Lightning Returns (we'd rather she didn't)

По поводу LR Торияма говорит:

I kind of feel like a father walking his beloved daughter down the flowery aisle – it’s both happy but also lonely to see her go. In this final game, players will have the opportunity to create their very own Lightning. 

Вот это мне очень понравилось. И ссаный пафос про дочку, конечно, но и то, как от "моя дочка" он мигом перепрыгнул на "создай свою собственную сиськобабу!"

Еще Номура:

I remember feeling a strong reaction within myself when I first sketched Lightning.

Нарисовал розового Клауда - СИЛЬНАЯ РЕАКЦИЯ, НАДО ПЕРЕДЕРНУТЬ!

(это она говорит, эхм, "(я тебя) скушенькаю". это тут пароль такой, ага. I'm not gonna even start)

Китасе:

she is sure to rescue her own self from the pain she hides in her heart, through rescuing people

Ага, то есть, спасения (по их же словам) всего Какуна было недостаточно, чтобы СПАСТИ ЕЕ ОТ БОЛИ В ЕЕ СЕРДЦЕ И ЛЮБВИ К ГРУППЕ ХЫМ

Apparently, there were many gamers that found the battle system of the Final Fantasy XIII series to be difficult to understand.

Это я даже не буду комментировать, просто оставлю это здесь.

Ну и наконец: в комментах люди интересуются японскими отзывами на LR. Вот они, например:

На японском амазоне примерно равное количеством рецензий с 1,2,3,4 и 5 баллами. Хвалящие - хвалят боевку и иногда каваятся с персонажиков. Ругающие жалуются на ограничение по времени и сложность -- и, конечно же, на сценарий. Вот тред, в котором осуждаются сюжеты тринашек. Cреди ревью там попадается "считайте, что сценария там нет", "боёвка интересная, а сюжет - так, довесок" и заголовок "鳥山さん、嘘やろ？". Я бы, правда, не задавался вопросом "мистер Торияма, да вы что?", с мистером Ториямой все давно понятно.
И вот еще:

鳥山さん外してほしい, говорит один. "Хочу, чтобы вы убрали Торияму".
酷いシナリオ, говорит второй. "Ужасный сценарий".
シナリオ（マイナス★）,  оценивает третий. Хвалит боевку и музыку, но сценарию? МИНУС одна звезда. "Невыносимо уёбищно", добавляет он.
もうこれ以上FFは作らないでくれ - "прошу, не делайте больше финалок", пессимистично пишет четвертый с "сайонарой" в заголовке рецензии.
そもそもなんでこんなクソストーリーを三部作にGOサインを出したんだ？, задается вопросом пятый. Это очень правильный вопрос, и звучит он как "Да с какого хуя вы вообще дали зеленый свет трилогии с таким говносюжетом?"

Мне так понравился последний, что я решил поискать, какие FF еще ассоциируют с "кусо стори" - и ответ очевиден) Попутно мне попалось интервью с Ториямой, в комментариях к которому пишут, что он "достиг новых вершин нарциссизма и эгоизма" и вот это обсуждение, посвященное тому, когда сериал FF свернул не туда. Лидирует, как можно заметить по ответам, семерка.

The 3rd Birthday story

Это 666-й пост в блоге, и его я хочу посвятить худшей игре во вселенной, ублюдочному сатанинскому высеру кривозубого отродья, паразитирующего на многими годами накопленном наследии Square. Вот этого он нас лишил:

И вот с этим оставил:

Never forgive. Never forget.
Вот вам напоминание в виде копипасты-пересказа сюжета Т3В.

ходит ли богиня к богинекологу?

В свете чудесной концовки LR вот вам пачка отличной копипасты c неогафа.

What kind of life would she live anyway? What would her job be? How would she pay for her living expenses. Does she get into model business? She's pretty athletic, would she do sports? Does she join the army/ Does she have an ID? What if she gets stopped by the first policeman and gets taken in for further questioning. That would be a poor first impression. What's France's policy on illegal immigrants coming into the country? Does she speak French? Does anyone in France speak Cocoon? What about vaccinations? What if she dies of small pox. What would happen if a dangerous disease is brought into France, would they close the borders? That would be all your fault, Claire. What about driving license, does she have that? How would she get anywhere from that station if no one is waiting for her and how would she know where to go. Where would she stay her first night? Does she get PTSD? What if she wakes up in the middle of the night, sweating, after having repeated nightmares about slashing up monsters into pieces and setting them on fire? I can already see the headlines: "Lightning strikes in Paris, killing thirteen innocent people before being put down by the police". What if she buys a PlayStation 3. Would she play a game about Lightning? Would anyone tell her that people usually don't wear pink hair? What if that's her natural hair, would she be studied by medics? What if she passes on that gene it turns out to be dominant and in a few thousand years a few thousands of families have naturally pink hair? Would she be disappointed with the level of technology? What if she isn't used to normal cuisine after eating behemoth burgers every day and her stomach rebels against such terrible fate.

Ну и да, её же зовут ЭКЛЕР, поэтому и Франция.

Remember those Prada pics? NOW MAKES SENSE 

Спойлеры про Люмину божемой

Lumina is the younger version of Lightning. No, she is not Serah. Lumina is Lightning. When their parents died, Lightning “killed” her true self and became strong for Serah. For years, she constantly lied to herself, telling herself that she didn’t need “Lumina”. But deep down, Lightning was still a normal and helpless child without her parents. She wanted to be loved; she wanted attention. This darkness created an inner turmoil within Lightning that fused with the Chaos and created Lumina.

And here's why it's bullshit:

The inherent idea behind the twist is not necessarily dumb in of itself. I mean, the Persona series has been using Shadow versions of characters to do this kind of thing for the past decade. But the problem is always execution when it comes to the XIII games. I will let the fact that it makes no sense for Lumina to call herself Lumina at all if she was just a Shadow Lightning. But for all of the hours of LR that I have watched so far, Lumina was less used as a means to build Lightning as a character gradually; it merely comes as a shock twist towards the end of the third game to star Lightning. For all of that, it boils down to something along the lines of "I guess I didn't really grow up as much as I thought." Well shit, we kinda figured that when her rational reaction to adversity was punching acquaintances in the face.
It would have been a different ballgame entirely if Lumina was revealed to be Lightning from the very start; it would have been less about the pre-tense mystery behind this character (ie, "IS SHE SERAH?!?!") and more about how to show less explored aspects of Lightning's past and personality that the team managed to squander despite having two 50 hour JRPGs to do it in. But no, Lumina spends most of her screentime cackling and doing things with the chaos, and they drop this as an attempt to twist audience expectations while doing the bare minimum of development for Lightning towards the end of the last XIII game.

Или вот

It says that Lightning created an inner persona when her parents died: she had to put behind her fears, childhood and desires, to become strong and help Serah. That resulted in some internal conflict that is never really shown in the past two games, aside from her clear angry issues in XIII, there's really nothing indicating that Lightning is an unstable person or has serious personality issues. In fact XIII never explains that Lightning was at some point a child screaming for attention and loneliness, the sensation (due to poor writting or omission which still is poor writting) is that Lightning was already a mature child and her parents dying, provoked that she had to mature faster and become a "parent" to Serah. There's no mention at all of this becoming for her a big internal crisis, there's no indication in Lightning personality of this being the case, there's no mention of Lightning life with her parents at all. Is pulled very poorly.
And I don't even want to start with the fact of how chaos created a totally new individual from someone personality issues, because the whole world should be filled with psychos and weirdos from people's "darkness", the whole darkness thing is so "bad" anime that it hurts

И насчет этих её чудесных трансформаций с парадоксами и хаосом

Lightning becomes reborn and becomes Tidus and Yuna's child.
Lightning suddenly becomes Meteor in FFVII.
Lightning magically becomes Noctis.