Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Saga

[KrazyBean]

The history of Bhunivelze is actually explained quite a bit prior to this game and a lot of it was heavily hinted at in the first XIII as well. They probably didn't have all the details fleshed out at the time, though, of course. Most of the details about the backstory of the world were revealed in early 2011.

 

 

From Final Fantasy Wiki:

 

The universe of the

Fabula Nova Crystallis series is divided in two – the Mortal World, the realm of the living, and the Unseen World, the realm of the dead. Mwynn is the god Bhunivelze's mother, and was killed by her son who wanted to take full control of the Mortal World. As a result, Mwynn was sent into the Unseen World.

 

Despite achieving his goal of total control of the Mortal World, Bhunivelze became troubled. He believed that Mwynn had placed a curse on the realm of the living so that it would one day be destroyed. To put a stop to the curse, Bhunivelze sought to destroy his mother once and for all, but was unable to reach the Unseen World without giving up control of the Mortal World. To find the entrance to the realm of the dead, Bhunivelze created the fal'Cie Pulse, tasked with searching the world for the door to the Unseen World.

 

To assist Pulse, Bhunivelze created the fal'Cie Etro, but became distraught to discover that he had unknowingly created her in the likeness of Mwynn and as a result, Bhunivelze gave Etro no powers. To replace Etro, Bhunivelze created the fal'Cie Lindzei, tasked with protecting the world and Bhunivelze himself. With the fal'Cie at work, Bhunivelze put himself into a deep crystal sleep, to be awoken only when the door to the Unseen World was found.

 

 

Etro became distressed over her lack of power and purpose in the world. Out of despair, Etro killed herself and disappeared from the Mortal World, entering the Unseen World. In the Unseen World, Etro discovered Mwynn being consumed by an energy mass known as chaos. With her last breath, Mwynn tasked Etro with protecting the balance of the universe, for if the balance between the Visible and Unseen Worlds was to be disrupted, the universe itself would collapse. Mwynn told Etro she must protect the world balance, before being fully consumed by chaos.

 

Everyone is calling Bhunivelze "God" because he's the highest God they know about at this point in time. According to the backstory there is at least one higher God, but where she comes from nobody knows... and we'll never find out, either. (Not that anyone else here really cares.)

 

Never thought I'd say this...but that actually makes sense.

[JaidynReiman]

I think the main issue is they never put this backstory out in-game. It probably didn't even exist (mostly) until a year or so after XIII was released, although some stuff was hinted at. Doesn't mean they didn't just leave the info open and come up with it later, though.

[pppp]

I'm sorry, but if that backstory is nowhere in the games like you said Jaidyn, not even in the datalogs, then I'm not gonna say "Oh now it all makes sense!". Asking me to read from datalogs is already idiotic and lazy, but this?

 

When the player has to actually research online what the hell is a fal'cie and just exactly who Bhunivelze is, that's the sign that these people completely failed as storytellers.

 

Why couldn't we have a character that was an audience proxy, so that the others explain all this shit to him?

 

For as much as i hate FF10 and its self-proclaimed protagonist Tidus(The main characters are Yuna and Auron, not that annoying shit), he at least served a purpose: being the stupid idiot that people need to explain everything to. Everytime they arrive at a new town or something religion-related happened, Tidus woud act all stupid and Wakka would go like "Oh that's right, you're from 1000 years into the past, you've never been here, here's what this town is about" or "This is what an Al Bhed is".

 

Why couldn't this trilogy have an audience proxy? I always thought Hope was the natural candidate. He is a  young mama's boy, so they could have made him be one of those sheltered children that knows nothing about the world and has to learn stuff to become a better person.

 

It would make him a better character(At the very least his constant annoying bitching in the first game would be more justified) and that way he could serve the purpose of having stuff explained to the player.

 

Say what you want about KH plots being convoluted, but at least every new thing from each game is always properly explained to the player using this method. Sora being the proxy in KH3D's climax sure made me much more comfortable than i would be otherwise.

[KrazyBean]

As promised, here's my video of the demo.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Wc37Kh1lY

[JaidynReiman]

I'm sorry, but if that backstory is nowhere in the games like you said Jaidyn, not even in the datalogs, then I'm not gonna say "Oh now it all makes sense!". Asking me to read from datalogs is already idiotic and lazy, but this?

 

When the player has to actually research online what the hell is a fal'cie and just exactly who Bhunivelze is, that's the sign that these people completely failed as storytellers.

 

Why couldn't we have a character that was an audience proxy, so that the others explain all this shit to him?

 

For as much as i hate FF10 and its self-proclaimed protagonist Tidus(The main characters are Yuna and Auron, not that annoying shit), he at least served a purpose: being the stupid idiot that people need to explain everything to. Everytime they arrive at a new town or something religion-related happened, Tidus woud act all stupid and Wakka would go like "Oh that's right, you're from 1000 years into the past, you've never been here, here's what this town is about" or "This is what an Al Bhed is".

 

Why couldn't this trilogy have an audience proxy? I always thought Hope was the natural candidate. He is a  young mama's boy, so they could have made him be one of those sheltered children that knows nothing about the world and has to learn stuff to become a better person.

 

It would make him a better character(At the very least his constant annoying bitching in the first game would be more justified) and that way he could serve the purpose of having stuff explained to the player.

 

Say what you want about KH plots being convoluted, but at least every new thing from each game is always properly explained to the player using this method. Sora being the proxy in KH3D's climax sure made me much more comfortable than i would be otherwise.

Oh I'm not arguing anything about that at all. I actually thought most of this WAS in the game when I first read it, which confused me somewhat later on until I discovered all this information was revealed outside of the games. All they do is vaguely hint at it in-game. In the first game, if you know the backstory, the references to Pulse, Lindzei, etc., do make more sense in context, but again, the backstory wasn't fully revealed in it. Although admittedly, the backstory doesn't necessarily have to be revealed in the first game, but by the next consecutive games they should have explained it in-game.

 

As far as KH, I really like the plots and everything in them. Convoluted, yeah, but I like how they're connected. And I like piecing together my own theories about it. I just hate it when thing's aren't clarified. I also hate it when we get an ending that doesn't show what happens to the characters of the story after the fact (such as Lightning Returns, naturally... and Tales of the Abyss, too... I'd actually say that Tales of the Abyss' ending is worse than Lightning Returns, though the overall game is probably way better; I can't say "is" because I haven't played LR).

 

In the case of Final Fantasy X, I have to argue against you on that. Tidus IS the true protagonist of the game; if it wasn't for Tidus the cycle would not have stopped in the first place and Yuna would've just been another dead Summoner (I'm sure she could've made it without Tidus). He is the idiot ball at first that everything gets explained to, but by the end it becomes clear why Tidus is the main protagonist.

 

...unfortunately, you can't really say that about Vaan. Even in the case of Lightning its difficult to argue that as well, though at least Lightning is more of an action girl that goes to get things done. In XIII Vanille is really more the main protagonist though.

 

Other protagonists are questionable up until a certain point, but most of them make sense in the overall story. Zidane, for example, is just the one who makes the story flow up until right before the end of the game before we finally learn why he's the main protagonist (a similar case with Tidus as well).

 

EDIT: There's also the occasional main protagonist of various games that really are just a nobody. In these cases there's not necessarily any excuse as to why they play that role. I prefer main protagonists that fit into the role, though. Other times its a silent protagonist that is only in such a role to make it feel like its the player accomplishing said feets.

[KrazyBean]

The demo is officially out now by the way. You still need Gold if you want to play it on the 360. PS3 players get exclusive content for playing the demo.

[MegasonicZX]

I tried out the demo and here are my thoughts on it:

 

Story: I honestly don't know whats going on, it may be because I haven't played the last few games (though I did see parts and even watched the endings) but from what I gather apparently Light is now some sort of walking rapture waiting to happen apparently and now snow somewhat hates her for it or whatever, im interested to see where the plot goes but honestly it just seems out of nowhere coming from the last games ending.

 

Also, I swear if that girl (lumare or something I already forgot) turns out to be serah's evil incarnation at the end I won't be surprised.

 

Gameplay: The gameplay is something I really didn't expect square to do for this series. To start off I really like the schemata system, it offers a good amount of customization to the (finally action based) combat and it gives you a lot of options in terms of attack combos and setups and I like lightings outfits that go with them for the most part though I couldn't help but feel for a character like lightning they seem pretty weird on her but I digress. The enemies were a bit too easy for my liking, it may be because the demo wanted to ease you into the gameplay but the enemies are a bit too slow to attack and seeing as though I only had one encounter with two enemies at once I never did see if there was a way to change lock ons or if they would be more aggressive in their attacks.

 

Overall, the demo was a bit too short to really give a solid impression on it but from a gameplay perspective I do like it and I hope they adapt a system like this into more final fantasies later on. Also, I like how you move around the field on here, I hope in the full game they make use of this movement system for finding treasure chests and secret routes and maybe a small dose of platforming.

[KrazyBean]

You can change which enemy you're locked on to by pressing left/right on the D-Pad MegaSonic.

[MegasonicZX]

Thanks, that oughta help out next time I play it, I really do wish the enemies were a bit more active though since this is action based  now but then again, they don't give you the evade during the demo and since the dragoon is the only schemata with a sort of evasion I can see why the enemies don't attack much since even with the guard you still lose health either way.

[KrazyBean]

Thanks, that oughta help out next time I play it, I really do wish the enemies were a bit more active though since this is action based  now but then again, they don't give you the evade during the demo and since the dragoon is the only schemata with a sort of evasion I can see why the enemies don't attack much since even with the guard you still lose health either way.

 

There is an Evade move selectable as well, I think the Dragoon Schemata has Counterblow instead of Evade. I equipped Mediguard on Black Mage, Counterblow on Dragoon and Evade on Heartstealer.

[MegasonicZX]

Yeah, the counterblow was pretty handy when the boss did the stampede move (can't use it against the flame attack though). 

[KrazyBean]

Yeah, the counterblow was pretty handy when the boss did the stampede move (can't use it against the flame attack though). 

 

Yeah, you definitely need to block for that.

 

EDIT: New Trailer.

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2014/01/23/lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiii-battle-system

[AlphaRuby]

 

The saga so far, in 16-bit SNES graphics!

[pppp]

"Hey guys! Remember when FFVI was new and the series was still good and had dignity? Yeah well here's this retrospective made out of hacking the FFVI rom. Satisfied? No? Too bad, you will play our pretensious game with no charm like a good puppet"

 

 

Sigh....And now i feel like playing FFVI instead of Lightning Returns. so....what exactly was their plan with this? Do they honestly think older fans can still be fooled?

 

Another interesting thing is that that summary was more coherent and easy to understand than the actual games. That's....sad really.

[AlphaRuby]

 

Sigh....And now i feel like playing FFVI instead of Lightning Returns. so....what exactly was their plan with this? Do they honestly think older fans can still be fooled?

 

 

It was just a retro-styled trailer. What's wrong with that?

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

It was just a retro-styled trailer. What's wrong with that?

 

When selling your terrible new game, don't remind everybody of your excellent old ones.

[Soniman]

It was just a retro-styled trailer. What's wrong with that?

 

Err im having trouble figuring out why as well. Then again, I wasnt personaly scarred by the XIII series so I kinda just see this as a cute little thign.

 

When selling your terrible new game, don't remind everybody of your excellent old ones.

 

Well their job IS to get people to buy the game.

[MegasonicZX]

Somehow I think a trailer like this would've fit bravely default more than this game since everybody keeps on comparing it to FFVI.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

 

Well their job IS to get people to buy the game.

 

They're not doing a very good job if all this makes me want to do is go replay the old games and forget anything termed "Final Fantasy XIII" ever existed.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

I honestly am fine with the Lightning Saga, and despite only playing part 2, I hope to play part 1 and the upcoming Lightning Returns.

[KrazyBean]

Eh, I thought it was a cool video...

[T-Min]

When selling your terrible new game, don't remind everybody of your excellent old ones.

To be fair, I doubt that they're aware that their new game is terrible. In fact, at least some of them are probably convinced it's an epic masterpiece of all the times forever.

 

That said, this got a few genuine laughs out of me. Also, it's accurate. But really, now I'm just waiting for Lightning Returns to come out so we can forget about this ridiculous sub-series and move on to bigger, much better things.

[JaidynReiman]

I honestly am fine with the Lightning Saga, and despite only playing part 2, I hope to play part 1 and the upcoming Lightning Returns.

I honestly like the Lightning Saga as well and like the lore and everything in the backstory, too. That said... I blatantly see the criticisms of the sub-series and understand that, although I do kinda like it, the previous games in the series are far, far superior. I think my favorite is still Final Fantasy VI, though I love VII, VIII, X, and XII and also like IV, V, and IX (I didn't really enjoy IX so much tbh).

 

IMHO, the XIII games are worse then all of them, although I do love the lore in the XIII games. That said, I do like all the characters in the XIII games. Some annoy me more than others, but I still like them. Never played I, II, XI, or XIV and haven't played enough of III to give an opinion on any of them.

[Badnik Mechanic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NFmP4fVBqA

 

It's the single best thing to come out of this mess.

 

It actually makes the story easier to understand... even though it leaves in all the glaring plot holes and stupidity.

 

Though when it gets to the FF13-2 bit, it really does help illustrate how much of a tragic mess of a game that one was.

 

 

Edit: Oh bugger it's already been posted.

 

Meh it's still awesome even though, the FFX-2 section really does highlight how much of a mess it was. When you watch it... just ask yourself "Who is Yeule and why should we care?" and "Why did Serah die again?" 

[Solkia]

that was fucking stupid