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Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII DEMO - OUT NOW* -

Sanctuary

Member
Tried the demo. If I ever end up playing it, it will probably be a rental. I like how it said "real time combat", except for the fact that that is not entirely true. It feels more like a highly modified variant of the XIII and XIII-2 system where you at least are given a semblance of control.
 

destrudo

Member
Tried the demo. I hate the story, characters and dialog but damn the combat system is really fun. Switching between the different schemata and setting up combos actually reminded me a bit of DMC. I hate to admit it, but I think I'm going to buy this!
 

Tizoc

Member
Tried the demo. If I ever end up playing it, it will probably be a rental. I like how it said "real time combat", except for the fact that that is not entirely true. It feels more like a highly modified variant of the XIII and XIII-2 system where you at least are given a semblance of control.

From what I saw of my brother playing the demo (gonna go play it myself soon), you do have control:
Treat AP like the stamina bar from say the Souls games
Each paradigm you use up the AP given to it, switch paradigm, expend AP, and repeat
 

Tizoc

Member
Raise your hand if you're gonna skip every cutscene that shows up when playing the main game.
*Raises hand*
 

deim0s

Member
BevZ-i_CUAAMJAe.jpg


Honestly, why is there a need for the left stick where R1 and the face buttons is all you need?
 

Soriku

Junior Member
Is there a Siegfried Garb confirmation? I posted my score, but is it supposed to tell you anything afterwards?
 

HawthorneKitty

Sgt. 2nd Class in the Creep Battalion, Waifu Wars
Raise your hand if you're gonna skip every cutscene that shows up when playing the main game.
*Raises hand*
I'm going to play the game so I can watch every cutscene with every schema.

We're talking about non-CGI, right?
 

aravuus

Member
I don't usually do this and I apologize beforehand, but if someone has an extra live gold code, I'd love to take it off your hands. I really want to give the demo a try, but my Xbox is at my parents' house which I visit like once a month, so buying any gold would be a massive waste of money. Fucking free demos my ass, this system is asinine.
 

Kouriozan

Member
I'm going to play the game so I can watch every cutscene with every schema.

We're talking about non-CGI, right?
I supported FF XIII because of the story.
XIII-2 battle system is a bit better but I'm platinuming it atm for the story too.
So yeah, I'm watching everything
with the Japanese audio.
 
Raise your hand if you're gonna skip every cutscene that shows up when playing the main game.
*Raises hand*

Nahhh. I mean, I know the story is going to be whack (and probably dumb), but I still wanna know what happens. And besides, the cutscenes/dialogue might be so "bad" that they are funny. Think of it as a comedy game! :p
 

Loakum

Banned
For those that actually played the game...can you level up to increase the hit points in your attack, or is it all based off changing clothes?
 
For those that actually played the game...can you level up to increase the hit points in your attack, or is it all based off changing clothes?

You gain more HP, Strength, and Magic by doing quests in the game. Like an example, after completing a sidequest (or main quest), you might get +20HP, +2STR. That's your form of leveling up.
 
Whats the point of mobs outside of quests now?
Do they drop anything?

They drop gil, quest items (maybe regular items, too - I'm not sure), and abilities from what I've seen. Plus, they give the ever valuable EP/GP which you can use to do a variety of actions. In particular, chronostasis which lets you freeze time for a few minutes or Overclock which slows down time in battle.
 

Loakum

Banned
You gain more HP, Strength, and Magic by doing quests in the game. Like an example, after completing a sidequest (or main quest), you might get +20HP, +2STR. That's your form of leveling up.

Oh, Thanx. I'm just wondering early on, will you fail a mission because your character is just too weak? Like for example the ChocoboEater.
 

Carbonox

Member
You gain more HP, Strength, and Magic by doing quests in the game. Like an example, after completing a sidequest (or main quest), you might get +20HP, +2STR. That's your form of leveling up.

Interesting. I'd assume there are enough to quests to 'max' out Lightning?

They drop gil, quest items (maybe regular items, too - I'm not sure), and abilities from what I've seen. Plus, they give the ever valuable EP/GP which you can use to do a variety of actions. In particular, chronostasis which lets you freeze time for a few minutes or Overclock which slows down time in battle.

At least there are rewards here too.


---

In terms of costume-changing, can you change Lightning's main 'walkabout' clothing? She has the default one when walking around but could I change it to the Dragoon costume for example when navigating in the world? Or does it always default to the default costume?
 

Milennia

Member
They drop gil, quest items (maybe regular items, too - I'm not sure), and abilities from what I've seen. Plus, they give the ever valuable EP/GP which you can use to do a variety of actions. In particular, chronostasis which lets you freeze time for a few minutes or Overclock which slows down time in battle.

Im at the point where i just want to play it lol, the game is so weird with all of these mechanics that it sounds much harder than it probably is.
 
Tried the demo. I hate the story, characters and dialog but damn the combat system is really fun. Switching between the different schemata and setting up combos actually reminded me a bit of DMC. I hate to admit it, but I think I'm going to buy this!

Yeah, it seems like this is going to be another FFX-2: mediocre main story, great sidequests, great battle system.
 
Interesting. I'd assume there are enough to quests to 'max' out Lightning?

There's a shit ton of quests, and you probably won't finish them all before just wanting to beat the game and get it over with (since the sidequests aren't exactly exciting). New Game + carries over your levels and such, so you can make her insanely powerful if you want to do Hard mode.

In terms of costume-changing, can you change Lightning's main 'walkabout' clothing? She has the default one when walking around but could I change it to the Dragoon costume for example when navigating in the world? Or does it always default to the default costume?

You can actually do that in the demo. On the customization menu, press Square on the outfit you want to make the default one, and she'll walk around as that (and show up in cutscenes, too).

Im at the point where i just want to play it lol, the game is so weird with all of these mechanics that it sounds much harder than it probably is.

haha, yeah. I know what you mean. xD
 

truly101

I got grudge sucked!
Played the demo, loved the battle system and the job switching, decided early on the story is still a shitload of fuck so I'm not going to even bother paying attention to it.
 

Blu(e)

Member
Interesting. I'd assume there are enough to quests to 'max' out Lightning?



At least there are rewards here too.


---

In terms of costume-changing, can you change Lightning's main 'walkabout' clothing? She has the default one when walking around but could I change it to the Dragoon costume for example when navigating in the world? Or does it always default to the default costume?

Yes. From the three costumes that you currently have equipped, you can press Square/X (PS3/Xbox) in the costume customization menu, and that will set your costume to walk around in. It will also be the costume you start with in battle and what will be shown in custscenes so be wary of that

I'm really tempted to pick the first game today if my local Gamestop has it. I've been super curious to try out the 13 series as an old FF fan. Hopefully NA gets that FF sale that EU has going on to pick up 13-2 for cheap.
 

oni_saru

Member
Is there a Siegfried Garb confirmation? I posted my score, but is it supposed to tell you anything afterwards?

Yeah I have the same question.

Gameplay is pretty fun. I actually played the demo twice to try different schemas. Kinda want to day one.
 

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Let me get this traight... with the overworld feature people teorically are allowed to post ingame spoilers through phrases and even screenhots right? Imagine if this was real in 1997 when FFVII released...

"Aerith Dies" ~ Screenshot, proof

KILL ME :(

I might be tempted to keep it off only for that...

There's no way to have the battle results posting-option activate and the wanderer NPCs turned off at the same time?
 

Isaccard

Member
Let me get this traight... with the overworld feature people teorically are allowed to post ingame spoilers through phrases and even screenhots right? Imagine if this was real in 1997 when FFVII released...

"Aerith Dies" ~ Screenshot, proof

KILL ME :(

I might be tempted to keep it off only for that...

There's no way to have the battle results posting-option activate and the wanderer NPCs turned off at the same time?

I can't imagine why you'd want it on to begin with
 

branny

Member
Excited for this game. Min/maxing to get my best time of 16 seconds on the demo felt reminiscent of the same process I went through for all the Graces f boss trophies without grinding in my first playthrough. :D
 

Ermac

Proudly debt free. If you need a couple bucks, just ask.
Damn what if Lightning is in Smash Bros .. Gaf would implode.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Man February and March is crazy for games. Thank goodness this comes out on the 11th, but at the end of February is Lords of Shadow 2 and Tales of Symphonia Chronicles. Then you got March, in the first week is South Park, then on the 18th you got Ground Zeroes and Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD.
 
Man February and March is crazy for games. Thank goodness this comes out on the 11th, but at the end of February is Lords of Shadow 2 and Tales of Symphonia Chronicles. Then you got March, in the first week is South Park, then on the 18th you got Ground Zeroes and Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD.

Yeah, seriously. Not to mention Bravely Default (NA) and Dark Souls 2. That's one of the reasons why I'm thinking about holding off on getting Lightning Returns at launch. I'll probably still be playing Bravely Default and then a lot of other (probably better) games will be out shortly thereafter. I'm just not sure.

Question for those who beat the game or played a lot of it - how good is the Cloud outfit? Is it something so good you use most of the game? Or are there better options? I saw people using it quite a bit in streams and youtube walkthroughs.
 

HTupolev

Member
I played PS3 demo but how is the 360 ver?

Same in game quality except for the compressed cut scenes?
Just tried switching between them on the same TV.

In-game seems to look about the same, though I didn't mess around enough to get a sense for how overall framerates compare.

I'll be there to drink the tears with a pink fun straw.
There probably wouldn't be tears so much as confusion.

That said, pink fun straws are never a bad idea.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Some of the textures look iffy, but at least the game upscales to 1080i/p. Not many PS3 games do that. I find it looks better at this resolution, even if not native.
 
Lightning in Smash Bros confirmed?

That makes absolutely no sense, so little sense that I now fully expect it.

I think I've decided to skip on this game for now..I'm not feeling the battle system, or at least not 60 dollars worth. Plus, with DKC: TF and Bravely Default getting my dollars, I don't have enough for LR. That's not to say it's bad, just...don't think I'm in enough for a Day 1 purchase. I keep toying with the demo but it just..it isn't -clicking- (not like, it's hard, just...it doesn't mesh with me yet I guess?)
 

Sanctuary

Member
From what I saw of my brother playing the demo (gonna go play it myself soon), you do have control:
Treat AP like the stamina bar from say the Souls games
Each paradigm you use up the AP given to it, switch paradigm, expend AP, and repeat

Yeah, I get that. That's why I said it's not entirely true (or rather, partially true). It's real time in the fact that it's technically not turn based or pause on action, but I couldn't find any reason to actually move my character once a fight started. Unless I just missed it, you can't really go out of range to avoid attacks if you're actually in melee range already and you simply have to guard. Sure, you can stand back at max range and try using all ranged attacks, but some of the melee attacks do the most damage, so after a stagger or during an overclock (lol...) you would still need to be in melee range. Although it did appear that casting Blizzaga would cause Lightning to actually avoid tail swipes, but maybe I'm wrong.

Switching between aspects/classes or whatever they are called was kind of neat I guess, but at the same time it kind of felt cheesy. Drain the AP of the class you're currently on and then just switch out for 1/2 - 3/4 of the AP bar that was regenerating behind the scenes on another class. Just felt kind of silly to me, as though your outfits had some kind of random battery pack and that the AP isn't coming from Lightning. The combat ended up just being cycling through classes after draining AP, which is why I said it felt like a modified XIII to me.

Did anyone else also find it rather odd that they played the entire opening cutscene during the opening credits? I actually let that play, because I thought it was actually just the opening credits scene. But then wondered what the hell was going on and why the characters seemed to be talking during a scene with no audible dialogue. Then, when I actually started the game, it replayed that entire scene again, but this time it made a lot more sense.

Hell no, I love the trilogy's cutscenes!

The entire time I was watching the cutscenes, I kept thinking "My god, this is gorgeous" and "Maybe if Square spent less time trying to make movie quality cutscenes in their FF games the primary focus during development, and dumped that money into gameplay and world design they wouldn't be so broke",
 

Negator

Member
I played through it and wasn't very impressed. It seemed all I really did was spam attacks until that ATB bar was out, then switch, deplete the bar, switch, throw a few blocks in. Enemy is dead. All the attacks felt the same as the others, and it just felt like I was playing a really bad action game. Moved around with the L stick and I was getting hit by attacks I was nowhere near.

Only fun I really had was playing the Heartstealer and try and dodge attacks perfectly.
 
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