@blackblaz45 I see some similarities in this game to the original FF XIII but I think that the gameplay and story progression style in Lightning Returns will be significantly different :)

@JimmeyBurrows Who gave you permission to have an opinion in a comments section!? Lol.

I thought there was some pretty good music in XIII and even more in XIII-2.... Sure it wasn't Uematsu, but there were some good melodies. I liked what I heard for the field in Lightning Returns.

As far as story-telling in FF XIII, I suppose I was so brain dead from walking in straight lines and pressing "Confirm" repeatedly until battles were over that I struggled to give a s4!t when the eye candy filled story scenes played out.

I appreciate the story of FF XIII, but I failed to enjoy it while it was being presented because I was so annoyed and dissapointed with the gameplay and system of character progression.

What do you mean that SE sequels go in complete opposite directions of the original? I think you may be on to something...

@furabia I didn't mind the music too much here, but I am counting on S.E. to offer a variety of battle theme songs like they did in FF XIII-2.

@Kiyosuyo @Dechorus A person with ADD constantly needs new distractions to maintain their attention. Battle transitions are a distraction.

@Dechorus I agree with you 100%. Battle screen transitions remove the feeling of immersion from the players experience. I personally find them to be distracting and wasteful of time. To take it a step further, the music should not change every time that a player has a confrontation.

If I have 50 different encounters in 1 zone I do not want to hear the same "battle theme" from start to midpoint 50 times. I would rather be comforted with one masterpiece that conveys a feeling of wonder and excitement in the way that FF XII did.

I believe the future generation of video games will be successful by immersing the player as much as possible. I am excited to play a game that draws me in to it's world with seemless offerings of adventure :D

@racengon lol, they keep on coming. XIII-2 surprised me with SOME good gameplay. I'm optimistic at the moment that S.E. can make the end of the series fun to play :)

@wizardboyus It appears that the player can move during battle and has a live set of commands much like Kingdom Hearts. There are three classes equipped at a time with live action points. I think that you will alternate between the three to distribute maximum damage while protecting yourself. i.e. the controls are almost live but there seems to be a small delay between input and action

I was surprised that so many comments here suggested that the gameplay looked terrible a few days ago.

I am in agreement that FF XIII was a huge dissapointment. FF XIII-2 was a surprisingly nice improvement and I think this looks like it will be the best of the three.

I love that the environment is so expansive without loading sequences (although I wish the battles were conducted without a screen transition).

To top it off, I love being able to customize my characters appearance, and Lightning Returns looks like it will have different armor sets plus individual color choices (seen in a different video for this game), so I am expecting a great experience when this comes out :)

Well said Johnny!

This looks fun. It reminds me of Earthbound for the SNES. I'm going to go buy it!