Lightning Returns Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Hub

[.Mosh]

Welcome to the Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Hub

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This is the Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Hub. Here in this hub you will find all the news and information in regards to Square-Enix’s next instalment to the FFXIII universe.

The game was announced at their 25[SUP]th[/SUP] Anniversary for Final Fantasy and had a whole presentation about it dubbed ‘The New Direction of the Lightning Saga’.

So for this game I decided to make this Hub for all newcomers or veterans of FF knowledge to find what they need to know about this game.The layout of this Hub will be spread across different posts which represent different sections of news in regards to the game.

Story/Setting

Novus Partus

Gameplay

Customization

Characters

Monsters

Artwork

If there is any News in which you have found and that has not been added to this Hub please PM me with the link to the article or if you want you could summarize the news and send it to me that way in which I will credit you for.

NOTE: This is a thread designed to give the community all information in regards to this title and is not a discussion thread. The Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII discussion thread can be located >>here<<


>>>UPDATE: The only way news will be shown as new in the thread will be me making a post saying information regading 'Gameplay' for example has been posted. You will have to scroll up into the gameplay section and I will post it at the bottom for example saying *NEW* Sep 4th news:' and follow with the new information. I thank you for the time to read this and appreciate this. It will take some time but this will eventually grow to be expansive I hope.<<<

Introduction:

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is the next installment in the FFXIII series (FFXIII, FFXIII-2). The game is set to be the first in it's series to take on dramatic changes to the current mechanics deployed in the previous games and will bring in a brand new concept called 'World Driven' gameplay. The story is set to bring in fresh new twists to bring about the now promised conclusion to Lightning's Journey.

The game has been given a 2013 release date the exact date will not be known till a later time and it will be released on Xbox 360 and PS3 like its predecessors.

The presentation in which the game was announced at can be seen below, thanks to @LukeLC for posting this in another thread.

Intro: (Producer, Yoshinori Kitase)

(Director, Motomu Toriyama)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj66f6Pvyuk&feature=youtu.be

(Game Design Director, Yuji Abe)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaJ5QjbBjfI&feature=youtu.be

(Art Director, Isamu Kamikokuryo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD54oDFNWJg&feature=youtu.be


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[.Mosh]

Story/Setting of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is set to conclude the Journey of the main character Lightning. It is mentioned by the Kitase that this is to be Lightning's final battle. Set hundreds of years later after the events of FFXIII-2 [Playing the ending DLC released will help get a clear understanding on what happened to Lightning] it continues Lightning's quest to save the world and restore the timeline. In Lightning Returns, Lightning wakes up on a new world which has been called Novus Partus (New offspring in Latin) which is set to meet it's doom in 13 days. It is has been said by Toriyama that Lightning over these years has grown a lot stronger than she was in FFXIII-2.


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More information is said to be released between September 4th-6th, if this in regards to the story aspect etc we don't know but for now this the gist of what we have learnt from the presentation.

 

[.Mosh]

Novus Partus- The New World for Lightning Returns

Welcome to Novus Partus

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Novus Partus is the new world in which the player is to explore in this final installment. It is comprised of four big islands; each have their own distinct features and share different styles of terrain for which Lightning is to traverse. The world is connected by a monorail which can be seen in the above concept image of Novus Partus. As we can see the islands are surrounded by a blue lagoon which then drops down into an abyss. This has been called the sea of chaos by the design team, which then ties with what happens at the end of FFXIII-2 and its relation to chaos.

In the background of the concept art for Novus Partus we can see Etro's Shrine and behind that in the sky the 'New Cocoon' or in which Hope in FFXIII-2 named Bhunivelze. This so far is the only connection released as of the moment to it's relation to FFXIII-2.

Novus Partus is made up of three key concepts 'Gothic, Mechanical, Fantasy' and director Toriyama stated that this new world will constantly change with day and night cycles and a brand new weather system. Fiends in Lightning Returns will also become more dangerous at night time, giving a sense of danger which FFXIII has lacked in the past.

Dungeons, Ruins, Towns and Shops are featuring in Lightning Returns which marks a bit of a change compared to the chocobocolina from FFXIII-2. The biggest change however which is new to the Final Fantasy XIII franchise is the fact that it is an open world now. This will allow vast amounts of exploration at your own free will and not constrained down a linear path in FFXIII or the loads of but small worlds in FFXIII-2. I feel that it will be an expanded take on what we had seen in FFXII but with not transitions between locales.

NPCs this time will be more unique and more natural to the environments they are in. For example they have specific dress styles to the town/city they come from. Toriyama explains how during her travels, Lightning comes across a group of people dressed in cyberpunk attires. She later finds out they are thieves and basically for us, this gives an indication of unique NPC separation from the norm. FFXIII-2 suffered from copy and paste syndrome and I am expecting a lot more variety. Artwork can be seen later on in the designated section to show the styles of clothing we can expect to see in the game.


First Island-Luxerion

[The city of Luxerion-The city of Light]

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This is the first place that has been explained in minor detail. The city is called Luxerion or the people that reside there call it 'The city of Light', as you can tell from the picture above it carries a retro/gothic aesthetic. As can be seen in the art piece, telephone boxes and vehicles are present and the buildings themselves feel modern. This is something that looks much more varied and different to what we have seen before in the series so far. The populace of this city are split into two types. Some wear black and white robes with golden masks covering their features and have a mechanical backpack. Other people wear what I had mentioned earlier, a 'Cyber-Punk' attire. That is not the only mention to NPC clothing as art director Isamu mentions there will be a much larger variety of garments for NPCs and for that of Lightning compared to what we have seen before.

It is said that the people here worship the God Bhunivelze [Connection to the new cocoon-Maybe know one has ever gone there or come to Novus Partus] The city was crafted with the following themes in mind 'Medieval, Gothic, Fantasy and Modern'. Some of the buildings that can be seen will be posted in the artwork section of the Hub in more detail. In the concept drawing above you can see the city is made up of three distinct colours 'Black, White and Green'. The black and white are to represent Light and Darkness and the Green is what was shown in Valhalla. Not all of the city remains in this style however, there are other artwork pieces showing off a slum like areas in which the buildings are made out of spare metal that was left over during the cities construction.

[More Information will be posted when it is released. Thank you]

 

[.Mosh]

Gameplay- The Mechanics behind Lightning Returns

In Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, players will take control of Lightning exclusively, with no other party members currently set to appear throughout the game. Controls will be somewhat different from previous titles in the series, with Lightning being capable of jumping, pulling up ledges, and dodging in and out of cover. The new moves continue into battles, where Lightning will be able to move about, block, and attack all in real-time. As the analog stick typically used for navigating combat menus will be occupied by movement, the controller's face buttons will instead be used to execute predefined actions in time with a form of ATB gauge akin to the ones featured in the Command Synergy Battle system of Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2.

Although no other party members will join Lightning in her final quest, customization will continue to play a huge role in how players will perform. A wide array of costumes, weapons, and other features will all contribute to creating unique battle styles, similar to the dresspheres system of Final Fantasy X-2, but with more freedom of choice and vastly larger capabilities to affect gameplay.

[Brief glimpse of customization for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII]

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Aside from Lightning herself, perhaps the most important element of gameplay will be the ever-ticking "doomsday clock" that counts down to the end of the world, which will occur in thirteen days. By taking positive actions Lightning can partially turn back this clock, but it has been implied that stopping it completely will not happen within the game's storyline. By contrast, an Overclock feature will allow Lightning to slow time around her to give an advantage in battle, but the use of Overclock will simultaneously drain the time remaining before the world's end.

Time will also affect the game's towns, citizens, and monsters. Certain shops will only be open between certain hours, entire towns may be shut off during the night, and most monsters will hide only from the daylight, making the dark hours an especially dangerous part of the game. Time's grip on the world of Lightning Returns is in fact said to be so strict that if Lightning gets trapped in one location from gates closing for the night, she will have no choice but to remain there until morning—a severe punishment considering the ever-present countdown to a potentially premature end to the game.

Other features designed to play up on Square Enix's "World Driven" paradigm for the game include some form of social networking features. At the present Facebook has been named as one source for the online aspect of the game, but developers have yet to elaborate on just how this will work and what effects participating or not participating will have on the game's progression.

News: September 4th

It has been officially confirmed that Lightning will be the only character in battle. Other characters from the Final Fantasy XIII series will, however, make a return to assist Lightning on her journey. For example, Square Enix revealed on September 4 that Hope will guide her via wireless com. The game developer also confirmed that the battle system will be closer to an action game than a normal RPG, but again reemphasized that the familiar ATB gauge will make another return.

The game is intentionally being crafted as a shorter one for an RPG so that it will not take many tens of hours to complete and can be played through multiple times. Every two hours of real time translates to one day in the game, placing it at approximately twenty-six hours for completion, give or take a few depending on how the player’s actions affect the time on the doomsday clock.

And speaking of time, it has been clarified that not all good actions result in extending the time available on the clock. Sometimes to save a person, Lightning will have to drain the clock a bit instead. It will even be possible to end the game prior to the 13 day limit should the clock be drained enough.

More updates will be available as they come.

Thanks to @LukeLC writing the gameplay section

 

[.Mosh]

Customization- An original Lightning for each player


Lightning in her latest adventure has now been given even more options for customizing than ever before. Isamu mentioned that there would be between twenty to thirty different outfits for Lightning in this game. This is bring a sense of uniqueness to your play through compared to everyone having the same Lightning. This doesn't only stop here in terms of clothing, weapon customization in the FFXIII series has been rather limited in scope. Lightning only had a few different weapons compared to previous Final Fantasy games, which in themselves offered multiple weapons with completely different styles to each one. FFXIII-2 was no different either, it had more weapons for each character but they were merely the same weapon with different colours or patterns on them (Unless you bought DLC weapons which actually looked different).

From what has been released so far we are safe to assume that components will make a return. This comes from the concept of the 'Knockdown' feature in battle that will allow you to steal from an enemy. In the picture of the gameplay section we can see Lightning carries a weapon in which is wielded by a Behemoth, if this is the case then we could possibly see weapons from other monsters being obtainable as well as be varied in size. This was mentioned by Yuji the game designer of Lightning Returns, in which he stated that not only will there be small weapons for one handed combat, she will be able to wield much bigger two handed weapons. This is a very interesting change in which I feel with enhance the gameplay experience and give people more options on how to make their Lightning their own.

[This and the upcoming character section will be the currently smallest section due to the limited information that has been released]

 

[.Mosh]

Characters- The People of Lightning Returns

Lightning:

As of the moment we have had no clarrification of any characters making it into the game from the predecessors. The only character which has been mentioned is the main lady herself Lightning 'Claire' Farron. It is safe to assume that she will be developed on a lot more as she once again taking the leading role like in FFXIII. They have mentioned fleshing her out as she comes to grips with the events laid before her and how much she has lost in the past. I think we will see a new side of her which was absent from that of FFXIII-2 as she took the bench as main interest.