Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: The Complete Official Guide

I am always nervous when I pre-order these guides as you never know if they will be easy to use. I was very pleased with this one. Starts out with game functionality (and in FF there is a ton), goes into detail on the new combat system. Then breaks into a very brief walk-though, suggesting where to go but not giving any details away so you can experience the game, and solve the quests on your own. In that simple walk though there are page numbers to reference a more detailed explanation if you need help. And of course in the end there is the monster encyclopedia and maps, etc. The poster map it comes with is very useful and not cluttered, allowing me to make my own notes. Since this game is based on a very short time span, and the clock is always ticking, i am not sure anyone can get through his game the first time without some sort of guide. Even with this guide I am finding myself late to tasks, and having to skip some side quests to get caught up. I am not a fan of the clock on this game, but that is a review for the game itself, not the guide. So far the guide has been a tremendous help, in fact without it, i would be too intimidated by this game. The first day I played this without looking at the guide and it was a horrible experience and I was so far behind on goals and tasks I am not sure I would have finished it the first time around. And I am a very experienced gamer. The good news is, if you do not get this book and try to tackle the game solo, then there is a plus mode, that if you cannot complete the game in the first play through, or are not strong enough to finish the last boss, the game starts over but you keep all your weapons and stats. Me personally, I am not a fan of playing a game twice back to back. Good luck~!

Some might call it 'cheating,' but I call this book a lifesaver. With how the game is set-up, this book makes things so much easier. I know where to go, what to do, and how to play. Now before I used the book, I tried to play the game and managed to mess up a lot of stuff in two days. I wasted too much time and didn't do enough side missions to gain the auras I needed to sustain life (extend my playtime). I'm one of those people who likes to gain experience by "walking in the tall grass for hours on end." This isn't something you can afford to do in Lightning Returns. This book lays everything out and explains how to go about being successful. Yes, it's a tad confusing at first, but you eventually catch on and understand its layout. I will admit, that it's not as easy to follow as the XIII-2 book, but it is still super helpful. Just give the guide a chance and it will grow on you. And if it doesn't, at least you got a DLC with it, right? Oh and some pretty bookmarks and a map! Aside from being super helpful, the graphics are simply amazing. Everything is super crisp and clean. It's absolutely gorgeous. And the feel of the book? Ugh, it's to die for. It's so elegant and smooth. The cover is excellent. It just begs to be shown off. I currently have it laying on a table as it's just so elegant looking. I think it's worth every penny and recommend it to people who could use the extra help. I know I needed it! If anything, it helps remove a lot of frustration.

This just might be the nicest strategy guides I own. The dust jacket is really nice - the illustration and feel of it. Both the dust jacket and the hard cover have a velvet-ie type feel to them. I try to complete games once without the aid of a guide, but this game basically demands one. I got to day 7 without the guide, only to realize I missed like 2,394,723,478 things once I read it. It is very easy to miss stuff in Lighting Returns. This guide is very detailed and comprehensive. It has more than 300 pages. Given the time constraint within the game, the authors have laid out several different styles of walkthrough to maximize the limited amount of time players have. It has a New Game+ walkthrough as well. Everything is covered - from when to complete main and side quests, to every piece of equipment and how to acquire them. Even maximizing EP expenditure is covered. This is a very nice guide that also includes some decent DLC content. It is very much worth the extra pennies if you cannot decide on this one or the paperback.

This guide has all you need to accomplish the best first play-through, but not in the way you would use guides for other RPG games even including the first 2 entries of the trilogy. As you may already know, Lightning Returns' game play introduces a "real-time" game play. Lightning has 13 days to save the souls of humanity, which is basically the main quests and as many side quests as you could possibly complete. 45 seconds in real life is half an hour in the game. Therefore, the best use of time in this game is to accept multiple side quests while doing main quests if you care to do a best first play-through. The "walk-through" section of the book actually contains 3 sections: Walk-Through, Main Quests, and Side Quests. The Walk-Through is very short; it's basically an itinerary of what you should do to optimize efficiency. As a result, you have to constantly refer to different sections of the book, and that book, with all its fancy papers and prints, is not that easy to flip through. The problem is, say the Walk-Through section tells you to refer to Main Quests section, then you flip to main quests to work on the current main quest, and when you flip back to the Walk-Through section, you'd just realize it also tells you to work on a side quest during the main quest, but it was too late for you to put back your own game itinerary. As a result, if you want to do the best first play-through, you can't read it while playing the game (which is how people usually do it with a game guide); you have to do an in-depth reading before playing the game, or at least before playing certain section of the game. I guess what the writer(s) and/or editors of the book could have done is to arrange the 3 sections together to match the main-quest-side-quest inter-vine nature of the game, but oh well, this is the only guide for the game anyway...

The Final Fantasy 13: Lightning Returns official legendary guidebook is well worth the pay. I praise this book for content but mostly quality. The quality of the book is phenomenal; I almost want to get the paperback version as well, just so I don't have to use the legendary edition. The content has almost everything you need from character backgrounds, game lore, quest information, to a great and extremely useful bestiary section; it even contains beautiful pieces of art from the game (it also serves as a nice art book too).The only thing I thought the guide could use was more information in the quest section, particularly pertaining to the main quest section. The guide tells you everything you need to know on how to complete the quests, but it doesn't explain what is going on during the quests very well. Now, this is probably just a personal pet peeve of mine, but I like to have the main scenarios written out in case I haven't completely grasped what is going on during the game. I will say though, the game itself does an excellent job at explaining the game for those slower players (like me), but it would be nice to have it in the guide as well for when I forget a thing or two. Other than that, the guide is amazing.

This guide is FANTASTIC! If all you want is a quick reference about where to go next in the game, then this is the book for you. If you want in depth detail about how to defeat a particular boss, then this is the book for you. This is an excellent guide for every type of gamer. Information is easy to find (the index is very handy). Instructions are clear. The layout is not confusing (not like the Dragon Age II guide). I also liked the developer Q & A at the back of the guide. About the only thing I can criticize this book for is the strange texture of the binding. It picks up fingerprints like nobody's business. After extended use it starts to look very ugly. Fortunately it also came with a handy dust jacket (which I put off to the side while I was using the guide) that will hide the prints when I put it back on my shelf. But then, it's the content that's the most important and I have no complaints where that's concerned.

Good guide although I never finished the game it was for it was good quality and covered the game very well

This is a great strategy guide, and follows the principles of Lightning Returns to a T. The guide has a recommended route for you to take, but you are not bound to taking the path that it suggests. It offers very helpful insights on the quests and side quests of the game and is designed so that you can pick and choose which content to follow first. Piggyback is a great company and makes wonderful guides, I strongly recommend you get this guide if you bought FFXIII: Lightning Returns.