LR

Welcome to Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII everyone (or as it should be called, Final Fantasy XIII-3). I started this trainwreck two years ago, and now it's time to finish it. Does the series continue the slight improvements that FFXIII-2 brought to the table? Or does it crash and burn, destined to be ranked towards the bottom of mainline FF game tier lists? Eh, it's a little of both.

500 years have passed since the disastrous ending of FFXIII-2, and things have changed pretty radically. I mean, not THAT much, but enough to where I have no idea what the hell this world is or who's in it.

We immediately change into some more aesthetically pleasing clothes for Lightning before getting to work on this mysterious serial killer case. Gosh, I wonder who it could possibly be.

Etro may be long dead, but that's not going to stop these guys from murdering rose-colored hair girls in her name. The white robes seem a little on the nose though, although this series isn't well known for its subtlety.

Time passes quickly for the most part, but that's not always the case in this game. Access to the murder ritual is only granted to people with the numbers, so we're on the hunt for that... in-between weird cutscenes with this little girl of course.

We've got time until we can kick Noel's ass back in Luxerion, so let's burn some time in Yusnaan, the city of pleasure. I'm so happy to see Snow's character has finally changed, even if it literally took about 1000 years.

We still can't solve this murder mystery until midnight for some reason, so the tour of Yusnaan continues! Some of these guys aren't nearly as tough as they look.

An unlucky rose-haired girl escapes the death cult with her life, in part because Noel isn't as bad as everyone apparently thought. And he didn't have any association with the Cult of Etro to begin with? I dunno.

Noel doesn't stand a chance against our power of Overlock, and it's revealed he's just a tortured soul who mourned over a single girl for half a millennium. Nothing new for this series.

The truly ridiculous outfits we have for Lightning in this game start to show up, and of course they're some of the strongest possible ones. Will they take away from the emotional weight of the story? Yeah, probably.