Lightning Returns: Hands-on impressions, new screens, trailers

At a recent pre-E3 event, Square-Enix debuted new footage and allowed press to go hands-on with the battle system for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.

Newly confirmed via their E3 trailer is the return of Snow Villiers, who now plays somewhat of an antagonistic role in the game, as the gameplay demo focused on Lightning chasing her one-time teammate through a monster-ridden dungeon. As you can see from the accompanying artwork, he's ditched bandana and long coat for a black suit, a design choice that echoes both previous artwork released for FFXIII Versus character Noct, and the Turks from FFVII.

Combat-wise, the game's a lot faster and more akin to an action-adventure. While engaging an enemy still switches you to a battlefield scenario, direct control over Lightning, as well as attacks mapped to the face buttons, means fighting is much more fluid and fast. The alteration has particular impact on defensive moves; timing an enemy's strike with the right button press will see you negate the damage as Lighting throws up a shield.

Lightning's different combat styles are visualised through different outfits, three of which can be equipped and switched between at any time during combat. While we didn't get to tinker with the outfit customisation screen, the three default designs we played with split the abilities between physical offensive, with harder blows and quick strikes, magic offensive, with tuned up fire, lighting and ice spells, and the last focused on hammering an enemy with status aliments and blocking attacks.

The game, set over the last thirteen days before the world ends, is definitely a heavy departure from previous entries for combat, but the larger areas and emphasis on exploration could be a return to what FF fans are missing the most from the classic style of the series. The in-game countdown, reminiscent of time management adventures such as Dead Rising and Majora's Mask, could make the game appealing to non-franchise fans.

We'll be seeing more from the game at next week's E3.

Update: The game has been confirmed for a release date of February 14th, 2014, via a press release from Square-Enix, pushing it from the autumn release that we expected this year. We'll also have two trailers for the game on the site shortly.

Update 2 Find the trailers below.