Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Yeah, FFXIII-2 is perfect so that I can explain what I mean.

I've been down this road before, but the plot had no "consistency". And I'm not talking about plot holes (and there are goddamn PLENTY but we're not going to discuss that). Let's review what happens in FFXIII-2: you're supposed to fight Caius and save the world. Yeah, you do that eventually, but its all such random crap until you actually do it. Its like... you stop from zone to zone, jumping into some weird side story wasting time until you've actually filled out the 30 hours a JRPG needs and then you fight the final boss.

So along the way you fight a giant tomato flan. Where did he come from? Oh, he's just a giant tomato flan. Its just a boss, you kill it and Cocoon is still going to fall. There's a giant robot monster, let's go kill that even though he's not really a threat in any way. You fight a Proto fal'cie. Was the whole Proto fal'cie adventure important in any way? Not really, it was mostly a self-contained Mobius strip of plotline that literally came out of nowhere and went nowhere. There's even a Caius Clone that serves no purpose other than to further confuse the already confusing story. Oh, we beat the thing, whatever, let's go beat the other thing! And to further pad out the game, go back and find all these Gravitron thingys to power up the thing we need to do the thing.

We appear in some time zone where Fenrir is blotting out the sun? Who is Fenrir, he's never appeared before. Well, Noel (briefly cured of his ambiguous amnesia) tells us that he's supposed to show up in the future. Who is he? What is he? What does he want? What does he do? Nothing. He's just a thing floating in the sky to make that one zone dark so it looks different when they copypaste the entire environment again this time in daylight. Comes from nowhere, goes nowhere, complete waste of time.

Later on there's a space station floating in the sky called the Thirteenth Ark. Who built it? Why? Where? When? Were there twelve other ones? What is the importance of this thing? Does it have any importance? No. Its just another thing floating in the sky.

Going back to a GOOD JRPG, in Chrono Trigger, every single location you go to further expands upon the evolving story of Lavos. The lizard villains are there when he first lands, Antiquity tries to use him, the Fiends try to summon him, the robot future shows us what happens when he fails. Everything matters, it all fits. In FFXIII-2 nothing seems to matter, nothing fits. Its just things... that happen. Was there any overall thematic meaning to Hope's misadventure with the Proto Fal'cie? Not really. How did it connect with Caius' plan? It didn't.

And just in case it wasn't confusing enough, you basically watch all these events out of order, with multiple interlocking dimensions, you change history radically three times, and nobody seems to actually have any idea what is going on, including the characters who can magically see the future.

So that's why Caius isn't coming back. Because its already a huge mess, and you should expect the worst. Lower your expectations down to the very bottom, then try to go even lower. That's what FFXIII-3's story will be like.