Rant about Ranters
As I see more information and screenshots pour in for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XII, I get more and more excited about the game to wrap of the XIII saga. Yet, all of the comments under the news reports are "This game sucks" "Lightning is a stupid character" "Nothing can beat VII!" *sigh* Sure, the first game was way too linear, and some characters weren't the strongest, but XIII's story line was great, and I felt for many of the characters. I nearly cried at the end of XIII-2. In XIII-2, Square Enix tried to "unlinearize" itself by making the choice to jump around time and choose where you wanted to go, but yet you were still stuck on a lonely little island. The story and characters were still amazing, confusing, but amazing. Caius almost beats Sephiroth for my favorite game villain.
When comparing Lightning to Cloud, there are plenty of notable differences, like attitude and gender. Lightning is one of the first main female protagonists other than X-2. She is strong and forward, not caring for others unless it was her job to do so, but in the end, she cared a lot about her group to make sure they were safe. Cloud shares a lot of these traits, but he was a lot more closed off than Lightning, and was more of a loner. As much as I love Cloud, I'd have to say that Lightning is a much more likable character than Cloud.
As for gender, most FF fanboys are used to the Spiky-haired teen male protagonist to come and save the day. For a change, Lightning, a woman, is the leader, which many weren't to fond of. Why? It shouldn't matter what gender the protagonist is as long as they aren't weak in strength or personality.
As a fan of FFXIII, I look forward to the next installment of the XIII saga and to see what it offers. I hope it will be another great game, and to those others who say otherwise, go back and play XIII again and compare the characters to other FF games and tell me that Lightning isn't an awesome character.
-Xenn
