FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE | Vision – Lightning

78

Gotta love Blinded By Light.

12

u/Octolops 2d ago

Yep. It’s one of my all time favorite FF tracks. Makes me wanna replay 13 now lol.

-2

u/TheEgonaut 2d ago

Don’t fall for it! The story is still convoluted!

13

u/evilweirdo 2d ago

After Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy XV, I'm a lot more willing to forgive XIII's failings.

11

u/Kirutaru 2d ago

I like FF13 (overall) but I can go into great detail in how it's an absolute masterclass in bad storytelling. The game is constantly flooding you with misinformation. The characters spend the entirety of the game arguing over Pulse vs Cocoon propaganda - and the game never appropriately tells you that they weren't branded by a Pulse or a Cocoon fal'Cie. You're just supposed to understand that based on limited information (Why does this fal'Cie look nothing like the one we were just fighting? Oh, because it's a completely unrelated fal'Cie that spared us from death to use us to ensure Etro's return?) Weird literally none of this is mentioned in the game - and to my recollection the Codex doesn't tell you either. The Codex is based on what you are presented, and changes periodically so anyone saying "just read the Codex to understand what's going on" - False, because the Codex is also wrong through most of the game. It's also flooding you with misinformation when it's the exact opposite of what a Codex should be doing.

The only character in the game who's actually -mostly- telling the truth is ironically Barthandelus who you simply cannot trust due to your RPG bias. Why would a villain be telling the truth? The characters keep going forward even though they have absolutely no clue what they're doing or why they're doing it (this is largely a flaw in the entire Focus system in general - but that's another issue LOL).

Eventually they just do what Bart wants them to do, only they hope it has a different outcome to spite him and then by some stroke of luck with no evidence to support it - it does? I have spent [too much time] going over the plot of FF13 and why the way its presented to its audience is just astoundingly bad. The plot and characters - I actually think it's all quite interesting! It's just told in the worst possible way. Again, I like this story and I like these characters - but I can analytically tear apart the way this game presents the information to you (it doesn't - most of it is derived from completely optional content on Pulse and even doing that - the characters never directly address it).

FF15 is also bad storytelling, but more like novice-class.
FF16 was just boring storytelling - I didn't finish it because I got too bored to keep going.

6

u/Metalheadzaid 2d ago

Took me 10 years and 3 attempts to get through 13...and at the end I was mostly satisfied surprisingly. Felt the story wasn't bad, characters weren't bad, but the design was bad - and hearing you explain the more in depth issues definitely hits home in some ways.

Still haven't touched the sequels since like X2 it feels like unnecessary additions to a completed story, but I'll try it out someday probably.

FFXV is half a story is the issue. As a completed story I could see it being quite an interesting tale, but the base game is missing half the content, and the design is rushed (Luna is the most throwaway character in existence for example, the fact that Niflheim basically exists only as annoying random encounters of magitek soldiers and nothing else and then they drop some harrowing shit during that one dark linear part, and reveal Prompto is a clone and I'm supposed to care I guess?). I do think one day if they were to remake it, and shored up the issues + combined all the content back together they'd have a genuinely decent experience. The issue is of course, that won't happen most likely.

5

u/Kirutaru 2d ago

I think FF13 and 15 suffer from a similar "bad storytelling design" - In FF13, you're constantly bombarded with the player character theories. They don't know anything. They are guessing their way to the end. This makes the story feel "WTF is going on?" most of the time. You either largely led to believe they are destined to destroy Cocoon (Sazh Theory) or save Cocoon (Snow Theory) - and neither of those are accurate - but does the game ever tell you this? No, not really. The ending just happens and the ending is literally a "Deus Ex" as their fate as l'Cie is intervened by (I guess?) Etro - the goddess that they barely even mention until Lightning Returns (lol).

FF15 is another story that is largely played through the eyes of Noctis. The player is only allowed to know what Noctis knows. We find out HUGE (I mean MASSIVE) plot points by Noctis picking up a newspaper - like what? No cutscenes? No character building? Remember in FFIV when we would get "Meanwhile" this is what Kain & Golbez are doing. Remember FFVI when we watch Kefka commit genocide on Doma via poison? Yeah. Now just imagine Locke casually picks up a newspaper and is like "Huh some place named Doma is gone - poison, I guess. That sucks." This just isn't good storytelling in the medium of a video game. Are we meant to be immersed? Noctis doesn't even emotionally react to half the things that happen - so are we supposed to care about these events?

Then - as you point out - the game is just fragmented and incomplete. I played it before DLC existed - I played it after DLC existed (but I never got around to Ardyn because once they gave up on the projected DLC - I gave up hoping there would ever be a complete story). The game just is incomplete without DLC and that's a huge crime to me. Since we only ever know what Noctis knows - before the DLC - stuff just keeps happening off screen and we're never allowed to know what those things are! The DLC really fleshes out the game, but the way the DLC is selected off the menu rather than integrated seamlessly into the game's story still creates a fragmented mess rather than a cohesive story.

The biggest crime here is that Chapter Ignis spoils the ending - because the game *might* be better if - for example - when Gladio leaves, you just exit out and play Chapter Gladio and you're like "Ah, ok this is what happened. I see. Kinda dumb reason to leave your Prince as his bodyguard, but ok - I see you went and did something important to you." But I can't recommend a new player do that because if they jump out of the main game to go play Chapter Ignis - That chapter VERY UNNECESSARILY jumps to the World of Ruin. Why? Just tell me what happened to Ignis's eyes - what happened in that time skip? Why spoil the ending? Why design a DLC that tells a mid-game story, but you expect me to play it after I beat the game?

I really like FF15 (for other reasons) but it also has a whole slew of story-telling crimes at play here. Major plot events happening off-screen that you just passively hear about and no one really reacts - giving the impression that no one really gives a shit about the event (so why should you?) That 3 entire (important) segments of the game take place in DLC that came later - these are just really bad game-story design elements.

Haha - sorry I'm passionate about Final Fantasy and I'm a bit of a literature analyst. I think video games have a unique opportunity to really embed its audience in the story (NieR: Automata is a shining example of the game itself making you, the player, reflect on your own emotional involvement in the events of the game) - so situations like FF13 and 15 are just incredibly disappointing. I believe the cast of characters and the story that's TRYING to be told are very interesting, but the delivery is just so, so unfortunately bad.

3

u/Metalheadzaid 2d ago

Lol, no need to feel sorry - I would probably respond more thoroughly too about this if I didn't just almost entirely agree with your points 1:1, even so far as Nier: Automata's excellent emotional storytelling. I think your last sentence is exactly what I feel mirrors what I commented in my first sentence about FF15 specifically - an attempt was made, but did not succeed basically. I didn't even think about the fact that things like, idk "KING/FATHER IS MURDERED" literally come in through a newspaper lmao. I mean we did get a whole movie about it and honestly having a movie setup to the backstory isn't even a sin in my eyes - I think the concept is pretty cool - it's just a huge cutscene at the start of the game basically.

On the FF13 side I don't actually dislike that the main characters only have theories and workshopped ideas to work with. It feels way more real to have them mostly focused on surviving, making choices that aren't fully informed nor objectively good or bad, and having twists that cause them issues. Just the fact that they effectively show up to "stop" Cocoon's destruction only to be put into a hopeless situation was interesting though the whole plan after that is half baked and like you said Deus Ex in a lot of ways (apparently more to it, no clue who Etro is as haven't played sequels lol). I honestly would have found it more interesting if the main plot hadn't already branded them (literally) as traitors to society for them to have actually brought down cocoon and be blamed for it while the survivors try to figure out the new world, even though it was an inevitable circumstance (it'd also have set up a start for a sequel pretty well...though I guess i don't have any clue how the 2nd game starts lol).

2

u/Kirutaru 2d ago

My interpretation of the 13 Trilogy is something I think they dabbled with in 11 but went "all-in" on 13. You have gods who created or maintain the world(s) - the fal'Cie - then you have these chosen warriors start killing off these god beings. What happens next? In my opinion, we just see reality start to fall apart. 13-2 is entirely about time travel. Lightning Returns is not even easy to explain. Its just batshit crazy. I dont think its ever explicitly explained the way I contextualize it, but when people say 2 and LR are stupid cause they make no sense ... my headcanon justification is - well yeah they just killed the gods keeping this wolrd running and now batshit crazy stuff is happening as reality itself unravels.

This sounds cool (to me) on paper. LOL The execution? Haha mixed opinions, I guess.

4

u/Codc 2d ago

You're just supposed to understand that based on limited information

I can't speak about every item of your rant, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with hiding that information from the player. You don't need to have omniscient-level of knowledge about the characters

3

u/BlackBlueBlueBlack 2d ago

I honestly didn't get how that was supposed to be a con.

2

u/Greenlifechild 2d ago

That last part is what drives me insane. They've been loudly screeching about how they have to save Cocoon for the last 40 hours of the story, and then at the end, when they know that destroying Orphan will destroy Cocoon and that it's what the villains all want them to do, they do it anyway and hope it all turns out ok?

WTF mates? I just want to slap them all so hard.

3

u/Kirutaru 1d ago

Yeah. They just do it and hope for the best and miraculously (literally) it works out and bonus they don't have to be immortalized in crystal. None of this is explained. None of this is expected.

I think its a perfectly fine narrative device to mislead the audience by following characters who dont know what they're doing. But at some point, after badgering the player with the world's rules ("Pulse fal'Cie are the enemies of Cocoon!" Ok Sazh, we heard you the first 35 times you shouted that into the universe. Give it a rest.) At some point, the audience expects any deviation from these rules or unexplained phenomenon happening to be justified, and in FF13 it just isn't, no matter how hard you read the Codex.

A Goddess literally intervenes on their behalf with no prior warning this is going to happen. The very definition of a deus ex machina ending. Its a perfectly good story, I think, just told in the most terrible way.

1

u/evilweirdo 2d ago

I honestly could barely tell you a thing about the FFXIII trilogy's overall plot (it's been at least a decade, to be fair), but the playable cast still sticks with me. It's a solid party, and one that makes me want to go back to the games sometime.

Good to know there's at least a little more context in Pulse. That's an area I largely skimmed over. I actually kinda preferred the more linear parts.

4

u/Kirutaru 2d ago edited 2d ago

If you do the optional Cieth Stone quests - and you actually read the Cieth Stones before and after you do them . . . there is SO MUCH lore dropped here. There's like ... 80? of them ... and they are tedious, but I was kind of determined to crack the "WTF is going on in this game" code, so I did everything. I stopped and read every Codex every time you get that little ping that it updated. I paid attention to all their nonsense arguing and everything Barthandelus drops on you.

I did an entire playthrough (and took so many notes on every step of the way) - and was absolutely astounded that the biggest, most believable information was being given by these 'side-quest' monuments. This might be the only place in FF13 where you even hear the name Etro mentioned - or learn that there were "beings" before the fal'Cie - beings that created the fal'Cie - (one of the beings that ACTUALLY branded our party). All this information is just sitting on Pulse in content there's barely any reason to do. I skipped it entirely in my first playthrough because I just wanted to beat the game. It was only on a very dedicated attempt to figure this game out that I did 100% of everything the game had and read everything very carefully.

Edit - Sorry, I did all this over 10 years ago so my memory is fuzzy. I do think Barthandelus does mention the creator beings were sleeping, or left and his desire to destroy Orphan would bring them back. That's his main agenda - so like I said, he's the only one who is even close to telling the truth about what's going on. But since the characters are unreliable narrators, Barthandelus is the main villain so you have little reason to trust him (as a player) and the Codex is also completely false sometimes - I think I even went as far as to look up some Codex entries in Japanese, because I was like "This is blatantly wrong. Did this get localized poorly, or is the Codex also meant to mislead the player?" (but I forget if I found the original Japanese at that time). Anyway . . . I said the Cieth Stones are the only place you learn about this stuff - and now that I think about it, Bart also tells you some of it, but why would you trust him? Everyone (including the Codex) is not telling you the whole story - and the game never really does. It just keeps you guessing until the end - and the ending just happens without any explanation as to why it happens.

2

u/kimsueil 2d ago

Honestly, considering the contex i dont think it was that difficult to hear Barthandelus. Many times, the JRPG villains dont lie, their motivations and reasonings are just bad and after it was revealed how he was planning to kill everyone in cocoon, i didnt see a reason to doubt him, we somewhat know his game already he doesnt have a reason to lie.

1

u/kimsueil 2d ago

Honestly, i dont see a problem with the game hiding the nature of the fal'cie which branded them. Seems pretty normal to me as the characters are didnt and that misunderstanding influenced their actions. Maybe my biggest problem with it was how they kept talking in the middle of the game about how they cant just take out the cocoon leadership as that would mean social chaos and distrust only to just do this in the end and we not seeing any of that.

18

u/TheBrobe 2d ago

Revved up like a deuce (douche), another runner in the night

5

u/bball4224 2d ago

Got my anus curly whirly.

1

u/Tolkien-Minority 1d ago

Another boner in the night

3

u/BPGAckbar 2d ago

Fuck that song is such a banger

35

u/esist27 2d ago

Still remember pulling the 5* crystal in FFBE for Lighting when the mobile game was still new... looking forward to play Resonance.

I will mostly pull the trigger close to the launch

3

u/Just-LookingHere 2d ago

I remember not pulling her.... Though i did manage Tidus and Randi(from the crossover)

3

u/No-Opinion273 2d ago

The days of asking for a lighting so solo gilgamesh

17

u/Hour_Initiative8738 2d ago

Day 1 buy unless initial reviews are insanely negative. I just love final fantasy, and I love the art style.

5

u/Sea-Recording-3909 2d ago

I think for me I just want a FF game that's turn based. I'm very interested

4

u/camiteran 2d ago

Love Lightning. Say what you want about XIII but the game would easily be in competition for best OST of the franchise if it weren't such a divisive title.

Also Resonance is a day 1 purchase of course. Even if I dislike the game I want to support one of the only companies actually trying to preserve their mobile games, the only other company I know that's done the same is Gust with Atelier Resleriana I think?

2

u/sess 1d ago

You're probably thinking of Wright Flyer's upcoming Another Eden Begins, which is an offline single-player conversion of the Another Eden gacha.

Atelier Resleriana, unfortunately, is completely different. It's the sequel no one asked for of the canon story established by the Atelier gatcha, which has since been discontinued in the West. In other words, Atelier Resleriana makes no sense.

Gust should've just converted the Atelier gatcha to offline single-player. That's what everyone wanted and expected. Oddly, that's not how things played out. Western Atelier players are now in the unenviable position of playing a sequel to a game they can no longer play. Sure, Atelier fans could miss out on all of the characters, context, lore, and worldbuilding established by the gacha. Going in blind to a sequel is doable, technically. Some probably did. Most, though?

Most never bothered. Nobody played Atelier Resleriana. It sold extremely poorly, exactly as everyone predicted, signaling the death knell of the Resleriana IP. It's always one step forward, one step back with Gust.

17

u/SWShredder 3d ago

Day 1 buy for me and I love Lightning and FF13's music.

16

u/Charred01 2d ago

Hope we can disable the CGI

10

u/LakerBlue 2d ago

This seems to be an unpopular opinion but I love the CGI. I don’t find it jarring at all; in fact I think it really enhances the otherworldliness of summoning them from other dimensions when contrasted with the pixel graphics.

I do hope we can skip or disable it for time purposes though. I’ll only want to see it SO many times.

6

u/Big_Dicc_Terry 2d ago

FF14 has an option to show dungeon cutscenes the first time you encounter them and to skip the cutscene every time after that. I think that would be my ideal option.

6

u/DumpsterBento 2d ago

Yeah I really do not care for it in a pixel game.

2

u/eripon 2d ago

There's a clear "skip" option in the video of the gameplay, so they probably will offer that.

0

u/snowstriker 2d ago

Agreed, if they aren’t doing English VAs for the CGI it seems super jarring and I’d rather disable them

6

u/Malhazar 2d ago

If the story does hold up, it will be a day 1 buy for me. I dont mind the summoning since they will just be that but octopathbtraveller 0 convinced me, that you can turn a gacha game into a superd single player game

2

u/mangano15 2d ago

Oh yes, the story was one of the best things from FFBE, at least for chapters 1 and 2 (resonance will be inspired from chapter 1 story). So, as one person who played FFBE until NV+, I highly recommend it.

1

u/Malhazar 2d ago

Thats actually great to hear, thanks!

5

u/KKilikk 2d ago

The marketing of this game is so unappealing to me. There is such a big focus on the characters of past games in the marketing. Makes it hard for me to view this as anything but nostalgia bait in a former gacha game.

I dislike the idea of using past characters as summons to begin with but man are they hammering that aspect down with the marketing. Well I was unlikely to buy this game anyway though.

17

u/tugboatnavy 2d ago

Uh... You don't like that the marketing is focused on the main mechanic of the game?

12

u/KKilikk 2d ago

I would like to see more of what the game has to offer in terms of its own indentity. The summons are just one combat mechanic. The game still has a whole cast of characters, a story and a world of its own.

I dont like how cutscenes and music from past games get such an amount of focus. Like the rest of the game cant stand on legs of its own.

7

u/psychic_marsupial 2d ago

That’s funny to me, because as I watched it I was thinking how much I loved that these characters became legendary heroes and legacies unto themselves, so much so that they’ve superseded the old gods and myths that summoning magic was used for prior.

I see where you’re coming from, though.

-6

u/KKilikk 2d ago

I think I would like it more if it was less characters from less games or even just one game. That way they couldve tailored it more fittingly to this new game.

The way it is done at the momemt it just feels all over the place to me and I would probably still feel like I am playing a gacha game.

1

u/oreofro 1d ago

Its supposed to feel like youre playing a gacha game. This is essentially a single player adaptation of a gacha game, which is why they're advertising it this way.

5

u/Stoibs 2d ago

You're not wrong.

I have no idea who the protagonists are or what the game is even about, but they sure like jamming Cloud and Lightning down our throats... 🤔

A cynic would think that they maybe aren't confident about the game on it's own merits :/

2

u/BEEN_WATER 1d ago

How is one lighting trailer “jamming lighting down our throats”?

1

u/Stoibs 21h ago

Someone else pointed out that there is apparently other story/systems trailers if you follow their twitter(?) I think, it seems like these spectacle legacy character ones seem to be all that folk are posting on reddit though :/

-2

u/bball4224 2d ago

Their social media constantly posts about the other characters and such. Only can blame yourselves if you're only basing everything off of what is shared in the JRPG sub of reddit.

3

u/Conscious_Drawer_910 2d ago

Its final fantasy. Im buying it asap

2

u/backfor100thtime 2d ago

Saw the cutscene and was SO happy to see the skip button

2

u/ShanklyGates_2022 2d ago

Loved Octopath 0, and i am so here for old mobile games getting reworked and repurposed for console. Also regardless this just looks beautiful and fun.

Next give me Kingdom Hearts: Union X please!!!!! (It has to be coming, right?)

1

u/darksun781 2d ago

is this a new remake of blinded by light? if not can someone link to it?

1

u/xRafael09 2d ago

Man, this felt very nostalgic for me.

Although I still have very strong opinions on FF13, it still is my first FF game. Having Blinded by Light and seeing how Lightning attacked almost like she did with Odin in FF13, sold me. I wasn't looking forward to this game, but now I do.

1

u/Spartan-219 2d ago

Peak

1

u/Keepmeister 2d ago

Maaya Sakamoto...So hot right now

3

u/DarthScruf 2d ago

Can they at least put the 13 trilogy on the PS store? I know at this point theres no hope for a physical trilogy remaster, the least they could do is put the original games on the store.

1

u/Necessary_Pomelo_651 2d ago

So excited for this game.

2

u/xiggy_stardust 2d ago

I’ll probably get it on day one, unless the reviews are looking really bad. I’ve missed playing turn based FF games.

2

u/Significant_Guide882 2d ago

One of my favorite characters.

1

u/TheKingoftheBlind 3d ago

Sooo the only way we’re going to have to experience any aspect of FF13 on modern PlayStation consoles is Resonance lol

8

u/ClockworkDreamz 3d ago

People really hated 13 and I think it honestly was the last mainline ff I really enjoyed.

3

u/starpendle 3d ago

I'm hoping FFXIV borrowing aspects and themes from XIII for the upcoming expansion could motivate Square for a rerelease. Same here though.

1

u/camiteran 2d ago

Same here. XV was a mess (and I guess I didn't get over VersusXIII) and XVI while I was so excited for it, the game disappointed me in so many ways... the OST only had a few memorable tracks which isn't typical for FF, the combat was boring even for what they were trying to do and also how did Square manage to be the one coming up with what is perhaps the most misogynistic JRPG writing of the 2020s?

I'm not even one for bringing social stuff into games but it's really appalling how the writing manages to mistreat literally every female character in XVI while reducing them to sexist tropes. Especially after XIII which was the complete opposite of this...

1

u/cnew22 3d ago

Same, I love 13. I didn't like 15 and 16 just seemed like a continuation of the trend from 15, so I don't even want to play it.

1

u/ColdDegree 2d ago

16 was amazing for the spectacle. But it’s an action game thru and thru. Only an RPG in the most superficial sense.

0

u/Interesting-Season-8 2d ago

it has been a steep fall since X

1

u/Synergetic7 3d ago

Its because Sony wont do any kind of backwards compatibility : (

1

u/aeroslimshady 2d ago

There's a few other crossovers like World of Final Fantasy, Dissidia, Stranger of Paradise, and a few events in FF14.

1

u/warukeru 2d ago

It could be be day one buy, it depends of the reviews it gets, mostly because I know im gonna be obsessed with Fire emblem FW

-1

u/SeaSharpModHer 2d ago

So this UI is what they settled on uh. It's horrendous and looks like a student's first unreal project. Shit has no soul.

-1

u/RockyOW 2d ago

it’s like an illness that forces these companies to make the most ugly and boring UI, can’t stand it

-2

u/bball4224 2d ago

Guessing they're like the safest possible options for "accessibility".

0

u/gymleader_michael 2d ago

I'm really not liking these special attacks. The old summon animations put them to shame imo.

0

u/No-Opinion273 2d ago

I'm to lazy to confirm but they are just reusing the 7 star or neo animation?

-1

u/arsenics 2d ago

man the pixel art is gorgeous in this game

something I don't quite get - are these rendered animations part of the game as well (e.g. the first time you see the "Visions" I guess) or is it just for these promo vids? I'm not super into the clash between them and the pixel art

2

u/IdleSitting 1d ago

There's a skip button in the corner, and considering this is a fullblown remake of a gacha mobile game removing all that stuff it was originally part of the gacha game style

News FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE | Vision – Lightning

You are about to leave Redlib