An extremely underappreciated and underrated game that was bashed because of a herd effect and because most people haven't truly understood what it is and means.

LR is not a standalone game. Yes, it was sold as a standalone game, but it very much is the end of Lightning story and the end of FFXIII. The whole FFXIII saga should be treated and appreciated as a single game, rather than three separated and different games.

That's the reasoning behind the structure of LR: it's the traditional sidequest rush and worldbuilding before the last boss. While Lightning is in the cover, the main characters are the world and it's people, the discussions on eternity, longing, loss, end and new beginnings. The game portrays a dead world and you're the merciful executor. There is beauty in its themes that is almost always ignored by people who consume for pure consumption and take their worldview from youtube essayists and opinionated hacks.

The class system with different outfits is good and reminisces of another ill-received but mechanically sound FF entry, X-2. It is also a reflection of the pacing choices made the creators in turning the entire game into the pre-ending portion of a traditional jRPG.

The soundtrack is effective in conveying its themes for those who want to hear it. It is a Final Fantasy entry, so this is something that should be the case anyway. Graphically, the game is competent - not groundbreaking as the debut of the Crystal Tools engine, but still pretty good.

The pacing is weird, but deliberately so. The game is, as mentioned, just the latter third of a larger game so it might have weirded people out that the whole game feels like an ending portion - there's no discernible early or middle story portions. This weirdness is the thing I'm most fond of about the game, however.

The ending was cute, but I'm still kinda torn about it years later. While I like it, I can understand those who think it's too corny.

The bosses are the major highlight of this game and where combat shines, all except that final boss. At that point, I wanted to say stagger is good but shouldn't be centered, it should be supplementary.

The general gameplay loop of "side quest life progression" felt awful. 85% of the game was just busy work and real no connective tissue for the series. I get "hey, I want u to engage w/ the world" but barely any side-quest had great stories. I respect the effort tho, this is an idea that could be returned to, but modified. possibly in a self-constrained area instead of 2-3 areas at once.

Music, Cutscenes, and Animations were all great tho.