Lightning the Valkyrie?

Okay, so I also posted this comment on Siliconera, so you might have read this there?

Quote:

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You know what? I think I finally understand why this looks as good as it does to me. They took the characters and universe of FFXIII and made it a Valkyrie Profile game based on a single character rather than a party dynamic! Just hear me out: the in-game time limit, Lighting's Godlike status, being able to map certain spells/attacks to buttons (albeit done slightly differently), being able to move around in real time (in Silmeria); a great chunk of this game has almost everything I love about Valkyrie Profile in its gameplay. Am I crazy, or is anyone else seeing this?

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I mean, this is from what little I know about the game, but to anyone else who's played the Valkyrie Profile games, you can see where I'm coming from, right?

Obviously, that's not to say that Lightning Returns is a ripoff or anything, I was just wondering why FFXIII-3 looked so appealing when I couldn't get through chapter 8 of the first game and skipped XIII-2 altogether.

There is also the whole "chooser of the slain" thing. A maiden, chosen by the high god of the pantheon to lead doomed souls to a new world? Heck, there's even the Odin Eidolon and her ability to ride Sleipnir.

Holy cow.

Do you think Square knowingly used Valkyrie Profile as inspiration, or is this all some freak coincidence?

Well, I think that the Valkyrie connection has been running strong for a while. It started with the Odin connection in XIII and has been built on in her role in XIII-2, and even more with this game.

As for the Valkyrie Profile connection, I could see them drawing some inspiration from it, but I'm not sure how much was coincidence.