Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Lightning Returns is, in many ways, a conscious attempt at creating the complete opposite of the original Final Fantasy XIII. Unlike the first game, Lightning's last hurrah is a much more open, explorable experience comprised entirely of sidequests. Unfortunately, this just means Square Enix swung from one extreme to the other. What they've created here isn't any less of a mess than its parent, replete with indecipherable storytelling and an overly busy battle system that turns what should be thoughtful bouts of strategy into scutwork. For those genuinely invested in Final Fantasy Xlll's tale of gods and goddesses and Chaos and Valhalla and fal'Cie and I'Cie and characters with names that emphasize whiteness, Lightning Returns may be worth playing. To anyone else, it'll require far too much research to comprehend and just as much patience to slog through.

With Lightning Returns, the utter disaster of FFXIII can now be laid to rest. This trilogy of terror has sent former fans fleeing like 4th-century peasants retreating in horror from the Huns. While Final Fantasy XIII-2 actually addressed several problems with the first game, Lightning Returns proves that director Motomu Toriyama and his overmatched team randomly threw ideas against the wall this whole time. Combat is a disaster, and the story is as incomprehensible as ever--this pathetic world deserves its apocalypse.

Unlike Andrew, I was excited to see the rose-haired warrior goddess return to save Nova Chrysalia. Moments of brilliance exist here, moments that filled me with hope for this final chapter of FFXIII. The more I explored its lands, however, the more I saw a world bogged down by pretentiousness, frustration, and people who talk so much yet say so little that I wanted to watch them burn in the fires of the end times. And seriously, Square Enix, why must your most prominent heroine in years be so damned dreary?