(Chapters 9 & 10 thread) All was Fun and Games

[Madame Adequate]

Well, regarding that level 10 design, it's pretty obvious they made a smurfing subway station and then had no story reason to use it. So they were like, (SPOILER)"Uh....PULSE TRAINING FACILITY! The Ark! Yes Yes!" I mean really, they're actually openly calling it a dungeon used to train heroes for the end of the world? God damn.

It was like meresti all over again

[Psychotic]

Meresti is way more fun if you just go in all guns blazing. Or grenades blazing rather. IAN WEST!!!

[Shlup]

The end of chapter 10

OMFG.

ETA: I just gotta say, when you get to chapter eleven the monsters get hella hard so do yourself a favor and don't skip as many battles as I did in chapters nine and ten. Mm'kay? smurf me.

[Raistlin]

I'm genuinely impressed. Did you guys look at guides or anything?

No, we just don't suck.

Anyway, back to it after a weekend of drinking non-playing!

[Raistlin]

Re: chapter 10. I really didn't like this chapter. Everything felt so haphazardly thrown together; Psy's point about this apparently being a last-minute whim seems spot-on. I also lost any hope for a mature, complex plot. Hell, even the graphics in this chapter were boring -- just a continual repeat of the same couple of main areas. Easily the most disappointing chapter so far.

(SPOILER)First off, Cid's encounter was random and his motives for attacking you were undeveloped at best. Secondly, his little speech to you told you exactly what the plot would be: the Fal'Cie have an evil plot to destroy all human life and bring back the Maker. At first this game had the makings of an intriguing plot of overthrowing political tyranny, but nope, it looks like it's all good guys saving the world from the bad guys' evil plan yet again. And it's all JUST TOLD TO YOU. Oh well, I didn't really expect any more (the only FF that has such a mature plot is FFT, as far as I'm concerned), but the game actually was getting my hopes up.

I have yet to travel on anything that wasn't just a narrow path with occasional very small detours for treasures or baddies. I'm hoping that changes now that I'm on Pulse.

[Psychotic]

Agreed; Chapter 10 is probably the weakest in the game.

[Shlup]

Agreed for the same reasons. Though the transition from 10 to 11, I think, is pretty epic and totally made up for it.

Personally I like the (SPOILER)fal'Cie are cultivating humans as a sacrifice to bring back their diety plot. I thought the (SPOILER)"We're pets." revelation was interesting.

[Crowseye]

Shame that, in the end, it appears the dev team wasn't really willing to take any big risks by doing something "controversial" with the story. (SPOILER)Instead, we get the same sappy hero vs. villain stuff we usually get.

I found myself way more engaged with the story when the Cocoon fal'Cie were seen as benevolent, if over-bearing, "owners" and humans their children/pets. The whole "Sure the fal'Cie take care of us, but they've completely compromised the free will of humanity, so we're going to take them out" storyline had at least some intellectual maturity, (SPOILER)foiling the plans of the evil fal'Cie who want to kill all humans to bring back their God is the type of thing you find in fantasy fanfic.

Thank goodness the gameplay opens up a bit more after Chapter 10 because I, personally, have lost all interest in the party members. Their individual motivations, guided by their pasts and personalities have been entirely overridden by the "Mwahhahah..we've been tricking you all along!!" crap and the " Let's save the World!1" mission. If the story killed any of them off, I wouldn't care at this point.

I'm praying for an additional twist at this point that at least makes a liar of Cid and Barth.

Chapter 10 was unnecessarily long for what it contributed, and (SPOILER)/agree that this looks like a subway network that got scrapped (at the end, that could arguably be the ruins of a city as well). I wonder if this was originally supposed to be a site on Gran Pulse for the party to explore.

[eestlinc]

thanks for all the tips, i blasted through the final battle of chapter 9. RELENTLESS ASSAULT!

[Moon Rabbits]

Plot went from 10 to 0 in like 5 seconds. Seriously, wtf @ RAGNAROK. Oh I didn't realize I was playing FFX all over again. Unimpressed. Which sucks, b/c I was really enjoying the they were doing up until they throw in Barthandelus.

[Raistlin]

Yeah, I'm highly disappointed at the main "plot twists" in the game so far, which involve the big evil guy standing there telling them to you.

[Wolf Kanno]

Just finished the Chapter 9 and I'm deep into Chapter 10. The game has truly reached the stage where I feel like I'm playing Xenosaga Episode 2. Not only cause of the similarity in design but because dungeons are seriously un-fulfilling. Good god did the Palamecia dungeon drag on forever and it wasn't even cause I got lost, it just takes forever to walk from point A to point B.

Story wise, it was nice to get everyone back together though the reunion scene of the party is a little weird with the whole "catch the flying monstrosity Pulse style" it was more funny for its absurdness than anything. (SPOILER)I'm completely disappointed that Jihl was taken out so quickly, she's barely introduced and then gets killed a chapter later. Once again I feel the Datalog gives her more justice as a villain than her screen time.

(SPOILER)The big revelation at the end of the chapter was sadly, very disappointing and completely predictable to a certain extent. I didn't think Dysley was fal'Cie but I pretty much assumed he was l'Cie. I don't want it spoiled for me but I wouldn't be surprised if the Cocoon fal'Cie were basically rebel fal'Cie that the Gran Pulse fal'Cie are trying to stop from taking over the world or some other equally absurd RPG stereotype goal, hence the reason why Pulse l'Cie always seemed tasked with destroying Cocoon.

The last boss of Chapter 9 was a bitch though... Two times I came close to beating the SOB but got stopped both times thanks to his stupid Doom spell. Whoever came up with the idea of stealing MegaTen's idea of auto-game over when the main controlled character is dead should be shot. We should also shoot the guy who decided that restarting should happen at select auto-save locations instead of just letting the player choose to start at the last save or just restart from the battle when its a boss battle. Having to watch (or manually skip) the same damn cutscene before a boss fight is annoying.

Anyway... I finally got past the guy by finally seriously taking part of one of the system's I've been ignoring up to this point, the Weapon Upgrade system. Making all their weapons level 10 pretty much allowed me to kill him faster so I didn't have to worry about Doom.

I'm hoping we'll finally get to explore the fal'Cie cause up until this point they are like the games McGuffin (SPOILER)and its amusing that your party figures out they are evil before they even reveal they are evil...

I'm in the bizarre Chapter 10 which already fells like a filler arc meant to reconcile the poor pacing of the gameplay and story.(SPOILER) I also still want to punch Vanille in the face for causing all the games problems.

:EDITGA:
Finished Chapter 10 and I'm pretty disappointed. (SPOILER)Getting rid of Cid felt more like a cop out and them trying to figure out what to do with him than a serious effort. I'm still kinda waiting for a real plot to start and frankly, the fal'Cie are not exactly a great antagonist considering you only ever talk to one of them. Really, this chapter felt tacked on and was kind of a boring drudge after the more exciting Chapter 7-9. I feel like the writers really went out of their way to poorly utilize all their antagonist and write a strong plot. The individual character pieces are nice but I've clocked in nearly 30 hours and feel like I've accomplished nothing. Hell, I feel like my party has returned to their situation at the start of Chapter 3 tbh, with them figuring out what to do about their Focus and Cocoon.

Moving onto Chapter 11 and hoping for something a little more exciting and substantial in terms of plot. Also, LOL to Hope and Snow for making silly melodramatic speeches that seriously don't fit the scenes.

[finaloblivion]

Now I'm up against early-ish chapter 10 spoilerCid and urgh, it's just like the last one. Too many of the games bosses rely on you getting your party exactly right, there is too little room for experimentation. That's one thing I liked about previous FF's - you could do it in a few different ways.

but thats one of the things i love about XIII, there was never this much tactical and strategic emphasis on even some random battles before this game. although yunalesca comes to mind when i think of strategic boss battles.

HA! beat him first time as well. destrudo almost ended it real quick the first time he cast it though. good thing there's like a 20 second charge up time when he prepares to hit you with it, so there's somewhat of a hint as to what's coming. and as the fight goes on and you've appropriated your buffing, the attack causes less and less damage.

[Karifean]

When I first fought the Ch9-Boss, I got completely wiped out by Destrudo. So I thought the only way to survive is to summon an Eidolon and go into Metamorph Mode due to the invulnerability you gain. Of course, I was shocked to see him cast Destrudo a second time so I got pissed off and attacked him and prepared myself to be wiped out. Fortunately, Lightning had enough HP to survive the weakened Destrudo. And that's how I discovered that you could weaken Destrudo.
Well, I beat him on my second try, so now I'm off to Ch10, just started and went through the Arc three times to collect some CP. Wtf is up with the extra-high CP cost for the new classes !?

[Future Esthar]

Chapter 9 boss was the first time I feel the need to upgrade a weapon.
I used Sazh to cast haste on the party and manage to weaken Destrudo fast enough.

I also thoughts the Ark is a good reference to the Garden?