Hours Played/Hours Total - 4 hrs / 28-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - The Fifth Ark - Upper Traverse.
Current Goal - Figure out what's really going on here. Destroy Cocoon maybe?
What Happened - I'm just getting through so slowly that it's not funny. However, I am determined to finish the game before July ends, and I might even take an extra day off later this month to give me a couple days in a row to wrap it up. We shall see how it goes, but I can't really promise anything. I'm really ready to start up Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest though. Enough talk, let's get to it!
Where we left off, the group had been transported to a random underground tunnel. The area looks kinda like a fairly modern subway station. I explore the area a little bit and talk with the other party members. They're all pretty much just discussing what has recently happened to us. I might as well go over what all we've just learned recently...
- The group's Focus is that one of them must become the monster Ragnarok and destroy Orphan, Eden's power source.
- Serah's Focus was to gather up the l'Cie to perform previously stated Focus above.
- Dysley was actually the fal'Cie, Barthandelus, and pretended to be the human and Primarch.
- He handed us our Focus on a platter, and then he gave us a means to escape... SUSPICIOUSNESS!
And that has been a quick review of "What just happened!?!" Since the group isn't saying anything new at this point, I figure it's time to pick up and move right along.
As I head to leave, there's a small scene in my way. Snow apologizes to Lightning about Serah's Focus and how he was wrong about everything. Lightning tells him that there's more issues at hand than that, and despite being partially wrong, his faith in Serah is what has driven the party to going this far. He also managed to save Lightning as well, so... think about THOSE positives! He sees her point, and we get to head right along into another scene.
The group comes into a big open area, and they're suddenly struck by a bright flash of light. Everybody's brands start burning like crazy, and then robots appear out of these weird totems that are all around. TIME TO FIGHT! The battle consists of two of the weird robots, but they're not super hard really. The only detail I'd include here is that they're one of those lovely enemies you can only damage while staggered. Beyond that, they're pretty easy. We quickly defeat them, and the group heads further into the FIFTH ARK! Thankfully, that's explained soon enough.
The battle included an extra message upon ending though. I can now teach all of my characters any of the roles available. However, before they can access said roles, they have to learn an ability in that role. My first thought of this was... How can I learn an ability from a role if I can't access the role until I gain an ability from it? Thankfully, thee only problem there is I confused myself somehow. Basically, you just have to put enough Crystal Points in until you learn the first ability on each role. Unfortunately, buying into a new role is crazy expensive, and even the very first ability costs like 3000 CP! I can't see myself wanting any extra roles for most of the characters since they're built to fit the roles they already know. Either way... I'm still not very impressed by this terrible rip-off of the Grid Sphere. (Which also wasn't that great... BACK TO THE STORY!)
After the battle, I'm led into a scene that explains what the heck this "Ark" place is. Vanille makes a comment that "This place must be an Ark!" Lightning asks what, and then Fang and Vanille go into a whole explanation from here. (Storytime!) Long ago, the Gran Pulse fal'Cie feared an invasion from outside and made preparations for this. As part of those preparations, they created a massive army of living weapons. These living weapons were then stored in the Arks, and those were hidden all around the world. It's a fairly common legend known on Gran Pulse. Fang adds on that most didn't believe that these places were real, but there were some people who tried to find them.
The bigger problem here would be that there's a huge hunk of Pulse weapons cache that is hidden on Cocoon. Sazh is about to comment on how the people would freak out if this place were known to them, but Vanille interrupts and tells him that there is more to the story! Fang continues on to say that the Ark's had a secondary yet simpler purpose alongside being a massive armory. It was a place that would force l'Cie to master their new powers.
And so the pieces come together... The group believes that Dysley sent them here in order to strengthen them into stronger weapons. The group doesn't know what to think about this, but Hope says they should simply consider it good training for the fight ahead. As he says that, more robots appear to fight us! The group is all like "ruuuuuun!", but then I turn around and fight them immediately. They weren't hard, and I need the Crystal Points anyways. The next hour or more is just me adventuring through this wacky place.
The enemies here are fairly standard I guess, and I only ran into trouble a few times. The worst random game over I had was when I looked away to type something and then my team was dead. There are some weird blob monsters that can fuse together to create a bigger one with like ten times more health! (Seriously, that's way too big of a jump for just two combining.) Final Fantasy XIII has the "retry" feature though, so death is basically meaningless as far as I know. I went up against the super blob monster again and had no trouble because I knew what to expect.
After fighting through several monsters, I come to a very large room that makes itself known with a small scene. The group looks at these four giant robot centaurs standing in place. They wonder if these are also alive and what Sanctum could possibly be up to. Ah well, not like we can change anything here. I move forward to head through the room, and one of the robot centaurs jump in my way. Time to fight the big guys! OH YEAH!.... Turns out they're not that hard. I did get initiative on them, but I found out later that even without that, they're really not that hard.
As with most things in this game, it's more about time than difficulty. There are a few enemies that have surprised me with sudden "OH CRAP!" moves, but in the end, once you learn that, it's pretty much just a downhill fight from there. The next robot centaur I fought showed what was so special about him. As it turns out, their first move in battle is to summon up a sword ally. I didn't notice this while trying to fight it, and I just thought that it was kicking my butt somehow! Then I suddenly noticed the sword on the reset and realized what happened. On the positive side, as you try to stagger the sword, it reflects back onto the centaur as well. In a way, that makes the robot centaur easier!
I fought through a pretty good lot of enemies here. The area is kinda weird looking with its sewer-subway combination environment. I mean, it switches back and forth kind of at random. I don't think I've ever seen a real subway, so maybe that's how they really work? Anyways, we're heading through this crazy Ark and run right into Cid Raines for a little scene time. Snow seems okay that he's down here, but then Fang asks why he is down here, like Snow should have been wondering. Lightning rushes forward and starts attacking him. She calls him a traitor because... (Okay, maybe I'm slow, but I never really felt that it implied the following. APPARENTLY, Cid Raines gave us right to the big man himself. Maybe I missed that during the cutscene?) Either way, Lightning isn't happy about the situation.
Cid stops her attacks and reveals to the group that he's a l'Cie as well. (This game's answer to everything.) His Focus was to hand us over to the right place at the right time. He asks if they understand why he wanted to do it now. The fal'Cie have been watching them all this time and guiding them towards exactly what they wanted them to do. Basically, all those times that seemed like "luck" were actually just carefully orchestrated actions by these larger beings. Cid tells us that Barthandelus has been crafting them into weapons in order to destroy Cocoon. The group is all "Everything makes so much sense now! But... WHY?" Cid answers that question quite quickly. All of this is to restore THE MAKER!
So of course, someone asks who the Maker is. The Maker is the entity responsible for creating both humans and fal'Cie (their god if you will). Then everything goes into fancy history cutscene where Cid goes into more detail. Long ago, the Maker departed this world after leaving behind his two creations: humans and fal'Cie. Thus, in a way, humans and fal'Cie are much like brothers who have been left behind by the same parent. Humans, being of short life and all, quickly forgot the order imposed by the Maker and began to fight amongst themselves. Since this time, the fal'Cie have focused everything on trying to bring back the Maker and restore order and balance to the world. /end the history lesson for now
This very goal has guided all of their ways and actions up to this point. Calling the Maker back isn't easy though, and it requires a fitting sacrifice. The destruction of Cocoon and its entire populace has been created for this very sacrifice. Hope chimes in to ask the current good question for this situation. "Why don't the fal'Cie just kill everybody and end it all themselves?" Cid has the answer for this and is thankfully straightforward about it. The fal'Cie's existence is bound to the creation and maintenance of the Cocoon. Their nature sorta holds them in check and keeps them from (more or less) killing themselves. Since they can't destroy Cocoon, they've created tools to do so instead... the l'Cie.
Snow is quite angry to hear all of this, and he's mad at Cid for lying to them all this time. Didn't Cid want to restore Cocoon to the people as well!? Cid admits that it was a shadow of a dream from when he was just human. He craved change to make things happen, and when he finally had the influence to make those changes, it all fell apart. Even with all the power he needed at hand, he became a puppet who didn't have the will to wield that power. It wasn't the fal'Cie who changed...He did. (They talk all dramatically that I started losing the idea of what's going on here...) He might be a l'Cie, but he can't do anything because he's tied to Cocoon as a l'Cie. He just wanted his dreams of freedom to come true though, and Sazh inquired to what he meant here.
Cid reveals that he actually came down here by his own will and NOT by order of the fal'Cie. His plan is to defeat us all right here and stop the fal'Cie's plan. He plans to use all of his power to stop us! BOSS BATTLE TIME! For this fun engagement, I used Lightning, Snow, and Vanille. Cid transforms into some strange monstrous form that's all silvered and such. I dunno how to describe it, but he looks almost partially Cie'th now. Regardless, he is NOT here to hand the fight to me. That is for sure.
Cid is a l'Cie, so he seems to have the roles that we do. It names them differently, but he's using the same thing. His battle strategy is to switch his roles based on the ones we are currently using against them. Basically, he's doing his best to defend or offend against our Paradigm. The only ones I saw him do (and probably the only ones he has) are an Offensive mode where he starts beating on someone, defensive where he takes little damage and just sits there, and then there is a third mode where he just straight up heals himself. Thankfully, the healing was fairly weak, so it's just barely delaying the inevitable defeat. His defense simply means he takes less damage but isn't attacking, so again, this isn't really the problem with him. His offensive role is what made him difficult for me.
While going offensive, he deals out fairly strong attacks and does so in combos. I failed this battle two or three times before I figured out my ultimate strategy here. First and foremost, I kept one character (Snow in this case) in Sentinel mode as often as possible. Sentinels intimidate opponents and draw off their attacks while also defending and reducing the damage. Overall, I'd go ahead and say that it is the most useful role. Cid only has a couple area attacks, so he'll just stay busy striking the Sentinel for little damage. While he's busy there, I had my other two members (Lightning and Vanille) attacking to build his Stagger.
The three most useful Paradigms for me here was Diversity (Commando, Ravager, Medic), Solidarity (Commando, Sentinel, Medic), and Mystic Tower (two Ravagers and a Sentinel). However, if he ever fully defended, I switched to Relentless Assault (Commando and two Ravagers) to deal extra damage. Biggest thing is to always return to a Sentinel-included mode though. Otherwise, he gets off a few powerful attacks and things go bad fairly fast. At some point (damage or time...couldn't tell), he changes from his Cie'th-ish form into the same thing but with a set of 6 wings. When he does this, he gains a screen-wide blast everybody attack which deals decent damage.
After a couple of attempts at this battle, this attack was really the only problem here. Just kept switching between the four Paradigms I listed, and things went pretty well. If I had a final suggestion for this battle... be sure to have five or more of the items that cure Daze (makes it where you can't do any actions). When I finally managed to beat him, it took me around 12 minutes to do so. The game claimed I should have done it in 8 minutes, but I tried to look past that. I felt I did pretty well under the conditions. Of course, this big battle is followed by MORE SCENE!
Cid tells us that we should do what we think is right and not what we've been ordered to do. Then he turns into a crystal, but that doesn't really make any sense considering the conditions here. Snow is focused on his last words of "doing it our way", and the group heads out as crystal-ized Cid is beamed out of here. As we leave the arena, we run into an elevator and more enemies! There's quite a path to go after fighting Cid. So this next bit is a big pile of FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! I had to take down Greater Behemoths and a couple more of those robot centaurs. When the group finally finds a door, it leads to the "outside".
They come out of a building and find themselves at just a small point of a very large area. The area is littered with ruined buildings, and Vanille comments that the legends claim it to be a labyrinth of sorts. After all that, the group is kinda fed up with the place (as am I), and Sazh demands a way out of here. Thankfully, Snow comes around to give the group a speech to shut them up. He says that he's ready to face this challenge of theirs. He also admits that he didn't want to acknowledge Serah's Tear as a goodbye. Regardless of this, he's going to make Serah proud, even if he becomes a Cie'th! He believes they shouldn't blindly follow what their Focus is and instead do whatever it takes to defy the Focus and save Cocoon. Everybody's all "YEAH!" except for Fang...
Fang doesn't understand why they're all so willing to defend these people that hate them. She plans to do whatever it takes to get stronger and destroy Cocoon! Then her brand glows, and prettyness shoots out. We've got another Eidolon on our hands. It's a giant robot dragon thing, so I'll just assume it's Bahamut. Fang isn't very happy to see it though and says that the Eidolons are supposedly their "salvation". Basically, if they can't decide what to do, the Eidolons show up to eliminate them for good! Bahamut charges at Fang to attack her, but the group stands before her and defends her. She asks why they did it, and Lighting says that they protect their own and can do without this thing's kind of mercy. They aren't going to follow the fal'Cie and will fight their Focus until the very end! She asks Fang to join them, and it's BOSS BATTLE TIME! EIDOLON EDITION!
Fang is forced into the party, so I'm switched around to Vanille, Lightning, and Fang for my party. On the very first try, Bahamut kills me off in two hits. Yeah... That's not cool guys. Thankfully, my next attempt went a lot better because I figured out the strategy to use here. Just have Fang constantly defend as a Sentinel. This keeps him focused on her, and it builds up the Gestalt gauge as well. The only reason Fang (current main character) survived is because I defended! His attacks tended to have an area of effect, so he ended up killing Vanille twice during this small encounter. Lightning has the revive ability though, so it worked out overall. With Bahamut's "defeat", it changes into it's Gestalt form which is mostly just a regular dragon but with seats. For ease, I'm going to say it changed from standing human-ized dragon into dragon plane.
This Eidolon battle has renewed everybody's initiative. Snow tells them to keep focused on the path ahead and try to think of a way out of all this. They can do it! They'll get around their Focus and save Cocoon. Also, now a path has magically appeared and leading them towards the ground level of this place. (I think the Eidolon had something to do with it.) Before continuing too far, I looked into the datalogs to make sure I hadn't missed anything. (AKA the game decided I didn't need the details directly there.)
As it turns out, Cid Raines turning into a crystal wasn't a weird event although it was. He turned into a crystal because he fulfilled his wish as a human rather than his l'Cie Focus. Which is weird because I'm pretty sure that the rules clearly state Focus or Cie'th. Thus he worked his way around that by pure human will I guess. Honestly, I don't see how you could get that was what happened. It's really not remotely implied during the scene, but I assume they figure you can guess why things did what they did. Either way, I didn't catch it until I looked over the datalogs.
Back to the path at hand, it leads us down and straight to a Gran Pulse airship. Not far from that is a gateway that will take us straight to Gran Pulse. Sazh isn't happy with our current choices. We either stay here and do nothing or go down to Pulse. He does make one thing clear here though... Sazh is flying the ship! No automated nonsense this time. It's his job, and he will choose where it goes. There's really not any other good choice here, so the group agrees to head for Gran Pulse
Before they leave, the group talks about a few things. Since they're going to leave and not get back easily, Lightning asks Hope about his father. Hope says he's doing exactly what his dad wanted him to do. He's following through with the promise to do what he believes is right. This goes off into a speech of what Hope believes. He tells everyone that he won't believe the lies of the fal'Cie or their Focus. He's going to think and act with his own eyes now! Maybe he won't make all the right choices, but if he's the one making them, he can't really regret that. Now that we're all in, it's time to lift off and head through the gateway!
Yay! It's super pretty and fancy cutscene time! The airship is flying through the gateway and currently through a large colorful warp tunnel. As soon as it comes out the other end, we can see the beautiful world of Gran Pulse below. They don't get too long to relax though because suddenly, a dragon monster attacks our ship. This rips up part of the ship, and then Hope and Vanille fall out. Lightning and Fang go after them almost immediately. They realize partway down that they might need an actual flying craft to complete this rescue though. Fang brings out Bahamut to fly after them, and then the rest of the group jumps off their recently acquired airship because it's gone now. From here, it's just a big eyeful of Gran Pulse with Vanille narrating everything.
Vanille talks about how Gran Pulse is a place ruled through strength and trials. You gotta win to live and all that good stuff. The fal'Cie want to bring back a god because this world is in a mess, but will such a massive sacrifice really bring back the old glory? (Personally, I feel like no is the answer here.) I also get a glimpse at some of the massive monsters of Pulse. These monsters are so huge that they are getting eaten by monsters a hundred times bigger than them! (It makes sense in a way...) The Vanille narration lasted way longer than I'd have liked it to. She just kept going on and on... I stopped carrying about the details of the narration about 1/3rd of the way through. When she finally finishes up, we come back around to the group.
Apparently, some time has passed during that cutscene that went down. The group has been searching around for signs of other people. So far, they haven't found anybody, and they're running out of time. The only thing around here is ruins and lots of monster wildlife. The group is sorta relaxing for the night when Sazh's baby Chocobo comes around. It had went off with Hope to collect food, but now it's here without Hope. It's doing a whole "Lassie" bit here, and apparently only Vanille gets what it is saying. Hope's in trouble! We gotta go rescue him! Also, it's Chapter 11 now. However, his rescue is going to be delayed a little bit because I'm cutting the post off right here.
Sha-blam! I'm getting quite close to wrapping up Final Fantasy XIII. I'm finally down to Gran Pulse, and there's only three chapters left, including the current one). I'm getting so close to completing it that I can taste that unsatisfactory ending! I kid. I'll probably enjoy the ending, but this won't be the Final Fantasy I'm most attached to. I just gotta keep pushing, and I'll soon reach the end of this very long journey. A journey I've made last like 3-4 months longer than I should have. Either way, look forward to the climatic ending in probably two to three more posts. I've said enough for now though. /end post
The bigger problem here would be that there's a huge hunk of Pulse weapons cache that is hidden on Cocoon. Sazh is about to comment on how the people would freak out if this place were known to them, but Vanille interrupts and tells him that there is more to the story! Fang continues on to say that the Ark's had a secondary yet simpler purpose alongside being a massive armory. It was a place that would force l'Cie to master their new powers.
And so the pieces come together... The group believes that Dysley sent them here in order to strengthen them into stronger weapons. The group doesn't know what to think about this, but Hope says they should simply consider it good training for the fight ahead. As he says that, more robots appear to fight us! The group is all like "ruuuuuun!", but then I turn around and fight them immediately. They weren't hard, and I need the Crystal Points anyways. The next hour or more is just me adventuring through this wacky place.
The enemies here are fairly standard I guess, and I only ran into trouble a few times. The worst random game over I had was when I looked away to type something and then my team was dead. There are some weird blob monsters that can fuse together to create a bigger one with like ten times more health! (Seriously, that's way too big of a jump for just two combining.) Final Fantasy XIII has the "retry" feature though, so death is basically meaningless as far as I know. I went up against the super blob monster again and had no trouble because I knew what to expect.
After fighting through several monsters, I come to a very large room that makes itself known with a small scene. The group looks at these four giant robot centaurs standing in place. They wonder if these are also alive and what Sanctum could possibly be up to. Ah well, not like we can change anything here. I move forward to head through the room, and one of the robot centaurs jump in my way. Time to fight the big guys! OH YEAH!.... Turns out they're not that hard. I did get initiative on them, but I found out later that even without that, they're really not that hard.
As with most things in this game, it's more about time than difficulty. There are a few enemies that have surprised me with sudden "OH CRAP!" moves, but in the end, once you learn that, it's pretty much just a downhill fight from there. The next robot centaur I fought showed what was so special about him. As it turns out, their first move in battle is to summon up a sword ally. I didn't notice this while trying to fight it, and I just thought that it was kicking my butt somehow! Then I suddenly noticed the sword on the reset and realized what happened. On the positive side, as you try to stagger the sword, it reflects back onto the centaur as well. In a way, that makes the robot centaur easier!
I fought through a pretty good lot of enemies here. The area is kinda weird looking with its sewer-subway combination environment. I mean, it switches back and forth kind of at random. I don't think I've ever seen a real subway, so maybe that's how they really work? Anyways, we're heading through this crazy Ark and run right into Cid Raines for a little scene time. Snow seems okay that he's down here, but then Fang asks why he is down here, like Snow should have been wondering. Lightning rushes forward and starts attacking him. She calls him a traitor because... (Okay, maybe I'm slow, but I never really felt that it implied the following. APPARENTLY, Cid Raines gave us right to the big man himself. Maybe I missed that during the cutscene?) Either way, Lightning isn't happy about the situation.
Cid stops her attacks and reveals to the group that he's a l'Cie as well. (This game's answer to everything.) His Focus was to hand us over to the right place at the right time. He asks if they understand why he wanted to do it now. The fal'Cie have been watching them all this time and guiding them towards exactly what they wanted them to do. Basically, all those times that seemed like "luck" were actually just carefully orchestrated actions by these larger beings. Cid tells us that Barthandelus has been crafting them into weapons in order to destroy Cocoon. The group is all "Everything makes so much sense now! But... WHY?" Cid answers that question quite quickly. All of this is to restore THE MAKER!
So of course, someone asks who the Maker is. The Maker is the entity responsible for creating both humans and fal'Cie (their god if you will). Then everything goes into fancy history cutscene where Cid goes into more detail. Long ago, the Maker departed this world after leaving behind his two creations: humans and fal'Cie. Thus, in a way, humans and fal'Cie are much like brothers who have been left behind by the same parent. Humans, being of short life and all, quickly forgot the order imposed by the Maker and began to fight amongst themselves. Since this time, the fal'Cie have focused everything on trying to bring back the Maker and restore order and balance to the world. /end the history lesson for now
This very goal has guided all of their ways and actions up to this point. Calling the Maker back isn't easy though, and it requires a fitting sacrifice. The destruction of Cocoon and its entire populace has been created for this very sacrifice. Hope chimes in to ask the current good question for this situation. "Why don't the fal'Cie just kill everybody and end it all themselves?" Cid has the answer for this and is thankfully straightforward about it. The fal'Cie's existence is bound to the creation and maintenance of the Cocoon. Their nature sorta holds them in check and keeps them from (more or less) killing themselves. Since they can't destroy Cocoon, they've created tools to do so instead... the l'Cie.
Snow is quite angry to hear all of this, and he's mad at Cid for lying to them all this time. Didn't Cid want to restore Cocoon to the people as well!? Cid admits that it was a shadow of a dream from when he was just human. He craved change to make things happen, and when he finally had the influence to make those changes, it all fell apart. Even with all the power he needed at hand, he became a puppet who didn't have the will to wield that power. It wasn't the fal'Cie who changed...He did. (They talk all dramatically that I started losing the idea of what's going on here...) He might be a l'Cie, but he can't do anything because he's tied to Cocoon as a l'Cie. He just wanted his dreams of freedom to come true though, and Sazh inquired to what he meant here.
Cid reveals that he actually came down here by his own will and NOT by order of the fal'Cie. His plan is to defeat us all right here and stop the fal'Cie's plan. He plans to use all of his power to stop us! BOSS BATTLE TIME! For this fun engagement, I used Lightning, Snow, and Vanille. Cid transforms into some strange monstrous form that's all silvered and such. I dunno how to describe it, but he looks almost partially Cie'th now. Regardless, he is NOT here to hand the fight to me. That is for sure.
Cid is a l'Cie, so he seems to have the roles that we do. It names them differently, but he's using the same thing. His battle strategy is to switch his roles based on the ones we are currently using against them. Basically, he's doing his best to defend or offend against our Paradigm. The only ones I saw him do (and probably the only ones he has) are an Offensive mode where he starts beating on someone, defensive where he takes little damage and just sits there, and then there is a third mode where he just straight up heals himself. Thankfully, the healing was fairly weak, so it's just barely delaying the inevitable defeat. His defense simply means he takes less damage but isn't attacking, so again, this isn't really the problem with him. His offensive role is what made him difficult for me.
While going offensive, he deals out fairly strong attacks and does so in combos. I failed this battle two or three times before I figured out my ultimate strategy here. First and foremost, I kept one character (Snow in this case) in Sentinel mode as often as possible. Sentinels intimidate opponents and draw off their attacks while also defending and reducing the damage. Overall, I'd go ahead and say that it is the most useful role. Cid only has a couple area attacks, so he'll just stay busy striking the Sentinel for little damage. While he's busy there, I had my other two members (Lightning and Vanille) attacking to build his Stagger.
The three most useful Paradigms for me here was Diversity (Commando, Ravager, Medic), Solidarity (Commando, Sentinel, Medic), and Mystic Tower (two Ravagers and a Sentinel). However, if he ever fully defended, I switched to Relentless Assault (Commando and two Ravagers) to deal extra damage. Biggest thing is to always return to a Sentinel-included mode though. Otherwise, he gets off a few powerful attacks and things go bad fairly fast. At some point (damage or time...couldn't tell), he changes from his Cie'th-ish form into the same thing but with a set of 6 wings. When he does this, he gains a screen-wide blast everybody attack which deals decent damage.
After a couple of attempts at this battle, this attack was really the only problem here. Just kept switching between the four Paradigms I listed, and things went pretty well. If I had a final suggestion for this battle... be sure to have five or more of the items that cure Daze (makes it where you can't do any actions). When I finally managed to beat him, it took me around 12 minutes to do so. The game claimed I should have done it in 8 minutes, but I tried to look past that. I felt I did pretty well under the conditions. Of course, this big battle is followed by MORE SCENE!
Cid tells us that we should do what we think is right and not what we've been ordered to do. Then he turns into a crystal, but that doesn't really make any sense considering the conditions here. Snow is focused on his last words of "doing it our way", and the group heads out as crystal-ized Cid is beamed out of here. As we leave the arena, we run into an elevator and more enemies! There's quite a path to go after fighting Cid. So this next bit is a big pile of FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! I had to take down Greater Behemoths and a couple more of those robot centaurs. When the group finally finds a door, it leads to the "outside".
They come out of a building and find themselves at just a small point of a very large area. The area is littered with ruined buildings, and Vanille comments that the legends claim it to be a labyrinth of sorts. After all that, the group is kinda fed up with the place (as am I), and Sazh demands a way out of here. Thankfully, Snow comes around to give the group a speech to shut them up. He says that he's ready to face this challenge of theirs. He also admits that he didn't want to acknowledge Serah's Tear as a goodbye. Regardless of this, he's going to make Serah proud, even if he becomes a Cie'th! He believes they shouldn't blindly follow what their Focus is and instead do whatever it takes to defy the Focus and save Cocoon. Everybody's all "YEAH!" except for Fang...
Fang doesn't understand why they're all so willing to defend these people that hate them. She plans to do whatever it takes to get stronger and destroy Cocoon! Then her brand glows, and prettyness shoots out. We've got another Eidolon on our hands. It's a giant robot dragon thing, so I'll just assume it's Bahamut. Fang isn't very happy to see it though and says that the Eidolons are supposedly their "salvation". Basically, if they can't decide what to do, the Eidolons show up to eliminate them for good! Bahamut charges at Fang to attack her, but the group stands before her and defends her. She asks why they did it, and Lighting says that they protect their own and can do without this thing's kind of mercy. They aren't going to follow the fal'Cie and will fight their Focus until the very end! She asks Fang to join them, and it's BOSS BATTLE TIME! EIDOLON EDITION!
Fang is forced into the party, so I'm switched around to Vanille, Lightning, and Fang for my party. On the very first try, Bahamut kills me off in two hits. Yeah... That's not cool guys. Thankfully, my next attempt went a lot better because I figured out the strategy to use here. Just have Fang constantly defend as a Sentinel. This keeps him focused on her, and it builds up the Gestalt gauge as well. The only reason Fang (current main character) survived is because I defended! His attacks tended to have an area of effect, so he ended up killing Vanille twice during this small encounter. Lightning has the revive ability though, so it worked out overall. With Bahamut's "defeat", it changes into it's Gestalt form which is mostly just a regular dragon but with seats. For ease, I'm going to say it changed from standing human-ized dragon into dragon plane.
This Eidolon battle has renewed everybody's initiative. Snow tells them to keep focused on the path ahead and try to think of a way out of all this. They can do it! They'll get around their Focus and save Cocoon. Also, now a path has magically appeared and leading them towards the ground level of this place. (I think the Eidolon had something to do with it.) Before continuing too far, I looked into the datalogs to make sure I hadn't missed anything. (AKA the game decided I didn't need the details directly there.)
As it turns out, Cid Raines turning into a crystal wasn't a weird event although it was. He turned into a crystal because he fulfilled his wish as a human rather than his l'Cie Focus. Which is weird because I'm pretty sure that the rules clearly state Focus or Cie'th. Thus he worked his way around that by pure human will I guess. Honestly, I don't see how you could get that was what happened. It's really not remotely implied during the scene, but I assume they figure you can guess why things did what they did. Either way, I didn't catch it until I looked over the datalogs.
Back to the path at hand, it leads us down and straight to a Gran Pulse airship. Not far from that is a gateway that will take us straight to Gran Pulse. Sazh isn't happy with our current choices. We either stay here and do nothing or go down to Pulse. He does make one thing clear here though... Sazh is flying the ship! No automated nonsense this time. It's his job, and he will choose where it goes. There's really not any other good choice here, so the group agrees to head for Gran Pulse
Before they leave, the group talks about a few things. Since they're going to leave and not get back easily, Lightning asks Hope about his father. Hope says he's doing exactly what his dad wanted him to do. He's following through with the promise to do what he believes is right. This goes off into a speech of what Hope believes. He tells everyone that he won't believe the lies of the fal'Cie or their Focus. He's going to think and act with his own eyes now! Maybe he won't make all the right choices, but if he's the one making them, he can't really regret that. Now that we're all in, it's time to lift off and head through the gateway!
Yay! It's super pretty and fancy cutscene time! The airship is flying through the gateway and currently through a large colorful warp tunnel. As soon as it comes out the other end, we can see the beautiful world of Gran Pulse below. They don't get too long to relax though because suddenly, a dragon monster attacks our ship. This rips up part of the ship, and then Hope and Vanille fall out. Lightning and Fang go after them almost immediately. They realize partway down that they might need an actual flying craft to complete this rescue though. Fang brings out Bahamut to fly after them, and then the rest of the group jumps off their recently acquired airship because it's gone now. From here, it's just a big eyeful of Gran Pulse with Vanille narrating everything.
Vanille talks about how Gran Pulse is a place ruled through strength and trials. You gotta win to live and all that good stuff. The fal'Cie want to bring back a god because this world is in a mess, but will such a massive sacrifice really bring back the old glory? (Personally, I feel like no is the answer here.) I also get a glimpse at some of the massive monsters of Pulse. These monsters are so huge that they are getting eaten by monsters a hundred times bigger than them! (It makes sense in a way...) The Vanille narration lasted way longer than I'd have liked it to. She just kept going on and on... I stopped carrying about the details of the narration about 1/3rd of the way through. When she finally finishes up, we come back around to the group.
Apparently, some time has passed during that cutscene that went down. The group has been searching around for signs of other people. So far, they haven't found anybody, and they're running out of time. The only thing around here is ruins and lots of monster wildlife. The group is sorta relaxing for the night when Sazh's baby Chocobo comes around. It had went off with Hope to collect food, but now it's here without Hope. It's doing a whole "Lassie" bit here, and apparently only Vanille gets what it is saying. Hope's in trouble! We gotta go rescue him! Also, it's Chapter 11 now. However, his rescue is going to be delayed a little bit because I'm cutting the post off right here.
Sha-blam! I'm getting quite close to wrapping up Final Fantasy XIII. I'm finally down to Gran Pulse, and there's only three chapters left, including the current one). I'm getting so close to completing it that I can taste that unsatisfactory ending! I kid. I'll probably enjoy the ending, but this won't be the Final Fantasy I'm most attached to. I just gotta keep pushing, and I'll soon reach the end of this very long journey. A journey I've made last like 3-4 months longer than I should have. Either way, look forward to the climatic ending in probably two to three more posts. I've said enough for now though. /end post
Ending Point - Vallis Media - Base Camp.
Current Party -
Next Goals - Go rescue Hope. Figure out where to go next on Pulse.
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
Current Party -
- Lightning - Commando Lvl 3, Ravager Lvl 3, Medic Lvl 3.
- Snow - Commando Lvl 3, Ravager Lvl 3, Sentinel Lvl 3.
- Sazh - Commando Lvl 3, Ravager Lvl 3, Synergist Lvl 3.
Next Goals - Go rescue Hope. Figure out where to go next on Pulse.
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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