Gameblogging: FFXIII-2, Hour 2

[sincere]

Okay! Commentspamming myself with observations as I play FFXIII-2.


The comments will contain some spoilers, but please do not add spoilers of your own. ETA: Seriously, please don't discuss or refer to anything you think I might not have seen in any detail! I want everything to come as a total surprise.

Comments

[sincere]

Oh wow, when I load it I literally get a "LAST TIME ON FINAL FANTASY XIII-2..." medley of scenes and voice acting. That's hilarious.

[sincere]

All right, so I was on a precipice looking at a giant glowy rock with other dimensions in the sky around it. What will happen next?!

> Examine the crystal

[sincere]

Noel says one of those is his. Cocoon doesn't exist in his world. Noel is from 700 years AF (after the fall of Cocoon).

Serah: I knew you weren't from this world!
Me: That's not what he said. He's from the future of this world, honey.

[sincere]

The next morning Serah wakes up and stretches, and says "Good morning," to no one. I can now access the paradigms and crystarium.

[sincere]

I got a Live Trigger... reward! Lebreau's Olive Tattoo?! Is this a costume change for Lebreau? What is happening.

[sincere]

wtf crystarium

So when you load it up you're staring at Commando skills (even though Serah was a Ravager). I hit X and the it highlights certain orbs in the same network as being, say, Thunder, or Blitz, or Launch. Each orb you can level in a particular class, so I'll level her as a Ravager, and she'll get Ravager stat bonuses? Okay. I think.

So I level her as a Ravager and then observe that two orbs away is Blitz, so I will level her as a Commando then so that I can get Blitz. Only... when I get the Ravager sphere, Blitz moves... further away?

What is going on here. /goes to read the primer

[sincere]

I still don't really understand, it told me mostly things I already figured out. Okay. Thanks.

[sincere]

LIVE TRIGGER! I leave my room and talk to Lebreau. Serah remembers Lebreau being injured saving her, but notes that Lebreau looks fine this morning. What do I say to her?!

"Sorry about yesterday..."
"Good morning to you!"
"Good morning!"
"Good morning, kupo!"

I think I'm offended.

[sincere]

We are deliberately prompted to remember Lebreau saving us and getting badly hurt because of it, but only one option actually addresses that. The other three are all completely meaningless distinctions on the same exact conversational cue.

There are two ways this falls out: these are completely meaningless options designed to give you an illusion of choice, or there is a completely arbitrary difference between "Good morning to you!" and "Good morning!" that will later on mean the difference between getting a good item or something.

Why can't there be a "How are you feeling?" option or a "You look great!" Why is it "I'M SO SORRY /tears" and three different fucking versions of "Yo".

[sincere]

God, Cocoon is pretty.

[sincere]

Lebreau and Serah are explaining Cocoon to Noel. Most people are living in a settlement at the base of the pillar, because they love the idea of a huge moon-sized structure looming over them, balanced on a precarious crystal pillar. Snow decided to take his posse and make a settlement near the ocean instead.

[sincere]

Mog tells me that a cat has an artefact, meaning I have to chase a cat around. When I cornered the cat, the game completely froze me, rotated the camera weirdly, and made me stand there for literally around ten seconds while the cat ran so far away and at such a camera angle that I have no idea where it went. Then it told me to go get the cat.

Fuck you too, game.

[sincere]

...it's Serah's cat. She's named Snow. XD

[temples]

You're successfully making me want to play this game.

[sincere]

/looks back at long list of complaints

:|a

[sincere]

Serah teaches some sort of generic classes to the local seven-year-olds. Awww.

[sincere]

To which Noel responds, "A school teacher, huh?" lecherously. Not really, but it sounded like it.

[sincere]

We found Lightning's knife!! Serah keeps it in her room and doesn't know how it ended up out there.

[sincere]

Flashback to the FFXIII ending, Serah and Dazh walking out of Cocoon, Snow sweeps her up, Lightning is... not there? Hope is telling her that he found Lightning's knife at the base of the pillar. Snow is very apologetic and mournful, and says Lightning, Vanille, and Fang are all holding up Cocoon in the pillar.

This is not an accurate flashback! Time travel.

[rainfall]

I think the version of events Searh explains makes both more and less sense to me.

On the one hand, if she only hallucinated Lighting's existence for like a minute, then all of her self-doubt makes perfect sense. If Lightning had disappeared recently instead, like I first thought, and Serah had three years' worth of memories, it would be harder for Serah to dismiss them.

On the other hand, I don't totally buy a minute's worth of "Lightning is totally alive" memories as "making up stories so that [she] didn't have to face the truth", which is what Serah says her friends have all told her she was doing. Is it really a comforting lie that Lightning was there for thirty seconds but then evaporated? Wouldn't Serah have made up something more comforting...?

Idk, maybe it was just a poor choice of words. I'd buy it if Searh said something like, SINCE I ONLY JUST CAME OUT OF MY CRYSTAL SLEEP, MAYBE I WAS JUST CONFUSED... something like that? But this isn't the first time the game has couched her possible false memories as the result of trauma.



...anyway! This is probably way more thought than I was meant to put into this, and I was already wrong about what the game meant to tell me once.

[sincere]

They're not saying it's PTSD, they're saying she doesn't want to face the truth that Lightning is in the pillar. That means Lightning is gone. The end. If Lightning was there for a few seconds being happy with them and then vanished into thin air, she's not in the pillar, therefore something can be done about it.

[sincere]

Mog now thinks the artefact is outside the settlement. Everyone tells us we're not allowed to leave but no one actually tries to stop us.

[sincere]

Oh, it was one of the kids. If this kid actually has the artefact then Mog wasn't 100% wrong about everything.

[rainfall]

Can I punch this game in the face a little.

First the "good friend" nonsense, which reminds of the Sailor Moon dub where they tried to defuse the gay by saying "friend" a lot and accidentally started using it to refer to relationships that involved making out.

Then we learn that Snow left to look for Lightning. That's fine. I thought I remembered them saying he was somewhere specific earlier, as if he were on an assignment, rather than just "looking for Lightning", but I'm just wrong about all the things. I wish I knew how long it's been since Snow left, but maybe we were told that too.

But fuck you, Noel. You don't KNOW Serah. What gives you the right to start saying accusatory things like, SO YOU JUST WAITED. WHY DIDN'T YOU GO AFTER HIM? :E HE AND LIGHTNING ARE LONG GONE BY NOW

All of Serah's options in response seem to involve just taking this abuse, which I guess makes sense if she feels guilty about not going after Snow and has a lot of self-doubt, but it annoys me.

I just want Serah and Snow to be married, nobody to be implying anything about Noel and Serah, and Serah to want her fiance and sister back. Please don't go in a weird direction here, game. Please don't turn Noel into somebody Serah needs in her life to encourage her to eventually develop a backbone, or whatever's going on here.

[rainfall]

I mean. I don't want to hate on you, game! I want to remain optimissstic. It's just that married-woman-looking-for-husband-and-sister is such an unusual formula. They're holding off on getting married until they can bring Lightning home to bless it, and that's sweet! It's less sweet if she

ARE YOU SECRETLY GLAD SNOW IS OUT OF YOUR LIFE SERAH?

SORRY, ON MY WORLD WE'RE ASSHOLES, saying farewell was usually for good, so we didn't say goodbye so easily!

[sincere]

"It wasn't the artefact after all. Are you losing your touch, Mog?" He never had a touch! He's taken us to six different things that aren't the artefact.

[sincere]

I wonder if anyone else is missing stuff, or if only Serah's belongings are teleporting themselves around? Let's go find out.

[sincere]

Wow, this town is creepy. Half the town was gathered outside my window staring into my bedroom. There's a new mirror on the wall that wasn't there before.

How did the entire town notice that from my window?

[sincere]

The mirror produces a crystal, which is "a twist in time", which is an artefact. Hooray. Noel is like "Now I'm going to go open that gate with the artefact. Are you coming or not? I can tell you still don't trust me."

Serah points out that she doesn't know who Noel is or what he wants.

[slayerofgod]

Lebreau's tattoo is a monster adornment.

Also, agree about getting tired of everyone insinuating the Noel/Serah thing. I'm just glad Serah herself doesn't buy into that crap.

[rainfall]

I like how you say that (the tattoo comment) as if it makes sense. XD

And Serah buying into it is what makes me eyetic about her calling Snow "a good friend" in her Snow's-necklace conversation. But hey, we're working on it!

[walking_forward]

Did you guys miss the optional conversation that takes place after the necklace event with Noel asking about Snow? I got back at Noel's snotty comment about Serah's love for Snow by having her gush on and on about how awesome, faithful, and adorable Snow is. She spoke in such a high squeaky voice that Noel tried to stop her 3 times. He was looking like he was getting pretty overwhelmed by her helium induced words, but she just kept sharing every loving detail about her Snow and there was nothing Noel could do to stop her until she was satisified.

Needless to say I don't think Noel will ever question what Serah thinks of Snow ever again after at.

[walking_forward]

Or at least ask about what kind of person Snow is again.

With Serah around.

[sincere]

I have to say that I significantly object to the game's system of requiring me to talk to my party member for significant but entirely optional conversation. It's one thing if my party member is only following me around, or only hanging out in an area of the town, but usually Noel is off running around on his own and I actually have difficulty keeping up with me. Then he wanders back when he feels like it. It makes it difficult to know when there's a conversation prompt and when there isn't, so it's easy to miss them.

[rainfall]

Sob so much this.

[sincere]

Resumed my trek to the gate, finally. Fought Gogmagog again. This music is so hardcore it's kind of hilarious.

[sincere]

Chocobooooo

Oh god wait

I think... I remember seeing the chocobo theme for this game at some point...

[rainfall]

Boss music......

[rainfall]

Oh well he's dead!

[rainfall]

CHOCOBO. It has forelocks. I wonder if you could hold onto them like reins. :|a











oh god are we going to get that hilarious music when we ride the chocobo?

[sincere]

Ahhhh I completed a crystarium thingy

RAV boost or unlock saboteur or increase ATB gauge ahhh

[sincere]

/rolls around lamely

Uhhhh RAV boost

[sincere]

So I go up to the gate. LIVE TRIGGER: Am I ready? Am I really ready?? I'm ready!

I wonder how old Noel is. /random

[sincere]

...awww, NORA is full of derps. /wibbles

[sincere]

Gasp! Evil Cloud and his still-alive girlfriend are watching us ominously.

[sincere]

Historia Crux is fancy and trippy. New zone isssss Bresha Ruins 5 AF, two years in the futuuuuure.