7.5/10
This one was surprising. I initially thought I would had liked lighting returns the LEAST of the 3 in the xiii trilogy, but after finishing the game, doing a ton of the side quests, even doing the superboss for this game, I truly think that lightning returns is the best of the 3 games... even though like its other 2, is flawed to their core.

Story
This one is what people always point at, and quite honestly I am in the middle of both opinions. Is the story amazing? no. Is it the best of the three? better than xiii-2, but structure wise prob the weakest of the three. What I liked about xiii's story was honestly the writing, even though it felt like them attempting to do the nier automata's side quest approach of doom and gloom, but with a worse writing style that doesn't hit nearly as hard as that game. For the main story, it feels like a super streched out 10 hour story forced into a 30-40 hours long game. The main concept of the story is how little time Lightning has to reverse the destruction of the world by a god that created it all. It has a TON of themes surrounding how death affects the current living souls, religion and religious power abuse, and the effect of living for 500 damn years without aging, losing your loved ones and how they affect that person. Honestly I feel like this was such a strong base for a story, but it was obviously not given the time it was needed to polish the story, which is why I feel like they decided to add the time mechanic, and have a ton of the story content being side quests. The side quests were the more interesting aspects, and was actually worthwhile compared to the previous ff games just for the story, even if they weren't written as well as other games I have played. The main story has a ton of issues I didn't like, like how each character had 1 main story chapter dedicated to them, and once they were finished, they legit don't show up at ALL till the very end to help lightning. Apart from that I feel like I did enjoy this story way more than xiii-2 purely for the writing, even if the structure was pretty wack.

Characters
This one is a bit mixed for me. The one thing I like is the even though they tried to make lightning "stripped of emotion", I honestly liked her way more than in XIII. I know this game is practically JUST her on focusing on their character development, while xiii had to balance multiple party cast members. Even tho... she was kind of a ♥♥♥♥♥ in XIII and yes she does develop, but I found her in lightning returns to be way more interesting of a character who struggles with the fact that she can't even feel sad about her missing sister anymore. I still don't think she is a top tier written character, which is sad considering she had THREE WHOLE GAMES to develop, and i've cared more for those with just 1 game, but it is what it is. What I believe is weaker this game around is the other party members. I know they aren't shown much screen time but man they are just casted aside so much in this game, even then aren't written that well. Hope was stripped of his emotions as well, returned to his younger xiii form (why?), and even though you hear his voice for 3/4 of the game, was soooooo damn bland compared to his xiii counterpart. The other cast members were also not that interesting. Noel was weak asf in this story and feels a bit rushed for his character, even if I understood his motives. Snow was the best of the returning casts for having the most interesting storyline, and honestly I liked him the most. Caius was meh in xiii-2, and was meh in this game as well. They try to flesh out his motives in a good light in this game but it wasn't that strong imo. Fang and Vanille were pretty interesting for their dynamic, and I liked their development in this game. Sazh, poor dude, had pretty good scenes for the what, 10 minutes of cutscene he has in this game. They cut his involvement in xiii-2 and they did it again in this game, like cmon I like his character premise so much but he barely does anything in this game AGAIN. The side quest characters were short, but had some good highlights, they were probably the better aspects of this game, but did feel like an extra budget and time would had made them REALLY good (which this game didn't have, obviously).

Gameplay
For the huge shift towards action, quite honestly I liked the system a ton. It is a sudden change from the paradigm system from xiii and xiii-2, but honestly I liked it better overall. I liked the paradigm system, but it did have some issues that grinded my gear like how unresponsive some actions felt like turning around, being stunlocked (even though this happens still in this game), and how samey the encounters can be esp in xiii-2. It isn't perfect, I wasn't the biggest fan of some enemy designs, some of them were designed purely to waste your time and such, and the shop system being completely worthless (first playthrough), and the GOOD items being so damn expensive you will NEVER afford them till you have already finished the game was just a tease. The good aspects tho, perfect guarding was such a good mechanic, and adds a ton of enjoyment for making fights purely off of skill instead of just higher number scaling. Talking about scaling, lightning's power scales from doing side quests instead of grinding, which I liked a ton. The three character archetype shifting was so damn good, and can get pretty busted with stuff like 100% damage reduction styles and such. Apart from combat, the time mechanic was such a cool idea at first, till you realize there is so much damn time that honestly makes the time mechanic practically worthless apart from working around quest schedules and one dungeon. I did all the main questlines, did like 93% of the side quests, and still had 3 days to go that I honestly just rested through. I would vastly prefer the time lightning had to be BARELY enough to do everything and talk about how you can't do everything you want to do, but nope, its just there to be scared of at first, then be forgotten till you remember its there so you can sleep till the final day. Lastly the pacing of the game from main story to side quest was a bit jarring, and just feels like they had so much they wanted to do, but with the limited budget with shows a ton with the cutscenes being mainly real time rendered, with generic animations and such that was nowhere near the quality of xiii and even xiii-2, which kinda sucks.

Music
Good, but wasn't as good as xiii-2's ost. There were still some pretty good songs I liked like the Ark theme, Wildland theme, Luxerion theme and the final boss theme I liked, but nowhere near as good as the top tier final boss themes from other FF games. Still, I liked the OST for this game, but for how amazing xiii-2's ost was, I was a bit unfair to compare to.

Final Positives/Nitpicks
- PC Port was ALMOST perfect compared to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ xiii-2 port, with the only MAJOR complaint apart from wack method to change graphic settings, was the lack of kb+m support. (previous 2 had kb+m, why couldn't this game have proper support?)
- Some of the side quests (and Sazh's quest) were wayyyy too annoying to do, some of them wanted you to travel so damn far, wait apart separate days, and weren't worth it story and reward wise.

Conclusion
Lightning returns was honestly a pretty good game comparing to the other 2 games. While I did complain a ton in this review, I still honestly think this was the best of the three. While the story wasn't as strong structure wise, I enjoyed the writing the most, the combat the most and believe if it were given the proper budget and time, would had been up there as one of the better FF games easily. Instead we are left with a bit of a mess, with a time mechanic that gives too much time to matter, and the padding with how little story they had to tell prevents it from being a great FF game... but compared to the other flawed xiii games, still stands out as the great XIII game.
7.5/10

7.5/10 This one was surprising. I initially thought I would had liked lighting returns the LEAST of the 3 in the xiii trilogy, but after finishing the game, doing a ton of the side quests, even doing the superboss for this game, I truly think that lightning returns is the best of the 3 games... even though like its other 2, is flawed to their core. Story This one is what people always point at, and quite honestly I am in the middle of both opinions. Is the story amazing? no. Is it the best of the three? better than xiii-2, but structure wise prob the weakest of the three. What I liked about xiii's story was honestly the writing, even though it felt like them attempting to do the nier automata's side quest approach of doom and gloom, but with a worse writing style that doesn't hit nearly as hard as that game. For the main story, it feels like a super streched out 10 hour story forced into a 30-40 hours long game. The main concept of the story is how little time Lightning has to reverse the destruction of the world by a god that created it all. It has a TON of themes surrounding how death affects the current living souls, religion and religious power abuse, and the effect of living for 500 damn years without aging, losing your loved ones and how they affect that person. Honestly I feel like this was such a strong base for a story, but it was obviously not given the time it was needed to polish the story, which is why I feel like they decided to add the time mechanic, and have a ton of the story content being side quests. The side quests were the more interesting aspects, and was actually worthwhile compared to the previous ff games just for the story, even if they weren't written as well as other games I have played. The main story has a ton of issues I didn't like, like how each character had 1 main story chapter dedicated to them, and once they were finished, they legit don't show up at ALL till the very end to help lightning. Apart from that I feel like I did enjoy this story way more than xiii-2 purely for the writing, even if the structure was pretty wack. Characters This one is a bit mixed for me. The one thing I like is the even though they tried to make lightning "stripped of emotion", I honestly liked her way more than in XIII. I know this game is practically JUST her on focusing on their character development, while xiii had to balance multiple party cast members. Even tho... she was kind of a bitch in XIII and yes she does develop, but I found her in lightning returns to be way more interesting of a character who struggles with the fact that she can't even feel sad about her missing sister anymore. I still don't think she is a top tier written character, which is sad considering she had THREE WHOLE GAMES to develop, and i've cared more for those with just 1 game, but it is what it is. What I believe is weaker this game around is the other party members. I know they aren't shown much screen time but man they are just casted aside so much in this game, even then aren't written that well. Hope was stripped of his emotions as well, returned to his younger xiii form (why?), and even though you hear his voice for 3/4 of the game, was soooooo damn bland compared to his xiii counterpart. The other cast members were also not that interesting. Noel was weak asf in this story and feels a bit rushed for his character, even if I understood his motives. Snow was the best of the returning casts for having the most interesting storyline, and honestly I liked him the most. Caius was meh in xiii-2, and was meh in this game as well. They try to flesh out his motives in a good light in this game but it wasn't that strong imo. Fang and Vanille were pretty interesting for their dynamic, and I liked their development in this game. Sazh, poor dude, had pretty good scenes for the what, 10 minutes of cutscene he has in this game. They cut his involvement in xiii-2 and they did it again in this game, like cmon I like his character premise so much but he barely does anything in this game AGAIN. The side quest characters were short, but had some good highlights, they were probably the better aspects of this game, but did feel like an extra budget and time would had made them REALLY good (which this game didn't have, obviously). Gameplay For the huge shift towards action, quite honestly I liked the system a ton. It is a sudden change from the paradigm system from xiii and xiii-2, but honestly I liked it better overall. I liked the paradigm system, but it did have some issues that grinded my gear like how unresponsive some actions felt like turning around, being stunlocked (even though this happens still in this game), and how samey the encounters can be esp in xiii-2. It isn't perfect, I wasn't the biggest fan of some enemy designs, some of them were designed purely to waste your time and such, and the shop system being completely worthless (first playthrough), and the GOOD items being so damn expensive you will NEVER afford them till you have already finished the game was just a tease. The good aspects tho, perfect guarding was such a good mechanic, and adds a ton of enjoyment for making fights purely off of skill instead of just higher number scaling. Talking about scaling, lightning's power scales from doing side quests instead of grinding, which I liked a ton. The three character archetype shifting was so damn good, and can get pretty busted with stuff like 100% damage reduction styles and such. Apart from combat, the time mechanic was such a cool idea at first, till you realize there is so much damn time that honestly makes the time mechanic practically worthless apart from working around quest schedules and one dungeon. I did all the main questlines, did like 93% of the side quests, and still had 3 days to go that I honestly just rested through. I would vastly prefer the time lightning had to be BARELY enough to do everything and talk about how you can't do everything you want to do, but nope, its just there to be scared of at first, then be forgotten till you remember its there so you can sleep till the final day. Lastly the pacing of the game from main story to side quest was a bit jarring, and just feels like they had so much they wanted to do, but with the limited budget with shows a ton with the cutscenes being mainly real time rendered, with generic animations and such that was nowhere near the quality of xiii and even xiii-2, which kinda sucks. Music Good, but wasn't as good as xiii-2's ost. There were still some pretty good songs I liked like the Ark theme, Wildland theme, Luxerion theme and the final boss theme I liked, but nowhere near as good as the top tier final boss themes from other FF games. Still, I liked the OST for this game, but for how amazing xiii-2's ost was, I was a bit unfair to compare to. Final Positives/Nitpicks - PC Port was ALMOST perfect compared to the dogshit xiii-2 port, with the only MAJOR complaint apart from wack method to change graphic settings, was the lack of kb+m support. (previous 2 had kb+m, why couldn't this game have proper support?) - Some of the side quests (and Sazh's quest) were wayyyy too annoying to do, some of them wanted you to travel so damn far, wait apart separate days, and weren't worth it story and reward wise. Conclusion Lightning returns was honestly a pretty good game comparing to the other 2 games. While I did complain a ton in this review, I still honestly think this was the best of the three. While the story wasn't as strong structure wise, I enjoyed the writing the most, the combat the most and believe if it were given the proper budget and time, would had been up there as one of the better FF games easily. Instead we are left with a bit of a mess, with a time mechanic that gives too much time to matter, and the padding with how little story they had to tell prevents it from being a great FF game... but compared to the other flawed xiii games, still stands out as the great XIII game. 7.5/10