[16/11] Day and night cycles to play an important role in the story of Lightning Returns

[C i d]

As promised, Square Enix’s marketing team has started updating the official Lightning Returns Facebook once again.


Today’s update is a brief look back at the announcement event, as well as a hint at more content to come in the following weeks.


“Hello! Let’s look back at the Final Fantasy exhibition. Revealed in September, this is some of the concept art that was shown there. This is the art that was introduced to us by Kamikokuryou! It’s the “City of Light, Luxerion.” In this town, there is a religion that believes in a God. Next time, I think I want to look at the artwork for Luxerion and see how that is reflected in the game.”

The marketing team also hinted at a little feature available on the game’s Japanese teaser site. If you view the page at different times of day, its design will be altered accordingly. This apparently is a hint at similar effects that will play out in the story of Lightning Returns. With the game confirmed to sport day and night cycles, we can only imagine what sort of elements lie in store for players.


“Today we recapped the cities. However, these are just a small part of the game. From here on we’ll be publishing even more information. In fact, I think we’ll show off a new element next week. Here’s the last point for today. The teaser site which is currently open (http://www.square-enix.co.jp/fabula/LightningReturnsFFXIII/), its design changes slightly depending on the time of day you see it. To be honest, this is an important part of the game’s story. Well then, please have a good weekend!”



Source: Nova Crystallis

 

[Razberry Knight]

good ideas. if only lightning wasmt in it. other than that this looks good if you ignore both XIII and XIII-2 design

 

[AuronX]

Have to agree with Razberry Knight ...this is sounding like less of a FFXIII game all the time. I do like Lightning as a character, but the XIII characters are starting to feel a bit...forced. Maybe that will change once we get more story to fit in with the mechanics (which sound great).

 

[Martel]

Oooh, Luxerion! Another pretentious and unoriginal Latin-inspired city name! Might there be a corresponding city of darkness somewhere with a name that begins with "Nox" in the works as well, I wonder? How exciting!

Day and night cycles were a big thing...like, when Pokemon Gold/Silver came out. This isn't exactly revolutionary stuff anymore. To be honest, I expect these "new" features to consist of either certain NPCs appearing for quests, blocks or whatever appearing for puzzles, and the monsters changing. Or some sort of special weapon whose function changes depending on the time of day. Whatever it is, they're going to need to do better than a day/night cycle for a gameplay hook.

Try again, Square Enix.

 

[Ohri-Jin]

I agree with Fleur.

OOT Zelda had night and day cycles and that game did it well imo. I always hated it when night came!! freeking zombies sared the shit out of me and damn spiders...

SE will do monsters at night but oh wait its exctly the same monster from daylight only slightly different colour and minor tweeks/...

Man I love to bitch sometimes.

 

[Razberry Knight]

Fleur im pretty sure night and day feature would be a nice twost for final fantasy.

 

[Lirael]

I'm not too pleased by the fact they're giving us information drip by drip. I'd much rather have a couple of large, exciting announcements. All of these little details just waters down the effect for me. :/

Anywho, as others have said, the day and night feature currently doesn't sound like anything particularly new. Let's hope they do something unique with it. Currently, I have absolutely no reason to be excited for this game. >.< And I seem to find myself caring less about the future of XIII. =/

Until things look up, XIII-2 provides my ending. It's an unexpected, unusual and utterly dismal ending, but I kinda like that bitter twist, so it's the ending I choose to keep. The Time Paradox says I can.

 

[Exoskeleton]

Well this bit of information isn't surprising. Most games have day and night cycles already and so far I'm unimpressed by the storyline, but then again after what happened in XIII-2 I can see why. The thought of lightening bustling around islands and towns with a day and night feature doesn't really scream "thrilling" or "exciting".

 

[Linnaete]

What, the city turns into a city of DARKNESS at night and Lightning is forcibly transformed into a werewolf until daybreak, with the incredulity and the feral nature as a result being the most personality she has ever exuded so far? Or the day/night cycle (ooh, revolutionary! Not. Not even Xenoblade, as refined as its day/night cycle is, did anything remarkable with the feature, beyond the cookie cutter things like different NPCs giving new sidequests, slightly tougher monsters and edited tracks for the same locations) that I dunno, can somehow influence divergences in the story a bit depending on what you do and when you do it? Otherwise this is just an example of what Final Fantasy has finally decided to catch up on after decades of the feature already being used in other games.

This game just sounds like it was originally a wholly different IP. But then Toriyama and his chums kick the door down, enter and order for the thing to be reskinned, overhauled a bit and slap in loads of Lightning to quickly create a new FFXIII game, despite how oddly disparate and disconnected it sounds compared to the rest of this glorious "trilogy". Like, why the hell is this GODDESS woman ostensibly chasing a criminal through the streets? Etro's legacy has fallen on such hard times that she's resorted to being a one-woman crime fighter now?