So, after seeing the ending what does everyone make of it? As far as miserble endings go I thought it was a great "bad" ending. Everything was ok and looked like they saved the day then Serah dies and Vahalla pours into reality with a final shot of Lightning who looks like she might be in a crystal form? Then if you get all the fragments you see Caius sitting on Etro's throne basically hinting at the fact that he knew that Etro was dead long before it ever happened.

There are rumors of a huge Lightnining focused DLC episode coming up. My guess is that Lightnining becomes the new Goddess and somehow saves Serah's soul. Where it goes from there I don't know. Part of me thinks I should be really pissed for being left with a cliffhanger but It really doesn't bother me for some reason. Any thoughts?

@Demoskinos:

The thing with Caius in the secret ending is that he planned to unleash the chaos of Valhalla all along, and used Noel and Serah to accomplish this. And they totally played into his scheme >.< It showed that he was the "mastermind" behind the story, and reached his goal to free him and Yeul from their respective curses (Yeul being trapped in the cycle of death and rebirth* and he being condemned to witness her many deaths). I liked it tho, it made him stand out as a character more.

I pretty much agree with your theory of Lightning becoming the new Etro. Although she looked more like petrified than crystallized... but that could just be a change of design.Saving Serahs soul... don't know. Would be a nice outcome, but they could also let her remain dead to add more tragic.

However, one thing confused me a little... in the secret ending, Caius says "...and the goddess died once again..."

Is this related to the backstory of Etro, or is it of any significance? Does that mean every once in a while a "new Etro" has to take the place of the former one (much like the guardian of Yeul)?

*although Noel states Yeul chooses to be reborn so she could be with Caius, so dying might be the only curse.

@Demoskinos:

Another thing, I wondered why exactly, or better, under what circumstances, Lighting was petrified/crystallized.

Maybe it could be that Etro was dying and when Lightning transformed into her guardian, she actually became Etro in that moment. It is said that Lightning has "godlike powers", so what if Etro gave them to her before dying/transferring her spirit into Lightning? Maybe Lightning is petrified/crystallized after the heart of chaos (the heart of Etro) in Caius' chest is destroyed, because as the new Etro, it was her heart.

A totally wild guess tho :D

I loved it, but I love cliffhanger endings in general.  
 
If you actually pay attention to everything going on you know this is how it's going to end. Caius says multiple times that killing him will fuck everything up and during that fight with the mecha giraffes in Academia 500 Yuel is begging you not to continue on and kill him. The characters seem fairly oblivious that he is being so literal about it, especially considering when Noel freaks out that he was the one who killed the goddess.  
 
Also I love Caius, seriously. What he was doing is clearly wrong but it's hard to blame him when he's seen the pain of hundreds of Yuels dying over the years. If you read through some of the fragments it also gives history about him, he's been alive for thousands of years thanks to Etro. He was basically a war hero and Etro thought he'd be a good fit for protecting the seeres so she put her heart into him giving immortality. The Caius you see through the game is the same in every time line, he was never jumping around or any of that nonsense. The one Caius had literally been seeing all those Yuels die.
 
As for Lightning, I think her becoming crystallized was some attempt to make herself immune to the end of the world since she knew what was going to happen. If she gets DLC I assume it will revolve around that stuff and why she chose to freeze herself. 

@Zenaxzd: Oh dude. Caius is by far one of my favorite FF villians of all time now. Looking back thats what FFXIII was missing. Barthandelus in XIII was completely forgettable as a villain and was a puppet in the end anyway to Orphan who showed up in the last 5 minutes. Caius is great he is similar to Sephiroth or Kuja in the fact he is constantly just showing up to fuck with the heroes. And I really like that he isn't evil saturday morning cartoon villain kind of evil either. Caius is well aware of what he is doing but he is just being extremely selfish about it and doesn't give a damn. His voice actor is great as well.

@Zenaxzd said:

@Morrow: On the topic of the secret ending, shit makes no sense to me. It sort of leads me to believe Caius had a darker intent than simply trying to "save" Yuel, but I really hope that isn't the case.

I doubt that. There is no hint whatsoever in the whole game that he has other motives besides Yeul to do what he's doing. I think his cocky remark at the end was just supposed to show how he made Noel and Serah do exactly what he wanted them to do.

Liam O'Brian btw is also the voice actor of Gaara in Naruto and Jushirou Ukitake in Bleach. He always adds a lot of atmosphere to the characters with his distinctive voice.

@Zenaxzd said:

@Morrow: I hope that is the case. He was pretty much a perfect villain and I really do not want them to ruin that with some sort of other motives or garbage like that.

Same here ^^

When I first saw his outfit in pictures I found it a bit ridiculous looking, but when I started playing the game I grew quite a liking to him... probably for more obvious reasons :D

But he's a great villain with actual depth to his personality.

@Morrow said:

@Zenaxzd said:

@Morrow: I hope that is the case. He was pretty much a perfect villain and I really do not want them to ruin that with some sort of other motives or garbage like that.

Same here ^^

When I first saw his outfit in pictures I found it a bit ridiculous looking, but when I started playing the game I grew quite a liking to him... probably for more obvious reasons :D

But he's a great villain with actual depth to his personality.

Yep at first glance he looks like some 80's metal star filtered through some anime tropes. I think the writing and O'Brien's performance really change your mind once your in it. What you all think of Hope? And more importantly the implication that Alyssa was working with Caius the whole time? I kinda hope they expand on that ending a bit where Snow and Serah ride off to stop Caius together. Snow is still a bit of a douche but man that hair. XD

 I grew quite a liking to him... probably for more obvious reasons :D

@Demoskinos said:

Yep at first glance he looks like some 80's metal star filtered through some anime tropes. I think the writing and O'Brien's performance really change your mind once your in it. What you all think of Hope? And more importantly the implication that Alyssa was working with Caius the whole time? I kinda hope they expand on that ending a bit where Snow and Serah ride off to stop Caius together. Snow is still a bit of a douche but man that hair. XD

Hope = ♥

Love how he matured from the annoying whiney emo kid to the responsible academy leader.

Well, Snow story DLC has been confirmed so this might be the setup for it.

@Zenaxzd: @Morrow: Hahaha yeah...snow just drops a bomb on hope and leaves. Yeah, I think people give hope way to much shit. I mean yeah he is whiny but he is also a 14-15yr old kid who just lost his mom is in the middle of a war and is away from home with a bunch of strangers. If I were 15 that would stress me out too! And they gave him a good arc. I think its dumb in way too many RPG's where the hero will just roll up to a town and people just drop what they are doing to join a complete stranger on a whim. XIII had some good arcs everyone hated each other for a good long while. I appreciated the more realistic approaches to the relationships in XIII and XIII-2.

Just finished this game and I cannot wait to get my hands on the DLC.

@Zenaxzd: Liam's best role is Grimoire Weiss, from Nier, but yeah he's great here as well

@Zenaxzd: Liam's best role is Grimoire Weiss, from Nier, but yeah he's great here as well

@Zenaxzd said:

Someday I will get around to playing Nier, everyone always talks about how awesome it is but I just never got around to buying it.

You're missing out on a great game. The graphics are outdated, but the story, characters, atmosphere and overall impact the game leaves is more than making up for that. Now get it! :D

@Morrow: I tried playing that twice. Got to the second "half" of the game but never did finish it.

@Demoskinos said:

@Morrow: I tried playing that twice. Got to the second "half" of the game but never did finish it.

Aww, why?

@Morrow: I have bad gamer ADD. I get distracted easily. Lol.

go back to it! once you get the big reveal you look at everything differently man, and the new game plus makes you hate yourself (in a good way)

@Demoskinos said:

@Morrow: I have bad gamer ADD. I get distracted easily. Lol.

lol I know what you mean, I have quite a few unfinished games lying around too.

@Morrow: The Depressing part is its mostly JRPG's Ar Tonelico: Knell of Ar Ciel , Atelier Rorona , Cross Edge , Trinity Universe , Disagea 3 , Resonance of Fate , Star Ocean:The Last Hope International and Nier. Tempted to start Resonance of Fate again. My god that game was good. Loved the combat but oddly enough one of my favorite things was dressing up the characters. >_>;;

@Demoskinos said:

@Morrow: The Depressing part is its mostly JRPG's Ar Tonelico: Knell of Ar Ciel , Atelier Rorona , Cross Edge , Trinity Universe , Disagea 3 , Resonance of Fate , Star Ocean:The Last Hope International and Nier. Tempted to start Resonance of Fate again. My god that game was good. Loved the combat but oddly enough one of my favorite things was dressing up the characters. >_>;;

I own all of these as well and while I finished some of them story-wise, I still need to do some trophy hunting...

Resonance of Fate kept me motivated for quite some time, I played thru it twice but got vaporized in Neverland... ._. I gave up on Rorona because the time-limit was a huge demotivation to me. I spend all my time doing alchemy stuff and horribly failed at assignment 10 or 11 where you need to fight. And I loved Star Ocean but some trophies require an insane amount of time and dedication... so, you're not alone :D

@Morrow: I absolutely loved the mission where you are dressed up like Reindeer shooting presents at kids. HAHAHA.

@Demoskinos said:

@Morrow: I absolutely loved the mission where you are dressed up like Reindeer shooting presents at kids. HAHAHA.

Haha, I remember that one xD I found it rather annoying tho :D Where in the story are you?

@Morrow: Crap...its been so long. I forget. Pretty far in though. According to my trophy list Chapter 13 is the last one I beat.

@Demoskinos said:

@Morrow: Crap...its been so long. I forget. Pretty far in though. According to my trophy list Chapter 13 is the last one I beat.

I see, there are 16 in general. You're not far from the end ^^

@Morrow:  My god that game was good. Loved the combat but oddly enough one of my favorite things was dressing up the characters. >_>;;

@Zenaxzd: Well who doesn't want a giant Hamburger on their shirt. xD

lol xD I dressed him up as L, with black hair, white sleeve and jeans <3

@Morrow: The Depressing part is its mostly JRPG's Ar Tonelico: Knell of Ar Ciel , Atelier Rorona , Cross Edge , Trinity Universe , Disagea 3 , Resonance of Fate , Star Ocean:The Last Hope International and Nier. Tempted to start Resonance of Fate again. My god that game was good. Loved the combat but oddly enough one of my favorite things was dressing up the characters. >_>;;

I actually really liked it, besides Sazh just showing up outta nowhere, I know it was hinted at that he was lost in time or whatever but it kinda bothered me. In fact almost all of the main characters just popping up throughout the timeline kinda bothered me. I think the emotional punch woulda been much better if Snow was also there when she dies, in fact I think the game woulda been better as a whole if they ditched the monster thing, and had Snow just join your party when you finish the Sunleth Waterscape for the first time.

Overall though the ending has me pretty excited for the conclusion, as much as some of the other stuff throughout the game really bothered me, at least the combat is still really fun. I would really like to go back to playing Lightning as the main character even though it seems to be implying she's gonna become the new goddess or something, Noel became pretty interesting though by the end, Serah was just as boring as the beginning though, am I the only one who felt she was a pretty weak main character?

@kerse:

Well, Serah is a bit of a shallow sweet-girl type. So I guess that really is a bit of a weak main character, as most characters who are considered "interesting" usually have a dark side or a conflict/trauma. The usual light-hearted heros became boring.

I thought the ending was fantastic, and Caius was a genius villain. Not much else to say I guess, except that I'm pretty excited for Final Fantasy XIII-3.

Also, in the datalog it says that Lightning entered the crystal slumber because she accepted defeat and the upcoming fate. Not sure how or why that happened, but it at least explains why she was like that.

I was kind of disappointed by it. 
I don't mind that there wasn't really a "happy" ending, but I was hoping there would be more scenes involving Snow and Lighting and the rest of the cast before things wrapped up. The way it ended just felt too abrupt.

@Voxel said:

I thought the ending was fantastic, and Caius was a genius villain. Not much else to say I guess, except that I'm pretty excited for Final Fantasy XIII-3. Also, in the datalog it says that Lightning entered the crystal slumber because she accepted defeat and the upcoming fate. Not sure how or why that happened, but it at least explains why she was like that.

That means... she simply gave up? Boo ._.

Just saw the ending. Youtube'd it as I was pretty sick of the game by the time I got to the thousand final bosses. What the fuck?

I really don't know how I feel about this game at all. I loved it up until the stupid fetch quest of going back and getting the five... uh, things. That was a lowpoint that the game never recovered from. Then there was the ridiculousness of setting up the badgirl Alyssa thing and the Snow being a l'Cie again thing and just never expanding on it at all, because they wrote part of a story and not a complete story, something that I fucking hate every time someone decides to make a trilogy.

Ending was good though, I liked how it just became dark and bleak all of a sudden with Serah's death (NOOOOOOOOOOO! :( ) and Valhalla kinda pouring into the world. It's a nice set up for a sequel, which I assume will be Noel trying to fix shit up. That secret ending was a bit confusing though, it seemed to be set after Caius died, but Caius was there. Huh? Speaking of Caius, I'm not sure how I feel about him. I kinda like how his whole villain-ness is just him going insane after having watch Yeul die over and over, but then I kind of hate that because then his entire motivation is essentially "Hey, he's fucking insane."

A conclusion would be interesting, just hope they don't ruin the pacing with shitty fetch quests again. Dunno what I want from a sequel: I think I'm done with the time travel mechanic, so maybe just have Noel wandering around this new Valhalla-ised world.

Oh! Also, why on Earth was Serah okay with going back to 500AF rather than her own time? She was just like "oh maybe Lightning will be there" ...What!? Why the fudgecake would Lightning be placed back into the timeline at 500AF, rather than where she'd been removed from it? That just felt like lazy writing, like someone said "Errr, we need to have Serah go back to 500AF, let's just leave out any logical thinking and make her assume all her friends are there."

I don't know, I have problems with this game but for the first 2/3 or so it was genuinely fantastic. Last 1/3rd felt incredibly rushed, though.