Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

At one point in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13, a character from the previous games is talking about their past adventures and their seeming futility as the end of the world looms over them. "It didn't mean a thing," she says. "It's done and gone." The game eventually attempts to fight that fatalism, but it was too late for me. I've had some good times with the Final Fantasy 13 games and a lot of bad memories, with Lightning Returns mostly falling into the latter. But now it's done and gone. And it didn't mean a thing.

Perhaps if I was previously enamored with the worlds of Final Fantasy, Nova Chrysalia would have intrigued me more. While I'll never know what my perspective would have been, I do know that, as a newcomer to Final Fantasy, Lightning Returns didn't feel unwelcoming. From combat to characters, the game did a lot to make sure I knew where I was, what I was doing, and why I was doing it. The problem isn't that it's a poor choice for newcomers; the problem is that it's a poor game.