It is the height of summer; a lush July evening, and a Friday to boot, with a free weekend stretched out before me like so much blue sky. I m planning to spend plenty of the next two days outside, with my wife and daughter, enjoying fresh air, laughter and good food. But there s a dark pit in this fruit of fun; a bitter kernel which grows even now on the hard drive of my PC. This black node has a name. It s Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game before. I’ve barely played any JRPGs, in fact. But now my time has come. I’ve got to jump in to the second part of the thirteenth entry of a series that has spanned more than three decades, in a genre whose conventions are unfamiliar to me, and I’ve got to complete it by the end of the year.