Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

[Makoeyes987]

Hope said in XIII-2 he named the new Cocoon *after* Bhunivelze because it was a blessing that would save mankind and illuminate their future.

And Bhunivelze is the god of light.

So it was intentional and completely in reference to the lore. They thought through things quite well there, especially since Hope christened the ark and is now serving Bhunivelze and living there.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Lol living there......by himself.

 

[Clement Rage]

Huh...I always thought Lindzei was Barthandelus. Need to re examine the datalogs.

Does it seem a bit out of character for Hope to name his satellite Barthandelus. In XIII, they knew no gods but the Fal'Cie, and Hope was pretty keen on the 'humanity carving out its own future' deal.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Hope named it Bhunivelze.

And given what they knew of Bhunivelze was that he was the creator of life and the world, Bhunivelze comes off as a benevolent creator of life. A god of light and hope. Hope naming his ark, meant to protect humanity from the darkness of chaos, after Bhunivelze makes perfect sense.

And everyone did learn there were gods beyond the Fal'cie. What the hell is Etro?

 

[Clement Rage]

Sorry, typing mistake. I meant Bhunivelze

 

[Gary Caelum]

This time limit in the game is idiotic. Adds nothing of value. Makes it less relaxing to play. Who thought this was a good idea?

 

[Makoeyes987]

A game about saving humanity before the world ends in 13 days is not meant to be anything close to "relaxing."

You're the divinely ordained savior of a dying world tasked asked with saving as many souls as possible before the world irrevocably ends.

The time limit is meant to hammer home that you have a job to do and it's meant to be high paced and challenging with how you allocate time and resources towards your goal. Not to mention, you have the option to "restart" if it ever gets too difficult.

Really don't get how people let the time limit hang them up when it's frankly more than enough time to get the quests done as needed.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Well, I appreciate the design sensibility at work, but I certainly still see the point.

To make a similar comparison, the player's character in "Shadow of the Colossus" is operating with a story-based time limit while trying to save what surely amounts to the whole world to him, but I can't think of many (any?) games to compare or surpass how relaxing it usually is to play.

 

[Kuja9001]

Huh...I always thought Lindzei was Barthandelus. Need to re examine the datalogs.

Does it seem a bit out of character for Hope to name his satellite Barthandelus. In XIII, they knew no gods but the Fal'Cie, and Hope was pretty keen on the 'humanity carving out its own future' deal.

The strategy guide incorrectly states that they're the same.

Hope named it Bhunivelze.

And given what they knew of Bhunivelze was that he was the creator of life and the world, Bhunivelze comes off as a benevolent creator of life. A god of light and hope. Hope naming his ark, meant to protect humanity from the darkness of chaos, after Bhunivelze makes perfect sense.

And everyone did learn there were gods beyond the Fal'cie. What the hell is Etro?

I think they meant that no human at the time knew of Bhuni other than whoever wrote the analects.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Really don't get how people let the time limit hang them up when it's frankly more than enough time to get the quests done as needed.

It means certain mistakes actually hurt you though.
Like very early on, I went straight for the Caius battle in the Wildlands, which ended up being way above my current level, so I just had to give up and turn around.
Something like that with no time limit would be no problem. But with a time limit, I just wasted half a day for no good reason.

 

[ForceStealer]

There's still more than enough time.

 

[Clement Rage]

Eh, I'm a very poor gamer by most people's standards, but I got everything well wrapped up by day 9. It's the kind of game where you go do another quest if you hit a roadblock in one, there's always something worth doing .

Re Hope, all of his experiences with divine beings so far have been negative. But then, the personal appearance of Bhuni himself might make a believer out of most people.

 

[Gary Caelum]

I feel there are correct and incorrect ways of playing the game though, due to the time limit.

The correct way is to go straight to the main quests. The incorrect way is to intentionally just do sidequests. I wasted 2 days exploring and doing sidequests and failed to get enough eradia to get those days back.

Then I ditched that approach and just went for the main quests instead. I've done the Luxerion and Yusnaan quests, and nearly done the Wildlands one, all of which give you plenty of time to do sidequests along the way. That approach has me not losing whole days and is clearly the correct way to do it.

Without the time limit though, there would be no meaningful difference in approaches.

 

[Blade]

After a while I learned to cheat with the abilities that gain EP.

Basically every time you come across a Chaos "Bubble" kill something in it for extra EP. Later in the days when you clear the roadways, you can pretty much spend all your time there killing off monsters, gaining EP to max.

The Roadways and certain areas in the Wildlands are good for spawning Chaos Infusions and there's really no real reason not to fight enemies in them, particularly the Anubis monsters from 4pm onwards since they never become Last Ones.

The only main reason to let time flow normally is to gain the purple Soul Seeds you get from Infusions as those are time-based and only spawn when time passes.

Otherwise I fight the Meonektons to farm Gil.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Maybe that was explained earlier on and I just rushed through a tutorial, but it really does help to use Chronostasis whenver you have the option to.

See I didn't use it at all for the first few days. Now I use it constantly.

 

[ForceStealer]

And using it constantly is going to prove to you that you have substantially more time than you need. The people that panicked and used it constantly found themselves with days left at the end with nothing to do.

I basically only used it if the day was about to end and just had to run back to turn in a quest quick, or if I had felt I had wasted time going the wrong way or something.

 

[Kuja9001]

I overdid it to where I had over 10k hp from questing too much by the end.

 

[Gary Caelum]

I haven't noticed any time added at all from doing side-quests. I've only noticed it added through doing the main story quests.
What am I missing exactly?

 

[Blade]

Rather than "adding time" they give you extra EP energy.

So I'm playing a fresh game on the Steam version...
Unfortunately they didn't include the Aerith Garb... oh well (not that I would've used it).

I forgot how annoying some of the time-based quests are.

Especially when the Fuzzy sheep decide they're gonna do a moonwalk taking 15 minutes to get back to the pen.
Also missed the prophecy quest... oops. Maybe next "cycle" (Garland joke).

 

[Gary Caelum]

Oh you mean they increase the maximum possible EP?

Yeah I definitely didn't understand things here.

 

[Blade]

Just as a side note: EP acts as your MP pool for most things.

Even if your HP is reduced to 0, so long as you have EP to revive or a Phoenix down in your inventory, you're good to go (there's no real penalty for using items).

Also, if you're on Easy Mode, there's no penalty for escaping fights, particularly in Etro's temple if you're pressed for time and hate fighting those Red Flans in pairs.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Is that the place you fight Caius? I was having trouble with that place.

 

[Blade]

Yes. That's the place. It gets easier through consecutive playthroughs, but I'd tackle it on Easy Mode first.

Also, I highly recommend actually NOT avoiding fights with large enemies like Behemoths and such. Defeating them gives you a ton of EP in exchange which is nice if you're running low.

Enemies you SHOULD avoid early on are Chocobo/Earth Eaters and the Demon Imps/Dragons in the Luxerion Graveyard area, they do a ton of damage that you usually aren't equipped to deal with at first unless you have Wind resistance.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Seriously, it's amazing how much of a challenge this game still is.

Just beat the game again, and

Spoiler

Bhunivelze

still gives me shit, even on my 3rd playthrough.

But I got the Double Deity FINALLY.

The final boss is the most epic and annoying sonofabitch to fight.

Not that I'm complaining.

Lightning Returns is probably the most healthily challenging and strategic Final Fantasy game I've played. It's combat and ability system are awesome and just so well designed. It demands you take it's nuances and intricacies seriously and not resort to button mashing or just relying on raw stats to win. If you don't, you're punished. You can't just rely on items or EP to save you. You're limited so you've got to ration your resources and abilities wisely or you're dead.

It's a legit challenging game in a non-cheesy way and I love it.

So with that, I'm finally going to do a hard mode run and get my ass handed to me

 

[JechtShotMK9]

Ehhh....I never did the harder mode, but I cheeses through the end of the game by switching between the Artemis Arrows thingy, and the two that lower physical and magical damage by 90% I never did figure out how to consistently stagger stuff in this one...