Game - Final Fantasy XIII, Day 91
Hours Played/Hours Total - 18-1/2 hrs / 57 hrs
Starting Point - Mah'habara - Dusktide Grotto.
Current Goal - Find Oerba. Save Cocoon. Beat the game.
WARNING! EXCESSIVELY LONG POST AHEAD!
I APOLOGIZE NOW FOR SUCH A LONG DARN POST.
What Happened - I'm so close now. I can almost taste the ending, and I'll be honest. It probably will not taste very good. However, the victory after the ending will taste glorious. It shall be the most glorious taste of victory since I finished... Anyways, I figure this post and maybe one more post, and then I shall be done! LET US CONTINUE THEN!
All right. We're trying to find Oerba, and then we go from there. They're hoping to find other people is one goal here, but they're also hoping that a solution to their brand problem just pops up out of nowhere. Where I left off and saved, there was a giant Pulse warbot waiting in front of me. Kinda the same type I had trouble with in the last Day post. In all honesty, it's part of the reason I stopped and saved here for the last post. Oh well! I have to fight it eventually... But I won't be going into details here. If you want more details of 'How I dealt with Pulse warbot", just look for it in the last Day post.
To summarize what happened though, I fight pretty defensively in this game, and it just doesn't like it. I took quite some time to beat the warbot, but the game claimed I should have done it in four minutes. How? I'll never know and probably never care. Moving through the next set of tunnels leads me into more and more robot baddies. I just fight them as they come and generally meet little resistance or challenge. Pause for lengthening effect.... and now I'm at a blocked off area. So of course we have a scene!
The group is wondering what to do now because the area is blocked off. Hope sees an abandoned Pulse warbot up top and decides to try another joyride. This takes him and the warbot straight off the nearby ledge. He's all fine and dandy, but now he's in the direct path of the fal'Cie digging all these tunnels. The group proceeds to be all "OH NO!", but things take a strange and happy turn before anything hits the fan. The Pulse warbot comes back to life and intercepts the fal'Cie. As that strangeness happens, more warbots come to aid their friend in stopping the fal'Cie. Eventually, they get the giant wrecking ball to stop entirely. The group is all excited because now we have a way out of here.
Being a giant ball, I wasn't sure how they planned to ride it out of here. That's quickly answered when the group goes to board him though. The central part of him opens up, and they can ride inside somehow. (Random note reminder, this fal'Cie is Atomos.) They board him, and then a short time later they are at their destination. There was no fancy cutscene or nothing taking place, and it just took me straight where the group wanted to go. I am able to ride him back to the previous destination as well, so I can go back for more missions or leveling up.
I don't get too far along when more scene ahead! Snow is looking at Serah's crystal tear, and Vanille asks him what he is doing. He says he was talking to Serah and telling her how everything will be okay. Then Vanille looks at the tear, and flashback time! (Haven't had any of these in a while...) It's Day 9. It seems that on this day, Vanille met Serah. They start talking about things, and these two look waaay too similar. The biggest difference is like hair color, hairstyle, and clothes. Beyond that, pretty much the same person. Back to what happened, they start talking about their problems. Vanille asks Serah about keeping things from people to protect them. Serah gives her great advice here and says that keeping the truth from people tend to make things worse. Even if she thinks it would help and/or protect them, it'll probably just make things worse. Vanille is all okay! But we all know that she kinda did it anyways. The flashback ends, Snow is surprised to hear that Vanille previously met Serah, and that's about it for the scene.
It's just a short walk from Atomos until I'm in a random water area. We met the fal'Cie Bismarck here, but we have no interaction with him beyond seeing him. Also the area is littered with water enemies (obviously), and I'd like to say screw these frogs! Just annoying as all get out they are. I fight all the enemies here and then quickly move past this cave and straight to outside place! It's pretty cutscene time now! Lightning and Snow have a talk about seeing Serah again once everything is said and done. Lightning also has Snow recommit to his marriage vows here because that's totally the most important issue right now. I completely care about THAT happening. (Sorry, it felt random and oddly placed to me.) Ah well! The cutscenes in this game are quite gorgeous even when I don't care about the contents.
It's just a little further down this path, and we find ourselves in front of a huge tower. Well, it's more like half a tower. The other half is mostly severed from it and leaning away. (Like this /| ) Vanille and Fang seem to recognize this tower and say that Oerba is just on the other side of it. Unfortunately, this broken tower is also home to the giant flying fal'Cie from back there in the plains (named Dahaka). Before heading to the tower though, I pick up a quick monster mission nearby. Honestly, the only reason I did it was because it's a Cie'th stone that can teleport me. This way I have an easy way to move around if I want to later. After that monster is quickly beaten (nothing noteworthy), I find a nearby tunnel and am now inside the tower... TAEJIN'S TOWER!
This tower is all mystical and glowy. That's all I really have to say here about it. It's kinda a weird mixture between "ye old tower" and "ye futuristic look". I'm just walking along and exploring when strange voices start talking to everybody. Turns out, it's a nearby statue talking with the group. Of course, it's speaking to them telepathically, so I don't get to directly hear it. The statue warns the group about venturing further up this tower. If we aren't careful, we'll bring down the wrath of the fal'Cie living here. This is our my only way to continue the game though, so I don't really have a choice here. Then the group asks the statue for help, and it just immediately gives in. It opens up a path so that we can continue up the tower. (That was easy...)
The first thought I had as soon as I began exploring the tower is how much it reminds me of the tower from FFXII. (The one in
this post.) I'm going to hope right now that it isn't nearly as long or puzzle-y though because I am ready to finish this game! What the statue actually did was change the tower around so that we could go up via a very convenient and easy-to-use elevator. That's quite nice of it. I look around the first floor for any items and then quickly proceed upwards. To the second floor!
The second floor reveals what the entirety of this tower ends up being. It's nothing like the FFXII one. Sure that was a long journey through that tower, but it was challenging and kinda puzzle-y. This on the other hand was a straight line walk for cake. Anyways, after reaching the second floor, we almost immediately meet with the "tower's master". He throws an attack our way and blasts open the nearby wall for us. This leads to a living statue thing, and now climbing this tower isn't nearly as straightforward. On the current floor, there are three statues, and each one has a "task" for me to complete.
All of these tasks are just monster missions though, so they aren't very hard or complicated. The first monster was a giant flan called Gelatitan. No major notes here because preemptive strike basically defeated it. The next mission was against an air conditioner robot, Ambling Bellows. This battle was quite a bit harder than the previous one. It's one big robot plus a couple small ones to help him out. This fight is mostly tricky because the big one is able to coordinate the small ones. On top of that, the big one has a pretty strong attack as well. Even with the challenge though, I was still able to beat him without too much trouble.
Next up on the trio of missions was the final mission to kill an armored lizard (armadillon) called Gurangatch. I managed a preemptive strike and killed him super fast and easy though. With all three monster missions complete, it's time for us to move on up. There was a fire blocking our path before, but now it magically disappears! So that's what the statues did for me, they put out a fire. Yaaay... I go to leave this floor when the fal'Cie comes back around for round two. Thankfully, I've got a group of colossal living statues on my side! They teleport in and show that fal'Cie who is the boss here. They slice off a portion of its tail, and it runs off without its tail between its legs.
Yay! We weren't jipped by those statues and their missions! With the fal'Cie chased off, we're able to continue onwards. After fighting a few more enemies, we find another colossus who opens the elevator up. And thus we have the "puzzle" portion of this tower. Puzzle is in parenthesis because that's not really a puzzle. It's more like a mobile switch taped to an animal you gotta capture. This pattern of elevators and unlocking elevators through monster missions continues throughout the entire tower. I could go into detail, but it's really not worth anybody's time. So... SUPER JUMP!
Before reaching the top of the tower though, I did fight one interesting monster along the way. It's a Cie'th type monster that starts off normally, but then it can raise a barrier to make itself immune to physical attacks. The barrier goes down whenever you stagger it though, so... I guess it's really not that interesting. It's just another "STAGGER IT!" scenario. I really only brought it up because it's a monster mission. This is followed by a fairly pitiful mission against Cie'th bats. With those missions done though, another set of statues opens up another elevator pathway. As we go to get on the elevator, the fal'Cie drops back in for Round Three! The statues intervene once again though and send it packing.
From here, it's just a couple more checkpoints and then I'm at... THE APEX! Up here, I get to meet the fal'Cie in BOSS BATTLE TIME! The fal'Cie, Dahaka, is quite scary looking when it has stopped and transformed into its battle mode. It's got a weird half-body with massive red eyes. Beyond the scary look, I can't really give anything else to this battle. It wasn't a challenge at all. I just kept switching between my basic Paradigms (Bully, Solidarity, Mystic Tower, Aggression). Pretty much just jumping between attacking and healing. I did a bit of buffing and debuffing with the Bully Paradigm, but I almost didn't need it. The boss was pretty slow and adding the Slow status on top of that just made him that much slower.
Honestly, there's nothing truly notable about this boss. With his defeat, he disappears into nothingness, and I get to question his actual existence in the first place. Anyways, we are successful! That fal'Cie is finally out of the way and won't be bothering me anymore. An elevator appears on the broken top half of the tower, so we have a way down. Also, one of the statues makes an appearance. It thanks us for defeating the fal'Cie and leaves to fight more evil in the world. Of course, before I head down the elevator, I get to have another lovely scene. The group looks out from the tower to see Oerba. Unfortunately, the area where Oerba was doesn't appear very lively anymore. It used to be all pretty and colorful (according to Vanille and Fang), but the current sight looks just like white and plain. It's not a good sign, but we've come this far. And so the group pushes on!
We jump on the nearby elevator and head down to the ground area of Oerba. They said before that it was a colorful area, but the current spot we dropped into looked like a snowy wasteland. Of course, the snow turned out to be crystal dust/ash that was dropping down from Cocoon. Just a short distance from the elevator drop off, we walk right into Oerba. Unfortunately, it is just a ghost town now whose only inhabitants are Cie'th. I explore the town while fighting off the hordes of Cie'th that live here. While exploring, I discover a random robot dog... Vanille seems to know the thing quite well though. (How did it survive hundreds of years!?!) The little robot waited all this time just to say goodbye. After that though, it craps out, but Sazh says he can repair it if we find a few spare parts. Mini quest time!
Aaaand it's already over! There was only five parts to collect, and they were all around town except one. I had to kill a Cie'th to collect the final part. This small quest only takes like a brief amount of time (30 minutes at worst) to complete, and it's more than worth the minimal effort to complete it. Upon returning all the parts, Sazh repairs the robot dog, and the dog rewards us with a pile of items! You get several weapon improvement items and a couple items to sell. Again, it's more than worth the effort required, so I'd highly suggest doing it. Just selling the premium items nets you a nice 500,000+ gil! Anyways, with the mini quest out of the way, nothing left to do but push straightforward from here.
This takes me out of Oerba and onto a random railway that leads to nowhere because it's all broken up. I dunno why the group/game figured this looked like the best place to go, but that's where I need to go. We head out to the very end of the rails and find Serah waiting for us... Of course, I'm already super suspicious because she's supposed to be a crystal right now. She's talking oddly though, and it's pretty obvious that this isn't actually Serah. It fooled Lightning and Snow though. (Fun fact, this "Serah" revealed Lightning's real name to be Claire.) Then the fake Serah reveals her true identity... Barthandelus! Considering that "Serah" just hugged Snow, this is kinda awkward if you ask me. The characters glide past this though because BARTHANDELUS!
Barthandelus has appeared before us to gloat about his master plan. He has been busy putting a plan into motion in order to destroy Cocoon. He has revived Cid Raines and appointed him as the new Primarch. The idea behind this is to plant the seeds of doubt and anger amongst the Cavalry. They'll believe their former leader has turned on them and will lash out at him. While this is going on, he will spread fear among the population with Pulse paranoia and cause them all to freak out. This will lead everybody to slaughter themselves. On top of all this, he also plans to lead the Cavalry straight to Orphan in order to destroy it. MWAHAHA! (This was actually the after explanation and shortened version of what he said.) The group isn't about to just let it happen though, so it's BOSS BATTLE TIME! BARTHANDELUS EDITION!
The big guy is back, and he's ready to get beaten again! This battle isn't quite like the last time we fought him though. He's fused with his robotic owl friend to become his super ultimate white-silver form! (Pokemon fans joke - IT'S THE SHINY VERSION!) I'd be all "oh no!", but this new upgrade doesn't really change anything. The biggest difference is that he's just a single target now, and you can't target the headdress heads to eliminate their attacks. Each head just sits there and shoots lasers. They aren't devastating attacks, but you have four heads shooting fairly often.... It adds up. As with a majority of the recent boss battles, this is just a Paradigm juggling match.
I managed this battle in 18 minutes with the following strategy of Paradigms. (FYI, the game wanted 12.) I used Solidarity for healing (Commando, Medic, Sentinel), Bully for buffing/debuffing (Commando, Synergist, Saboteur), Mystic Tower to build up a stagger (Sentinel and two Ravagers), then round off that stagger with Aggression (two Commandos and a Ravager). In all honesty, my method works but isn't incredibly effective speed-wise.
Using the previously listed Paradigms though, I did come out ahead. That's the strategy for the battle, but this is how the battle actually went. It was mostly a back and forth between beating his face in then buffing and healing to begin the next round. He tends to throw debuffs on the group, but healing and buffing eliminates those pretty fast. Beyond that, most of his attacks aren't too much trouble. However, I found it best to keep your health up at all times (at least half if your buffed, probably full if you aren't), so that he doesn't instantly destroy you with "Thanatosian Laughter." That attack blasts you for 2,000+ damage without trying. And that's really all I have to add on that.
With his second defeat, I unlock more of the Crystarium and proceed into the next scene. Barthandelus fal'Cie form dissolves, and then his human form reappears. He tells us that the time is right now and provides us his robot owl as an airship. So... he's giving the group a free ride (again) back to Cocoon. WHY WOULD THEY TAKE THIS OFFER FROM HIM? Seriously, this guy has manipulated their actions the entire time, and they basically just walk into it every time. There are times that they know it is what he wants, and yet they still go ahead and do it. As his parting words, he reminds us that Ragnarok will release them all into a world of peace.
Oh look! A random Cie'th stone pops up, so the group approaches it. They mention how it wasn't here before, and now that it is, it must mean something. Vanille approaches it directly, and now I get a lengthy message out of it. It's a history lesson that tells about past events on Pulse. It tells of how Ragnarok came about to destroy Cocoon the first time, but it failed because of a betrayer named Barthandelus. Now it awaits another Ragnarok to destroy Cocoon for good, and then it keeps going into a longer bit that's pretty much all lore. I don't really care about it though, and it went by pretty fast. So...back to the group!
The group is unsure of what to do now. They have a decision to make, and that decision will affect the rest of the world. They can either give up completely on breaking free of their Focus and become Ragnarok. Of course, if that happens, they'll destroy Cocoon and everybody living on it. The group seems to consider this, but since the entire game has been about breaking free of this... Snow suggests another option. They could go and get Dysley (Barthandelus) and protect Orphan instead of destroying it. Lightning disagrees with this because she figures someone will just try to destroy Orphan later. The problem is the fal'Cie constantly pushing to destroy Orphan and Cocoon to bring back the Maker. The group don't believe they have the power to stop the war and everything else. Thankfully, Hope comes around to give an inspirational speech (again).
Hope reminds Lightning that she told him something back there. It's not about can or can't. They need to just do. And that's enough to inspire the group to return to Cocoon and stop the war. Vanille adds in that she once wished for Cocoon to remain safe always, but she realizes now it isn't about wishing or prayers. She's going to make a promise to keep it safe. (Because slightly different wording makes all the difference!) So it is decided, we're going to do exactly as Barthandelus wanted and return to Cocoon! Because that guy is a straight shooter and would never trick us into doing things we didn't plan to. (le sarcasm)
Now we just need a real quick and simplified review of what lies ahead. Barthandelus revived Cid Raines and made him Primarch. This draws out the Cavalry to overthrow the government. On top of this, he's using Pulse-phobia to get the common people to freak out. The final cog in his plan is to lead the Cavalry straight into Eden. They'll happen upon Orphan and destroy it without realizing what they've done. The group plans to return to Cocoon and stop all of this from going down.
However, I have a choice to make now. Do I head straight for Cocoon and wrap up FFXIII? OR do I head back out into Pulse and take care of some side stuff first? Monster Missions are all that's really available here, but considering I don't plan to come back to XIII, I figure I might as well get what I can out of it. So I head back into Pulse and scrounge up a few monster missions! I'm not planning to do a lot of them though, so don't get your hopes up. (There are 64. Screw that.)
Since most of the missions aren't overly hard or need description, this part of my log will be pretty short and to the point. Of the missions I already had completed (didn't make a count but at least 20), I only added seven more missions to the list of completed. I spent quite some time doing that though, and it ended up extending my time more than I meant. Anyways, the marks I went around and beat weren't anything to really go on about. However, I did unlock one interesting thing along the way... Chocobos!
Chocobos allow you to ride around the main Pulse area at a much faster rate than normal. However, you can't fight battles while on a Chocobo, and every time you run into an enemy, the chocobo loses morale. Three strikes and the Chocobo is out. It is a pretty fast method of travel though, and it allows you to access a few areas you couldn't before. It's faster than on foot but of course not as instant as teleporting. It's a good midway to getting around the place though. And with that, I'm tired of Pulse. Only seven missions completed, and I'm ready to wrap up this game. I head back to Oerba and take the airship back up to Cocoon.
Can someone say... FANCY CUTSCENE TIME??? The airships flies up and into the air, and then it heads straight for a warp gate. They disappear, and now we change over to Cocoon. Inside Cocoon, Cid Raines is giving a speech from his place in Eden. He's addressing the people about something, but yet the speech is being given before some fancy big race. It was a very strange time and place for it. It was a very serious tone of speech and all before some race. The race begins, the hoverbike people start moving, but then the group's airship appears in the sky! Honestly, this was a pretty cool cutscene. I will describe it here, but I'm not doing it justice. You should look up a video if you are truly interested.
The group is thrown out of their airship, and they all land on the track. Snow is showing off, but then a camera catches a glimpse of his l'Cie brand. People freak out, so then soldiers come out to fight us. The group starts bringing out their Eidolons here and dealing out damage with the business end of the stick. It's cool to see the Eidolons in full action right now, and pretty much everyone gets at least twenty seconds on screen. There is shooting and explosions and fighting abound! Snow rides Shiva around and ices up the track. Hope stops a couple soldiers with Alexander. Vanille fails to accomplish anything but then is saved by Sazh in his racecar. Lightning gets the most screentime with Odin of course, and Fang just flies around on Bahamut. All the awesome comes to a halt though when Lighting (aboard Odin) runs into BOSS BATTLE TIME!
She ran into a big robot scorpion, and now I get to deal with it. The battle opens with Lightning in Gestalt mode on Odin. I get to go crazy and beat the crap out of it, but then I run out of time with only half the bosses health gone. And that... turned out to be a mistake. The mistake was that I didn't get it further down, because the rest of the battle went awful. With the Eidolon gone, I'm thrown into battle with the party of Lightning, Snow, and Vanille. (Not the awful part) The boss has a lovely attribute of being "temporarily" invulnerable. Now my definition of "temporarily" generally involves a time factor that's quite short. However, the game's definition of temporarily is "Must be staggered in order to damage". That wouldn't have been so bad, but it took FOREVER to build up the stagger on this guy. I spent around 3 to 5 minutes building up a stagger here, and when I finally got it, the robot went down in no time. The cherry on top of all this crap? The end results screen said I should have finished this battle in under a minute... I can only assume that means the Eidolon should have been able to finish it off, but I wasn't even close. OH WELL! That's done. Let's move on.
With the battle done, it's scene time! That little battle was just a small preview of what is to come. Suddenly, the shit hits the fan, and Barthandelus makes good on his word. All around Eden, warp gates open up, and Pulse starts leaking in all over. By "Pulse", I mean that Pulse monsters, Cie'th, and Pulse warbots starting coming in from every direction. They're attacking and destroying, and things are not looking good. We jump back to Cid Raines again, and he's watching over the city as it burns. One of his guards come in to tell him that they need to evacuate right now. Unfortunately, the Cavalry has just arrived! (Ba-dump-bump) They're here to play their part in what they believe is their goal, but it's all just a big setup by the fal'Cie. Regardless, the Cavalry questions Cid for why he did it, but it seems Cid doesn't care anymore. And then... they shoot him in the face. Cid Raines is now dead.
Going back to the main group, they're all freaking out because "BARTHANDELUS'S PREDICTION WAS RIGHT MAN!" Unfortunately, they don't seem to realize that what he has done is less of prediction and more of him making it happen. The group is super predictable, and he has orchestrated everything so that the pieces fall together. (Barty just scored a big ol' TETRIS!) It's now up to our favorite l'Cie group to stop everything from falling apart. Also, it's now officially Chapter 12. One more chapter after this and it will all be done. Let's go go go!
We fight a few monsters but then reach a dead end with a scene. Oh no! There's nowhere for the group to go but...DOWN! Whatever shall they do? As it turns out, they were randomly prepared for this somehow. Remember waaaay back at the beginning? Lightning made a daring jump but turned out to have a fancy gravity device. That little thing is finally coming back into play here, but now everybody in the group has one. Yay for highly unlikely! The group all takes the leap of faith and heads to the next area. This transfers to another scene, and the group gets to fight through more enemies.
The group is chasing after the Cavalry because they need to stop them before they unintentionally encounter Orphan. If we don't get ahead of them, they could destroy Orphan and in turn kill everybody here. They are not very hopeful of their success, but they still push forward with more vigilance than before. We fight a few enemies while running down this messed up highway (monsters and junk). We make it to the end of the road and more scene! A ship lands down in front of the group, and it turns out that Rosch is alive. Seriously, this guy should be dead now, but he isn't. So props to Rosch for surviving all this time!
Now, Rosch is all "I WILL STOP YOU GUYS BECAUSE YOU CAUSED THIS!" The group responds with "But we're here to stop this mess!" Rosch almost seems to believe them, but then he comes out and says that he can't trust the l'Cie anymore than he can trust the fal'Cie. It's up to humans to change things around here! He goes back into his big fancy robot ship, and now it's BOSS BATTLE TIME! Rosch brings to the field the demon-esque airship called the Proudclad. It's pretty evil looking for a robot plane, but beyond that, it was not a very impressive boss. I'm not even going to go into details here because it only took me two and a half minutes. Of course, that battle isn't the true defeat of Rosch. The ship is damaged, and it flies off after the battle.
Vanille comments on why they aren't willing to work together when the guy seemed fairly clear about it all. Fang explains that their fear has driven the people to disbelieve and be blinded, even when the truth is in front of them. The group decides to keep going because only they can do it! (Seriously, how many times can these guys question their ability to do it? We're mere hours from the end!) Anyways, the game hits me with a big "screw you" almost immediately after that super easy boss battle. I finally get to fight one of the giant Pulse turtles, and that thing ends up being ten times harder than THE PROUDCLAD!
I have no idea what their thought process was here, but basically, this massive turtle just stomps on the ground and does a huge amount of damage per stomp (like 600-900). It stomps with quite some speed too, so you are quickly hit three or four times before you can do anything. It managed to kill me four or five times before I finally came out ahead. I don't really have any suggestions to offer here. You just have to work quickly and keep your health up. With that jerk out of the way, it's time to continue through this war ravaged town.
Walking through Eden right now is basically like walking through a large battle. There is a lot of fighting going on between the Cocoon forces and the various Pulse monsters and warbots. There's generally enough room that you can run around many of the enemies, but a few of them are placed in such a way so that they are unavoidable. I'm tired of distractions though, so I do avoid what I can while making my way through Eden. I finally hit a wall (literally), but then I'm met with a scene. The group isn't sure how to get past this wall when suddenly it opens right up for us. OH LOOK! IT IS SNOW'S FRIENDS FROM CHAPTER 1!
What's that? You don't remember the NORA people from earlier? How could you not! They're all super important and very relevant characters to the story. I'll overlook that for now and continue onwards. (end sarcasm) It's like they're getting an easter egg guest appearance near the end of the game! Seriously, this is the ONLY other appearance that these guys get. Maybe I missed some super special secret cutscene, but otherwise, this is pretty much it. Snow's friends are disappointed with him for not finding them earlier. Even with his l'Cie status, they haven't abandoned Snow.
We insert a little happy fun reunion time! *pause* Now we insert the sudden realization that there is still a war going on around them. The NORA group promises to rescue people as they can, and the two groups part never to meet again. So as far as it is concerned, the NORA crew got like 20 minutes of total airtime throughout the entire game. Their impact on the game is completely nonexistent, and unless they appear in future titles, I got nothing else to say about them.
With the NORA crew out of the way, we continue on in our journey to stop the Cavalry from messing things up. I fought whatever enemies I had to and avoided the rest. Once again, I'm ready to wrap this dang game up, so I'm avoiding whatever I can. We finally make it to the center of Eden (I think?), and this is supposedly where we shall find... Eden. (Because having the city's name and the fal'Cie's name as the same is NOT confusing.) This leads off into a scene though, and there appears to be a weird crystal-yness in the air. The group wonders what it is, but then Barthandelus reappears to gloat right to our faces. He's just putting the finishing touches on things in preparation for the Maker. The Cavalry will soon destroy Orphan and start the process. The group could stop the Cavalry, but they'd have to kill them! MWAHAHA! Then he flies off to the top of the tower in front of us and dares us to give chase. Of course, I do give chase.
I run forward and another door scene! Thankfully, this is actually pretty short and no actual scene attached. Yay! A bit further forward from here, and then we get an actual scene. The group is all "EDEN LIES AHEAD! ALSO ORPHAN!" Because repeating things I already know is super awesome. Apparently the designers thought I'd get lost and forget everything if they didn't remind me with a new scene every twenty minutes. If that was even remotely their thoughts, then why do the datalogs? Whatever, it's too late to question stupidness at this point. The worst part is that my current spot and the room's exit is separated by like a dozen enemies. Uuuuugh, I'm so ready to be done with this. I fight through what I have to, and then we reach another scene. (This one isn't just repeating information though.)
The group is approaching the center of the area and suddenly there's a flash of light. Next thing we know, all of the Sanctum soldiers ahead of us have now been changed into Cie'th! So...that happened. I charge straight through the Cie'th there and scene! There's dead Cie'th all about and a broken down robot. OH NOES! THE ROBOT ISN'T DEAD! BOSS BATTLE TIME! As it turns out, the robot is actually the Proudclad. It's back to show me what the business is, and I gotta say that this was one of the hardest boss battles for me. (What I'm trying to say is be prepared for a long explanation of how I went about it.)
Now, the hardest part of this battle was the factor that the Proudclad constantly changed between two forms. Why? Because whenever it changed form, it resets the stagger gauge. The battle is just a constant back and forth between the Proudclad's ground crab form with a laser and its previous flying demon form with missiles. You have to work very quickly, or you lose a good portion of the work you just did (stagger-wise). You can't debuff the Proudclad, so you have to work with buffing your party as much as you can. And the absolute worst thing that happened in this battle (and really pissed me off) was when he hit half health.
At half health, the Proudclad goes into SUPER mode and fully heals... Because I totally love wasting the previous several minutes just beating him down for it to all come back. This "SUPER" mode comes with a defense weakness, but he attacks faster and stronger now, so it's a big "screw you" right in the middle of the battle. Before I get into the strategy, I should let you know that despite me calling it "the hardest battle for me", I managed to beat it on like my 3rd/4th try. I almost always got screwed over when the robot was reaching its impending death. You just have to be cautious... Now it's time to share what my general strategy was!
Like all of the battles in the game, the stagger is the key. Staggering the boss keeps him from switching modes, and it allows you to deal a good chunk of damage to him. The problem with this boss versus others though is its stagger gauge resetting whenever it changes forms. Biggest thing is just to keep after the boss and be relentless. After my first couple of failures, I quickly learned that Sentinel and Saboteur were both completely worthless for the battle. The Proudclad doesn't really focus on a defending enemy, and it can't be debuffed. Thus I won't say anymore there. As for the Paradigms I used... I found the following useful.
- Aggression (2 Commandos, 1 Ravager)
- Relentless Assault (2 Ravagers, 1 Commando)
- Diversity (1 Ravager, 1 Commando, 1 Medic)
- Strike Team (2 Commandos, 1 Synergist)
- Hero's Charge (1 Commando, 1 Synergist, 1 Medic)
- Discretion (2 Medics, 1 Commando)
For the battle at hand, I didn't make much use of Hero's Charge or Discretion, but I feel they're both good to have on hand juuuust in case. Keep in mind! The team I've been using (since like forever ago) is Lightning, Hope, and Fang. So... just something to keep in mind.
The first thing I'd suggest is to immediately stagger the Proudclad, but don't use the entire stagger to hurt him. Instead, use some of that stunned time to buff up your team as much as possible. Haste is basically the win button at this point, so sprinkle that all over. Protect and Brave really help here, but Shell and Faith are also good I guess. Whenever he isn't staggered, I just lay on with Relentless Assault to build up the stagger. Once staggered, I go all out with Aggression since both Fang and Lightning have better physical attacks. (Also Fang didn't have Ravager...)
From my experience, it's best to keep your team almost always at or near full HP. If you are in the green, you should be fine, but just keep it up regardless of how close you might be. I seriously died to this guy at least twice when I was in the home stretch. If your buffs drop, just switch over and re-apply them as fast as you can. The Proudclad can easily decimate you if you let your guard down. You just have to keep after the guy and don't relent for any reason other than buffing again. If you let those falls, things will get messy. In all honesty, this point of the game is pretty much just "set up your best group of Paradigms, fight battles while constantly switching among them". That's not just boss battles either, that's every battle.
Anyways, after several failures, I managed to come out ahead! Not just come out ahead either, I managed to beat the guy in FOUR MINUTES AND THIRTY SECONDS! GO ME! (Apologies, I was very proud of my time on this since I normally take like double the allowed for time.) With its second defeat, the ship blows up for good, and Rosch crawls out of the wreckage somehow. That dude just doesn't know how to quit. He asks about his men, and the group gestures to the dead Cie'th lying around. As he looks around, he decides to come clean about something.
Rosch knew about the fal'Cie's horrible ways all this time. He went along with all the mass murdering because he felt that it and the fal'Cie were best for Cocoon's present and future. However, he's finally realized the errors of his ways and tries to make amends. It seems he is the highest ranking member of PSICOM and the Guardian Corps currently, and he puts out an order. He asks that all remaining PSICOM and Guardian Corps personnel to halt all operations and evacuate all of the citizens. With his final order given, he asks that the l'Cie go and save Cocoon now. The group walks past the very much injured Rosch and continue into the heart of Eden. Snow tells Rosch to live and that they will see him again. The group passes through a gateway, and then it closes behind them. It looks like for a moment that Rosch would survive, but then... A pair of Behemoths appear, and Rosch pulls out a grenade to stop them. EXPLOSION! And Rosch is very much dead this time.
No point standing around! Rosch blew himself up so that we could complete our task. Complete it we shall... Probably one of the few GOOD characters in this game just blew up. Anyways, we take the elevator ahead of us and it leads us straight into Edenheart. The place we come out into looks like a fancy chapel, but it's all full of Cie'th! We don't see the Cavalry anywhere, and then the place changes into a strange cyberspace-y area. And we are now in Orphan's Cradle. Also there's a good chance that those Cie'th are what was left of the Cavalry. The best part right now? CHAPTER XIII! IT IS THE FINAL CHAPTER! WOO! Let's do thiiiiis!
Before moving on though, I hit up the datalogs to see what all I missed that wasn't actually stated. First off, the area we're in (Orphan's Cradle) is the area where Eden processes all of the data used to keep Cocoon running. It's manifested around the group into a physical world that's also partially a dream state. Also, Barthandelus never intended for the Cavalry to make it here. He simply used that statement as bait to trick the group into coming here. (Feels weird that it's allowing me to read this now. Seems like this shouldn't pop up until later...) Well, we're stuck here for now, so there's nowhere to go but...up I guess?
Of course, the group has to be careful, or they'll step right into Barthandelus's plans (again). It seems he is confident at this point that someone will break, lose hope, and become Ragnarok. If they become Ragnarok, Orphan will be destroyed, and Barty's massively long and complex scheme will finally come around. We don't get too far in Orphan's Cradle when things start to change around. We walk to the furthest point and are greeted by three magical ladies. There's a white one, black one, and a golden one. They conjure up a couple fancy portals and then disappear.
As per general end area rules, I get to go through "the challenges" before I get to face the final big wig. Also, those portals that were conjured are so I can return to Pulse or Cocoon for training. Of course, as stated SEVERAL times throughout, I'm ready to finish the game. I doubt I'll need anymore training anyways, so I walk away from the portals and head further inside.
My first impression is that there's not too much going on here. There's enemies scattered about, and there's a couple items to collect here and there. Nothing super special so far though. I run into one of the magical ladies from earlier, and she immediately teleports away while also summoning a moving platform so I can follow her. I work my way around the place and then run into one of the other magical ladies. She changes up the area and then teleports away. Basically, the specialty of Orphan's Cradle is a fancy game of tag. Yaaay... Tag! You're it magical lady! She warps the group away and right into BOSS BATTLE TIME!
For this round, I get to fight a super-powered and revised version of an earlier boss. (The weird plant-y behemoths from waaay near the middle of the game.) My first attempt at this battle did NOT go well. Seeing as there are two targets, I tried focusing on one to kill it. However, whenever you attack one, the other one just sits around and heals it. I might be typing this calmly, but at the time, I was VERY angry at the fight. I wasn't having any luck with the fight, so I ended up looking up a guide. The guide claimed that it was an easy fight, and that I should have no problems here. (I call lies here.)
As it turned out, I was just making a slightly (but completely game changing) bad decision. The only strategy to offer here is to physically attack the "Jabberwocky". It's funny though. The Jabberwocky is immune to magic, but it's insanely weak to all of the elements. The only way to accomplish this is the elemental strikes or using the En-style magic buffs. (Haven't mentioned them ever because haven't had much use for them. Basically, it powers your weapon with whatever element and causes your attacks to take that type.) If you just keep after it with physical strikes and physical elemental strikes, it dies pretty quickly.
Once you eliminate one of the two monsters, the rest of the battle is pretty easy though. With the "Jabberwocky" gone, it's time to focus on the "Bandersnatch". (SERIOUSLY, What the heck is with these awful names?) This one is sorta the opposite of its brother. It's immune to physical attacks, so I have to go the magical route here. However, even with the maximum power (Group is Faith'd up, and it has been Deshell'd), I'm doing basically no damage to it. Even after staggering it, my damage to it really doesn't get very high. Thus... It's just a time suck at this point. After time and effort, I put the second wood behemoth in its grave. The battle ends, we return to the main area, and the group marches forward into a scene.
They're pretty much tired of the area already, and they're starting to question themselves. Hope points out that this is part of Barthandelus's plan though! He wants us to lose our faith here and then fall right back into completing our Focus. Hope's speech inspires the group to wise up and continue on! Of course, Fang seems to be standing aside from all this, and she seems the most likely to screw it all up. She stays behind for a moment, but Vanille gets her to tag along and stick with the group. This is all followed up quickly by the magic lady tagging out to one of her sisters. It teleports to a spot ahead of us, and we get to continue the game of tag. The one where the group is always it.
When we came back from the boss fight, we came into a new area/floor of Orphan's Cradle. It's a massive circular area, and I'm not quite sure where to go. I found out pretty quickly that the center doesn't take you forward though. Unfortunately, that was after I had to fight what was essentially a mid-boss. I won't go into details, but it's an upgraded robot centaur. The battle was a very close fight, and I just barely avoided losing in the end. Screw robot centaurs and their sword summonings! I was glad that I managed to win, but that just opened up a portal back to the top. Super glad I wasted my time there.
From there, I head along the outer ring and fight through some pretty hard encounters along the way. Basically, the area is littered with all powered-up enemies, but they're also increasing the numbers of them as I go. Each battle is basically a small boss battle and even uses the boss battle music. When I finally get past everything, it's TAG! YOU'RE IT MAGIC LADY! But she doesn't want to be it, so she teleports me into BOSS BATTLE TIME!
And this battle turned out to be really mediocre. It wasn't even as difficult as the enemies I had been fighting all around! The boss is just a single Cie'th guy with a really big sword. Sure, he strikes for a lot of damage, but he's kinda slow to attack and just single strikes. The only thing you have to do here is keep one character as a Sentinel. The Cie'th will just sit there and constantly attack that person. You'll have to heal the Sentinel ever so often, but otherwise, this battle was a walk of cake.
With the battle done, it's back to the main area. I'm passed off from one magical lady to another, but this one just leaps slightly ahead of me to a large platform. I wanted to believe it was going to be straightforward, but I knew in my heart it wouldn't be. As I approach the final one, I should probably re-explain how many there were. When I first met the trio at the beginning, there was a white one, a black one, and a gold one. The white one was the first to lead me around, and that was followed by the black one. Now I'm left to play tag with the gold one. When I go up to hit her, she transforms the large platform into a tall set of stairs. I was expecting it to expand, and thankfully it's still pretty straightforward. Along with the staircase comes a rather large robot, I figure I'll get to fight him soon enough. Time to climb some stairs!
And remember that one-armed super sword Cie'th from like 2 paragraphs ago? Yeah, he's back now and he has a buddy with him. This is just disappointing if you ask me. Ten minutes ago, this guy was boss material, and now he is just a generic enemy. (WTF Square? What is this nonsense?) I could understand if there were bosses/improved bosses from near the beginning or middle of the game, but this happened like ten minutes ago! I managed to beat the duo pretty quickly though, so whatever! Moving past that.
Ah crap, that fight is almost immediately followed by the other bosses from earlier. (The two wood behemoths) I had a hard enough time with those jerks earlier though. I do NOT want to fight them again. I managed to sneak past those guys because screw all the delays. Bring it on Golden Magical Lady! Tag! You are i-DENIED! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
I'm face-to-face with the Tiamat Eliminator! The boss closely resembles the Proudclad, so for a minute, I thought I was in for a real challenge. However, the battle quickly makes it apparent that it's just a big joke here. It's just a highly underpowered ice version of the Proudclad. There's really nothing to say here strategy-wise because it was super easy. I beat it so easily that it wasn't funny. Oh well! Goldie leaves behind a warpgate for us, and we're now a hop-skip-jump from the end!
The warpgate leads us to a creepy white area that makes me think of an insane asylum or hospital. It's a silly short hallway though, so I just have to walk a short distance to come to the final room of the final area of the final portion of the game! Seriously, it's all downhill from here. We enter the final doorway and find ourselves inside Eden's core (I THINK). Barthandelus is waiting for us here of course, and he's going to give us another speech about how he's totally planned for all this or what's going to come next. It's always one or the other here.
Barthandelus is sitting in his fancy golden throne and summons up the crystals of Dajh and Serah. After bringing them up and being all MWAHAHA about it, he proceeds to shatter them. The group is all LE GASP, but then they realize that he's just a big phony. Dude is just constantly doing fakeness to trick us. I don't understand why they believe anything he says or does at this point. With his little show done, he claims that everyone on Cocoon is fighting now, and it will all soon come to an end. He asks that we give Cocoon a merciful death and kill Orphan now. The group says now of course, so he sighs and we proceed into FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND ONE - BARTHANDELUS ULTIMATE EDITION!
OH YEAH!... Is what I'd say normally, but this was not very impressive for Barthandelus. It was even more of a downgrade than the previous one was compared to the initial fight against him. I have nothing to offer for strategy here. The battle isn't very hard, and if you are having trouble with it, you probably just need to level up a bit. Only advice I have is watch out for Thanatosian Laughter. You'll either want full HP when it comes around, or 3/4ths HP with defensive buffs. Even his version of Ultima was super disappointing. (Seriously, Kuja uses Ultima and EVERYTHING DIES. Bart-y uses Ultimate and it's like a slap on the hand.) And thus, Barthandelus goes down for the last time. BEGIN SCENE!
Barthandelus is all BLARGH! I am melting and dying! The group starts celebrating like it's over, but this is far from over. His robot owl friend isn't dead, and it flies into the puddle of Barthandelus. This causes a large being to arise from the liquid, and then it thanks us for doing what we did. It goes off into a speech about how it was stuck inside of this prison (Cocoon), but we managed to release it through what we have done. (Killing Bart-y I guess?) The massive weird-looking being identifies itself as The Abandoned One. However, it looks to be a combination of Barthandelus and what I'm assuming is Eden and Orphan. The overall imagery and style of the being suggests a caring mother, an infant in the middle, and an angry evil man figure. (Thus why I said what I did.) Just imagine an angel attached to an evil purple polygon robot with a ball in between them with a baby's face. That's enough for imagery though. It's FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND TWO - THE ABANDONED ONE!
Now, the game is identifying this monstrosity as Orphan. Although it just called itself The Abandoned One and that sounded cooler. This battle was both generally fun and quite challenging. It really pushed me to the limit. Really hoping this is just part one in a series of at least two more fights, but I'm pretty sure it won't be. I'm indecisive if I should give a strategy for this fight though. There's a lot I could say here, but at the same time, if you played the game to this point, you will definitely have your own play style. Thus, I won't be going into detail here, but I'll offer the obvious suggestions for the battle.
As per the usual final boss battles, you should always be prepared for a super attack that blasts everybody for massive damage. I forgot to make a note of the attack's name, but it's basically a small scene. The Abandoned One floats into the air and is apparently just the hilt of a massive sword. It then comes crashing down and into the group for MASSIVE DAMAGE! I'd like to add that I'm unsure if the attack is just really powerful or if it is just set to do like 90% of your HP or something. Regardless of that attack, this battle requires effort and focus. It's best to buff up the group as much as possible for this match, and Haste is definitely in the top list of requirements here. From there, Protect and Shell are the next best choices.
Going beyond that, it's really up to you how much more you do. Attack buffs like Faith and Brave are useful, but they aren't as necessary as the other two. (Because they'd only speed up the battle and not necessarily win it.) The only other suggestions I have here is to prepare a Paradigm with two Medics so that you can heal extra fast and also don't worry about Sentinel since most of the time Orphan won't focus on one person over the others. Admittingly, I did lose one time, but that was just a small mistake on my part. On the second try, it went quite well and with little trouble. Take THAT Orphan! Of course, this massive final boss battle is followed by a scene.
That battle wasn't enough to kill it, and it simply blasts everybody to their knees. It asks them if they ever wondered why the fal'Cie make humans into l'Cie. (I'd assume it's because they don't really have other options...) It reveals that the fal'Cie are limited in their power and what they can do. However, man is able to surpass everything through sheer willpower and force. Thus, they are beyond powerful in comparison to the fal'Cie. They take humans and use them for their own agendas. And now thanks to humans, they are free from their bondage. All that's left for them is for the group to complete their Focus. Orphan claims that going against it now is pointless, and even if we succeed, everything will have been for nothing. Everyone will suffer and the world will still be not great. The fal'Cie are still in belief that the Maker is their only option now. If they summon him, everything will be forgiven, and the world will be born anew.
During his little speech, Orphan is torturing Vanille in hopes of setting off Fang. Apparently she's the most likely one to turn into Ragnarok right now. Fang tells them to stop hurting Vanille and says that she will strike the final blow if they do. They let Vanille go, and then things get slightly confusing. Fang lashes out at Vanille, and Vanille begs with her to not do it. They made a promise to save Cocoon! The group defends Vanille, but then Fang does a Jump Attack and turns everybody into a Cie'th somehow. (Didn't see that coming...) Fang also didn't seem to see that coming and then she lets herself get beat up by the Cie'th. She claims to deserve it for what she has done to them. Although Fang is defeated here, she ends up changing into Ragnarok. The change is pretty astounding too. She changes into fun colors, grows a tail, and her hair goes all mohawkyness.
Ragnarok Fang charges at Orphan and tries to destroy it. Orphan has a shield though, and she can't seem to pierce it at all. Then amongst all this, it starts rolling into a pile of flashbacks. Basically just shows the group at different parts before this bit. Nothing really notable here, and then Fang is down and out of Ragnarok mode. She failed to do the deed. Orphan isn't happy about this though, and it takes things into its own hands. It picks up Fang and tries to force her back into Ragnarok status. It continually alternates between hurting her and healing her. Vanille tries to convince Orphan to stop, but it's all "RAHAHA! No." Despite all it's effort, Fang isn't changing into Ragnarok. Things are looking bad when they suddenly change again!
Orphan is blasted out of nowhere, and the rest of the gang reappears. They're all still human and such, so obviously what we saw before was fal'Cie trickery. Yay for second chances! Fang and Vanille ask what happened, and it seems that the group was simply warped away. Regardless, it's positive reinforcements all around! Orphan goes into melty time in the background, and the group prepares to give the final strike. We're going to save Cocoon after all! The central piece of Orphan arises from out of the ooze and is now a big clock thing with the baby orb from The Abandoned One. It asks if we think we will really win here. There's a whole bit here about Orphan being horrible because it wanted to die even before it was born. Honestly? It seemed like a PSA for how "Suicide is bad for all of us!" Also, the group states that they will defeat Orphan here and now and protect Cocoon.
FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND THREE - CLOCK EDITION! Aaaand that was just a big pile of story battle. When the battle starts, Orphan casts Doom on the lead character. I go to attack it, but I find out that it's immune to all forms of damage. However, every attack builds up his stagger meter. Thus, this is very much just a story battle. I quickly stagger him, and then it's just a few attacks to beat him. He has very little HP, and he takes a lot of damage. Overall, this "final battle" was completely pointless. I'd go so far as to say it's worse than how FF2's final battle went for me. (
Link.) Well, all I need to wrap this battle up is an inappropriate joke. In a way, the group just performed a massive abortion.
The game is finally over! All that's left now is to enjoy the super ultimate final pretty cutscene! My initial thought was to not share the ending, but then I changed my mind. Personally, I'm more about "earn the ending yourself!", but at the end of the day, you could just go to Youtube and find it if you are THAT interested. So here is what happened! (As far as I understand...)
With Orphan destroyed, Cocoon is slowly coming apart. The group appears outside of Eden's cyberzone, and they're all starting to glow strangely. Apparently they know something I do not because they suddenly all join hands. That is... everybody except Fang and Vanille. They're separated from the rest of the group, but it seems they don't really care. Then the group is gone and a giant monstrosity is in there place. It seems they all joined together to create a Ragnarok of some sort. They teleport themselves outside of Cocoon, and it doesn't look good right now.
Cocoon is basically a lifeless husk without Orphan and is starting to fall from the sky. However, it seems the group has a plan to rectify this. With their Ragnarok form, they hold up the massive planet-like structure. At the same time, they begin to create crystal pillars between Pulse and Cocoon. The crystal pillars stop Cocoon from falling and are all pretty looking. They curve all about Cocoon so that it looks fancy. The group appears in a field on Pulse, and it seems that the world is saved! Dajh and Serah are coming towards the group now, and it's happy endings all around! Their l'Cie brands disappear, the crystal people are alive again, Cocoon people are being transported down, and everybody is happy! Although... Fang and Vanille aren't here. For whatever reason, the two sisters are stuck together inside of the crystal pillar, but they're together at least. And thus... the game finally ends.
True! There are more details to it than that, but that's the jist of it anyways. My first and foremost thought with this ending? Not bad. The second thought is... How the heck does this need any form of a sequel? Seriously, a lot of the elements in this game are fairly closed. The only question would be "Do the two girls ever get out of the pillar?" That's it. There might be something I can't think about, but I see no use in creating a second or even THIRD game. As you might know from following the blog, I plan to play XIII-2 briefly to get a feel of it. Beyond that though, I currently have no plans for Lightning Returns (XIII-3) or XV. I've said enough for now though. I'll be continuing this rant in the Final Thoughts post.
Regardless of that, I'm satisfied. The ending is good, and I'm just happy to be done with the game. I'm done with the game! I'm more or less done with my initial goal! Hurray! I look forward to playing more RPGs in the future as well! However, before I reach that point, I still have a small checklist of "To Do's." I could describe it in sentence form, but here is what my next goals are before I start Dragon Warrior/Quest...
- FFXIII Final Thoughts (Obviously)
- FFXIII-2 Brief Play (Around 5 to 6 hours)
- Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (Old school fun!)
- A brief break from RPGs to take care of other things.
- More VGBA and Recurring RPG Reviews. (At least one more of each before August is up.)
- !?!?!?
- PROFIT!
With those things done, I figure I'll be starting the Dragon Quest (Going to just go with this since the entirety of the series is more Quest than Warrior) series around late October to mid-November. Regardless of future plans, I'm just glad to have made it this far! I completed the initial goal for what I set! True, I took waaay too long on the last two titles, but at the same time, it was the first time I tried to beat either one. That and busy with other life stuff like work and blah blah blah. ANYWAYS! I'd like to thank anybody who has helped and supported me. I'd like to thank my friends for tolerating this activity of mine. And finally, I'm going to thank anybody who has remotely read/skimmed over/generally looked at my posts for the past year and a half. This blog was more for me than you, but I thank you all the same for reading!
I've rambled on enough, and this post was long enough before all that. SO! Expect the Final Thoughts in the next day or two! Following that will be the things I already listed. OVER AND OUT~
Ending Point - THE GAME IS OVER!
Current Party -
- Lightning - Commando Lvl 4, Ravager Lvl 4, Medic Lvl 4
- Hope - Ravager Lvl 4, Synergist Lvl 4, Medic Lvl 4
- Fang - Commando Lvl 4, Sentinel Lvl 4, Saboteur Lvl 4
Goals Accomplished - Rode the fal'Cie Atomos to a slightly further area. Climbed Taejin's Tower and defeated the fal'Cie Dahaka. Made it through the ruins of Oerba and fought Barthandelus again. Returned to Cocoon and brought along "the business". Defeated the Proudclad and gained Rosch's trust but then he died so whatever. Fell straight into Barthandelus's schemes. Fought through Eden and reached Orphan. Defeated Barthandelus for the final time, but that was part of his plan so CRAP. Failed our Focus but then didn't? Defeated Orphan and saved Cocoon by becoming Ragnarok (I think). Beat the game!
Next Goals - Write the Final Thoughts post. Play around five hours of XIII-2. Play through Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Do a couple RPG reviews. Start up the next series, Dragon Warrior/Quest!
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
