Sell Me on These Awful Games

[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/1114...n-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 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.

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 trout 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 trout 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 trout 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.

[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? 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 - I don't know much about "feels" but this set an amazing mood.

Village and Void - Oerba always gets the best music. Although I always kinda was "what?" when the lady singing got to four boddings.


Threat Level Omega - 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 - The central "trout's got real" theme. It does its job very well.

Last Hunter - 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.