Final Fantasy XIII Triolgy

Lightning returns my favorite most replayablity, best music, good combat and outfits

XIII really isn't as bad as people say.
I personally picked it up for dirt cheap a few years ago, despite having heard all sorts of shit about it.

The BEGINNING really didn't even try to prove all the bad claims about it wrong, but luckily, to my own surprise as well, the more I played, the more entertaining and hooking it became. It's not GOTYAY or best JRPG ever in any sense, but it's FAR from the "worst crap ever" -category. A solid 7/10 experience IMO.

The sequels fixed, expanded and improved many things, especially pacing and gameplay. Up to you whether you like the direction they went with the plot and cast, but they're not hideous either. I found especially LR to be total blast, easily my 2014's GOTY. The 13-2 was simply fun, easily 8/10 at least.

>Have you replayed any of them recently?
Yes. Picked up the PC ports last year I think, and ran through them again like that.
>What's your favorite
tie between 13-2 and LR.

13-2 was my favourite, except for the cliffhanger ending.
Serah > Lightning

>>387841071
FFXIII was meant to have LR gameplay from the beginning but with party members included.

>>387841290
Is this a kind of sequel that you need to have played the previous XIIIs to understand or can you just jump in?

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>>387841338
Exactly my experience i avoided FFXIII like the plague, but i picked the greatest hits of 13&13-2 for cheap on PS3 in late 2012 and had a blast, the setting premise music and battle system were great but the execution left a lot to be desired, personally i love all three games they aren't the best Final Fantasy but they're solid 7.5-8.5/10 games.

>>387841071

XIII is decent.

XIII-2 is primo.

XIII-3 is decent.

I replayed XIII and XIII-2 before Lightning Returns came out and still thought they were pretty fun. The music throughout all the games is the real highlight. Was pretty disappointed with how the music in Lightning Returns was used though, because a lot of the themes are time-based or area specific, so you never really get to enjoy a lot of songs besides a few that are constant for the time or area.

Really enjoyed pretty much everything about XIII-2 though. I wish it had as much work put into as XIII, but it was really fun, so it's whatever.

>>387841071
Fucking awful then. Fucking awful now. Still hilarious that shills like >>387841338 exist.

>>387841071
The games are fucking mediocre with XIII-2 being the most passable one.

For me they are
>XIII
5/10. The gameplay design is fucking restrictive and due to awful drops 95% of the time, combat is for the most part useless. Also you can get through about most of the encounters with the same paradigms, paradigm would have been great if you could set each character role manually. Also, tying your level cap to story mode is retarded.

>XIII-2
6/10. Fixed many areas of XIII but has a lot of recycled areas. There are some awful sections (one Academia due to awful platforming parts and the other Academia to incessant enemy encounters), and combat for the most part is boring and non-challenging.

>LR
4/10. Boring as shit, content like the forge is blocked until NG+. Having to wait for days so that enemies drop better loot is annoying and that's if you didn't extinguish them beforehand. Areas designed to be as big and empty to make you run back and forth, combat is the only interesting shit and that if you have the patience to get to NG+, farm a lot, and select higher difficulty.

>>387841071
Enjoyed it

Can definitely see the flaws of the beginning of 13-1 but I had a more enjoyable time with that than XV

>>387842461
>shills
What ever makes you sleep better at nights.
I honestly used to be a hardcore FF13 hater, and ready to bury Square for good. Thank god I did end up playing the game myself later on though; taught me a valuable lesson of never ever going with hype nor bash-campaigns.

>>387842461
>Different people like different things.
>S-shill s-stop liking what i don't like.
KYS faggot.

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>>387841071
Lightning returns had one of the most unique and complex JRPG battle systems ever. https://youtu.be/2PC_pR_al0g

It's almost a shame that this game has the XIII name attached for all the fools to bag on, because this game is a key inclusion to the genre since jrpgs of the PS1 era. JRPGs have been growing more stagnant with the years and at best becoming action game hybrids to present themselves as an "evolved" genre. Now we got a game where the navigation is meaningful, purchases and inventory management are meaningful, and the combat utilizes real time elements in all the right ways without completely giving up the technical management dynamic of traditional JRPG combat.

>>387841071
The original was mediocre. 13-2 was great, with far more interesting characters and a better story along with improved gameplay. LR was absolute garbage and I have no idea why I sat through it until the ending.

>>387841760
The former.

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>>387841071
I loved XIII-2 and LR, but could barely get through five hours of XIII. I thought it was slow, restrictive and boring.

Lightning is my wife, by the way.

>>387843128
Aight, thanks.

>>387843079
>LR was absolute garbage and I have no idea why I sat through it until the ending.
How can you hate a literal GOTY that fixed the gameplay and even felt like Majora's Mask?

>>387843145
>but could barely get through five hours of XIII.
at that point the game's barely even begun to be honest. Yeah, it opens up a bit too slow, but every step helps

>>387843258
>literal GOTY
>felt like Majora's Mask
Look I know it's opinion and stuff, but really?

It felt like they were trying to make a great game but they didn't have the elbow grease needed to make a next gen game worthy of the final fantasy name.

>>387843418
yeah, really.

Please recommend me the best music from XIII-2

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>>387843810
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPEzumonJv4

RIP Origa, she was too good for this world

>>387843258
Because it didn't fix shit, LR's gameplay was fucking terrible. The time mechanic is completely removed from the game by the chronostasis ability which allows you to pause time forever the second you're strong enough to kill any of the large 2AP monsters, which is only a few hours in. The game has abysmal enemy variety which was likely done on purpose for the extinction mechanics, but no one on the dev team seemed to realise that it would've been far more interesting to kill 10 enemies 5 times each than to kill 5 enemies 10 times each. The game's quests suck because they're mostly just fetch quests or combat quests that are done in a few minutes and the small handful of ones that actually tie some story to them are still boring as shit because you have no time to get attached to the characters involved due to the brevity of all of them. The combat isn't even particularly good either, all you do is spam the same few attacks then switch to the next class and spam those attacks and then switch to the next class, and maybe sometimes you'll bother defending. It's a downgrade from 13-2's combat. It's also not helped by the entire customisation system being locked off completely until NG+, or that a bunch of costumes aren't available until the final dungeon and cost so much that you won't be able to afford most of them your first time through.

The game is a tedious slog of fighting the same few enemies and running back and forth over empty maps constantly, and this is to say nothing of how bad the story is.
t. someone who did every possible quest and bonus boss in NG.

>>387843810
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49rw1E3unMA

>>387843910
well, that certainly is a very unique view on the game... but I disagree wholeheartedly.

I found heavy gnostic undermeanings in the whole FF13 series.
Just think about it.
>Fal'Cie=Archons
That alone made me enjoy the series way more.
But my fav is LR for sure, you fukken kill a God and save the whole Creation for fucks sake.
>13: 8
>13-2: 6.5(Serah was a bit bland and the story was a bit meh)
>LR: 8.5

Caius is the best villain in the history of Final Fantasy.

>>387844217

>you fukken kill a God and save the whole Creation for fucks sake.

Baby's first JRPG?

>>387841071
Replayed them all recently. My opinion remains unchanged

XIII is fucking garbage. One of the worst RPGs ever made by any standard. You have to be clinically retarded not to see how obviously bad it is.

2 is okay. Fixed many of the problems of the original but it still remains one of the weaker FF entries.

LR is also okay. It tried something different but wasn't really much better than 2.

>>387844312
No, just too Gnostic and it resonated with me.
Lmao right?

>>387844390

More FFs do this than don't. You need to be 18 to post here.

>>387841071
They are all mostly trash save for LR and thats a maybe

>>387843810

Prelude to Final Fantasy XIII
Blinded by Light
Sunleth Waterscape
Fighting Fate
The Archylte Steppe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBoBO0YMBys
The Yaschas Massif
The Cradle Will Fall

Paradigm Shift
Village and Void
Village and Void -Aggressive Mix- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbMxiymt3Ds
Starting Over
Plains of Eternity
Augusta Tower
Hollow Seclusion -Game Over-
Noel's Theme -Final Journey-
Unseen Abyss
New World

Desert Lullaby
Death Game
Chocobo Carnival
Nova Chrysalia
Endless Lives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLmhaVXu99U
Altar of Light

My most-played is the game over theme for XIII-2, Hollow Seclusion, but that's because I love those sorts of songs. For a regular song, my favorite would be Starting Over.

By the way, be sure to check out Final Fantasy XII's soundtrack as well. Different composer, but he's also amazing. They really got two fantastic composers for XII and XIII.

>>387841071
I enjoy them. Really interesting battle systems in all 3 games. Great aesthetics, decent lore etc.

>>387844623

Haha, wait, fuck, I'm an idiot. You only wanted XIII-2. Well, I separated each game with line break, so those are in the middle. I also forgot New Bodhum, but that other anon already recommended it.

I recently started the first game and I plan to play through the series before the PC release of VX.

I see what everyone meant about the poor level design but I am enjoying how pretty the game is.

>>387841071
XIII was okay. The story sucked but I liked the characters and seeing them develop. Combat was fun when trying to get max stars (I forget if max was 3 or 5)for every fight. Battles were kind of like puzzles where you tried to figure out the most efficient way to defeat enemies with the limited party you had. Once the full party became unlocked that aspect went away somewhat but the added freedom in combat helped somewhat. The linearity sucked though. I could deal with the straight line dungeons because they looked gorgeous but fuck man, let me at least visit a side area or two. Anyway overall it was maybe a 5.5 of 6 out of 10 game assuming 5 is average. Not bad but extremely disappointing considering the hype.

XIII-2 had a better plot, weaker cast, and much better areas/dungeons. The area with the rotating platforms was cool as fuck. Combat gave a lot more freedom and raising Pokemon was fun but they made the game way too easy. Still it was a 7 or 7.5 and pretty good overall.

Lightning Returns had a worse plot than XIII-2 but a better one than XIII, I liked seeing how all of the previous cast members wound up, but I was sick of Lightning by that point. At least she wasn't too bad in the game. The combat was great and the environments were large and well designed. I liked the way raising stats was tied to questing. The game unfortunately looked and ran pretty bad though (on PS3). Chronostasis was broken so I ended up with several days worth of free time with nothing to do. Overall it was the best of the trilogy and an 8 or 8.5 if on PC (I assume the performance issues are ironed out there).

The trilogy overall was decent but the original game was definitely the weak link. Too bad they never patched XIII-2s qol improvements into XIII.

>>387843901
this is fucking terrible Jpop shite.
>>387844005
cheesy anime-tier music
>>387844623
you're obsessed with Lightning or something

>>387842805
How were you such a hardcore hater of a game you hadn't played?

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>>387845340

>>387845417
You seriously think that music that would play in any cheesy fucking anime actually stands up?

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>>387841071
Best combat in FF series
huge, beautiful and lively open world
fetch quest after fetchquest, I thought I was playing Nier
wtf plot

>>387845403
Massive bitching everywhere where I looked, combined with undeniable design choices I've never been a fan of = little to no reason to look forward to even playing it.

>>387845824
Fair enough. That would make me dismissive though, not a hardcore hater.

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>>387841338
>>387842857
>>387845159
Nail on the head.
Lightning Returns is a fantastic game, and it's a bit sad that the game didn't have the production values of the previous two XIII titles.

I actually forced myself to finish XIII-2, as it felt rather weak, but LR is a game I can go in, explore, and find sidequests to be meaningful for my stats and for a little bit more lore on the world.

I just beat Aeronite a few weeks ago too, I should wrap up the remaining sidequests before all the days are up.

>>387845340

No, I actually really don't like Lightning, especially in Lightning Returns. However, I do love the composer of the XIII trilogy, though. Along with XII's composer. Both games have amazing soundtracks that I listen to daily or whenever they come on shuffle.

Thanks for the opinions though, but I hope that you can one day learn to convey some positive ones.

XIII was very pretty, but fantastically bland. No subquests for 70% of the game, no exploration, just trudging forwards endlessly.

XIII-2 felt like it was about 90% subquests, but was a lot more enjoyable. The characters felt a lot less one-note, collecting and fusing monsters tickled my Shin Megami Tensei gland and it felt more like a game that the devs wanted to make, rather than one they felt they had to.

Then LR came out and just shit the bed. Lightning was the least interesting thing in the entire series. She was angry, wouldn't listen to anyone and went through zero character development in the first game, and her VA gave a terrible performance. Basing a game entirely around her and Hope (one where the character has literally had her personality removed to begin with) was a bad idea and in a game filled with bad gameplay decisions to begin with, if you can't even keep me engaged with interesting characters, I'm gone. To date, it's one of the few FF games I've never finished, and I made it through X-2. Twice, with the HD port.

>>387841071
I never played LR but I did somewhat enjoy XIII-2, if only for its OST.

>>387846518
Lightning was already a bitch in the first two games, but LR made her more unbearable than ever. Despite being the saviour going around the world to look for people to help she spends the entire game being a cunt to everyone. Every single person she interacts with she's prickly and standoffish towards if not outright hostile. There are several moments where someone offers her a friendly greeting and she responds by threatening them with violence if they don't back off. And it ends up being totally at odds with how forgiving and understanding she is in other quests, like with the pickpocket kid. Granted it's mostly down to localisation rewrites making Lightning darker and edgier but it was still terrible to sit through.

>>387841071
I've only just finished XIII recently after trying at least two different times over the years and I had bought the game originally on launch day. It ended up growing on me the combat system gets really good later on especially with the optional hunts. Some really great tracks as well, I fucked loved the music in Oerba.

>>387846854
That's because God took away her emotions. That's literally the plot of the game.

Between that and them turning Lightning into a skeleton I don't know what the fuck they were thinking when they made LR.

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>>387846854
>Lightning was already a bitch in the first two games
she literally appears like twice in 13-2, and is practically a stone face already at that point.
Anyone complaining about her "bitchiness" in 13-1 clearly don't understand military discipline and the crap she's going through in the start of the story.

LR, however, has a literal plot device of God removing all of her emotions.

>>387846989
>Has no emotions
>Is constantly angry
Yeah, that makes sense. Never mind that she was a bitch in the first two games already.
Anyway, like I said, a lot of it is localisation rewrites. There's a good reason why Japan loves her and the west hates her.

>>387846854
I think part of it is that there was no real editing done when it came to the sidequests, hence why she can be halfway friendly to one person and threaten to shank anyone who even asks her to move the very next moment. There's no consistency to the character.

>>387847143
>she literally appears like twice in 13-2, and is practically a stone face already at that point.
Yeah, and she manages to be a cunt anyway. It stuck out to me a great deal in 13-2 when Serah finally reuinited with her about 2/3 through the game. They hadn't seen each other in a long time, and Serah had been searching for her for ages, and was really happy to see her. But on Lightning's side there's no "hey Serah, I missed you, I'm happy to see you, I'm glad you're ok", she just tells Serah that she needs her to go do some stuff for her, and when Serah is understandably taken aback and asks why, Lightning responds by getting indignant and saying "Do you doubt me?". That's fucked up. Serah busted her ass off trying to find Lightning again, and Lightning doesn't even give a fuck, she just wants Serah to do shit for her and gets pissed off when Serah doesn't jump the second she says to. At that point I was just wondering "why did I even waste all this time trying to save this bitch?".

>>387841071
>how do you feel about these games?
Conflicted. They go from mediocre to good but the overall feeling is that of wasted potential.

>Have you replayed any of them recently?
No.

>What's your favorite
That's a hard question. In terms of story and character development my favorite is the first XIII, but it's also the one most linear and with the weakest gameplay. So i'm between LR and XIII, and XIII-2 was a middleground but it felt like it might've been better as a spinoff or stand alone release rather than a sequel with a cliffhanger ending.

I'd rather play a FFXV-2 tbqh.

>>387841071
Only ever played XIII but I like it. Has a good number of flaws but it was at the very least a beautiful looking game and was above decent. I don't know what I like more between that and XV, Ardyn is actually based but the presentation of XV is just off.

>>387847465
>get abducted by a literal Goddess and turned into a demi-god knight to fight off a potential end of the universe
>thinking you'd really have time for lovely-dovely "OMG I MISS'D U SO MUCH SIS!!! ;(" shit.

tl;dr: you're weirdly put off by the cast NOT acting like typical (American) melodrama teenagers.

>>387841071

I liked XIII and XIII-2 was an improvement in many ways, but overall I feel like they'd have been better off taking the L and using the resources they put towards the sequels on something else.

>>387847669
>>thinking you'd really have time for lovely-dovely "OMG I MISS'D U SO MUCH SIS!!! ;(" shit.
They did. There was zero reason Lightning didn't have time to spare on some basic compassion for her sister, who she ostensibly cares for more than anything else in the world.
>tl;dr: you're weirdly put off by the cast NOT acting like typical (American) melodrama teenagers.
No, I'm put off by Lightning being a sociopath.

I only made it 4 hours into the first one before writing the whole trilogy off as shit

>>387846518
>and went through zero character development
That's a lie and you know it. If there's one thing XIII did well it was develop the core cast.

I liked all 3. 2 being the most enjoyable. Although I hated the pokemon aspect and just used the two lightnings you can get from the dlc(which was only like 5 dollars for all of it when I bought the game). The sound track is arguably the best final fantasy sound track. How come no one has posted armpits yet? I think LR would've been better if you didn't have the timer. In the beginning you feel rushed as fuck only to realize you have 3 whole days of down time at the end. Also the bosses get stronger on the 8th-ish day, which is how strong they should've been from the start.

Holy fuck. It's been that long?!

>>387841338
I don't know. I can say that I enjoyed FFXIII a bit when it came out - at least enough that i got every achievement. I then played XIII-2 and absolutely hated the fuck out of it. Noel was one of the most annoying protags I've had to deal with in a long time, and I'm not sure why people like him.

>>387850438
Noel was annoying but Snow and Hope weren't?

>>387849107

Bullshit. Sazh was about the only one who received any. Lightning started pissed off and ended pissed off, Hope never progressed past 'insufferable' and if 'alternating between quirky and sad' counts as character development, Vanille is the most developed character in gaming history.

>>387850765
I was fully prepared to hate Noel, but he actually wound up being really cool. He was also the one character in LR that I liked, since his VA nailed how beaten he'd been after centuries of being unable to move from the girl he watched die.

>>387850886
>Lightning started pissed off and ended pissed off

Lightning started off no nonsense and stoic and ended as an accepting nee san to more than one person.

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Who here is getting Lightning's new game?

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>>387849450
>How come no one has posted armpits yet?
Hello

>>387850886
You're not very observant.

>>387841071
all shit, ruined Versus

>>387853010
It's not hers though. It's Ramza's or WoL's or Kain's or any of the better characters.

>>387844623
I'll contribute with my favourite, Fighting Fate.
https://youtu.be/Ag-cRmiMWkk
I still remember the lyrics damn.

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XIII >= 2 > LR

Lightning's just a bit too bleh to carry a whole game by herself and game felt too easy. I would fug Lumina so hard, though.

Noel and Serah were fun, and so was the pokemon system, but the game felt rushed and the fact that they tied nifty monsters/characters behind DLC was a bitch. Also a little too easy.

The first was a slog in the beginning, but the monster and world design blew my mind. The eidolons were really great as well. I liked the story enough, especially how yuri saved the day, and even a couple characters (Fang, Sazh mostly). If I had one complaint it would be that they killed off best girl Jihl immediately. I wanted to see that tiddy monster do something cool but fuckin' bart ruined it.

>>387854926
Jihl was so fucking hot omfg

I actually liked XIII, played it last year but I have no desire to play the other 2. While it had many problems I think it wrapped things up nicely so I think the other 2 will fuck things up instead of making it better.

Started some minutes of XIII-2 and it didn't help at all.

>>387855083
Wasted design.

STEP INTO THE RAINBOW

Own all of them on steam. Never touched LR because I & II were disappointing. Convince me to play it.

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>>387856409
No

>>387856409
Costumes, a couple fuggable lolis, lots of customization.

>>387856409
Did you like Lightning? I've seen people put her in all kind of slutwear and they all came free on steam.

>>387856409
Don't bother, the gameplay is the worst of the three and the story isn't any better.

>>387856673
Just looked up the costumes. SE should spend more time improving the port/story. Instead they waste resources on a dress up waifu sim.
>>387856914
Thanks for the honesty.