Im currently playing FFXlll-2 and so far im liking it!!! probably because the gameplay is much faster and the monster collecting aspect is kind of fun, but the story doesn't make any sense with the time traveling bull.
Anyways I played Lighting Returns at anime com and it was in japanese so i cant understand it fully, but basically you only play as lighting. You can see your ATB gauges and health outside of combat and it cant auto health after each battle so you have to take positions to keep your health up.
In combat you can move around your enemy. The ATB gauge now is totally different now. You have up to 3 different classes and each class have their own ATB gauge. You change classes by pressing the R1 button and its very fast. Every class have 3 attack buttons that uses X triangle and circle as attacks and square is used as block. Every attack and even when you block an attack uses up the ATB gauge and you will use it up very fast, but what awesome is that you can switch class in an instant and have another set of ATB gauge.