With Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix has closed the Final Fantasy XIII chapter and is moving on. Just kidding, of course it isn’t. Hope you like reading and words and stuff!
Much like with the Final Fantasy X series that got a 30-minute audio drama after-story, the Final Fantasy XIII series now has its own extra epilogue in the form of a three-part short novella that is included in this week’s and will be included in upcoming issues of Weekly Famitsu.
The epilogue, titled Final Fantasy XIII Reminiscence — tracer of memories — is written by veteran video game scenario writer Daisuke Watanabe, a man who has headed the writing for multiple Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games.
FFXIII Reminiscence takes place after the events of Lightning Returns with the protagonist as a reporter who has been following the mystery of mutual “memories of another world” that seem to be shared by many people. The story is written in a first-person perspective with the reporter talking with several people who were closely involved with the events that happened over the video game series as they gradually lead her towards the truth, i.e. Lightning.
In Part 1, the reporter talks with Hope Estheim, Sazh and Dajh Katzroy, the members of the team Nora — Gadot, Yuj, Lebreau, and Maqui — and Serah Farron. The talks are basically the characters recalling what happened in the Final Fantasy XIII games. The whole thing is mostly a recap of the games but made more interesting because they’re told from different characters’ perspectives, giving the games’ stories a more personal touch that fills them out nicely.
So far, the novella acts more as a supplementation to the game series than an actual after-story. Parts 2 and 3 are scheduled to be included with the next 2 issues of Weekly Famitsu. Part 1 is 35 pages, all walls of Japanese text completely sans pictures, so it’s more of an advanced reading that will be difficult for non-fluent people to access.
At the moment, Final Fantasy XIII Reminiscence — tracer of memories — is only available in Weekly Famitsu, with no word on a general release or an English version.
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10 responses to “Square Enix Cannot Quit Final Fantasy XIII”
Oh thank God, for a moment I thought they were making another fucking game from the remnants of FXIII’s corpse.
I know there’s that phrase that goes around something like “everyone has their own opinion”, but when it comes to FFXIII, there are no two ways about it. Terrible games
While I’m also thankful that there won’t be any more games in the series, I found the first two games reasonably playable, although the first was depressingly linear. Even the “nonlinear” territory later in the game (Gran Pulse) narrows down again rapidly if you decide to pursue the game plot.
The combat system was novel, and not too bad once you got used to it and had the roles filled out. People complain that it made things too easy, but it’s no easier than mashing the attack button, which is what the easier ATB fights in some other FF games require.
I think I got about two hours into Lightning Returns before giving up on it however, and the “ending” of XIII-2 was quite irritating.
“but it’s no easier than mashing the attack button, which is what the easier ATB fights in some other FF games require.”
As well as Kingdom Hearts II.
but kingdom hearts combat was enjoyable, even if it was a bit simple if you were over-leveled. FFXIII’s combat wasnt enjoyable. even comparing it to the ATB FF’s; it technically shouldn’t have been much different, but it did feel more…. ‘automated’ i guess.
It was still mashing X (or triangle in the 1000 Heartless fight) when fighting non-boss mobs, with the occasional Triangle or Square spam. Only time you ever needed to stop and think for a moment was for boss fights, which you also needed to do in FFXIII.
Then there’s Bravely Default, a game people love, but can also require even less player input than FFXIII. Grinding for levels, gold and job points? Set the right job, Brave and attacks and auto-fight for a few hours. A little lazy to fight a super optional boss? Set the right jobs, subjobs, equipment and watch yourself automatically win using auto-battle.
I wouldn’t blame them, I actually think plot wise it is one of the better FFs
I know right! It doesn’t even compare to FF 6,7,8,9 or 10! I mean seriously all the people who say those were good games are crazy!
you serious?
can we just have turn based combat return? instead of this hybrid crap the x111 series brought in