'Lightning Returns' will be 'the most complete and polished game' in the Final Fantasy series, says

[weber_dubois22]

Motomu Toriyama, current director on Square Enix's Final Fantasy series, said that upcoming title Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII will be the 25-year-old franchise's "most complete and polished game" in a recent interview with VG247.

The game, slated to release next year, pits Lightning against a "new deity" in the final battle of the XIII trilogy. Toriyama said the game "will really take care to thoroughly embody the character of Lightning herself," adding that the game is much more world-driven compared to the first title's story-driven plot.

"The world also has links to our own real world, and will see setups with the world of Final Fantasy entering into our everyday lives," Toriyama added, referencing the game's real-time 24 hour day-and-night cycle.

Toriyama said that he believes the series has withstood the test of time due to its ever-evolving experiences, changing up storylines, characters, and settings. New hardware also plays a key role; developing for the newest gaming hardware challenges Toriyama's team to push that technology to its limits, and gives them the opportunity to address gameplay elements previous hardware may not have supported.

"I do not think there are any other series out there that have such change and evolution between each title," he said. "Sometimes the level of change in a new Final Fantasy game may be quite extreme, but I feel that one reason for the continued popularity of the series among each generation of fans is down to this ideology of challenging ourselves for each new game on the latest hardware of the time."

SOURCE

It's really bugging me how much focus they're putting on Lightning in this series; they're practically forsaking the other characters that made the first game remotely entertaining and want to make the narrative all about Lightning. Can we please get some equal balance for the rest of the characters that barely made an appearance in XIII-2, Square Enix?

Comments

[remiem.livejournal.com]

Yes, more love for other characters please. Lightning isn't that great of a character and I found her really difficult to deal with in XIII where she had a lot of screen time. She was fine in XIII-2 but I would really rather follow Serah again or pick a different cast member. I just really don't care for Lightning's personality and can't understand why SE has such a huge thing for her.

[weber_dubois22]

Same here. I don't hate the character, but I'm rather indifferent to her outside of her relationship with Serah (where I think she's at her strongest as a protagonist). I was completely surprised by the fact that they chose Serah as the protagonist in XIII-2 and I'm glad for the expansion she got as a character. I'm hoping they return to the form in XIII and resolve or revive the storylines for the other characters in XII-3 because everything about XIII-2 left a lot of characters fates open and it would be a shame to see them get shoved aside for the sake of "Lightning fighting a new deity" a grand majority of the game.