very original in gaming but the added layer of an actual time limit in this made it all the more pressing that you showed up on time for these things instead of procrastinating on them for a few in-game days until you feel like it.
I don't enjoy the stress of min-maxing schedules, so I used a guide for this just like I do for Persona games, so I can hardly say I got the "full experience", but I still appreciate what they were going for and commend it for how different and unique it felt despite being the third game in a trilogy (which itself is only 3 games in a massive franchise) - as someone with no particularly strong feelings towards Final Fantasy, the evolution of the XIII trilogy has been interesting to behold and I've really enjoyed how different each game in the trilogy has managed to feel, not only from a story perspective but also from a gameplay perspective as well. It has been one of my favourite aspects of the trilogy really.
Another thing I appreciate about this game is the way it made fighting optional. You don't get XP, and it's much easier to run from fights than XIII-2 and especially XIII. It may sound odd, since this is a JRPG and thus combat should probably be one of the main attractions, but... sometimes you just want to focus on the quest you're doing, and fighting everything you encounter can really pad the playtime, something the first XIII was very guilty of. That doesn't mean fighting was pointless - you get drops (necessary for quests), gil, and a resource called EP which can be used on various powerful abilities (for both inside and outside of combat scenarios), but it definitely didn't feel like each missed fight was making me more underpowered.
I also liked this new combat system a lot, it retains the XIII auto-battle DNA whilst also offering a lot of freedom, even moreso than the paradigm systems of prior games because you can fully customize which abilities are available in which "paradigms" of this game, which can lead to some pretty in-depth strategizing as you try and match up the abilities you want to use with the passive benefits of the new paradigm system.
Honestly the biggest setback of the gameplay for me is purely cosmetic based, considering I heavily mitigated the scheduling with a guide so that didn't bother me at all - this game has a heavy emphasis on outfits, to the point where each outfit has its own gameplay benefit and use. The problem lies in that some of the outfits are... not that great to look at, one of the ones I liked using was an outfit called Dragon's Blood, but it's also arguably "fanservice"ly designed, which usually just disgusts me. It wasn't terrible, certainly better than a lot of JRPG costuming can get, but you'd think with a game that ties stats to its outfits they'd at least let you transmog it so that outfit A looks like outfit B but still has the stats/abilities of outfit A.
Plot wise... probably the weakest of the trilogy. Which is a shame because the core concept of it is very interesting, and the ovearcing narrative has its moments, but most of the main quests just weren't engaging at all and the sidequests even less so, they're certainly not Yakuza substory-tier, they're more on par with generic NPC western RPG quests. There are a couple memorable standouts, but most of them are just forgettable filler.
Overall I enjoyed this game, more than the first XIII but arguably not as much as XIII-2, but it's a close call. The trilogy as a whole isn't anything amazing, but it's better than I expect Final Fantasy to be and I'm glad I took the time to play them all.