@PixelPrinny said:
Except for, yknow, Caius could have just won from the very start by stabbing himself in the heart and ending it. And he certainly wasn't averse to suicide, as that's how the whole thing ends anyways with him forcing Noel to kill him (not to mention killing the goddess supposedly would have screwed him over regardless, but he just wanted the cycle to end so he and whats her face could find peace). But he decided not to do that and draw you out on a long, pointless quest, why exactly? If something stopped him from doing it himself, why didn't he just let Lightning win?
No, the ending wasn't cool; It was a stupid, contrived piece of shit that's only reason for existing is so they can sell you a "true ending" in the form of DLC or a sequel (which they deny atm, but business is business so we'll see). But i if you enjoy empty stories that are nothing more than, as you said -- an incredible fake-out -- where the characters are doomed from the start and the entire journey is absolutely pointless, well, all the power to you. Personally, I always hate stories that end with "Let's reset everything so you don't remember any of it happened!" or "Yay, everyone's dead and this was pointless. The end!" In video games, it's especially silly, as it's the equivalent of basically making a story out of a random game over. Like "Hey, you lost to Lavos and got the end where he destroys the world. Guess what? That's the true ending! Thanks for playing! Roll credits!" OMG it's shockingly grim they would end the game like that! How avant-garde!
But let's not kid ourselves -- that's not even what's going on here. There's going to be a "true" ending through DLC or another game. Maybe Serah will stay dead, Lightning will remain stuck in Valhalla, Noel will cease to exist because his timeline is gone, and everyone will be forced to rebuild their destroyed cities. (Had that been the ending, I'd be totally content with it because at least it's an ending). But more than likely it'll involve another contrived scenario where they'll defeat the bad guy, save the day, and the timeline will magically reset back to before Lightning was kidnapped and they all live happily ever after.
I recognise all these flaws and enjoyed it anyway. It helps that most of what you brought up was already apparent 30 hours prior to the ending (eg, why doesn't he just kill himself), so I had a chance to get over it, and it also helps that the bar was set so low that just having it raise an honest real-life reaction was refreshing (even if the reaction was "WHAT THE FUCK").
Final Fantasy Thirteen Two isn't high literature by any stretch of the imagination, but at a point where I was expecting to have been strung along for the sake of cheap drama, where I was totally ready for the story to just undo itself because there wasn't any content left on the disc, it actually did something different. That's why it's a "fuck you" to critics of the previous game (where all these bad expectations originated) and why I think it's worthy of a little respect, even though the face of it pretty much sucks.
You're right that wrapping it up in DLC would be beyond terrible. I'd be ok with another full sequel though.
** Edit: basically what I'm saying is I hated all the characters and was glad to see them doomed. :) **
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