Series director Motomu Toriyama began a presentation in Tokyo by showing an image of a rose, saying roses have many meanings.
Really? So this is basically a cover for "We want our game to have symbols, but we don't know what these symbols actually symbolize..."
He then said that this game is the conclusion of Lightning's saga. (No, we're not sure what that means either!)
Hopefully it'll mean THE CONCLUSION OF LIGHTNING'S SAGA. What the fuck do you think it means?
Toriyama said Lightning will make her comeback, returning as a stronger character than she was in the first two games, FF XIII and FF XIII-2. Lightning is going to face her final battle, so he asked the character designer to convey the power in her eyes.
Uh-huh, right, so how? Red eyes maybe? Al Bhed eyes?
It's the end of her trilogy of games.
Wait, I thought you just said you don't know what "the conclusion of Lightning's saga" means!!! Argh!!
From the start, Toriyama described features little seen in Japan's renowned role-playing game series. The game will offer players a lot of ways to customize their version of Lightning. Her outfits will be about more than just aesthetics. They affect her abilities.
Oh great. Because everyone just loved the dressphere system in X-2.
Character control will be more dynamic. She'll be able to hang off ledges, pull herself up, jump, duck behind corners.
And what is the point of that if the battle system is the way it is in XIII and XIII-2?
You'll be able to move her around in battle, a first, they said, for the series.
Ever heard of XII? I guess not... (Btw, if you read my complaints about FFXIII from last year, I mention the fact that you can't move the main character in battle as a ridiculous aspect of the gameplay that should have been corrected a long time ago. This isn't hard stuff, people).
During the presentation, we got a look at what might be the first screenshot of the new game. (If not, then it's a concept piece.)
So if it's not part of the game, it's a "concept piece." What a cop-out.
We also saw some concept art that begins to illustrate how different this game is from the standard FF game. The world of Lightning Returns runs in real-time. When the game begins, the world, called Nobus (Novus?) Partus, is 13 days away from the end. She has 13 days and 13 nights to save humanity. The game runs on a doomsday clock, shades of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
Actually, I'm kind of digging this. It's a new concept to Final Fantasy (although the technique has been employed in RPGs since at least Pokemon Gold and Silver). Anyway, this at least has some potential as being a new way of corresponding with people, the environment, enemies, and could potentially create a new and interesting, if only experimental, dynamic to a pretty stale game franchise in terms of variety of environments within their games. Hell, even Ultima IV allowed you to experience the same cities at both day and night.
The whole game runs on a time-of-day system, with a monorail that moves through it on schedule, like everything else in the world—you can get stuck in one region waiting for the monorail to take you to another island.
...And suddenly the idea of a real-world time system takes a giant shit.
The game world touches on three themes: gothic, mechanical and fantasy.
Oh, you mean like EVERY OTHER FINAL FANTASY GAME EVER MADE?!
The game will be out for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2013.
http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/michael_scott/The-Office-gifs-the-office-14948948-240-196.gif
But wait, there's more!
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/gallery/no/tracey-morgan-nope.gif
Concept art galore...
Why? Are we that interested in seeing futuristic refrigerators, windmills, and chairs?
Oh, and don't call it 'Lightning Returns'. Really... don't.
x 2. x 10. x 1,000,000,000,000. But more than likely that's what it'll be called, as it's already a registered trademark of S-E.