Uploaded August 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Should have just found the damned girl with the phone, fuck, that's the first quest i've failed in this game.
one thing LR does well is its story, it's not amazing, but they owned their sidequest based leveling design by turning it into an excuse to have more exposition and story than any other final fantasy game.
so naturally, it's hard not to get invested in the characters you end up doing sidequests for, from a washed up chef, to a girl who cries wolf for attention, the whole premise of "Immortal mortality" is thoroughly explored here, and not a second goes by that you're not reminded that this is a dying, tragic world.
dat miquote costume sidequest tho....lol.
anyway, the general idea i'm driving at here is that if there's any reason to play lightning returns, the curious rpg without an experience system, it's the story and the sidequests, they're all very well done, but tediously designed around forcing you to waste time, each one is an investment that sorta gets you invested in the characters, which have sidestories pretty damned on par with the older final fantasy sidestories, you, as lightning the angel of death, are the lesser deity forced to bear witness to these stories, and whether you fail or succeed, you learn, you feel, you witness.
and that's really what matters here, it's like being asked to observe the final moments of a dying person and try to resolve their final regrets before they pass on, only you have to do it a thousand times, and each time is more interesting and unique than the last, this process never appears to get old, which is good because that's 80 percent of the gameplay. that and driving monsters to extinction, yes, the "angel of death" jab wasn't in jest, lightning can literally play the part and drive entire species to extinction, eventually fighting their final representative, empowered by the souls of its brethren for one final push for revenge, it's a unique take, and if i had to classify lightning returns, i'd have to say that it's a lot like what the witcher does in terms of its gameplay, it forces you to experience a specific class, the class in this case being the literal goddess of death in training that is our very divisive heroine lightning, hard boiled hardass whose entire shtick is that she's no tool for higher beings to use, evidenced by how she eventually schemes to overthrow bhunivelze when she finds his deal not to her liking. most heroes would be all too happy to serve god, but lightning?
nope, she has very strict boundaries on how she approaches an arrangement, and no matter how powerful or important her foe, if she has a mind to take said opponent on, nothing in the universe is going to stop her.
it's a stark contrast to the countless other heroes who serve a higher power for a good purpose, lightning is literally USING god to suit her own ends, if it weren't for her moral code and slight amount of scruples, you could easily imagine her turning into an antagonist somewhere down the road. lightning returns is nice because unlike its predecessors, it's entirely its own thing, it doesn't try to emulate its past, rather, like lightning using bhunivelze, the game uses its prior titles as tools to suit its own ends, and those ends are....pretty well thought out.
Should have just found the damned girl with the phone, fuck, that's the first quest i've failed in this game.
one thing LR does well is its story, it's not amazing, but they owned their sidequest based leveling design by turning it into an excuse to have more exposition and story than any other final fantasy game.
so naturally, it's hard not to get invested in the characters you end up doing sidequests for, from a washed up chef, to a girl who cries wolf for attention, the whole premise of "Immortal mortality" is thoroughly explored here, and not a second goes by that you're not reminded that this is a dying, tragic world.
dat miquote costume sidequest tho....lol.
anyway, the general idea i'm driving at here is that if there's any reason to play lightning returns, the curious rpg without an experience system, it's the story and the sidequests, they're all very well done, but tediously designed around forcing you to waste time, each one is an investment that sorta gets you invested in the characters, which have sidestories pretty damned on par with the older final fantasy sidestories, you, as lightning the angel of death, are the lesser deity forced to bear witness to these stories, and whether you fail or succeed, you learn, you feel, you witness.
and that's really what matters here, it's like being asked to observe the final moments of a dying person and try to resolve their final regrets before they pass on, only you have to do it a thousand times, and each time is more interesting and unique than the last, this process never appears to get old, which is good because that's 80 percent of the gameplay. that and driving monsters to extinction, yes, the "angel of death" jab wasn't in jest, lightning can literally play the part and drive entire species to extinction, eventually fighting their final representative, empowered by the souls of its brethren for one final push for revenge, it's a unique take, and if i had to classify lightning returns, i'd have to say that it's a lot like what the witcher does in terms of its gameplay, it forces you to experience a specific class, the class in this case being the literal goddess of death in training that is our very divisive heroine lightning, hard boiled hardass whose entire shtick is that she's no tool for higher beings to use, evidenced by how she eventually schemes to overthrow bhunivelze when she finds his deal not to her liking. most heroes would be all too happy to serve god, but lightning?
nope, she has very strict boundaries on how she approaches an arrangement, and no matter how powerful or important her foe, if she has a mind to take said opponent on, nothing in the universe is going to stop her.
it's a stark contrast to the countless other heroes who serve a higher power for a good purpose, lightning is literally USING god to suit her own ends, if it weren't for her moral code and slight amount of scruples, you could easily imagine her turning into an antagonist somewhere down the road. lightning returns is nice because unlike its predecessors, it's entirely its own thing, it doesn't try to emulate its past, rather, like lightning using bhunivelze, the game uses its prior titles as tools to suit its own ends, and those ends are....pretty well thought out.
![FFVII Remake/FFVII Dual Playthrough: Sector 7 Pillar [FFVII]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oVVVzWZd23s/mqdefault.jpg "FFVII Remake/FFVII Dual Playthrough: Sector 7 Pillar [FFVII]
In the original pillar sequence you only ever fought reno as the mmain boss. the deaths of the avalanche trio are also not given as much attention here, though wedges fate is largely ambiguous.
your primary enemy is the helitrooper, who cant be struck by physical attacks until they land.
overall the only thing the original does better here is the transition to opera music when the cutscene moves to president shinra overlooking the fall of sector seven, it really showcases what a detached psychopath he is.
funnily enough the sephiroth hallucination of remake lines up with cloud bugging out in the original, which is a nice touch. Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/doktor_amazing")
