Let me further expand. I think my original review was hasty.
The whole time limit thing bugged the shit out of me although I loved it in Majora's Mask. The difference is in Majora's Mask, you are free to restart the days anytime you want, but in Lightning Returns, you get a set amount of time and that's it. At the end of the time limit, you advance to the end of the game - or so I assume. Also every morning at 6am, no matter what you are doing, you are taken out of it and warped back to the central "hub" so to speak which sucks.
Now to say why I was hasty. Basically in the game you are given a set amount of "EP" points which you can use to heal yourself or teleport around or whatever. One of the abilities allows you to stop time altogether (although NPCs still move around and such). Which is awesome, but you only start with like 6 EP and each use of that time stopper is 1 EP. You can earn EP back by defeating enemies (but it's like 0.2-0.4 per regular enemy encounter - and there isn't a whole-whole lot of enemies around in most parts of the game). The ability itself I would say lasts two minutes? I'm not sure, maybe three minutes. If you kill enough enemies during this time (the ability timer doesn't count during cutscenes or battles) then effectively you can use it forever. Eventually you upgrade and can hold more EP than 6 too.
Well to backtrack, I said fuck that time limit shit and hacked my save to give me 99 EP so I can stop time as much as I want. Which I did. That said, I'm now on day 5 of 13, and I've completed all of the main quests it gives you, I think all the "prayer" quests which are just fetch quests, and about 80% of the sidequests. So yeah, my original reaction was too hasty as really there is plenty of time to do everything even without cheating. My bad. There are some sidequests that take a few days to complete, but the main quests could mostly be beaten within a few days easily without using the time stopper and I don't even think you need to complete all the side quests to get the "bonus" ending. (I think 40?)
The other thing is that there is really only 5 levels in the entire game. You have the main hub, the four "worlds" and that's it. I think there is a bonus dungeon if you complete so many sidequests, and then there is the final dungeon. Pretty shitty for a FF game. But hey, you are free to go wherever you want when you want, so people got their wish in terms of the game not being linear.
Overall, the gameplay is good, I love the FF7 DLC because it just whips monster's ass, and SOME aspects of the real time gameplay are kinda neat, but overall I feel like it's a small game even though I've already spent 20 hours in it with still more to do. The many different paradigms or whatever they are called in this one are neat, but really feels like it's meant to show off them boobs as the breast enlargement from past games is noticeable and flaunted to get them sales. Or the game producer is just a big perv, possibly both.
But yeah, it's not really a Final Fantasy game as it feels more like an action game as you can attack, dodge, and block at will. You don't level up per say in the game either. Mostly it's just here a quest, go do it you fucker. Then you might get bonus stats on completion or items/gil.
So far I would give it a 6 out of 10. Caius and his theme(s) are still awesome. Not as bad as I thought it would be, and enough to keep me entertained, but still kind of underwhelming.
