Lightning out. Serah in. Paradigm shift!!

One look at the screenshot is all it takes to see that Final Fantasy XIII's battle system will be making a return in its sequel, which I'm happy about. Because if it ain't broke, don't paradigm shift it. And the battle system was one of the best aspects of XIII when all else was failing. But I'm hearing things about Lightning being written out of Final Fantasy II-2's story, which I'm not chuffed about.

Lightning didn't so much evolve as a character as she did get made irrelevant. She went from a center stage, cold, awesome, rude bitch. To an center stage, awesome rude bitch with a heart. And then she just got sidelined to the point that you forgot about how awesome she was in the beginning. She got relegated! And when she started to like Snow, I lost all respect for her completely. Because frankly, Snow is not likable. He fulfills the good-looking-to-the-point-of-being-pretty-FF character role. But that man is just annoying. So I was hoping that XIII-2 would be a chance for a bit of redemption in Lightning's favour. Square Enix cannot drop a trailer of Lightning working some leg and going all Soul Calibur on our arses, and then write her out of the game. They just can't.

Serah was pretty much the unplayable main character in Final Fantasy XIII, so I guess XIII-2 could be Square Enix relinquishing the role to her completely. It strikes me as odd, seeing as she had no fighting ability what-so-ever in XIII and wasn't able to do anything but whine, cry, get turned into a crystal, and give herself London rude girl hair styles. But if Hope and Tidus can manage to hold up in battles, then I that insta-makes Serah more than capable. She's more man than those two combined. Hope and Tidus just about make up a testicle between them.

If Serah is going to be the main character, then Square are going to have to do a couple of things with her. I hope that...

• She becomes every bit as stank as Lightning was.
• Her marriage to Snow is over.
• Her marriage to Snow is over because she cheated on him with Hope.
• Serah runs both Snow and Hope through the dirt by emarking on a relationship with new guy Noel.
• Serah becomes a bit of a whore.
• Serah becomes the main character due to some ridiculously epic sacrifice which Lightning has made (i.e She died for the universe).

I'm looking forward to Final Fantasy XIII-2. XIII was an iffy game to say the least, but there were moments when I genuinely enjoyed playing it and even loved it. A large part of my interest in XIII-2 is that I liked the world and some of the characters in XIII enough to the point where I would like to see them fleshed out and revisited again -  because frankly, Square Enix didn't push any of them far enough in XIII.

I think I may be one of the few people who actually liked X-2. So I'm not mad at Square Enix for XIII-2. Even if the Paradigm shifting becomes just a ruse to switch Serah into a new slutty outfit, and the theme song to the game is Lightning popping her pussy to a J-Pop track from Ayumi Hamasaki - I won't be mad.

Also, Noel reminds me of that main dude from Birth by sleep. A Tetsuya Nomura design? More than likely. No zips. But I'm sure he'll work an outfit in the game at some point which features loads.

I expect a new FMV sequence to be shown at E3 where Serah is somersaulting all over the place and making like Yoda with a Gunblade. Given Square Enix's inability to tell really good stories these days, there'll probably be no explanation as to how Serah turned into a ninja assassin. Just as long as everything looks real nice.

Give it a read: Final Fantasy XIII review