Summary: Starting a new game! Lightning the savior. Snow the unsaved. Lumina. An exciting new combat system.
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Introduction
-I’m blessedly unspoiled on this game. Will LR maintain the I know zero about what to expect. I don’t know if this will maintain the three-party-members-paradigm combat system or go with a Tactics system or a Crisis Core system or what.
We’ll probably play as Lightning, which is cool. Cause she’s FRIGGING LIGHTNING. XIII-2 Battle Angel Lightning? XIII Caped Soldier Lightning? Something new? Idk.
-The logo on the main screen looks like a Transformer face. Maybe it’s a crystal being shattered.
Bad Prediction Time:
-Lightning will somehow reverse Serah’s death from the end of XIII-2.
-We’ll return to a full party system with 5+ party members.
-We’ll meet the Maker this game, though not as a boss.
-We’ll fight the other gods.
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Settings
[Non-rhetorical question: the game lets me toggle “Enable Downloadable Content.” It’s off by default. Should I turn it on?]
-Bless the game for fixing the mini-map to north.
-Digging this electric violin. Sounds very Emilie Autumn.
-Some new controls. Overclock may be a limit break, schemata may be a new version of paradigms, and a “dash” implies more action elements.
-Starting with normal mode rather than easy.
-Oh nooo. I’m fine with normal difficulty and a fleeing penalty, but no auto-recovery in the field? BOOOO HISSSSS. I thought that mechanic would be dead and buried with the older FFs.
[Non-rhetorical question: Some rare games, like the iOS version of FFIV, expect you to start on easy and move up to normal on NG+. Is it reasonable to start with normal here, or is that like a challenge mode? What do y’all recommend?]
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New Game
“When I awoke from my dreamless sleep, I was just in time to witness the end of the world.” What an opening line.
-This isn’t Valhalla. It’s crowded and high tech, with trains and lights. A smoky ruin. Red lightning.
-Some unnamed voiceover describes this as a festival of sorts before the end of the world.
HFDUIOSHFODSFDJKLS THE SHAAAAADES
“Only 13 days to go.” Of course there are only thirteen days.
-X-2 vibes so far with this wild party.
-A dude on his throne overlooking a club scene.
???: “It’s the Chaos. Do you want to turn back?”
LIGHTNING: “Too late now.”
-Some people started dropping, with light orbs hovering around their bodies. Their spirits maybe.
-Ah, the symbol for the game is Lightning’s amulet. She seems to be drawing fallen souls into it.
-THE THRONE DUDE IS SNOW? He looks older, more weathered.
-He calls Lightning “the Savior,” sneering. Is this alternate timeline Snow?
-Reality warps. The club’s walls waver like water. AND A GIANT HAND REACHES AND GRABS A MASKED PARTY-GOER
-The monster that emerges looks like an Egyptian dog god Anubis. Snow joins the fray to fight.
Lightning and Snow start fighting the creatures side by side, fighting each other during the breaks. This tells me that they’re not real enemies, but they’re not seeing eye to eye.
LIGHTNING: “Snow. It’s been a long time. You know what I am, and you know what I want.”
SNOW: “I can take a wild guess. You wanna ‘save’ me!”
-He’s being weirdly sarcastic about this. Usually he’s all about the saving, but it sounds like this conversation is old and used between them.
-Getting a glimpse of Lightning’s armor. I mostly like it but it feels more male gazey than before.
Hints of a chainmail bikini aesthetic, but idk. Lmk what you think.
-Lightning’s ripping between monsters like her first appearance on that XIII train, turned up to 11. Meanwhile, Snow snarks about her as a prophesied savior to guide their souls to salvation.
-He goes from just fists to using a giant crystal polearm. Not like it helps lol. She destroys him.
LIGHTNING: ”I could help you. If that’s what you want.” It’s clearly not what he wants.
-They’re face-to-face when a playful voice chirps: “Uh uh! That isn’t going to work!” Lightning’s blade cracks as the voice giggles. Is it Mog?
-The camera pans up to a girl named Lumina. She looks a lot like Serah, but I’m bad with faces.
-Lumina seems to have some kind of red lightning powers. Teleportation too.
-She sets the club’s chandelier on ablaze. It crashes down when someone – Snow? Lightning? – freezes/crystallizes it, similar to Cocoon’s crystallization before it crashed.
SNOW: “I swear that kid is a demon.”
LIGHTNING: “Angels of death and demons? You’re attracting the wrong crowd, Snow.”
I have so many questions.
-Black smoke pours out of Snow. “No one is going to stop me, you hear? Not you. Definitely not her. If I have to fight the savior, I will.”
Is Snow going to be the antagonist this game? I’m down. I’ve always been kind of mixed on Snow – hated his design and his “I don’t care what YOU want, I’m gonna be the hero!” thing.
If they’re twisting that on its head and giving us an awesome new design as well? Yes please.
-Snow walks out into the waving glass. Perhaps an agent of chaos now. I could see him becoming Caius 2.0 to try to save Serah.
-Scene change. Centuries have passed somehow, and now Snow just presides over this “never-ending banquet at the end of the world.” The head chef at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
-Lightning serves God in a world consumed by chaos. God? Etro? No, she was the goddess, unless it’s just a translation thing and she’s clearly meant to be serving her. If “God” is ambiguous or male, I’m thinking she serves the Maker. We’ll see.
LIGHTNING: “Tell me, Snow. Has ever a day passed when you haven’t thought of Serah?” Lumina’s look must be a coincidence then, rather than being Serah reborn or something.
-Lightning mourns Serah. She can’t bring Serah back, but she can save Snow’s soul, free him from his torment.
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Combat Introduction
-Another of those Anubisath monsters spawns.
-It’s HOPE on the intercom! He even calls her Light.
-I was right on the enemy’s design inspiration! It’s called an Anubys.
-Tutorial time. Lightning can move around the battlefield some. Is this a more action-centric game? Seems to retain XIII’s basic system, but maybe mixing in Crisis Core elements.
-There’s a sort of heartbeat monitor above the enemy’s health. Not sure what that is. Related to stagger gauge maybe.
-Lightning can switch between combinations of “equipment and garb known as schemata.” Up to three schemata in a battle at a time.
ARE WE GOING BACK TO FFX-2 WITH A VARIANT ON THE DRESSPHERE SYSTEM? I’d be super down for that. I loved X-2, even if few people seem to.
-Her current schemata is “The Savior.” Thunder, Guard, Attack.
-I swap over to Dark Muse, her other schema. Blizzard, Guard, Attack.
-When one scheme is on the bench, in “standby,” it recovers ATB quickly.
-The grammar took me a sec, but I get it now. Schema = singular, schemata = plural. Like stigma and stigmata!
-Anubys didn’t try guard yet, but I’ll bet that just reduces damage from the next attack. A touch of sentinel.
[Later edit: this whole thing reminds me STRONGLY of Lightning’s XIII-2 Eternal Battlefield post-game content. I’ll bet it served as a preview or testing ground for this Lightning Returns system.]
-The battle results page includes an “EP” stat. Dunno what that is yet.
-The game switches to a non-combat section where I move around the map and see enemies here. It borrows the XIII-2 system where I get a bonus for initiating combat with a strike. Dunno if there’s a mog-clock time limit on this.
-Successfully initiating combat quickly enough reduces enemy HP rather than giving Lightning haste.
-The enemy is a NIBLET, LOOKIT HOW CUTE IT IS! Reminds me of XIV’s spriggans.
-Guarding tutorial time. Pressing the guard button just before an enemy connects with its attacks gives me a “perfect guard.”
OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS, WHO SPILLED SEKIRO IN MY FINAL FANTASY?!?!! If done well, this really excites me.
-Holding X lets me take a defensive stance and maintain a stable guard. So a lower risk, lower reward option than just a last-second guard.
-I checked libra, and stagger condition for the Anubys is really, really interesting:
“1. Unleash magic attacks, or unleash physical attacks when the enemy is launching an attack.” There’s a second, undiscovered way to build stagger gauge.
[Non-rhetorical question: How do I know when I landed a Perfect Guard as opposed to just a regular guard?]
-The last enemy is another niblet. Its stagger condition is just attacking it, but enhanced when it’s using Glutton.
[Later edit: I just now in hindsight notice that I’ve only seen enemies one at a time. I doubt this’ll keep up. Seems likely just at tutorial thing, but who knows. Maybe this game will be purely one-on-one.]
HOPE: “You did it! Now go and find Snow.”
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Next time: we go and find Snow.
