Has anyone else cruised this game? For those of you not in the know, this is the second sequel to one of the meh-ist FF games in the century. Well the first sequel was an almost-Crono Trigger kind of game where you were jumping through time, to see the effects in the past/present/future. It was fun, and helped the original FF13 go from meh to eh. Well now I'm on the final stretch of Lighting Returns and together the three games go to almost ok.

For this game...the easiest way that I can describe it is if Final Fantasy had a love child with Street Fighter, but Assassin's Creed may actually be the baby-daddy. The FF13 world is there, with magicks and items and such...and most of the enemies we know of. But there are quests...main and side quests...much like Assassin's Creed. But then the battle system is so much like Street Fighter that it takes a bit to get used to.

Most of the time, you play as Lightning...but then you have three dress-forms (Schemata they are called). Where you customize the abilities (attack, block, magicks, debuff, group attack, whatever). Each action uses up your meter...and when you run out of meter, you can't even block. So you switch to the other Schemata and continue the battle. You can switch as many times as you want.

Well this leads you to spending an inordinate amount of time customizing your character's outfits....some changes you make provide attribute/ability changes. Others are cosmetic. One of my most powerful Schemata has Lightning dressed as a 1980's MTV music video whore...with a rattlesnake cowboy hat. shrug

The one major thing about the game is that there is a time limit. The game ends...one way or another...when the clock timer ends. You can add time to the clock by doing quests, but after a while, you are running from place to place attempting to get as many quests done as possible (to get more time). The graphics are pretty, especially since they change as the time changes...sunrise, sunset, late evening...the environments all change to fit it. However there's no time to look around....you better run. nods

So yeah...if you're in the mood for a different kind of game, I'd say its around the right price.
~Jeordam