Sell Me on These Awful Games

[Forsaken Lover]

So my GF and other friend really like the XIII Trilogy. For their sake, I'm trying to play them. I got XIII down so now it's just XIII-2 and LR.

For those with memories for worthless garbage, I did try to play XIII-2. About a year ago I purchased it, played it for a couple hours, then returned it.

Why? Becauseit's Serah and Noel's Whacky Time Adventures. Only it's not whacky, it's melodramatic garbage where I will apparently have to endure this guy whining about how his girlfriend dumped him because of some goddess maybe.

I liked XIII because of the characters yet XIII-2 only has two characters and seems entirely too focused on the needlessly convoluted narrative.

This was my impression.

Am I wrong? Do Serah and Noel have better characters and development than I realized? If not, are there side characters to compensate for how much they suck?

For LR, same question. Lightning was insufferable in XIII. Is she better in LR? If not, are there at least other good characters who get some focus?

[Psychotic]

XIII-2 is better than XIII and LR is better than XIII-2. Noel is a pretty awesome character if you give him a chance and no, Lightning does not get any better.

[Forsaken Lover]

Then how is the game that gives you Undiluted Lightning (LR) better than XIII where you could easily ignore her for most of the game? That's the only reason i liked XIII. I could focus on the party members I liked. I dumped Lightning out of my party first chance i got and never looked back.

[Freya]

The gameplay is pretty awesome. The story, meh, but the gameplay is actually pretty well done and is the saving grace of that trilogy.

[Shauna]

What's the point in trying to sell you on them if you're calling them "awful" in the title - you're clearly already going into it with the mindset of hating it.

Just gonna save everyone some time and say nah. x}

[FFNut]

I agree with you, the only place this trilogy belongs is in a dumpster, or under a table leg to stop it from wobbling.

[fat_moogle]

I agree with you, the only place this trilogy belongs is in a dumpster, or under a table leg to stop it from wobbling.
Pretty sure the table would still wobble if you put the whole trilogy under a single table leg.

[Forsaken Lover]

You guys are terrible salespeople, I must say.

If the buyer is actively hostile to your product, you just have to try harder, not say "welp, guess there's no point."

You tell them the car runs great, even if it was brought to you because it constantly broke down and you never fixed it.

You tell them it's only got a few miles on it, even if it has 100,000.

And then you tell them this snake oil you get included with the car will make them goddam sexual Tyrannosauruses and all they have to do is pay an extra $100.

Well, in spite of the fact you all get an F In Economy Class, I still bought XIII-2 and the DLC for my Xbox 360. This way, I can't return the game and even if it means I'll suffer agony akin to dragging my body through broken glass and salt, I will beat the game and justify the $40 I just spent.

[Forsaken Lover]

Yeah, I don't see the point of even asking this question if you've already decided the games are "awful" and "garbage".
If you didn't like XIII or XIII-2's story, you're probably not going to understand or like LR's story. However, the gameplay in LR is especially worth it; more challenging than XIII or XIII-2, a lot of customization and replay value, and a ton of exploration to be had in the game world.

But I mean, these games are just garbage so lulz.

On another board I frequent, in a General FF Thread where people were regularly asking a year ago if they needed to have played XIII-2 in order to play LR, I read multiple responses that said "no, you don't need to play XIII-2 to understand LR's story at all. XIII-2 is actually a giant waste of time."

[fat_moogle]

You guys are terrible salespeople, I must say.

Well, in spite of the fact you all get an F In Economy Class, I still bought XIII-2 and the DLC for my Xbox 360. This way, I can't return the game and even if it means I'll suffer agony akin to dragging my body through broken glass and salt, I will beat the game and justify the $40 I just spent.
We don't need to sell it to you if you've already bought it.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I hadn't bought it when I made this topic several hours ago. I just bought it right now.

Although, to be fair, I probably would have bought it, even if you had given a long, doctoral thesis-style post explaining why I shouldn't

[Ayen]

You should have held out a little longer, FL. I was about to offer a free demo of FFXV Episode 2.0 and first look at Tifa's boobs physics in the new FFVII remake for free if you bought both XIII-2 and LR, but I guess now you can just do without :colbert:

"But don't you hat-?"

I don't have to like something to sell it.

[Saber]

Here's whats great

Each title has its own belief system you are always starting off trying to get from point a to point b. In XIII it is very linear whereas XIII-2 you can redo things. LR lets you go through 3 cities and endgame.

They are worth playing if you can handle seeing lightning. I found XIII to be my least favorite and XIII-2 one of my favorite Square titles. LR has like 4 cutscenes with previous characters from XIII and XIII-2. I found them to be really touching. If you care enough to know what stories they have in each title, you should play them. If it a graphic novel and all around good trilogy.

I bought all the DLC for x-box 360. Lightning Goddess is the best. Be sure to unlock her asap. I did a stat max where my Noel has like 1500 str. If I wanted he could have 1000 str and 1000 mag. I wanted to do a Max HP playthrough but after getting every item in the game and all the monsters I was beat.

In lightning returns you have to play the game at least once to get more important stuff. You can level up magic and weapons to the max.

So if you got the games try to get everything in them.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I definitely plan to get all the DLC for LR as well. (I already have all the XIII-2 DLC) I like the idea of playing Lightning cosplaying X-2 Yuna in LR.

How early can you unlock Lightning in XIII-2? I'd probably take her over some stupid monsters for my third party member.

[Zanmato]

Final Fantasy shouldn't have any direct sequels, because they suck comparing to the original entries (ekhem, FFX-2 and FFXIII-2), but it's just me.

[Fynn]

X-2 was much better than X, though, I think its safe to assume XIII-2 is also good :p

[Ayen]

Since I'm the opposite of Fynn I can assume XIII-2 is actually worse than XIII.

[Zanmato]

Fynn, you monster! Go away! XD
I'm proud of you, ToriJ! :3

[Fynn]

Fynn, you monster! Go away! XD
I'm proud of you, ToriJ! :3

Oh, you sweet summer child.

You don't know half of it :3:

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I was supposed to head for bed but I noticed XIII-2 finally got done downloading. I went to start it and just check everything was in order. Only, the DLC I bought wasn't showing up. I looked online and read that you have to start and play the game for a bit in order for it to "register" that you have downloaded all the stuff.

Only, now I've started the game, I can't stop.

I had forgotten about these dialogue choices with Serah. I don't think they effect anything but they're nice. Do they continue for the whole game or are they only in this opening part?

I chose all the Snow-centric options, like it's Snow Serah misses most, and he's the most important person in her life.

I know there are multiple endings for this game. Are they possible to get on your first playthrough or are they like New Game +? Also are they viable to get without a strategy guide? I think the number of Fragments effects some endings? And others are effected by choices you make in the game?

I know Serah dies in the Normal/Canon ending but that is a long way off.

Another question. I know you can "recruit" Lightning or Snow. Well, they're just like "Mon" versions of them but yeah. When can I do that? I think I'd rather have even Lightning instead of some generic monster.

Overall, I'm having more fun than I figured. I guess I was just in a bad mood last time I played the game.

So many broken promises. Serah is gonna come back safe, Noel won't let any harm befall her....

Hm...I guess I can do Snow's, Lightning's or Sazh's DLC right now. I wonder, is the description of the Valhalla location a spoiler? That Caius intends to kill a bunch of people to release Chaotic Energy? I mean, in the game so far, we don't know shit about who he is or what he's after. Without this DLC and its description, we'd have nothing of real substance about his motivations or objectives.

Good job, Square.

Well I totally failed against Atlas or whatever it was. It's not my goddam fault. QTE's do NOT belong in an RPG. RPG's are hte Anti-QT Es. RP Gs are all about being methodical and coming up with strategies. Having good reflexes is not part of the friggin' equation. Granted, the QTE's here are pretty easy but the problem is I can't see that well and it takes me too long to see where they pop up.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me there are not QTE's for actual important boss battles?

Stopping there though. So very tired. I think I get Lightning from doing her DLC? Are there spoilers in it? Should I save it for later? I always hate when DLC is always available because I never know when it is "story appropriate" to do it. Some DLC just functions better as end of the game stuff, even if it's available at the start of the game.

[Fynn]

Glad you're enjoying it! :up:

I really wanna try XIII-2 and LR myself, but I haven't beaten the original yet because it's so booooooring. I stopped at chapter nine, I think? The part where they escape that airship. And I just couldn't Keep going because it was just too boring. And then my hard drive exploded, so I have to start over someday anyway. Sigh... Wish me luck.

[Mirage]

Just skip them. No big loss.

[Saber]

The only two mon-characters you can get right off is Lightning-Com and Sazh-Syn. Sazh really has nothing to do with spoilers. Lightning on the other hand does. You won't be able to do Colosseum battles until you level up enough.

The weapons you bought aren't that great if you ask me. For paying money for they should have been a lot better. I'm glad you are enjoying the game. If you need any help just ask.

[Pumpkin]

I've been wanting to try XIII-2 for like 2 years now, especially since it's so cheap, but I'm never in the mood when I go to the store

[Forsaken Lover]

I appreciate all the responses guys, thank you very much.

The only other question I have at the moment is where do I get this "Paradox Scope Fragment Skill"? Is it something early on that I can miss? If it's necessary for more story, I want to ensure I have it and equip it or whatever.

I think I'll leave Lightning's DLC for later though becauseit's a big spoiler. I don't want no spoilers.

[Saber]

You get the paradox scope as an end game feature.

[Mr. Carnelian]

The 'Requiem of the Goddess' DLC really works best as an epilogue.

It directly relates to events at the end of the game, as well as the beginning of Lightning Returns: it's very spoilery.

[Forsaken Lover]

Holy trout, the "Story So Far" thing is like a straight up soap opera with that music and the cuts to different scenes. It's hilarious and awesome because soaps are a guilty pleasure of mine.

I'm remembering how much I hated the scoring system in XIII. It always made me feel like a failure. I fought that optional Cie'th boss to get the Fragment and I only got 2 stars. I was trying to Stagger it but the gauge just wouldn't fill! I had both Serah and Noel as Ravagers but it was so, so, so slow. My monster was the Pulse Knight because I figured I need some good defense. I started off the fight by Deprotecting and Deshelling and then stuck to Ravagers for the rest of it, vainly trying to fill the gauge. I just don't know what I did wrong. I got the gauge to like most of the way full in no time but then it just stopped and no matter how much I wailed on it, it would barely go up.

There shouldn't be a "right way" to fight a battle in an RPG anyway. The only criteria for determining the "right' way is where you defeat the enemy.

I dunno...I'm trying to dredge up my FFXIII memories... Ravagers are what Stagger enemies but I taught Noel Launch in the Commando Crysterium and I could swear that had something to do with it....

I dunno, I won, without any real problems. It's just this smurfing star rating thing makes me feel like I didn't win at all. It's like the first fight with Barty in XIII where it took me a billion years and I got absolutely zero stars out of it. The game probably would have given me negative stars if it could and slapped the controller out of my hand.

Well I got 3 stars against Atlas...that's...like, a C? That's passing. Also I used the device to weaken it because I don't trust myself to be good enough at this game right now to actually win this fight legitimately. So long Paradox Ending... Oh well, maybe I'll be good enough to win fairly one of these days.

Everyone says this game is super easy but maybe that's later on? I dunno.

Anyway, gonna go eat right now. It doesn't seem like much of an update but all of this took a lot of time. Still getting into the swing of this game.

If anyone has any tips on why that one Cie'th wouldn't stagger, please tell me. Maybe it's because I had Noel as a Ravager too? I changed that one Paradigm from RAV/COM to RAV/RAV so maybe it was my mistake. I changed it back to RAV/COM for the Atlas fight.

One more question. In regards to Debuffs, they wear off, right? Because I kept periodically taking time off attacking Atlas to hit him with Deprotect and Deshell again and again. I never pay attention to the numbers.

It's really bad game design to have monsters constantly spawn while characters are explaining things. I'm so sick of people saying stuff and me trying to pay attention and learn about their characters and the plot only to get sucked into a battle.

[Mirage]

they should wear off, yes.

score is almost entirely linked to total battle time anyway, nothing else.

Some enemies just have very high chain resistance, which causes slower stagger meter buildup. 3x ravager and swapping to a paradigm with a single commando every now and then just to keep the "not lose chain" effect on might help.

[Forsaken Lover]

How do I do Monster Infusion? The tutorial didn't say anything about that. I've just been leveling up Pulse Knight with items.

But yes I have one of those Zwerg things. I just was thinking big, tanky powerhoues were my best bet. Keep the enemies off Serah and Noel which, apart from just keeping them alive, also has the benefit of letting me constantly attack them instead of getting knocked on my ass.

But I guess I shouldn't worry so much about dying at this point in the game.... Although, is it worth it to try and level up Serah's Sentinel? From what I can recall in XIII, you only needed one Sentinel to survive. I beat the game with a party of Snow, Hope and Vanille and it wasn't so bad. Well, Orphan was a nightmare but that had nothing to do with me taking damage and everything to do with the fact I couldn't figure out how to hurt it. (until I discovered how broken Poison was. Thank you, FF Wiki. Actually, now I'm reminded of that, I really gotta keep working on SAB. SAB was awesome in XIII)

And I haven't messed with Cross or any of that. I'm just working with the Paradigms it gave me. The first one, Cerberus I think it is, just has you attack everyone and then the other one I use has you target just one enemy. I've just been switching back and forth between those for most fights.

[Saber]

Here are some things to keep in mind.

1. Big nodes on crystarium increase stats in a certain way.

Commando - Increases str the most.
Ravenger - increases mag the most.
Sentinel - increases HP the most.
Sabatuar - increases str even mag on odd like 1, 3, 5, 7 str and 2, 4, 6, 8 mag.
Syn - increases hp and mag like sabatuar.
Medic - increases HP

Try to max out str for noel and mag for sereh.

2. Certain monsters are worth farming right away.

Green Chocobo - HP +35%
Tonberry - str and mag up 35%

You might want to look at a guide for important monsters.

3. Know almost everything is re-doable after the final boss.

You don't have to worry if you miss stuff cause most the game is repeatable.

[Saber]

Once you infuse the abilities from one monster, their crystal is gone forever, so don't infuse unless you're fine with losing them. There's a handful of monsters that are rare, so you can't capture them again. No bueno:
-Gigantuar, Twilight Odin, Golden Chocobo, Cactuarama, Chichu, Leyak, Nanochu, Rangda, and the Silver Chocobo.

He got snow so he can fight Valfor. That is way he can acquire some of those.

My opinion on monster training.

Commandos - Use Power Monster material
Rav - Use Magical Monster Material
sentinel - Use vitality Monster material
Sab and Syn - Use potent
Med - Use Vitality or Potent

This works best. Some monsters can be commado but feral link is magic related.

[Forsaken Lover]

Is it possible - or should I say practical - to beat the game with just Serah and Noel and not give a crap about monsters?

I dunno,I'm just missing FFXIII when I had three human protagonists that I cared about.... I almost want to replay FFXIII. Have me some Snow and Hope and Vanille. Although of course I wouldn't be able to assemble my dream team for a long, long, long time.

They should have just made this game a two-person party game. Who thought of this monster BS.

[Mirage]

what, the monster stuff was really fun. it made for some cool gameplay and development

[Forsaken Lover]

But they're just generic monsters. There's nothing to them. This game is even more automated "get your hands off" than XIII because at least in XIII you could control everyone's role. Here, these monsters just do what monsters do and you have no control over it.

It's not even like Pokemon. At least in Pokemon your team is entirely composed of the monsters so you're invested in them. Here, the monster is just an unwanted, unnecessary third element next to your two human protagonists. It's like having a really generic personality-less third party member.

Just introduce Steve or Bob Smith to fill out your team. Who is he? What does he do? Who knows, he's just the third wheel.

[Mirage]

You don't really control the monster, but you control the monster slot's behavior, and you still control them with wide/narrow paradigm settings.

[Forsaken Lover]

I was promised I could put a funny hat on a Tonberry and if that's true, and after I've done it, I will forgive this game's lack of a third human party member.

[Saber]

Best way to get Saze is to save, play a hand of texas holdem and go all in. If you win save if you lose reset the console

[krissy]

i was literally so addicted to xiii-2 for a month that i almost lost my job
but i was kind of self-employed at the time
anyway have fun

xiii-3 is actually better in terms of thematics and wrap-up

and it IS melodramatic. that's the whole point. it's a space/fantasy opera. you'll see in xiii-3... it (the series) is very aware of what it is.

[Forsaken Lover]

I think the self-awareness varies wildly. Toriyama clearly intended you to take this seriously and to love his waifu.

Don't try and pull a DMC here and make excuses. The people who made DMC thought Dante was legitimately cool and they were oh so very wrong and stupid. Toriyama is also stupid for thinking Lightning is cool. You can tell during the Prologue we're supposed to think what's happening is AWESOME SUPER BADASS AMAZING.

And it's not. Not even close.



So unexpected little surprise here when I loaded up the game. Tutorial about "Close Gates." So would this be how I can defeat Atlus later on when I'm strong enough and thus get the Paradox Ending? I'm not exactly sure what other ways this rewinding time thing can be useful. It says you can do it to "fix mistakes." What kind of mistakes are we talking here? Gameplay ones or are there actual like, important decisions you can fuck up in the plot?

Ugh...the game is TAUNTING me! I just got the Artifacts for Bresha Ruins and was leveling up Serah and Noel. I've been thinking this whole time "next Crystarium Expansion, I'm gonna give Serah an extra ATB guage." But when I finally got that option, I also had Medic unlocked. I've already been told she is a great Medic and that's fairly obvious from her amazing Magic stat. But if I remember FFXIII correctly, the AI is better at healing than I was. The fact is, as I have noted before, I can't see very good. I can only focus on parts on specific parts of the screen. Keeping track of enemy HP, Stagger guage and so-on, while simultaneously trying to keep track of party HP, just isn't feasible. I tried it and I failed at it miserably. The AI was much better at keeping me alive and knowing when we were in need of health.

So I went with the ATB gauge. I suppose I could have had Serah learn Medic and then just have my party leader be Noel but I like Serah more. It was a tough decision deciding who I wanted to control iN XIII but here? It's always gonna be Serah.

Not that I'm down on Noel or anything, don't get me wrong. He's nothing like what my vague memories of XIII-2 said he was. He's actually very friendly and supportive for a guy with his level of angst. You'd think, being the last survivor of the human race in a post-apocalyptic wasteland he'd be more broody or something. Yet he's remarkably chill and nice and willing to both talk and listen. Stuff like him chipping in there to help Alyssa feel better during her freakout was a pleasant surprise.

In short, he's a total bud. Although you would think he'd be a bit more disturbed about the fact his memories are being fucked with. It's a huge source of worry for Serah, for obvious reasons, but Noel just kinda mentions it off-handedly. "I remember stuff that didn't actually happen to me. Kinda annoying but oh well" sums up his attitude. Most people would not be so blase about it.

Anyway! Back to gameplay. For Noel's Crystarium Expansion I taught him Synergist. I've dumped all their points up to now into their primary Paradigm (Commando for Noel, Ravager for Serah) but for this latest upgrade I decided to diversify a lot. Boosted both Sentinel and Commando for Serah to give her some much needed health and physical power. Noel meanwhile got a ton of levels in Ravager and Synergist. So now I can have like a total Support Paradigm. Start of boss fights, switch to that, have Serah nail them with Saboteur and Noel protect everyone with Synergist, and then concentrate on the attack.

Oh and as for monsters,I leveled up my Nekton to 15 'cuz it's the best Ravager I have right now. Well, I assumed it was because it had the highest magic stat to start off with.

I tried doing the sidequest in Bresha Ruins to find the guy who said there's another communicator out there. There's probably another of him walking around due to TIME PARADOX. But I couldn't find the other guy. Mog usually freaks out and flies over to things to indicate you can do that...whatever the fuck it is to reveal objects. The tutorial said you can do it to reveal people as well. If that's what I have to do to find the other him or whatever, it's not gonna happen. I don't see the reality warping or Mog's pom-pom glowing more brightly or any of that. If the game wants me to find something, it should have Mog draw attention to it just like it does at other times.

I really want that goddam Fragment though....

Fuck it, I just looked it up. I need Moogle Throw to do this. I honestly thought of that earlier on. It's good to know it wasn't just something I was missing.

I had no idea Chocobos could be used to get to places though. I thought they were just ways of getting around random battles. This Wiki guide though says I can use a Chocobo to hop up to this one area that was bugging me because I couldn't get to it. Thanks game for not telling me this rather important information. Although it does look like Mog will vocally call attention to stuff like Fragments and the whole space time unraveling thing he does. I was afraid this would be a worse version of Fable II and III's system with the dog but no, they were smart and realized just having Mog low wouldn't be enough. Thank you, Square.

I assume the other quest, the one with the guy who wants me to find a flower that only blooms in winter,is something else I have to wait and do later. Find a timeline that is all wintery. Up to this points, things have been remarkably sunny and cheerful considering.

Now I got the DLC weapons that came with the DLC Bundle - the Genji Bow and the Muramassa - but I'm not sure if they are "better" than the ones I can buy in the game. The Genji Bow has higher stats than the Amazon Bow I just made/bought but it lacks the Chain Bonus. Chain Bonus seems like the actual best attribute to have.

You know what? For boss fights, I'm just not going to give a fuck about rank. I got 3 stars against this big dude in this next timeline - Aloeidai is its name apparently - and I am perfectly satisfied with my performance. For my monster in this fight I brought along the crazy wing dudes you find who are Synergists. I figured some buffing be good. Right now, Noel's only Synergist abilities are Protect so I figured Bravery and Faith would be great here. Sure my monster died about 1/2 or 3/4 through the fight but we did perfect as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of people online back when I played XIII said the rank didn't actually matter here. For here though, it seems to be the best way to gain drops from enemies. If I want to be able to collect Monster Materials in a timely matter, I need that 5 star 200% Drop thing I think. Or maybe not. Maybe score doesn't matter here either. Please inform me people of the Internet, does the star rating really effect anything substantial?

Anyway!

Hope, what the hell happened to you. You're all tall and your voice is deep. It's weird.

Urgh, I can't decide on what to do with my Bonuses! Another ATB Gauge??? More Bonuses to my Paradigms? Extra accessories is particularly tempting... I could get 24% more Health or deal 20% more Physical or Magical damage.... Dammit I just don't know how good the bonuses are. I just figure that permanent increases via Crystarium are the superior option. The COM/RAV/whatever Bonuses mean that the stat increases you get in that Paradigm's Crystarium are better, correct? So instead of getting plai old +10 health, with the bonus I'll get +20 health from the same "slot." That's how I think it works anyway....

Fine, I'll just go with COM Bonus for Serah.

You know N Oel, earlier on I said you were cool and forthright, but now you are hiding stuff. No one is calling him out on it either. "Oh I only read about the Oracle Drive in books. BTW this is how you use it." Also while I have heard of Yeul online in discussions - discussions that typically involved mocking Caius - I had no idea this was like an honorary name/title. Kinda like the Pope. Also i never knew she had anything to do with Noel.

So after the boss and talk with Hope I went back to challenge those Behemoths which could destroy me earlier. They're no joke - you need three Ravagers to build up the Stagger Gauge in a timely manner. Even then it's not easy. I have my little Nekton buddy to help me out. I don't think he does much in the way of damage on his own but he's a Ravager and he helps build up Stagger quick. Plus his Overwhelm ability sounds pretty neat. Anyway, I doubt I'm the only person in the world who spent a lot of time grinding here. I kinda expected it but I won't deny it was a pleasant surprise when, after the sixth or seven battle, I got the Behemoth crystal. Already leveled him up as much as I can. 212 strength - amazing.

I gotta say though, this game must take Preemptive Strikes into account for your scoring. I tried fighting the Behemoth "fairly" and it's so much harder. The Stagger gauge takes way, way, WAY longer to fill unless you have that bonus going into the battle. And if the fight dragons on he will destroy you.

Anyway, after all that, I got another whole Crystarium Expansion. I decided to finally get an extra Accessory slot for Serah while giving Noel another ATB gauge. He's my healer so it seems like a smart move to give him as many turns as possible. Another lovely reward from all that was Cura. Cure hasn't been doing it for me but Cura should be very useful.

Did I mention I decided to swap everything around? Subvert those tropes? Serah is now taking after her darling fiance. She will STEELGUARD our way to Lightning. Noel meanwhile I'm investing a lot of time into Synergist, Ravager and Medic. Protectga and Shellga should be a great help.

This is my Paradigm setup at the moment: Cerberus X (COM/COM/COM with Behemoth) then Relentless Assault X (RAV/RAV/COM) then Bully (SAB/SYN/COM) and finally Solidarity (SEN/MED/COM) This seems good to me. I got my two offensive paradigms, my one full support paradigm and my one full defense paradigm. I know you can have a ton of paradigms set up but this isn't FFXII. You need to be able to switch through those things at lightning pace. The more paradigms, the longer it takes to switch. Also the more chances I'd have to select the wrong thing if I'm panicking.

Hm...well at least Noel let on a little bit about there being something amiss here. He still hasn't said a word about Caius and I assume they know each other to some extent. He also seemed to know too much about the Oracle Drive for the fact this ancient Seeress and the girl he know sharing the same name just being a coincidence.

The Oerba description doesn'tmakesense. Nobody knows Fang and Vanille saved everyone, they all think it was Lightning. Why are they protecting Fang's and Vanille's home? Actually no one has been very clear about that. Whenever someone says Lightning saved Cocoon by becoming the pillar, they don't mention Fang or Vanille at all. I mean, Lightning supposedly joining them to hold up Cocoon is all fine and good. But ifit's more "contentious" - that Lightning alone saved Cocoon - that's a whole otehr problem in itself.

But I think I'm gonna stop there for tonight. It's been a very productive session, I feel like I'm getting the hang of this game and have become reasonably powerful. Now to just sleep and try to ignore how I'll probably get my ass handed to me next time. It always happens when I get too confident in my abilities.

[Ayen]

I think the self-awareness varies wildly. Toriyama clearly intended you to take this seriously and to love his waifu.

Don't try and pull a DMC here and make excuses. The people who made DMC thought Dante was legitimately cool and they were oh so very wrong and stupid.

THANK YOU! DMC1 Dante was particularly awful in this respect because you could tell this isn't a character. This is a cool guy cliche sprouting off cool guy lines to try to convince you he's cool instead of just giving him a smurfing personality.

I think the self-awareness varies too because to my knowledge drama in Japan can easily turn melodramatic when it comes over here. Even Metal Gear Solid is guilty of this. They take it seriously, and I guess... good for them if they enjoy it.

[Mirage]

"You know what? For boss fights, I'm just not going to give a smurf about rank. I got 3 stars against this big dude in this next timeline - Aloeidai is its name apparently - and I am perfectly satisfied with my performance. For my monster in this fight I brought along the crazy wing dudes you find who are Synergists. I figured some buffing be good. Right now, Noel's only Synergist abilities are Protect so I figured Bravery and Faith would be great here. Sure my monster died about 1/2 or 3/4 through the fight but we did perfect as far as I'm concerned."
Spoiler: A decent performance is actually what gives you a 3 our of 5.

[Forsaken Lover]

You know what I miss? XIII's weapon upgrade system. I thought it was awesome. You could conceivably stick to one weapon for the whole game, be it their starter or the first one you bought or anything else. Just keep upgrading for the whole thing. Like, if you got a weapon that Boosted Chain, you upgraded that until the Chain Bonus was a lot more. If you wanted stats, you bought the weapon that boosted those stat and just kept upgrading it until its stat boosts were maxed out. And so-on.

I thought I could do that here when I read "Chain Lv. 1" as a trait for our new weapons but nope. I thought I could maybe upgrade that into Chain Lv. 2 and 3 and etc.. I'm disappointed now.

I was about to say "smurf puzzles" but I actually liked the puzzle on Oerba. I found it actually intriguing and a real challenge and not just BS. For me it was like playing Memory. Maybe for smarter people you could do it one turn but I found the challenge to be remembering what crystals match up with what other crystal and then repeating it until you had them all down and could blitz through the puzzle super fast. It helps the crystals only have two forms.

Hooray I got 5 stars out of Caius! I had to use one Phoenix Down because Serah died towards the end but I beat him in 2:47 with a Target Time of 4:36. I feel so special.

Of course, I didn't beat him. He just kinda left. Also Noel you can't say "I won't fight you" after you just stabbed the guy a bunch.

But hey, I don't get his deal. Doesn't destroying time count as changing it? Stop being a hypocrite, dude. It's not cool. Also I had no idea his little girlfriend was the real mastermind. She seemed to be the one calling the shots.

Cool music for his boss theme. I haven't talked much about the music. In spite of what I've heard, I have yet to be "wowed." I think my favorite songs were the Bresha Ruins battle theme and the theme I just heard during the Caius fight.

So I returned to Massif - the new, altered one - and was grinding a bit because I had just used up a ton of my CP. I think there are rare encounters in every area and I just ran into one. One of those bastards from XIII who can spawn a sword. At least I think it was one of them. It wasn't an easy fight and I only got 3 Stars but I did manage to beat it for a whopping 2000 CP. I love it.

I was kind of rolling my eyes at the "oh Lightning IS alive!!" reaction when Serah saw the Prophecy in the new Massif. We know she's alive, dammit. We've established our goal was to travel to the time and place where she is. However, something more productive and interesting is happening. Somebody finally realized "holy trout, Cocoon crashing onto Pulse? Wasn't stopping that the whole point of the last game? Maybe we shouldn't allow the future where it fell to happen. Maybe we should try to save the human race" Real bunch of geniuses, this group.

I dunno guys, what's more important, the fate of billions of lives, or finding Lightning? It's a tough decision, I can't deny.

But at least now this is Chrono Trigger proper. Well, as shameful as it is to say, it's more like Chrono Cross. Not as good as CC mind you but the parallel realities and all that is totally a CC thing. CT had a very linear conception of time travel.

Getting really annoyed here. Mog is drawing my attention to something here in this new place but I can't figure out what to do. There's nothing there I can grab as far as I can see and the little "reveal things"move doesn't do anything... Maybe I need Moogle Throw? When the hell do i learn that?

Noel: We Hunter have a legend of a goddess. "It gave us strength when times were tough."

You know, like when the bills are due, your girlfriend dumps you and THE WORLD ENDED. What do you mean "when times were tough." Times are always tough when you're the last humans alive. I mean, come on.

ANYWAY....Interesting stuff with Caius and Yeul. What Yeul? Which Yeul? I have no idea. But she done died. Was it the same one who we talked to on her own and said she was like Serah? Or the creepy one with him in Oerba? Does it matter? Did we kill her by traveling through the Gate? That's kinda what the scene implied.

Okay I'm gonna stop here and post this because I have no idea where to go. I got the Artefact in Massif 01X AF but all it did was take me to the Void Beyond and some other place. I can't do anything in either location and the game hasn't given me any clues on what my next move should be. I have learned the hard way that trying to use a FAQ just spoils things. I thought I had to do something in the Void Beyond and all I got from Googling that was spoilers about meeting Yeul in Episode 5 or something.

So what the heck do i do now?

EDIT:

Nevermind, I got it.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I just lost my update... Fuck.

Um.... what the hell did I say or do?

I guess I should start by saying I am at the casino. 20,000 Gil and about a half hour later, I got the Lucky Coin Fragment. The game seems nice to be very nice to you, provided you can get the ball rolling. And it took a fuck ton of time to get the ball rolling.

Okay, Fragments. I know I made a comment on that in my poor, lost update. I have 20/160. You have any idea how depressing that is? If there were only 100, I'd feel a bit better. But 160? Ugh. Fuck you and your "True Endings."

Finally, I actually read the Fragments for the first time in forever. The Tablet of Memory one was intriguing. All about how Yeul can send her visions through time to certain people. That would explain what hapened with Serah earlier where she collapsed. Of course, the Fragment also says it can only be sent to people with "chaos in their hearts." And here I thought Evil Serah was in the next game.

Now let's rewind to what I said way back at the update that was lost. FUCK YEAH IT'S SNOW! Out of frickin' nowhere too. Between him and Serah I think the 80s are definitely "in" in FFXIII and thus FFXIII is better than I used to give it credit for.

But that whole thing with the big ass fla is so weird. It's like this game can't decide if it's serious or not. I know some people lament the 90s are gone because JRPGs were very schizo back then. You'd have this super serious commentary about environmentalism and then Cloud would seduce a pimp. But I think XIII-2 is at least a product of the 90s in spirit. It has that strange quirkiness to it amidst all the drama.

Just so weird to go from the horrific image of Cocoon falling and wiping out the human race to learning that it was partly caused by "His Royal Ripeness"....

I guess that fatass flan is another cause of Paradox Ending? If I beat it on my own?

But Snow is a l'Cie again? How did that happen? I thought the fal'Cie were all gone except for that big one that caused the eclipse but didn't appear to do much else. XIII was terrible about establishing the fal'Cie's level of intelligence. Some were clearly human-like, others were just things. So who's to say if Fenrir or whatever it was has a mind like ours? He's the only fal'Cie I have seen in this game who could have re-branded Snow.

What else... Oh at the Steppe I spent a good while grinding. Unlike XIII, this game is actually fun to explore and stuff. Pulse was easily the worst part of XIII because XIII was not made to be an open world game. As soon as it opened up, the whole thing went to hell. But here, I am having a great time looking around and stuff.

I even got myself a way the fuck better monster than Behemoth. Cancanagh is a Saboteur yet it has about twice as much physical strength as my Behemoth. It's at 478 at present. It also has better Sab spells than Serah at the moment so overall it's the best party member by a lot.

Although this reminds me of a question I am dying to know. How far does the Crystarium go? Serah is Level 68 Commando right now and, with an Accessory, has Str of a little over 200. But if Commando only goes up to 99, there's no way her strength will ever match that of the monsters. I figured there would come a point when Serah and Noel will actually be a lot stronger than any of the monsters with better stats but I dunno.

Also while on the Steppe I ran into what looked to be the Jumbo Cactuar from FFVIII. Fucking time paradoxes. It killed me in one hit.


Anyway I got the Chaos Crystal. Had no idea this was a Fragment. Immediately set out to try and get the Just 1 Gil and Setzer's Dice, thinking they were Fragments too. But I guess it was all beginner's luck with me earlier on because, after sinking over 1,000 Coins into the machine, no Jackpot. Maybe I should try Sazh's DLC at least for the card game?

Anyway, stopping there. That slot machine got me all tired from staring at it for a half hour and getting nowhere. Tomorrow I will be visiting the infamous Academy 400 AF. I have heard of this place. Interested to see what all the fuss is about.

Also I know I can give Hope the Chaos Crystal and get a Paradox Ending? I think? I dunno if I'll do that.

[Loony BoB]

Get all the endings! Especially a certain one featuring flan. :shifty:

[Forsaken Lover]

I already got Lucky Coin but thank you for the numbers. I needto know those so I can get more Coins to get the other Fragments. At least I assume Sezter's Dice and all that are Fragments. I had a feeling the Autoplay was screwing me over.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I mean it was a rhetorical question. Needless to say I'm wondering about a lot of things and kinda just vocalizing what is most prominently bouncing around in my head whilst waiting for the game to explain.

Also in my original update that I lost I forgot to mention how Noel and Serah discussed that there is only one Yeul across all time. Well, not exactly,but sort of. Noel seemed very insistent the Yeul he knew wasn't the same as the previous ones, but at the same time he voiced the idea she was a reincarnation of that Yeul. So it was in fact the Yeul he knew. Unless you want to debate the metaphysics of Reincarnation and the question of spiritual identity. Like in the manga Angel Sanctuary two female angels were reincarnated with one being in the body of a male. Then the two reincarnated angels fell in love. Does this make them lesbians or straight?

FFXIII-2 asks the tough questions.

Where was I...? I'm sorry, my brain is fried after a day of playing poker. It's all my own fault, really. I was absolutely idiotic with the 10,000 Coins the Owner gives Sazh and lost it all. It got so bad I got below 1,000 and had to ask him for more. So much time spent regaining those coins... On the bright side, the "10,000 Table" is a breeze by comparison. I got 60,000 in a fraction of the time it took me to get to 10,000. Went and bought those otehr Fragments at once. Sadly there's still one more to go... Maybe it's from the Chocobo Races?

Wait, wait, wait. I got it. On the topic of l'Cie Snow, Lightning did it, didn't she? She's a fal'Cie now too. Or something. She's like the fal'Cie of the fal'Cie or something from what I have heard. It goes B-Dude's Mom > B-Dude > Lindzei and Pulse and Etro but you subtract the Etro and put Lightning in that little hierarchy > the dudes from XIII. We haven't really seen anything of the Mid-Tier Deities but one would assume they can make l'Cie and trout too.

Sorry I had all of this stuff spoiled for me when people were trying to explain XIII's ending. 'cuz I had no smurfing clue who Etro was and I paid attention to the story okay? It's not my fault I beat FFXIII with no goddam clue who Etro is. Stupid Deus Ex Machina ending. FIGHTING FATE MY ASS YOU WERE ONLY SAVED BY ETRO'S BITCH ASS. It's less fighting fate and more like being the tool of the goddess who is superior to the other god who was trying to use you.

Good job, our heroes. And don't ever forget the fact they just did precisely what Bart told them to do down to the letter. FF Heroes screwing things up is a tine-honored tradition but usually there's some sort of manipulation in play. In XIII, Bart was honest to a fault. He told them from step 1 what he wanted them to do. AND THEY WENT AND DID IT ANYWAY.

God the second half of XIII....so terrible...what happened?

Anyway, I had a point. Maybe "Goddess" Lightning gave Snow that power or something. It makes sense as a theory I think. But even if it is true, I couldn't really care less about knowing Lightning is the replacement for Etro. I culdn't care less about the character of Lightning. I'm playing this game for Serah and Noel and Caius and Yeul and all the other stuff. I'm playing this game for my future Tonberry with a Propeller Hat.

WHY IS LIGHTNING ON THE COVER? She's not in this game. She sucks. This game isn't about her. It's like putting Tidus on the cover of X-2.

Now my brain has sort of settled down and I'm not prone to ramble like I was doing just a moment ago, another thing I lost when i had to retype my previous update was Noel's interaction with Snow. He was kind of an ass to Snow but it was blatant hypocrisy on his part. Or rather, I guess you should call it projection. He was really yelling at himself when he called Snow an idiot. I'm at Academia right now and his line about not being able to protect Yeul reminded me to comment on this. Although, reallym I'm not sure who Noel hates or blames, himself or Caius. He had an earlier conversation during a Live Trigger when I asked him about Caius and he said something to the effect of "he ran off and left us." It seemed to me like he blamed Caius for leaving or something. I guess I'll find out later.

So Academia is really cool. Dig the music both before Caius showed up and after. Right now I did a bit of grinding on the...whatever they are. BIg wing things and big hulky things. I think they're Cie'th? This is all because Caius took control of the Proto fal'Cie. It was fairly obvious from the narrator description and then what happens when you first arrive there that the Proto fal'Cie was behind all of this to some extent. To what extent, I don't know yet. My point is just that I did some grinding on those things. Got another Crystarium Expansion. If it wasn't fairly obvious already, the game decided to beat me over the head again witH SERAH MAGE NOEL WARRIOR by giving her a special RAV move and him a special COM move. In spite of how I'm building them, I was veyry tempted to take both of these because they're the only abilities to be unlocked using an Expansion. But I refrained because that isn't how I play either of them. I mean, Serah and Noel both go into "the other role" when I have to stagger an enemy or do other specific things but you get what I mean. Serah Physical, Noel Magical, deal with it.

Also while it was a pain in the ass fighting those weak ass enemies, I got a ton of Potent Orbs out of it and with them managed to level up my Behemoth. It's now got a Strength stat of 430. Loving it.

I tried fighting the Geiseric because, while it's huge, it has a ridiculously weak Stagger resistance. Problem is that: a) it can kill us all in about one hit and B) even while Staggered we can't do any substantial damage to it.

Well, substantial for this game. We do like 10,000 or maybe 20,000 damage before it recovers but it has over 200K HP so that isn't a great help.

The boss was stupid. "I can make myself invincible whenever I want!" And I got 1 star for it because of that. smurf you game. I thought I was doing something wrong when it just kept blocking everything. True, some of the blaem lies with me because I didn't realize it caused Wound and that was why Noel wasn't healing us properly but still. smurf you game. That was a dumb boss. I spent most of the boss fight on that first form because HE'S INVINCIBLE. Take your one star and shove it up your ass, game.

Okay Noel being sad that Yeul had to die is one thing but why is Serah breaking down? Yeul is just one other person who is dying here. We've run passed screaming, terrified, probably about to be horribly maimed people this entire timeline and now she's breaking down? I guess if you want to be charitable it's more the full impact of what Caius said and Yeul's death is just the straw that broke the camel's back. But I'm not inclined to be charitable after that one star and that retarded boss fight. Stop insisting everyone give a trout about this girl when they have no reason to.

I have made this observation before but gameplay really is the worst part of any video game when it comes to the story. It just totally sucks you out of the plot. These could be the best characters ever written by man and I still wouldn't care about this cutscene after that boss fight.

Holy trout I'm leaving Academia but there are a ton of Fragments left there. I guess I'll have to go back? Like the story will actually take me back there?

Also erah, Yeul said Caius wasn't there because he can teleport and stuff. He just left ie. he is not there. Yet she's reading into it like YUeul meant something entirely different, like the Caius we chased around was a clone or imposter.

Ehhhh...I'm feeling better. I just smurfing hate this rating system!!! It makes me feel like trout. Don't judge me game. I can snap your disk in half or...well, I can't because I downloaded it but you get what I mean. I bought your troutty game and you should be grateful to me, not spitting in my face. Stupid one star...HE WAS INVINCIBLE. Every time he could be Staggered I attacked and attacked and attacked. How was I supposed to get it done quicker?

Forget it, I'm working myself up over nothing. This game is a hunk of trout and what it thinks of me doesn't matter. I'll 1 star every fight and you know what? It won't matter. Because I will still beat the game. I will be better than the game because I beat it.

If you couldn't tell, I'm very touchy about when I feel like someone is talking down to me. A 1 star rating is the game calling me inept and I don't much care for being insulted.

Does anyone actually read all of this? Be honest, do you guys just kinda sim it? I wouldn't blame you if that's what you do, especially since this update is just a lot of rambling, ranting and overall a waste of Internet space.

Anyway I'm gonna post this and take a break from the game. In spite of my anger at the rating system, I like this game quite a lot. I'm already at about 30 hours and I predict many more to come. I'm intrigued to find out about this Forbidden History because "Noel and Serah were the ones to doom Time" is something I didn't expect.I thought the game was gonna be about stopping Caius from dooming time. Unless by telling us "what we had done" he was playing a huge time travel gambit to make us do it in the first place. That is something I can see happening. I guess I'll see in a bit once I've relaxed a bit and cooled my jets so I'm not so worked up over what a video game thinks of my gaming ability.

P.S.

This is one of the many reasons I don't play DMC.

P.S.S.

If I'm honest with you all, I just now realized I can switch monsters in battle. So yeah...I am inept. I should just take my 1 star for the truth that it is.

EDIT:

I was positively thrilled to learn I can't get the ending for Lightning's DLC unless I 5 star the final battle. I eagerly look forward to the game more blatantly taking a huge dump on me.

[Mr. Carnelian]

I read everything, honest! ^^;

Snow was made a l'Cie again by a Pulse fal'Cie called Cactuar, who is basically a massive Cactuar. This is only explained in codices and stuff.

Lightning was turned into a valkyrie by Etro in order to be her guardian: Etro DOES have powers, but can't really use them directly. She can influence events and give power to others, though.


Here's the low-down on the divine hierarchy:

Bhunivelse - the creator God. Created Pulse. He had a mother, but he overthrew her, because reasons. Probably because he's just a massive trouthole.His mother created at least some of the universe, including the Unseen Realm where souls go after you die. That's where she ended up after Bhunivelse defeated her.

Pulse, Lindzei and Etro - these three were created directly by Bhunivelse. After creating them, Bhunivelse went into a crystal sleep (because he's a lazy trout) and ordered them to find a way into the Unseen Realm, probably in order to make sure his mum was really gone for good. In a mirror image of Barthandalus's stupid idea, Pulse, Lindzei and Etro decide that one of them needs to kill themselves in order to wake up Bhunivelse, because of daddy issues. Etro does this, but doesn't quite die, what with being divine and all. She ends up in the Unseen Realm. Lindzei uses her blood to create human beings. In the Unseen Realm, she meets Bhuni's mum just as she's dying for good, who charges her with becoming the goddess of the underworld, ensuring that human souls are reborn again after death.

The Fal'Cie - these guys are created by Pulse and Lindzei in order to run things in their absence. Pulse and Lindzei decide to bugger off somewhere, presumably because they're bored house-sitting the universe for their sleeping boss/father. Lindzei created Cocoon and the Cocoon Fal'Cie, Pulse created the Pulse Fal'Cie. In XIII, the Cocoon Fal'Cie are trying to draw Lindzei's attention, because daddy issues. Lindzei is the creator who Barthandalus is always going on about. The Pulse Fal'Cie don't really seem to care about Pulse being gone.


Quite a lot of this isn't really explained in the game, although you can get by perfectly well with only a vague understanding of it all.

[Mirage]

I read everything, honest! ^^;

Snow was made a l'Cie again by a Pulse fal'Cie called Cactuar, who is basically a massive Cactuar. This is only explained in codices and stuff.

Quite a lot of this isn't really explained in the game, although you can get by perfectly well with only a vague understanding of it all.
This, the first part especially, is one of the biggest flaws in the game. The game expects players to read through tons of dry text to find out what is actually going on, instead of showing it to you in a game-y way.

While you can get by without understanding most of the second part, the world is simply just boring if you don't.

As most people probably know by now, I am far from a fan of these games, but even I will admit that the trilogy has some pretty interesting lore. What ticks me off is just that the game is so horrendously bad at presenting said lore to the player in an interesting way (if at all). It could have been as easy as overhearing a child asking her mother to tell her what a falcie is, or where the world came from.

[Forsaken Lover]

In the True Ending, is there also a True Final Boss? Maybe Caius in his Super Duper Form? If I'm wrong don't tellme who the final boss is, just curious if there is a special boss.

Anyhow, I had two Wild Artefacts, one I had picked up from somewhere and another I had bought at the casino. I used one to unlock the Acamedia gave to another version of Massif and then in this new Massif I found another Gate which I unlocked and it goes to...., uh, I forget right now. It's not important rightnow. Right now I'm trying to do all the stuff for these crystalized people.

The "crystal clock" puzzle was interesting. I hated it but not because it's bad. I'm just not good at this kind of thing. I'm bad with numbers. You know those tests that determine what aptitude we have in what field? Maths was always something I was bad at and I subsequently never tried. I carried the spirit of that into this puzzle and just kept ding stuff until it worked. Best puzzle so far is the crystal matching puzzle because I love Memory. That is something I amvery good at. Well I'm better at it than math.

What else, what else, what else... Oh! I just got myself a Green Chocobo. Awesome. Now I finally realized I can have multiple monsters, I can have a true defense paradigm. SEN/MED/MED, for those sticky situations I'll no doubt find myself in.

And I got a Blessed Blade for Noel. That's pretty nice of you game, giving your Warrior a Magic-boosting weapon. Now I just need a weapon that substantially increased Serah's strength....

Also I read the Book of Valhalla Fragment. XIII-2 supports Social Darwinism it seems. "Serah can beat up monsters therefore they must be her slaves now."

So I did one Fragment quest in the new Massif but the next one has a little boy asking for proof of his potential and what he might have been. Am I correct in assuming I have to find him in another timeline? Or something like that?

So Sunleth Waterscape 400 AF? Amazing. 6 Fragments in a quick, simple and easy fashion. Don't ask me how the lil' flans understood Serah enough to understand her scolding htem, or why Crazy Chocobo was playing.

So I was looking for this lady's watch in 010 Massif. Said to find the watch when the eclipse ended. So I went to 01X AF Massif or whatever it is. No luck finding a watch but I found an Onyx Crystal. I now have an Ivory and Onyx Crystal and no idea what either is for.

I guess it's entirely possible that the eclipse will actually end in the lady's original timeline. I mean, they can't just have a huge fal'Cie coming out of nowhere for no reason. It has to be addressed later on in the story and then the eclipse will end maybe and I can find her watch and get the Fragment.

I guess it's time to return to the main story now and find out the FORBIDDEN TRUTH DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Also I'm convinced the "Story So Far" is intended to be a joke. The soap opera music is only part of it but as I keep loading games I can't help but notice that none of the clips they show make any goddam sense. There's no way anyone could look at those Story So Far segments and understand one second of XIII-2.

In Augusta Tower now and I was like "man, smurf me, I wasted both my Wild Artefacts!" But no, there was another one right there. This game is so nice to you sometimes.

But before I continue on with that, Noel backstory out of nowhere. He's only ever mentioned being a Monster Hunter, first I've heard he was actually in charge of protecting the Seeress. I mean, it was pretty obvious as I observed earlier on when he knew alla bout the Oracle Drive and whatnot. Still, it's a neat little note that he and Caius weren't just random buddies with Yeul, they were in fact Yeul's protectors. I guess the Farseer tradition thing survived even the end of the Farseers. At least, I assumed they were all wiped out when Cocoon fell. Or because of that war that happened because Cocoon was falling.

Argh, the Steppe is pissing me off. I'm off Gate hunting because I already tried the last gate in Bresha and all it does is take me to another version of Bresha. The only other place I have with an unopened Gate is the Steppe. And I found the Gate but it's locked. The hell? To compound my annoyance, there is a treasure orb right by it but it's high up on this rock thing. I tried Moogle Throw but Mog is stupid and even when I got him up there he wouldn't go to the slightly higher place and get the treasure. I don't think it's possible to throw him right up to the highest point where the treasure is....

Okay I'm posting this now because I got no clue where to go. The Steppe Gate doesn't work and it looks to me like the entire left half of the Steppe is blocked off from you? I've tried looking around but there's a huge ass chasm in the way and I can't figure out how to get over to it, or even if I'm supposed to be able to get over to it now.

That's a huge problem with this game. I can't tell sometimes if I'm just missing something or if I'm not supposed to be able to do it yet. In fact, that's an entire theme in this update. The lady's Watch, the other part of the Steppe, the treasure on that high up place.... I just don't know.

EDIT:

Well I decided to go to Bresha Ruins 300 AF anyway just in hopes it was the placeI had to go. It has a Gate in it to a new place so it could be... I'm still exploring but I just got a Wild Artefact from the weird quest with the jokester and his dead friend. So I guess I didn't lose anything. Also got the Flower Petal for that other guy at last so yay more Fragments.

My dreams of a Tonberry with a silly hat will have to wait. I ran into one in Bresha 300 AF and it kinda owned me. I thought we stood a chance because it couldn't one hit kill me, and we were doing at least some damage but it was really an exercise in futility.

AHHHH1!!!! The Gate here only takes me to another version of Massif that doesn't even have a Gate in it at all!!!
smurf smurf smurf smurf smurf. My Wild Atefact, wasted. Mothersmurfing game. Now I not only need to find the smurfing gat eI've been smurfing looking for all this time, i need to find ANOTHER Wild Artefact. Son of a bitch.

Does this game even want me to care about its story? That whole BS with "go find another Gate to the Tower and pursue Caius" is the most ridiculously retarded thing I've ever heard. It's actively discouraging you from following the narrative. It's telling you to go off and explore and look around and, as I'm doing right now, get frickin' lost. I mean, come on.

I mean, I got 3 Fragments, a ton of Gil and all that good stuff. But I couldn't care less about that right now because I just want to continue the main quest. Let me actually follow your stupid plot, game.

What did I get out of Bresha 300? Someone attacked the Academy? Well geez, I wonder who. Stupid waste of my time, stupid waste of mY Artefact and now I have to waste MORE time finding another Artefact just so i can continue looking for the stupid Gate I've beenlooking for this whole time.

Well I'm stopping for tonight. This whole session was a bust as far as I'm concerned. Yes I got a lot of Fragments out of it but I DON'T WANT TO DO SIDEQUESTS RIGHT NOW. This night was supposed to be about story. I've done a lot of exploring lately and wanted to focus on the story more. But the game stuck its middle finger up and said screw you and screw our story, go get lost and waste hours of your life.

Tomorrow I'll just continue on, vainly searching for another Wild Artefact to another Gate. Maybe then I can actually play the game the way I want to? Yes? No? Maybe?

You know it wouldn't be so bad except ya know what? I look at my Fragment Counter...40/160. Well I feel like I really accomplished something over these last 40 hours of gameplay. Only 120 more to go. Only 3 times as many as I have already collected. Well gee, don't I feel like I've done so very much.

I got the last Fragment from fighting this giant Cie'th lady boss thing in Massif...01X maybe? I got zero stars from it because it took me 11 minutes when it was only supposed to take me 5 but the lady had some sort of status effect that kept me from using my abilities. I don't know what it was or how to cure it. But every time I was blocked off from attacking her Stagger Gauge reset to zero. That's why it took me so long.

The only thing - THE ONLY THING - I feel like I did tonight was get really powerful. I had 60,000 CP stored up and for this Cie'th boss I used up all of it.

Serah is now Level 99 Commando and Level 92 Sentinel, Noel is Level 99 Ravager and Level 99 Synergist.

I'm beginning to think I might need a Triple Med Paradigm... I'll have to unlock Medic with Serah next chance I get I guess. Even with Noel and Green Chocobo, they couldn't heal that great against this boss. With a Triple Med though I should be safe in most future battles. On the other hand, I'm guessing some bosses, like this lady, will just completely reset their Stagger gauge if you let up for more than a second. If that is indeed what she was doing, I don't know.

I need to get better weapons for Serah and Noel. That didn't help in this fight. I need the next tier of weapons to boost chain gauge/ATB. But I got no Abominable Wings or Iron Shells so....


Actually, wait, hold on. I forgot the entire reason I went to Massif 01X was because I noticed, WAY TOO LATE, that it had a Gate I hadn't opened. Let me guess, that was the one I was supposed to go through all along? And I was doing sidequests there in hopes I'd find a Wild Artefact to open it but then the Cie'th boss took forever and now I'm just tired of this game.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I defeated the Geiseric in Academia in the hope it would open up a path to something where I could get a Wild Artefact. But nope, it just opened a path to nothing because the place was blocked off. Also I got zero stars because it took me a minute longer than it should have to kill it. Our offense was fine as far as I could tell, the problem was surviving its hits.Some we could live through, others would kill Serah in one blow. Most of that extra minute was spent on reviving people.

Only worthwhile thing to come out of my latest trip there was another Crystarium Expansion. Unlocked Medic Role for Serah and another Accessory slot for NOel. Serah has mastered Sentinel now and....maybe one other thing? I dunno.

Their SYN abilities are total shit, by the way. Same for SAB. That one monster I got earlier, the Gancanagh or whatever the fuck i twas, had level II debuffs, like Imperil II or something. One would think our heroes would have the second level of debuffs. But nope, Serah and Noel apparently just have shitty Poison which does not seem to be as awesome in this game as the last one. I guess Deshell and Deprotect are nice provided they actually work.

Anyway, I refuse to look up Wild Artefact locations. If one of you want to tell me, I'd appreciate it. But at this point, after all these hours of effort, giving in and looking up a FAQ is just the kind of shit this game wants me to do. I refuse to play that game. I should really start a point system wherein I deduct a point every time I have to actually look online for the solution to a problem in this game.

[Mirage]

Idk i cleared it without a faq. Didn't use that until i wanted to 100% it.

[Forsaken Lover]

Did you also waste 3 or 4 Wild Artefacts getting nowhere while looking for the second Gate to Augusta Tower? You know like the game demands you do for no real reason?

Believe me, I've been looking for more of them. I'm doing all the sidequests I can find. And I still don't know if the left half of the Steppe is supposed to be barred off from me by that big chasm or if I can get around it.

[Mirage]

i wasted one or two, but i didn't feel like it was a problem. i liked exploring things randomly

if it was demanded, it wasn't really a waste :p. then it just was exactly how many wild artefacts were required to progress

[Forsaken Lover]

I don't mind exploring either. I've spent whole days exploring. Which is why I wanted to progress the goddam story but I'm not going anywhere until I stumble upon another Wild Artefact which seems increasingly unlikely as I have multiple sidequests active and, even if one of them could potentially yield a Wild Artefact which is no sure thing, I'm not even sure I can complete them at the moment. This game activates so many sidequests before you can actually complete them and it's retarded.

So, in short, the story saying "Caius is five feet over there. Go find a way to warp space and time to get to him" is stupid and bad game design. It has not only ruined my enjoyment of the game and its story, it is actively making me not want to explore. I hate this game right now.

[Mirage]

Well you disliked the game before you started, and there have been several posts telling you the game isn't very good, so this doesn't really come as a surprise :p

[Saber]

No artifact is wasted. They serve just to open areas.

To get to the other side of the steepe you have to activate all the cactuar statues. You might want to do the goblin and sheep quests first. I'm sure you will find the artifact you need there.

Keep trying to open up the gates, some of the wild artifacts are well hidden. You may actually need a guide. Just watching a youtube video on "Wild Artifacts" would help. I believe you have to see academia in another time?

[Forsaken Lover]

No artifact is wasted. They serve just to open areas.

To get to the other side of the steepe you have to activate all the cactuar statues. You might want to do the goblin and sheep quests first. I'm sure you will find the artifact you need there.

Keep trying to open up the gates, some of the wild artifacts are well hidden. You may actually need a guide. Just watching a youtube video on "Wild Artifacts" would help. I believe you have to see academia in another time?

I did the Goblin and Sheep stuff forever ago.

But I guess that makes sense about the Cactuar statues... I got two already.

Thank you so much for your help though. I was going to postthis before I read your response. It still works, even if now I have some purpose:


In an extremely vain hope that I might be able to get my Wild Artefact back, I tried Close Gate on Massif 110. That didn't work. At least something interesting happened. These sidequests have actually had some plot relevance. Yeul of that time apparently sacrificed the entire city in order to seal up a spacetime distortion or a monster or both. It's all getting jumbled around in my head, the different time periods and stuff. I can't recall if it was Massif 100 where, after completing one Fragment quest, Serah and Noel had a conversation about how this wasn't an ordinary Paradox and Yeul had sacrificed the city in order to contain it. But then later on, like right after I fixed the distortion I made in Massif 110, Noel mentioned Yeul sealed away a monster.

My brain is not wired for story right now.... I'm so numb and just out of it after all the monotony and hopeless wandering.

Also yes an Artefact can be wasted when all you want to do is continue the main story and the game fucks you over.

[Mirage]

The main story is not worth playing for anyway. Just play for other reasons and take whatever story you get whenever you get it.

[Forsaken Lover]

I couldn't care less if the plot is terrible, it's what I wanted to do last night. I had been on sidequests for two whole days or thereabouts. I wanted to accomplish something.

Skyrim doesn't have the best plot ever either but I was playing that right before this. After a couple days of wandering through dungeons and trout you get bored.


Well I have made it to the second Gate in Augusta Tower. I wanted so badly to say screw you game, you tried to screw me over but I beat you. But I can't. I ended up finding out about a Wild Artefact in the Steppe from a guide.

So I am the loser. You have won this round, XIII-2.


I suppose it wasn't all a waste... I have 50 Fragments, I found a good supply of Essences, which I need for my Behemoth and Green Chocobo, and I also got an Entite Ring (20% Resistance to all Elements) Also got a lot of Gil and CP.

Maybe when the end ofthe game comes I'll feel like my suffering was worth it. If I'm honest with you all, that happens a lot in these new RPGs I play. Granted, my aimless lost wanderings don't usually last this long and aren't as frustrating but it does happen quite a lot. I curse and I scream but I end up liking the game anyway. I mean, hell, Xenogears had Babel Tower a dungeon that literally puts fear into my gut. Yet Xenogears is my favorite JRPG ever.

I'm gonna go eat and then see if XIII-2 can pull this one out of the trash and bounce back.

I don't blame any of you for wandering off, BTW. I would have gone away too if I wasn't a stubborn jackass.

[Mirage]

Maybe when the end ofthe game comes I'll feel like my suffering was worth it.

You'll probably hate yourself even more for completing it than you do now for trying to complete it.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well it looked cool and sounded cool. Plus there was the whole mystery of IS THAT CAIUS OR NOT? Still don't know what's up with that.

Huh...it seems to me that Noel and Serah don't even know why they are here in this other Augusta Tower? Maybe? The intro cutscene didn't say anything like "we need to fix spacetime and go pursue Caius in the other timelin." Either this is some time travel mojo or you are allowed to go to this version of Augusta Tower long before the plot has you go to the other version.

The latter idea seems possible because this is like a tutorial dungeon. It warned me of a maze and I braced myself for puzzles but all that happened was you press a button and maybe press it again and...that's it. This mae feels very lackluster compared to the usual stuff this game throws at me. It even has helpful messages directing you to do stuff rather frequently.

Noel: Heh, that was a lot of work for one access key.

Noel, have I ever told you that you're my favorite character in all of fiction?

Alyssa? I always knew she was crazy. She's the female HAL that was watching us and plans to kill everyone.

So the Forbidden History is that an evil AI was behind everything/ The Proto fal'Cie wasn't just hijacked by Caius but was evil all along? I guess this would explain why the Academy kinda sucks. All those people in the different versions of Bresha and Massif complaining about why the Academy didn't send help to deal with the Paradoxes and endlessly spawning monsters, it's not that they were incompetent, they were actively malevolent.

That's all fair game to me. What I don't get is why Caius cares. Unless he is a robot too, like Alyssa.

Ya know the game just keeps making light of the fact poor Noel is having his memories screwed with. He thought of a reason it couldn't be Caius behind all this and the way Serah phrased it was kinda sarcastic or snarky in my mind. "I'm worried about you" is what she should say but the tone made it sound like she wasn't that serious. Plus the way he dismissed it, "I left all my important memories in the future under a rock or something" is also a bit too jokey for something this serious. I can only hope they are playing cool and are actually sincerely worried. I'm worried for him.I know Serah dies but right now I'm more worried about Noel's eroding identity.

I wonder where Noel is in XIII-3? I know where Snow. I think he goes crazy because Serah is gone and the end of the world is coming. I mainly remember a friend of mine telling me about Snow partying with a bunch of strippers. I remember this because I got upset. That is a decidedly un-Snow thing to do.

So I was right. It was a doombot. Er, Caiusbot. Well that seems needlessly convoluted. Why would the AI even impersonate Caius?

Anyway, another Yeul down. Our heroes keep missing the fact she is repeatedly dying. Well, they saw the one death but it was an actual like, killing death. They've missed the other ones where she just seems to collapse and die because...I don't know. You'd think if the Seeress died from simply using her power, the tradition would have ended long ago. I guess there has to be one specific "trigger" vision that does it? I'm sure it will be explained, I'm just theorizing here.

But yeah, since it wasn't Caius who massacred everyone in Academia 400, he hasn't been much of a villain or antagonist at all really.

So what did you guys think to do with the Proto fal'Cie? Scream at Hope or Throw Mog?

Wait, luring out the original wasn't right? Well fuck me. I went with Throw Mog because I figured it was just silly enough to work... No go there either. I guess I'll try yelling at Hope next....

Well hey, the timeline is back on track and so am I. This new Academia seems a lot less...hellish than the last one. I hope you are happy, Yeul #5555555512. RIP. But frickin' Hope the Immortal here man. I'm pretty sure he's not a doombot. I guess human technology can indeed equal or surpass fal'Cie tech. Which is good because one of the better plot elements from XIII was how humans were actually better than the fal'Cie. We have potential while they were all eternally slaves, even if they were fantastically powerful slaves. Itwas actually a really cool bit of storytelling and I wish the game had focused more on it.

But yes, I'm back onboard with this game. There is still much to do, much to learn, many Fragments to collect. Also a lot of Augustus Tower to explore to get that Fragment...ugh. I should have known the moment they had a percentage thing that 100% each map would be required to get a bonus. Nevertheless, my faith in XIII-2 has been restored. I'm glad it seems the story is finally taking Noel's disappearing future memories more seriously.

[fat_moogle]

Academia! Probably one of my favourite and least favourite locations from this game. The last Academia is just UGH.

[Forsaken Lover]

So I'm certain the computer is literally a cheatingbastard. I want Librascopes so I'm back at the casino. Problem: they each cost 10.000 Coins. So I'm playing Poker as Sazh since it is easily the most efficient way to rack up mad amounts of Coins. I'm at the 100K Table and the only person left is "D" - the Dealer. And he always folds when I'm about to complete a good hand. He has folded several times when I was one card away from a Straight and he just did it now when I was one card away from a Flush. Fuck you game.

In more plot relevant news, I totally forgot to mention this last update,but Yeul said she has the Eyes of Etro while Caius has the Heart of Chaos. Now, disregarding that this is the second broody Square character implanted with a Chaos Item that grants him great power (hello, Dirge of Cerberus), I don't know of any entity named Chaos in XIII. Etro is the Goddess so Yeul having her eyes is fine. But I have no idea who XIII Chaos is or why Caius would have his heart. I'm wondering if Chaos is an actual entity like Etro or somethingmore abstract. MAYBE I SHOULD CONSULT THE DATALOG.

Nope, not gonna happen. Explain it in the game or it doesn't matter. Just like the whole mythos didn't matter in XIII because it was all explained in side garbage.

Also I just realized something In XIII, you had a full party except for most of the game. Then in XIII-2 they dwindled it down to two characters. Then in XIII-3, only one. The developers had a clear mentality of MORE CHARACTERS = MORE BAD. If, god forbid, there was a XIII-4, what would they even do? How do you have less than one playable character?

You can honestly see the MORE CHARACTERS = MORE BAD Philosophy in effect in XIII itself. There's the playable characters, three antagonists (Bart, Yaag and Jihl), three side characters of note (Serah, Cid, the other one who works for Cid) and that's it. I guess you could be really generous and throw H Ope's mom and dad and Snow's gang into the last column but you'd be really stretching it considering how minimal their role is in the story. I think you meet more plot relevant characters in Midgar iN FFVII than you do the entire game of FFXIII.

Huh, Librascopes don't cost quite as much as I thought. Oh well, I bought 21 of them. Figure that will be enough for a long time since I mainly plan ot use them for boss fights. I don't know if the Libra info tells you if the boss is immune or vulnerable to certain status effects but that is mainly what I want to be able to scan them for. That way,I don't waste time trying to put Deprotect or Deshell on something when it won't even work. I also forgot you can get Ribbons there so I snatched those up. I'm more worried about status effects than anything else right now. Also bought 5 Phoenix Bloods incase of emergencies.

I really don't knowwhy Serah and Noel have such useless Synergist abilities. Okay they're not useless per se but why do they have not Bravery or Faith or Haste? I mean, atleast give one of those to them. Maybe give Serah Faith and Noel Bravery. I have a Gigantaur now and I almost want to put it in my party just for Bravery.

So I really dig the new Academia. All the versions of Massif kinda got boring and I felt like the alternate timeline intriue had run its course. But I think that's just because that place sucks in general. Going from the nightmarish Academia to Utopia Academia is really cool and actually capitalizes on the greatness of time travel and changing things. It also makes you feel good because you did this. You have saved all these people and given them a better life. You have done a great thing our heroes.

Okay,these Brain Blast things are bullshit. Well, half of them are BS, the other half are reasonable. Some are intuitive, some you will know based on basic knowledge of FF or FFXIII and then the rest are just impossible. But I kept at the first one I found for a solid 20 or 30 minutes because I knew what would happen when I solved it. And I was right, a Fragment. This frickin' game... I have no doubt that this quiz game is absolutely essential to understanding the true ending the true final boss. Why, I bet the true ending is that you and Caius sit down and have a game of Trivial Pursuit to decide the fate of the universe.

So I haven't reallyc ommented on my monster progress. I got a bunch of new monsters from Augusta Tower and decided to try out my first bit of Monster Infusion. I gave my Behemoth Stagger Maintenance. He's part of my Triple Commando Team so I figured that sounded like a good thing for him to have. Then again, unelss I'm missing it, I don't know exactly what each role does. Some you can guess at, like I did with Stagger Maintenance but others are a bit more complicated, like "Pack Mentality." I have no idea what exactly that translates to.

But yeah, I don't know if I want to do any more Infusion because I figure I'm going to be getting better monsters later on so I should just wait. My Behemoth and maybe my Green Chocobo are the only monsters I have at present that seem like they might stick around for at least most of the game, if not all of it. I also have a Red Chocobo which seems pretty cool if I level him up more. He has nice abilities at least.

Do I literally have to get every monster's data in the game in order to get this Fragment or do I just need a lot of them? Because to get data don't you need to use Librascopes? Or do you just have to kill the monster? Libascropes aren't that cheap or easy and there must be...I dunno, a hundred different monsters in the game? Maybe 200? Does it not count bosses?

Collect Graviton Cores? Really game? What happened? Is there an opposite of being railroaded? Ever since Augusta Tower it's like the game is beating you over the head with excuses to go off and do other things. I had like, 3 already I think. I just looked up the rest because, quite frankly, if the game doesn't care, I'm not going to care. Besides, I freely admit I stand no chance when it comes to finding some Fragments. Like the ones where Mog doesn't light up, or the ones where you have to use a Chocobo to reach them. The only reason I found most of the ones so far is because Mog will draw attention to them and the only reason I know where to jump normally is because there's that little glowy symbol indicating you can. I can't see that good, it's just a fact, and I won't notie things a lot of the time on my own.

It's really fucking stupid to introduce the mechanic of Mog lighting up and saying "LOOK HERE!!!" and then to not always use it. What the hell, game.

I've learned a lot about Serah this session. I learned she's a frickin' liar.

"I won't get lost this time, I promise."

Several hours later, she's still getting lost.

I spent so much time in the Labyrinths in Oerba 300... Those crystal matching puzzles are merciless on the timing.

Well I was going to wait to post this but I've got 68 Fragments, about 80,000 CP and, if what Serah and Noel just none too subtly foreshadowed is accurate, the plot is finally going to actually start moving again. After I get some sleep I can return to Caius finally showing what he's all about. I have no illusions this will be the final showdown like Serah said but I do think things will actually happen. Interesting things, hopefully.

Also I'm hording all that CP because I trivialized the Proto fal'Cie. I don't think he was supposed to be that hard anyway but I do feel overpowered. I'll hold off on upgrading my characters until it feels necessary.

Also, I'm curious, what outfis do you have Serah and Noel wear? I stick with Style and Steel for Serah and Black Mage for Noel.

[Forsaken Lover]

Having a tutorial about jumping with a Chocobo =/= being able to spot where I have to jump with the Chocobo.

Plus, if the game establishes that Mog will light up and fly towards items sometimes, the fact he doesn't do it all the time is really just BS "haha, now you HAVE to look at a guide."

Well I was just wondering about what Yeul meant about the Heart of Chaos, especially since a lot of weight has been given, in the Datalogs anyway, to Serah having a lot of "chaos" in her as well. If it's explained later on, fair enough.

[Forsaken Lover]

So, serious gameplay question. I got Odinbolt now. With it and my two Durable Power Wristbands, Serah is almost as strong as my Behemoth.T hat's pretty cool.

HOWEVER, my question is, do stats on weapons matter all that much/ Obviously you do want decent stats but this isn't like other RPG's. More numbers does not always equal more better. For example, the only way to deal substantive damage to enemies who matter is Staggering. As such, should I not prioritize weapons that come with Chain Bonuses? Wouldn't you do more damage with a high Chain Bonus than simply by having a stronger weapon? That's my thinking but I just don't know.

Well...killing Noel (I think that's what he did) is one way to establish your villain cred... Good job Caius.

I'm really annoyed with the Live Trigger stuff at the moment. These are all really good questions I want to ask to ask the second Yeul but I only get one?

So I'm reading the Fragments I'm getting from the Yeuls and Etro's Sorrow says "Now the goddess sleeps within the Heart of Chaos." So Etro is in Caius...? And if the Heart is gone, the universe is gone. Which means dead Caius = dead everything.

Yeah I think I'm a bit overpowered. Caius did some good damage but I pulled it off without too much trouble. Thank God I still had my SEN/MED paradigm. He went down real quick which I figured he would because it was only Serah and her monster, they couldn't realistically expect you to Stagger him or anything.

So Yeul is dying across time because Etro saved the party at the end of FFXIII/? I mean, I guess that kinda sucks. Six peoples' lives in exchange for a billion Yeuls dying is kinda harsh. On the other hand, it was only because they were de-crystaled that Fang and Vanille could save Cocoon. So while I doubt it was part of Etro's intent, she did end up saving the human race by proxy of saving the FFXIII Party.

Still I'm not sure Caius is thinking that far ahead. Also I have no idea how he can kill the goddess if she's...ya know, in him.

Nevertheless, it was all very climactic and impressive. I guess that was Caius' Theme playing during the boss battle? It sounds like the one that played when we fought him forever ago. It's pretty good.

So now we're back in the town and time from the start. OR ARE WE? This could easily be some Lotus-Eater Machine stuff going on but, given this game actually has time travel, it could also be real.

I said No when given the choice to stay in the Fake World or not. I'm kind of dreading what I have done now though given I was told to say Yes. But I want to play the game "naturally" and make the decisions I would make... Please tell me I didn't miss a Fragment or something because of this. Please for the love of god they wouldn't do that, would they? I don't care if there's a 100 tough fights or whatever because I said No, just so long as I don't lose a Fragment.

I smurfing knew it. I smurfING KNEW IT. I looked it up and, yep, you get a Fragment from doing the SUPER MORONIC THING. 'Great Job, you're an absolute idiot1 Have a reward!"

The only reason - THE ONLY REASON - I'm not quitting this game right now is because I can redo this. I just have to close the Academia 4XX Gate and start over. That's fine, that's nothing. We didn't do anything in Academia anyway. I already have all the Graviton Core so all I have to do is talk to Hope a few times then go to the Gate then do the Void Beyond then fake New Bodham or Bodhum or whatever the hell it's called. That's not so bad. I could conceivably do all of that in like, an hour or less considering I will skip cutscenes.

I frickin' knew it. I'm sorry that I didn't pick Yes. But I don't like doing the things I wouldn't do on my own. It's like Chrono Cross. LEAVE KID TO DIE? Well yeah, that's the obvious thing to do, right?

Japan...what the smurf is wrong with Japan?

So let's get this straight. Etro created humans, who were then enslaved by fal'Cie. She then saved the FFXIII party in exchange for damaging all of reality. She also "blessed" with the Seeress with a power that steadily kills her for infinity.

She literally is the worst deity ever just as people have said. I mean, some gods are assholes, that's kind of their thing. But Etro isn't presented as a jerkass god. She's supposed to be holy and benevolent. And she's not. I brought up Dirge of Cerberus earlier and I'm getting super Lucrecia vibes from Etro ie. the writing wants us to sympathize with her when it's blatantly obvious her incompetency is the root of all evil.

I won't lie guys, I'm rooting for Caius at the moment. Kill that bitch. Dying World has been one of the most effective story segments in the game, if not the most effective. First Caius leaves Noel, then Yeul dies, and now Noel is teh sole living human on the entire planet. Yeul's death was painful to watch just because I understood the reality of Noel's plight and just how hopeless he must have felt at that moment. And it's all Etro's fault. Why does Noel want to be her chosen warrior again?

So this Heart of Chaos thing...according to Caius, if Noel kills him, it will smurf up time. But according to everyone, New Guardian killing Old Guardian is a tradition. Every new Guardian altered time by coming into being? Seems very unlikely.

At least I got the question of his immortality answered.I was thinking, if the Heart makes him immortal, then how do Guardians die and get replaced? From what Mog said, the only reason Caius is immortal is because of...Etro. Holy trout, she is the worst thing ever. Being a l'Cie kinda put a limiter on the Guardians I guess and when Etro removed that limiter, you get an immortal guy wielding the Soul Edge who is going to destroy existence. Good job.

Although we kinda got the Chicken and Egg thing going on here... Did Caius become immortal after leaving Noel and 700 Yeul? Or was he already plotting back then? Maybe it'll be explained. He is the one who said you can change the past by altering the future....

But now I gotta go rewind the Gate and redo all of this because I gotta do The Stupid Thing. Seriously, we're not even talking The Matrix here. It's not a choice between a rather normal "fake world" and a bleak, horrific existence of scrounging for survival with a few others while eating oatmeal and nothing else. Not like most peopel in The Matrix even made a choice because they had no idea what was going on. Serah knows exactly what was going on. She knew the real world and the fake world. She saw the fake world was all wrong and evil immediately. THE ONLY LOGICAL CHOICE IS NO.

But I must say Yes, and I must make Serah the stupidest person whoever existed. Next to Etro anyway.

So why does Lightning not say what Caius is doing is exactly like what the Cocoon fal'Cie were trying to do? Well, most of it. Kill lots of people by destroying Cocoon = summons forth The Maker. Only The Maker is apparently a giant ball of darkness or something. I'm thinking it might be B-dude (and no, I'm not going to remember how to spell his name) but I have no idea how Etro, an inferior deity, would keep him locked away.

Also this game can't decide if Chaos is a good thing or not. The world being full of it is bad but Valhalla is already full of it and no one is saying Valhalla is Hell. Make up your mind, game!

Also Lightning, no comment on how your beloved goddess is slowly murdering your sister? I guess Serah doesn't have like a heroic sacrifice or whatever I was guessing at originally. She probably just ends up dying because of Etro's Blessing. Well I'm certainly glad we are her champions.

Huh...so this feels kind of Endgame-y. Is the game really almost over? Should I hurry up and start going to collect Fragments and stuff? That's all going to take me several days of course....

This game is like X-2 in that it be 10 hours long if you just did the main story. I'm really kinda disappointed in the storytelling here as well. Caius was barely in the game when you think about it, and most of the revelations about him just happened now. It's very clumsily done.

EDIT:

Hold on, I'm trying tot hink here. Has Caius only been in, like, three or four scenes in the whole game? There was the prologue, Oerba and then a whole lot of nothing for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long time. Yu can't even count the inexplicable Caiusbot. I'm honestly disappointed in this.

[Forsaken Lover]

God my arm is killing me. It's been a tough couple nights. First off, last night, I visited the Colosseum to get the first of what I guess you ca call my Dream Team. I've needed a good Ravager for a long time and Lightning fits that role perfectly. It took so many fights to get her crystal but I did eventually get it. Also, to max our her Crystarium, I refought her and her lieutenant a few more times for Mana Crystals. Suddenly that fight became an absolute joke and I could win it in about two minutes with no problems. Before it took about five minutes and it could get a bit hairy.

Anyway, her Crystarium is maxed out (Level 13. GET IT?????) and I decided to work on Sazh, who is a lot better than I originally noticed. He has good abilities, just like my Purple Chocobo, but he has so much more HP. HP is essential for the fights I plan on doing I think. Granted your Synergist isn't going to be around too long but he still needs to be able to survive a few hits.

So I was in the Steppe, collecting Mana Essences for Sazh and fought Geiseric's big brother. I don't know what it is named but it came out during Stormy weather. I demolished it. I fought and beat a couple other monsters I've never seen before so that's good too. But once I had all the stuff I needed for Sazh, I went back to the Hunters Camp to change the weather and see what kind of monsters and loot Sunny Weahtr would bring. It was then that the Long Gui materialized into being and....well...

Several attempts later, I've done it. This fight made me realize something. Or rather, it made me accept something. Serah is built for Magic and Noel is built for Strength for a reason. The first few times I fought the long Gui, even when I took out his legs and staggered him, I only got him down about a million HP. It might be possible to Stagger him twice before he gets up but I never managed it. Got close but no cigar.

Then I thought "fuck it" and swapped Serah's and Noel's Accessorries. Now he was wearing two Durable Power Wristbands and she was wearing two Durable Magician Mark's. (the Magicians' Crest was probably better but I'm an idiot) And guess what? After one Stagger, he was down to less than a million.

Of course I made sure to apply debuffs when he was staggered but I'm pretty sure it's the fact Serah and Nowl now have over 700 Magic/Strength that did this.

Now I won't deny some of it was luck. That big AOE move he does can one shot both Serah and Noel if they were too close. But luck is a fair enough element to take intoa ccount, isn't it? It's not like I cheated.

Now I'm curious, how does Full Power Atlas and Royal Ripeness compare to Long Gui? Harder, easier, about the same? Atlas seems about the same type of fight as Long Gui.

I'M not going to fight either of them quite yet. I still need to "build" Lightning. I want to make her OP as hell. She has just under 900 Magic and I want to get that over a 1.000. She also needs HP very badly. It's bad enough Serah has peaked at 5900, Lightning is only at 5100. She needs to join Noel in the 8000s, or be close at least. Some Resist Physical/Resist Magic abilities be good too.

Ya know what's kinda sad? The Long Gui, for as challenging as it was, is still a helluva lot easier than that bitch from XIII. I have always hatd Jihl and her boss fight does not make me like her anymore. It's one big gimmick of being the Anti-Stagger. Mooks spawned to disrupt you just long enough that her Stagger gauge resets, She also has that status effect that stuns everyone for a few seconds which is followed up by an instant death move. It seems tailor-made for a Sentinel and Steelguard but her status effect not only prevents you from taking any action,it knocks you out of whatever action you are taking. So Steelguard is no good.

Now, you can still get around this, as I have done. You just need absolute precision timing in order to keep her gauge up. I think, now I'm playing Serah and Noel to their strengths, I could probably kill her in one Stagger. But I dunno. That fight was so irritating and I don't know if I want to bother with it again right now.

And final question, do you really need COM/COM/COM? Because COM/COM/RAV is working just fine for me at the moment. Lightning deals out great damage and is wonderful for keeping an enemy launched with her magic. Plus, you still get the slow drainign Stagger gauage with COM/COM/RAV.

[Forsaken Lover]

Can't you just insta kill them iN XIII?

I suspect the difference in difficulty is due to, in XIII, you can increase your stats to ludicrous levels, and the Long Gui there were made to account for that. Here, you have a much lower cap on your stats.

Also, as far as I've read, in order to max out Serah's and Noel's Strength/Magic/HP, you have to know precisely what you're doing from the word go. You can only optimize them for one stat. Hence why Serah has such low HP for me but can actually have about 8000 or so at base if you optimize it.

EDIT:

Looking it up, I guess I misunderstood what people said "just cast Death on it." I figured Death was like in every other FF. But nope, iN XIII, it's just a spell that does damage or whatever.

Although, looking at strategies for facing one in FFXIII, I notice it says "manually control Fang to cast Bravera or Faithra." You know, I'd love to be able to do that in this game. I'd love to, first chance i get during tense moments, to make sure I cast buffs on my Strength and Magic. But, as I said before, Serah and Noel do not have any version of Bravery or Faith. Which means I'm left at the mercy of Sazh's or Purple Chocobo's AI to think that their first priority should be Braviga.

[Karifean]

Long Gui is actually immune to the instant kill effect of the Death spell. It still does quite a massive amount of damage though. The important part though is that regular Adamantoises are NOT immune to the instant kill, so you can farm those surprisingly well by just using Death over and over.

Depending on what classes you level up when you get different final stats (the large nodes in the crystarium give extra stats that depend on the class you activate them with). As far as I've heard from other players it's theoretically best to push your primary offensive stat (Strength for Noel, Magic for Serah). I never really cared much about it since that goes into a level of minmaxing that just isn't necessary.

There are some really good Feral Links if you want to get yourself buffed quickly. Try Yakshini. Also if I remember correctly the Goblin Chieftain was hilariously good at replacing a Synergist even though it's a Sentinel.

[Forsaken Lover]

In somber news, I'm gonna have to take a break from XIII-2. I've only had my 360 and controller since...I dunno, April or May? Maybe March? Either way, my controller is busted. Too much mashing the A Button and it was stuck and it chose to demonstrate this fact right in the middle of one of the Oerba 400 AF Puzzles I had finally decided to do. Specifically during one of the crystal matching puzzles, the only puzzle where this was a problem. I guess it's better it happened there and not during a boss fight.

Anyway, I need to replace it. I'm kinda broke though so my options are liited to bumming a controller off a buddy of mine or seeing if I can get a ride to Gamestop to trade in some junk I have and buy a new controller that way.

It's very depressing. I feel like, now I've crossed that 100 Fragment threshold, and I'd have about 110 when done with Oerba 400, that I am finally within sight of the finish line. Then this happens. Hopefully I can resume this game soon. I can't afford to put this on hold or it will never get finished. Just look at my Skyrim and FFV playthroughs....god knows when I'll ever wrap those up. I'm really bad about my moods and if I fall out of the right mood for a game, I might not play it again for months or years.

Also

I know have learned Noel is a boss in LR. SPOILERS! Kinda sorta not really. I was wondering if he would have a role there....

So I now know Lightning fights both Snow and Noel. I can only assume that LR is her fighting all the good characters in the series as they try to keep her from ruining everything.

[Ayen]

Wait, do you get to beat up Snow in LR?

[Mirage]

yes

[Ayen]

I might have to play LR now.

[Forsaken Lover]

Some people just don't appreciate true heroes.

P7dOOy8kBJY

You make a good point about not getting a controller from Gamestop though. That's where I got the last one from and it's already crapped out on me.

[Forsaken Lover]

I have read a few complaints about how LR's English translation changed a few elements of the plot. Nothing I particularly care about though, and how much was changed is exaggerated from what I can tell. That's what a friend of mine said anyhow.

I'm definitely playing it in English, regardless. I can't follow subs.

[Forsaken Lover]

I think it's less mistranslations or errors and more a conscious choice to change everything. The parts of LR I already know about are also the parts I don't care about Like B-dude being the main villain and hitting on Lightning at the end. That is removed from the English version and is the only substantial change i have heard of. We don't need our villain to be in love with our heroin and voice Toriyama's fantasies.

And the difference between 'spirit" and "soul" or "heart" and "soul" isn't that confusing. It's a big part of Buddhism from what I understand. It was already used in a much more complex fashion in Xenogears where a guy had his soul reincarnated into the main protagonist yet his spirit lived on by possessing people. If I could unravel that, it doesn't seem like I'll have a hard time grasping whatever LR talks about.

And I already found a whole blog talking about the changes from LR's Japanese version to the English version. It's what made me make the initial comment because it was rather presumptuous of the person who wrote it. he just assumed the localization team were incompetent and screwed up when I bet you dollars to donuts it was a conscious choice to make the changes they did.

Here's the article
http://hikamitz.tumblr.com/post/111425210884/correcting-the-biggest-translation-error-in-the

I skipped most of it because I wanted to avoid potential spoilers about stuff I do care about but I did read the opening thesis. My buddy told me that he's wrong about some stuff anyhow.

"Tamashii" doesn't mean judeo-christian Soul. It can be used in that way but it isn't exclusively that way and i would say for a Japanese person it wouldn't be the first thing they'd jump to. It is very often used to mean the emotion or spirit that drives a human. In fact I have a Japanese textbook which states that thinking of Tamashii as meaning "the spirit of the dead" is a mistake more likely to be made by foreigners than Japanese speakers. There are translations that have used it that way but they are contentious and unlikely to be used by a native Japanese spaker.

For example the english phrase Team Spirit, the Spirit there would be Tamashii. (And indeed a lot of sports animes use this term for example!) The claim that it is just for the immortal soul or even primarily for the human soul is erroneous. Trying to use Tamashii exclusively as Judeo-Christian Eternal Soul just doesn't work. If anything tamashii has a very heavily emotional aspect to it. It is very much considered to be 'what makes up a human.'

It literally means soul in Japanese just as kokoro literally means heart but that doesn't mean they translate over directly as such. There are also cultural differences at play here which make it even more complex because even though there is an idea of spirit and an idea of (emotional) heart in English they don't translate over directly. There are some differences in the core LR translation but I don't think the actual important context (B-man can take souls but he can't see inside human hearts) is missed.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I have my controller. I also have a claw hand after gripping it so tight for the last...I dunno, two hours maybe.

I tried to tackle Yomi. People weren't exaggerating when they said it was tough. Oh it starts off simple enough and I could almost always get it down to less than 300.000 Health. But that's where the real fight begins and where it always ended for me. He will begin to use his big super move more often, he has like four buffs on him (I can't tell what the little pictures mean. I assume one is Bravery and another is Faith. No clue about the others, maybe Haste as an added smurf you) none of which I can Dispel so far as I saw) and of course it will regen health during its little invulnerability phase. Not much health but when you are trying to stay alive as opposed to filling the stagger gauge and doing damage, it will begin to add up.

I think I need a bit more training to beat it. The big super move looked like a fire attack so I figured Sentinel's Element Guard or whatever would help but he does it too fast for me to switch and setup my defense.

Debuffs seem like the way to go but I don't have any good Saboteurs. The best I have is a Hedge Frog I got from the Steppe. I kept hoping if I threw Elixirs at the problem I could pull out a win but no luck.

I think the keys to victory here are working more on Lightning, increasing her offensive and defensive power. I was planning on doing that anyway but I figured I could hold off. The other key is to find a better Saboteur and start building them.

Sigh...what a waste of time all that was. So many Gysahl Greens wasted too considering every time I retried or died I had to reclimb on the Chocobo and rejump to teh area where Yomi is.

Well I have my controller. I also have a claw hand after gripping it so tight for the last...I dunno, two hours maybe.

I tried to tackle Yomi. People weren't exaggerating when they said it was tough. Oh it starts off simple enough and I could almost always get it down to less than 300.000 Health. But that's where the real fight begins and where it always ended for me. He will begin to use his big super move more often, he has like four buffs on him (I can't tell what the little pictures mean. I assume one is Bravery and another is Faith. No clue about the others, maybe Haste as an added fuck you) none of which I can Dispel so far as I saw) and of course it will regen health during its little invulnerability phase. Not much health but when you are trying to stay alive as opposed to filling the stagger gauge and doing damage, it will begin to add up.

I think I need a bit more training to beat it. The big super move looked like a fire attack so I figured Sentinel's Element Guard or whatever would help but he does it too fast for me to switch and setup my defense.

Debuffs seem like the way to go but I don't have any good Saboteurs. The best I have is a Hedge Frog I got from the Steppe. I kept hoping if I threw Elixirs at the problem I could pull out a win but no luck.

I think the keys to victory here are working more on Lightning, increasing her offensive and defensive power. I was planning on doing that anyway but I figured I could hold off. The other key is to find a better Saboteur and start building them.

Sigh...what a waste of time all that was. So many Gysahl Greens wasted too considering every time I retried or died I had to reclimb on the Chocobo and rejump to teh area where Yomi is.

EDIT:

Forget everything I just said. lol I beat it! It took a truly cunning strategy, though. Namely the strategy of me remembering I got new weapons from Ochu and Immortal. I looked at them and, not only is the Grasitha better than whatever Noel was using, it has Chain Bonus Level frickin' 5!!! I put on that bad boy, and did my best to constnatly hammer Yomi with Deshell, and I won in a single attempt. I still used up all 4 of my Elixirs but a win is a win.

I am now Big Game Hunter and, since this gave me enough CP to finish up the last Paradigms for Serah and Noel, Supreme Being. That's all the Fragments for the Steppe, bringing me up to 115/160.

[Mirage]

Yomi was a fun fight.

[Forsaken Lover]

I now have 138/160 Fragments.

I think I'm missing a Fragment in Academia 400 AF.... I am positive the only location left to get a Fragment for is Academia itself but I still need two more there. I'll have to look into that.

Vile Peaks was a nice little place. Quick and simple and full of Fragments. Also a Lightning and Sazh cameo that I guess was meant for the pre-DLC game because I already know what's going down. I suppose it was heartwarming to see soe of Lightning's old buddies.

Beat Omega. It was indeed pretty easy.

Got two Paradox Endings, the one for Atlas and the other for Royal Ripeness. They are perfect metaphors for this game. Royal Ripeness was amazingly silly while Atlas was all dark and depressing. So Atlas is from the war that ensued when Cocoon was about to fall and everyone lost their minds. Fair enough. Sucks for that version of Serah and Noel

Then again, I'm not really sure if the Multiversal Rule applies to Serah and Noel... There seems to be only one version of them.

I went back to Academia 4XXF to fill out the map there and also stopped by the Academy headquarters. No Hope, no Alyssa, and a lady there doesn't even remember who Alyssa was. Most peculiar. I guess the revelations/final confrontations will all happen in Academia 500.

So are all the Paradox Endings you get with the Scope from boss fights? Now I know two Paradox Endings are unlocked from winning your solo fights with Caius while wearing the Scope, and I have unlocked two other endings from winning boss fights, it just seems like a pattern. I want to figure out the endings on my own and it would help if I know what to look for.

Right now I'm looking for significant boss battles under the assumption that Paradox Endings are made by beating bosses. One I think might happenis defeating Adam with the Paradox Scope on. Also maybe defeating Caius in Oerba.

[Forsaken Lover]

So I know I'm gonna forget about this unless I say it now.

Caius' dialogue and actions in Oerba match up well with the Caiusbot's dialogue and actions in Academia but not with what we see of the real Caius. He doesn't give a shit about Noel or Serah changing history so far as I can tell. The only thing that would annoy him about this is the fact they can ruin his plans and if this was really a problem for him, he wouldn't have waited so long to do something about it. He could have stopped them both in Oerba.

Yeul's personality is also really different. I said this before but Oerba 200 AF Yeul is creepy as shit and you almost get the feeling she's the one in charge and leading Caius. This doesn't match up at all with Miss Pure Goodness Yeul we see in almost every other timeline.

Either it's all a really badly red herring or they just were flying by the seat of their pants and solidifed these two's characterization later on.

I had a read of someof the Fragments I've been collecting. Some are pretty interesting, like the fact Caius has indeed been around for centuries, although I'm still unclear of the whole Chicken and Egg thing. Noel's little segment did not clarify if Caius had always been present or if his going off and meddling in things is what made him go back in time and be around for all those centuries. If he's always been Yeul's Guardian, it's kinda weird it took him this long to finally decide enough is enough. He didn't even do it when the Yeuls started dying super-fast ie. around the Fall of Cocoon, he waited another 700 years.

Still, kinda neat about him taking his last name from a warrior who almost killed him in the past.

I liked the Fragments that wee from Vanille's POV and I think Fang's as well. One of them was spot on about Lightning wasting her time protecting Etro because Etro frickin' sucks and is awful.

Welp that was a fun night of trivia.... And yes I did cheat and look up the answers to some of Captain Cryptic's BS Questions. What flower did Yeul have in 200 AF? She had a flower? As you might have noticed, observation is not my strong suit.

I also went back and got the 3 Fragments I missed from Dream New Bodhum.

That equals 148/160. The only other Fragments I can get before the end of the game are the last two map ones but I think I'll just leave that for postgame. I realize it's always been an option ot just halt the story and dive into the Historia Crux whenever you feel like it but I've never done that. Time travel games already have a severe blow dealt to their urgency. It was really hard to fear Lavos when we could literally do anything we wanted and Lavos was not in any way a threat to us. Same rule applies here. If I start Academia 500 AF and then abandon it to go hand in the map crap, it would completely destroy the atmosphere that the endgame is going to have.

But that is that for side stuff... Tomorrow will be the exciting conclusion. Followed by more side stuff. But at least then new and interesting things will be hapening because of Battlemania and Paradox Scope. Revisiting Dying World and Noel's dream and all that helped remind me how emotional all the buildup was for the grand finale. I've been doing sidequests for, what, 30 or 40 hours now and I needed that nice little shot in the arm of Plot. I am ready and excited to see what happens and how Serah dies and how Caius does not die.

Tomorrow. Right now, I'm going to bed.

[Forsaken Lover]

Wow, the narrator's description for Academia 500AF was fantastic. Got me all pumped for the endgame and saving the world from Caius in our climactic showdown. Shame that, as OP as I am right now, the fight will be over in seconds....

So listening to talking during these battles just doesn't work. Yeul kept saying stuff but hell if I know what it was as I was too worried about killing the things. All I got out of it was...well, I got nothing out of it except what she said before the fight began. I wonder, she says Etro mustn't die, maybe Caius has been yanking our chain this whole time. He's provoking us into killing him which will somehow kill Etro.

I might have been able to understand more but, again, stupid design decisions. I can't hear crap or focus on plot mysteries when fighting, even if the boss is easy. My instinct to destroy as soon as possible - an instinct FFXIII-2 itself placed in me - is too strong.

Haha, yesssss! 100% Map in Academia 500! It wasn't nearly as complicated as I was afraid it would be. Hilariously, I missed one little circle area that I noticed right as I was about to complete the level. I headed back there and made a leap at the area that I totally missed but I guess I got close enough to it anyway so it counted for that 2% I needed. Amazing.

In more Plot relevant news, if us killing Caius is indeed what will destroy the world, and that is what Yeul is warning us about and telling us to stop, she loses a lot of points for being so needlessly cryptic about it. She could just come right out and say it but nooooo. I really hope I'm wrong with my predictions here.

Wow, could the ending be more in your face? Everything is all happy and perfect then Serah dies and then the bells tolling the end of the world happen. Geez.

So Caius was easy, just as I expected. I have no idea what was up with the Bahamuts at the end though. Why the hell was Caius not the final boss?

Caius x Yeul confirmed pretty clearly here as if I needed any more convincing. It was pretty touching though, Caius' heel realization when Noel pointed out Yeul chose to reincarnate to be with him. I did choose "Show Mercy" to Caius but I doubt it matters.

But yep, Serah died as a result of Etro sucking, called it. Also pretty sure I was spot on about killing Caius being the trigger for the end of the world. Goddammit, Yeul, speak more clearly when the fate of reality hangs in the balance. As I promised, minus 5 Respect Points.

Overall, kind of unspectacular ending. Then again, I had some of it spoiled for me already and another bit was pretty obvious. Now it's time to start gathering together the remaining Fragments and Paradox Endings.

I'll hold off my "overall review" until that time.


EDIT:

So they're really going to do this? Not offer a word of explanation about Alyssa's betrayal? I went back and got the Paradox Ending where you refuse the Artefact but all that did was be ridiculously awesome. I love Snow being awesome of course but I wanted some answers about why Alyssa betrayed everyone. I know she apparently will blip out of existence and that's why she did it but why the hell is she blipping in the first place?

I'm not sure what you mean. Only that Yeul "thought that"? What did she think?

And where is the stuff about Alyssa explained?

And man, this game really is Chrono Cross. Got the Paradox Endings and I noticed a theme that all of them have a clear message of "you changed things, you made things worse." Noel kills Caius early, he goes crazy, Serah kills Caius early, dooms the world, defeating Atlas without the device transports Serah and Noel to the hellish war and defeating Royal Ripeness early makes an even bigger flan appear. Only Snow's Time Cop ending was pretty much perfect.

And of course the normal ending is hardly what one could call 'good."

The Serah's Message Fragment was kinda sad/creepy. Future Serah is dead and telling Past Serah about it.

I'm stopping for now but I just looked it up and I was spot on about the other Paradox Endings. Defeat Caius in Oerba and defeat Proto fal'Cie. Those were the other two major plot bosses so kinda obvious. Then it'll only be the Bestiary Fragment I think.

[Mirage]

Yes. They are just gonna drop Alyssa's shit like that. One of the few things that was actually interesting, nope, can't have any of that.

[Karifean]

Although if I remember correctly, her motivations are at least implied. Back when you first meet her you go see a grave of her friend together, right? Her dialogue implies that Alyssa herself was the one who was supposed to be dead and her friend taking her place was caused by a paradox.

If Noel and Serah went on fixing paradoxes, that little discrepancy would also have been fixed. Self-preservation instincts kicked in.

[Mr. Carnelian]

I, too, would have liked to see the Alyssa plot-line expanded upon a little further.

I must disagree about the ending though, I thought it was good. I love a well-executed cliffhanger. :spin:

[Mirage]

You love being forced to pay another 50 pounds to see the ending of the game you already paid 50 pounds for. Got it.

[Mr. Carnelian]

You love being forced to pay another 50 pounds to see the ending of the game you already paid 50 pounds for. Got it.

My, my, you can be a bit snipey, can't you? :monocle: I don't agree with you at all.

XIII-2 DID have an ending. Lightning Returns was very much a separate - although linked - story.

It didn't feel like a 'forced' cliffhanger to me.

[Formalhaut]

The only thing I didn't like the ending was that it was very sad. As Mr. Carny will testify, I hate sad endings in books, films, anything. Seeing Mog's body go limp as the power drained from him and seeing Noel cry out was, for me, pretty heart rendering as I connected with both of them quite a bit. Noel's characterisation in LR magnifies the inherent sadness surrounding him.

[Forsaken Lover]

Kay I just watched the Secret Ending on YouTube because I'm not doing all that crap with finding all those monsters. I think it was the part saying I have to do Academia 500 AF and get to one specific platform to spawn one specific monster that made me go "nuh-uh, not going to happen." Especially since this monster won't spawn if you kill some other two types of monsters. smurf that.

I have 159 Fragments and I've seen all Paradox Endings. There's no reason at all the Bestiary thing should matter at all or contribute to the SECRET ENDING.

Caius is still alive? That's kind of weird. So we just destroyed the Heart of Chaos but not him? How does that work? I would hope LR will explain but we'll see.

I just figured though, while the mood is upon me, I should talk about this game.

This game was...more fun to play than XIII, that much is true. At the same time, you might have noticed I have a rather bipolar take on the game. That's because the game itself is bipolar. It will be nice to you and then it will slap you across the face. It will be serious with horrific death and chaos all around and then a sexy chocobo lady will dance for you. XIII-2 will be a melodrama and then it will be a comedy. Someone said that XIII-2 was Square throwing trout at a wall and seeing what stuck and that is a very apt summary.

Now, when this game was "on' it was frickin' ON. It could be funny, it could be sad, it could be a really cool thing to explore. Seeing Academia 400 AF vs. Academia 4XX AF for example is pretty much the best way to do time travel by showing just how much you can change things. On the other hand, most of the environments were just palette swaps with no real differences. I still can't get over there are two entirely different versions of Massif with those stupid Ruby of Grief things. It's pointless. I don't know who had the bright idea to give the worst location in the game the largest number of "variations."

I said earlier that A Dying World was fantastic and I stand by that. It's probably the best part of the game. That whole section from Academia 4XX AF through New Bodhum 700 AF was great. I liked the couple times in the game when your heroes' omnipotent time travel powers were revoked and they were stuck at certain spots.

Noel is pretty much the star of the game. I was surprised how much I legitimately came to care about him. He has one helluva backstory that is both interesting and sad. In fact, I might as well say the "Dying World Trio" are the stars of the game. It's no wonder A Dying World is my favorite part of the game as it's all centered on Noel, Caius and Yeul. They're all pretty interesting and sympathetic and also enigmatic in the latter two's case. Well, I guess 700 AF Yeul wasn't all that enigmatic.

As for Serah...well, she's okay I guess. I never felt strongly about her one way or another. I will give her this, the fact she shut the hell up about Lightning eventually made me like her a lot more. All the yappin' about "I GOTTA FIND LIGHTNING!!!" at first made me sick. Later on though she realized "oh yeah, the world is doomed, maybe we should try and fix that." That was good. It made me respect her and Noel a lot more when they set their minds to actual worthwhile endeavors like preventing Cocoon fallinga nd ending humanity.

I still maintain the fact this game completely fails to follow up on Alyssa's betrayal is BS. It's actually really intriguing the more I go over it but I'm giving it far more attention than the actual game does. I don't care if it is foreshadowed and I don't care if in the Datalog there is a 10.000 word essay about why she betrayed them. I care about what the game shows me and what the game shows me is that Serah and Noel forget all about that a few seconds after it happened, which means I myself should forget it because that's what the game thinks of the plot point. Honestly, her tragic tale could use a Fix Fic with a narrative that actually cares about her.

At the end of the day, I would say XIII-2 is a game I'd gladly replay over FFXIII, and it had some great moments, but I would much rather revisit XIII for the story and characters. Maybe I should just watch the cutscenes on YT and spare myself a lot of the pain.

Also, as is my custom, my Top 5 Favorite Songs: (note that Crazy Chocobo transcends all things and thus it isn't fair to include it here)

Noel's Theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfmupLRxxM8) - I don't know much about "feels" but this set an amazing mood.

Village and Void (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkT9yjhBC3I) - Oerba always gets the best music. Although I always kinda was "what?" when the lady singing got to four boddings.


Threat Level Omega (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INdqbzYSORE) - It's kinda sad this theme got trumped by a variation of Caius' Theme for most of Academia 400 AF. When you first arrive there and this is playing as all hell breaks lose, it sets a much more...I dunno, "intense" atmosphere. It's a thoroughly underrated piece.

Paradox (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhPRByQPbzE) - The central "trout's got real" theme. It does its job very well.

Last Hunter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9MR3r_DWrA) - This game has a lot of great battle music but this is my favorite. Well for normal battle themes I mean.

I also left off Caius' Theme because it's just too much of an obvious choiceI think. It's amazing and definitely one of the best songs in the game.

Overall Score of Final Fantasy XIII-2: Let's see, if we take at least 80 Fragments being total BS and 80 Fragments being a legitimate challenge, and then subtract points for every time Brain Blast threw a question at me like "Odds or Evens" or "Heads or Tails" and made me start over becauseof that, yet we add the voice of Liam O'Brien, I think we end up with a reasonable score of B.

I'll see you all in a couple weeks when I can buy Lightning Returns. I still have my doubts that a game where I can only play as Lightning could be anything but absolute trash but XIII-2 surprised me and maybe LR will as well.

[Forsaken Lover]

She gives you the defective Artefact in Academia 4XX AF that gets you and Noel lost into the Void Beyond where Caius promptly "kills" you both.

So, yes, she betrayed you and it was important to the main story.

Also I played this game for over 120 hours, got 159 Fragments an all Paradox Endings. I earned the Secret Ending.

[Forsaken Lover]

Because there's no goddam reason you should have to deal with Captain Cryptic or 90% of the other BS sidequests in order to get the Secret Ending. It has absolutely nothing to do with it. The Paradox Endings all leading to the Secret Ending makes sense but how in the holy hell does filling out the bestiary lead to seeing that Caius is still alive?

One thing should logically follow another is just the rule of...existence.

[Forsaken Lover]

But they're NOT fun, that's what you're not getting here. They're fetch quests full of nonsense and bullshit. There's literally no way to know certain monster spawn conditions or where certain items are located, without a guide. There's literally no way to know if the answer is Heads or Tails.

So if the sidequests aren't fun, and have no real impact on the story, why should they be mandatory for learning a rather huge fact like Caius is still alive?

[Shauna]

Squeenix do this a lot, tbh. In Kingdom Hearts BbS I am pretty sure you had to do a lot of nonsense to get the final chapter to unlock. Gives you something to work to, I suppose. Some people find it tedious, others don't. I had fun doing everything in FFXIII-2 (and BbS for that matter), and clearly SapientiaXIII did too. Just gonna have to agree to disagree on the fun part. :p

[Mr. Carnelian]

Hell, I've poured around 200 hours into Bayonetta, have all of the accessories bar one, weapons, achievements...but I still don't have the "secret" accessory in the game, the Climax Brace. I've earned what I've got, but I haven't earned that Climax Brace yet.

You get that by collecting all the 'Tears of Blood'.

It's not that great really, it's a bit of a game-breaker: you're basically unstoppable when you have it equipped. Plus, your scores aren't saved when you're wearing it, so it's a bit pointless, really.

The 'Secret Ending' in FXIII-2 is NOT worthwhile. I finished the game, got about 150 fragments, and then looked up the Secret Ending on youtube and moved on to Lightning Returns, because I really wanted to play that. Maybe on my next playthrough I'll actually collect all 160 fragments.

[Karifean]

Secret Endings like that are just typical pitfalls for completionists. It's supposed to be an optional reward for the people who voluntarily spend all that time on the game. But in the eyes of some players that "optional reward" becomes mandatory cause they want to get everything out of the game they paid for and so they spend hours upon hours on a game they don't even enjoy (that much). Basically going completely against the thought process that put the scene in there to begin with. It's not really supposed to be something to work towards, it's supposed to be a nice surprise at the end of the road. FFX-2 suffered from the same problem.

I feel the way they handled Alyssa's story was okay. It's not relevant past the betrayal because that's when you - and the protagonists - are straight up thrust into the final part of the game and don't really have the time to think back on it. But if you really want to know, all the pieces of the puzzle are there, you just need to put them together.

[Forsaken Lover]

So Lightning Returns is boughted. Now just to wait for it to actually get here.

I've purchased one DLC - the FF Legends Pack that comes with the Cloud, Aerith and X-2 Yuna outfits. I mean, I liked all those characters so why not. Are any of the other DLC outfits worth it, like the Samurai ones or Ultimate Savior or whatever else?

[Mirage]

I'll tell you why not: You're giving SE reasons to keep making more and more DLC for bad games.