Few series have such wide-ranging difficulty as Final Fantasy. While individual accounts tend to differ — one fan's declaration that Final Fantasy 8 is the easiest role-playing game in history no doubt prompts another fan's jaw to drop in disagreement — it seems like everyone struggles with a few installments and smashes through others without breaking a sweat.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13 veers more into challenging territory than many of its peers. The last chapter in a trilogy about fal'Cie, l'Cie, and worst-ever birthdays brings our titular heroine back into the spotlight in a flashy apocalyptic adventure. Unlike its predecessors, Lightning Returns is an action RPG through and through.
Without a firm grasp of the fundamentals, this can be a daunting game even on Normal difficulty. On Hard, it can be downright punishing. But that just makes victory all the sweeter, doesn't it? Here's how to navigate Lightning Returns' toughest terrain.
Combine Main Quests with Side Quests
There's a rhythm to Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13. On paper, it's a pretty common one; grabbing a bunch of side quests from NPCs and doing them in tandem with the main story is hardly a revolutionary idea.
The difference is that Lightning Returns demands you follow this rhythm to a tee. While you may have noticed this to some extent playing through the game on Easy or Normal, it's more apparent than ever on Hard.
Here's the gist of it. When you arrive in a new area and its main quest is unlocked, immediately head over to the bulletin board, grabbing every Canvas of Prayers quest that's available. Next, scour the area for NPCs offering side quests. Your quest log never runs out of room, so stock up on every single quest you can find.
The odꦗds are always good that any battle-based objectives will take place wherever the main quest has you headed, so save yourself some much-needed time (and a headache) by tackling it all at once.
This Time, Actually Fight the Monsters
Conventional wisdom concerning Lightning Returns' battle system is to avoid fighting whenever possible. You may have already read elsewhere, while you were getting pumped and ready for an Easy or Normal playthrough, that there's typically little to no point in getting your hands dirty unless necessary.
This (rather unconventional for an RPG) conventional wisdom gets tossed out the window on Hard. It's not that there's suddenly a traditional leveling system now — Lightning's stats still increase through the completion of quests instead — but the prizes are so much better than they were before.
Monsters drop rare items and equipment that simply doesn't exist in easier difficulty modes. In fact, this is one of Hard's main selling points. Don't pass up the opportunity to outfit Lightning in better gear than ever. She'll need it.
Magic Matters
On lower difficulties, Lightning can often get by with setups tailored first and foremost to physical strikes. This approach absolutely still has its place on Hard, but it also has its limits. Stats have been raised for every enemy in the game, forcing players to 🐠think outside the sword-slashing box.
The good news is that most monsters have elemental weaknesses. Many of the Savior of Souls' lesser foes can be carved through like butter on Easy, so players won't necessarily have even noticed this before now. But on Hard mode, cast magic liberally.
"Hotkey" different elemental spells to your controller's face buttons (or a nice, comfortable row of letters on your keyboard). Having access to a single-tap Firaga can and will mean the difference between victory and failure at some point in your adventure.
Whittle Away Your Day at the Wildlands
Lightning Returns: FF13's entire narrative is built upon the concept of paradoxes, so it's only fitting that some of our tips seem paradoxical. There is, simultaneously, a reason to venture to the Wildlands very early on and a reason to avoid venturing too far unti𝔍l much, much later.
The Wildlands is the largest region in the game, and you'll gain access to a Chocobo there after a short handful of quests. Especially on Hard mode, it's worth your while to dabble in battles with big, scary monsters here for premium gear. More to the point, there's a veritable ton of loot all over the place. That Chocobo's solid speed will make the time expenditure negligible.
On the flip side, the zone's primary boss is a real showstopper. We'll refrain from citing their identity by name, but on Hard, their attacks are brutal and swift. For this reason, it's advised that you refrain from fighting the Wildlands' boss until closer to the end of the game.
Don't Fear the Reaper
If all else fails, do feel free to lose.
Lightning Returns' in-game countdown to the apocalypse can be unnerving, to say the least. And when hours of that clock are spent feuding with stronger-than-average foes, it's plain to see how things can get out-of-hand.
Should you begin to suspect you won't be saving enough souls to make a difference in humanity's future, go ahead and fiddle around with side quests and gather treasure whilst flat-out ignoring that clock. You can only grow more powerful through failure. Square Enix cleverly allows players to carry their stats forward from game-overs iജnto future files.
It's a cute marriage of narrative themes to gameplay mechanics, but more importantly, death can be an ironic life-saver if you're finding that Hard mode is more than living up to its name.
