Current mood: TAKE ME BHUNIVELZE! I'M YOURS!!!!
When SE announced LR I was like 'whaaat???' because I'm not even finished with the prequels and came along the third installment which will forever close this trilogy, thank Etro! I usually wait for at least 6 months to a year before buying any PS3 games, CAUSE GAMES ARE EXPENSIVE DAMNIT!! However with LR I just couldn't wait, I grabbed the game as soon as it was up for sale in the cheapest game store I could find. The reason is simple... what wouldn't a fangirl do for her precious OTP which took THREE GAMES to actually get some private time together?! Huh?! I did it all for the OTP goodness! YES!
Note that this is the last installment of a trilogy, if I so happen to write a review about the two games before LR... well, some characters will not be mentioned. Let's start, shall we? LR starts with an epic opening with our fave female warrior Lightning speaking to someone through radio transmitter (is that what they're called?) and then proceed to kick ass. Now we're playing another game of 'guess that character'!
Basically I'm crying right now because I can never find a decent enough large size promo art of all the characters... Lightning has rose colored hair. That's it. Her dead sister Serah has the same rose colored hair, but she's wearing the most unpractical skimpy outfit while holding hands with Mog. The person Lightning's talking to through the radio transmitter is Hope, the shota AND bishie of the trilogy. I'm not kidding, he basically follows the 'white-haired-animu-boy' rule. And only Hope can pull off a shota and a bishie at the same time. The dude Lightning was kicking ass before was Snow... and Snow turned from zero to hero to chocobo to a brooding emo rocker. Yeah. Next is Noel, he's a brunet with skin-tight clothes. Then there's Vanille, the cinnamon roll of cinnamon rolls. She has pink hair, but you probs can't see it cause she's wearing a veil or something. Later on there's Fang, Vanille's bab, every fangirl's female crush EVER. No matter how 'manly' Fang is, her outfit always shows off her curves and inner thighs... Sazh is the old man character every game needs, and he's a cool Afro dad! Caius is another brooding guy who wears purple and skin-tight armor with a big-ass sword, and Yeul, a silver-blue haired girl who Noel has a BIG CRUSH... Lastly there's Lumina. She's a gothic lolita. Same rose-colored hair. This is a HUGE cast, since we have combined all the game's recurring characters.
All our characters here except for mysterious Lumina and Serah(who is clearly dead) are never aging youthful bishies. That said, Fang will forever be the oldest hag on the planet. HA!
Lightning awoke from her hibernation to find that she has been appointed as a servant of the god Bhunivelze. A knight in shiny armor, precisely. She was tasked to be the savior, an angel of salvation to the remaining human population. But she won't be doing this alone. Bhunivelze found Hope, shrunk to when he was still as pure as Virgin Mary, to assist her in her mission. Bhunivelze had a tasty offer for Lightning: if she completes her mission, he will revive Serah. But Lightning couldn't feel anything; no joy, no anger, no sadness, no fear. Hope tells her something about himself. He was found and remodeled for 100+ years to his current purest state, and his emotions were taken away from him. Now Hope refers to himself in third person, which is pure weird... Anyways, Lightning venture into what is left of the world to save humanity's souls.
Our savior knocks some sense into emo Snow and brooding Noel. Snow blames himself for letting Serah die, and continues to emo in his palace. Lightning gives Snow a punch(?) to the face before he completely loses himself. Snow realizes Serah would not want him to be in such a pitiful state, and promises to look out for his city. Noel, on the other hand, wants Lightning dead due to a prophecy that states that he will be reunited with Yuel after he kills her, and also because he felt responsible for Serah's death. Noel is tired of seeing Yuel being dead and reborn again and again. Lightning defeats Noel in a duel, and he destroys the 'prophecy' saying that Yuel would never want this.
Lighting encounters a white chocobo. She feels familiar with the animal, but Hope just said she's desperate for company. The chocobo turns out to be Odin, her trusted Eidolon. She finds Sazh, who lost his cheerful outlook and became a grumpy old man. His son, Dajh fell into a coma, and can only be awaken by collecting fragments of Dajh's soul. However, even when Lightning found all the fragments, Dajh still does not wake up. He is too frightened by his father's current demeanor. Sazh realizes his mistake and tries his best to regain his own self... and he succeeded. After the chocobo is fully healed, he takes Lightning to a temple. There she meets Caius and multiple incarnations of Yuel. The Yuels guide Lightning deeper into the temple, to Caius. Along the way Lightning meets the incarnations of Yuel who desire different things for both Caius and Noel. Some want Lightning to kill Caius, to free him of his pain. Some want her to spare him, as they couldn't bear to let him go. Some incarnations desire Caius, some do not. Some love Noel, but some do not. In all of this conflict, Lightning takes Caius' life by force, but he is an undead. He demands the savior to leave him be, and she does. Our protag finds Mog in the forest, also guilty about his inability to protect Serah. Lightning tells Mog that Serah's death is not his fault and she still needs him to guide the revived Serah to the new world.
Vanille is a saint of a religion, and she will be used to sing a song to purify souls when doomsday comes. Lightning questions the whereabouts of Fang, but Vanille doesn't know. Finally when Lightning meets Fang, she is already the leader of a gang of thieves? Or bandits? Fang tells Lightning the reason behind her departure, and Lightning realizes that the seemingly harmless religion is trying to mass murder souls, and having Vanille sing the song will kill her. Lightning assists Fang in finding a piece of instrument that will contribute to this whole nonsense, but before Fang could destroy the instrument, followers of the religion storm in and took it. With no other way to destroy the instrument, Fang and Lightning agree to meet on doomsday.
Her mission as an angel of salvation made her notice odd things about Bhunivelze and Hope. Lumina, the mischief-maker in all of Lightning's major salvation quests, questions her trust towards Hope. Why does the savior trust Hope so much? She refuses to believe that Hope is deceiving her... or is he? In fact, Hope is a CCTV for Bhuivelze to monitor Lightning. On doomsday, Lightning finds Hope fading away. He confesses (OMG PAUSE HERE AND CRY YOUR EYES OUT FOR FEELS) his job as God's pawn to monitor her, and all of God's plans. Before he fades into oblivion he says, "I'm glad to have met you." YOU KNOW WHAT JUST CRY YOUR EYES OUT ITS TOO MUCH TOO MANY OTP FEELS IN ONE SINGLE SCENE WTF
Lightning was all like 'noooooooo HOPE!!!' but Hope disappears anyway. Lighting is warped to the where Vanille will be executing her song, and the religion fanatics try to stop her. I freaked out at first because there was a big-ass monster and I don't want to fight the big-ass monster... then Noel flew in from nowhere and saved the day! Our savior is aided by Snow and Fang to stop Vanille from singing the song. They all succeeded in saving the souls. Noel, Snow, Fang and Vanille join the souls and wait to be reborn.
Bhunivelze, the deity who entrusted the savior mission to Lightning, appears before her as Hope in space limbo. He reveals his plans on creating a emotionless puppet world for all the souls she saved. Do we expect Bhuni to keep his promise to bring Serah back? Haha! Fooled you! Bhuni doesn't know where Serah's soul is, because he can't see through human hearts. Lightning questions Bhuni's plan, and the god reveals his true form and abandons Hope's body. Thank SE we don't have to fight Bhuni in the form of Hope, if not I'll just be crying in a corner with gross sobbing for OTP feels.
Before Lightning goes for the finishing blow, she takes out the survivor knife - the one given to her by Serah, but has very significant OTP value in it - and stabs Bhuni. Lightning ushers Hope to the new world, but Hope says he can't see her. Lightning tells Hope to leave her be, for her duty now is to keep tabs on Bhuni and lock him away in the chaos. Just after Hope left, fake Serah comes in and forces Lightning to confess her fears and accept Lumina, which are her unwanted emotions in human form. So Bhuni did not erase her emotions; Lightning did it herself. Just as she embraces Lumina and accept the fact that she is lonely and scared, Hope comes back to save her.
Along with Snow and the others, they team up to perform a pretty cliche Dragon Ball kamekameha scene, but nothing can contain the god. Caius and the mutltiple Yuel incarnations volunteer to stay and keep tabs on the chaos, but not before Caius lets the final incarnation of Yuel leave with Noel. And there, our characters (save for Caius and Lumina) are rewarded with a new world without God to tell them what to do. Lightning reunites with Serah and OMG Lightning extends her arms towards Hope! SQUEALS~~~~
Our protagonist goes from a soldier to a knight to a savior... but her fight is over. Now, a new life awaits her...
OTP FEELSSSSSS OMG KYYAAAAAAAA~~~~~~~~!!!!!!!!!!!! This was the first time I was ever this excited to fight a boss battle! I never liked final boss battles because they had so many forms and phases ugh! But Bhunivelze was amazing! When the opening battle sequence starts I actually can't stop grinning and said TAKE ME BHUNI MY BODY IS READY AHHHAHHAHAA
Programming: 9, not many glitches, and graphics... I don't have to mention graphics. Because everything is time-based, we get to see day and night and the changes of the world. The sound system was awesome.
Gameplay: This is probably the lowest rating yet! 6.5 because it's a rushy business in LR. Every second counts so I had to rush the quests and I don't have any time to goof around and explore places thoroughly. I had to jump from train to train to do the time based quests which is frustrating! And you'll never be able to sell your stuff without worrying if you'll need it for another quest. I haven't been able to see Snow or Noel roaming around because of lack of time! I want to see bishies roam the streets!
Story: The story of the original FF13 was already enough to satisfy fans I think. SE just had to go and make it hard for everyone. I can't complain though, LR is basically a Hoperai OTP masterpiece, so I rate it a 7. Defying a god was awesome, but killing one is better. The best thing about this game is probably the whole Hoperai ship, honestly. Nothing in the game is better than the final boss battle and the ending. But man, every emo character we see here is all about Serah huh...
Soundtrack: My favourite track is Ouroboros Festival and The Ark. I'll be generous and give a rating of 8 for the music. I liked the BGMs in Yusnaan best. The Wild Lands have many tracks, but I keep riding the White Chocobo, so for the majority of my time there I'm listening to Chocobo Themes. To me Luxerion tracks were kind of boring. That's why I like nighttime Yusnaan best haha... The final boss themes were epic and HOLY SHIT! All of Bhunivelze's themes were good.
Overall rating: 7. LR is definitely winning its prequels thanks to Hoperai, and thanks to Hoperai ONLY. If my OTP was not a 'major' plot point in the game I would have given it a 5 or something. Everything is so rushed! Changing Lightning's outfit was fun, I don't think much of the color customization option but the adornments were fantastic! However so, for me, that was it. The other aspect that made me like this game apart from the OTP goodness was the 'dress-up' option. The combat system was not a new thing for me cause I play KH and TALES, so I didn't need time to get used to it. Overall the game is a fresh experience from its predecessors, and FF fans should check it out. However if you're planning to get into the franchise, I don't think you should start by playing this game. Go finish older ones like the Spira remakes or get a digital copy of FF7 in PSN.
PS: Hope is reborn as an adult, how awesome is that?!
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