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Square Enix has never been shy about reissuing the Final Fantasy games in various forms. Pop into the digital shop on your platform of choice and you can find remastered or remade versions of many of the mainline entries along with a generous helping of spin-offs, too. We’re at the point where some of these games are remasters of remakes, even. You know what you won’t find a remaster of, though? Final Fantasy XIII. Not the original game, and certainly not its two follow-ups. It’s well past time for Lightning to return.
Depending what platform you’re playing on the original releases of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy might still be available. That’s not nothing! However, the original Final Fantasy XIII is almost 18 years old now and could use a little extra love even on those platforms. There are also consoles like the Nintendo Switch 2 where you can’t find any version of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy at all. It’s almost bizarre how invisible it has become when you think back to the period just before the game came out and how much hype it had upon release. It was also the first game in the series, and still one of the only ones, to have two direct sequels. For half a decade, it basically was the face of Final Fantasy. I don’t even think Square Enix has Lightning’s phone number anymore.
Final Fantasy XIII has a lot going for it. For starters, the art style is absolutely gorgeous. The environments are creative in their designs and the sheer amount of detail put into every backdrop is boggling. It also has an excellent soundtrack courtesy of Masashi Hamauzu. The combat system is surprisingly complex yet easy to pick up, with plenty of variety depending on which characters you have to work with. Arriving on the surface of Gran Pulse for the first time feels like a vision of where RPGs would go in the following years. The sequels, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lighting Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, put their own spin on things, furthering the storylines and characters while introducing some truly engaging systems.
It’s not like Final Fantasy XIII is a perfect game or anything. Far from it. For all that hype it rode in on, a lot of players felt it failed to deliver. It takes a really long time to get going and can feel like it’s excessively tutorializing. For much of the game’s running time it’s as through you’re running down tunnels with small branches. It eventually opens up when you reach the surface of Gran Pulse, but by then many have already tapped out. The story is some real over the top stuff and the cast failed to endear themselves to the masses in the same way, say, the Final Fantasy VII crew has. These are all good reasons for an HD Remaster that could potentially tweak some elements to address those concerns, though.
However one may feel about the games themselves, Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels deserve HD remasters. With so much of the Final Fantasy series getting remastered or remade, it’s bizarre that these games have more or less been left to rot on seventh-generation consoles. They have their flaws, but they’re still part of the legend. Let’s treat them right.
Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2, and Lightning Returns are all available on the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC via Steam worldwide.
