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 smurf 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 smurfed 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 smurf 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....

smurf 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 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.

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.