Day Two: Six Days Left to Save Termina Nova Chrysalia

Hey all, back with part two as promised. We'll be going over what I did today, in true grade school summer vacation fashion, and touching on any major story elements that occur in addition to any distinctive game features I happened upon. The story section, below, contains major spoilers for the Luxerion chapter of the game, so be warned. If you'd prefer not to have the game spoiled for you, maybe just read the "Mechanics" parts from here on out. Speaking of which:

Mechanics

I didn't get into this with the initial report, but Lightning has superpowers given to her by Bhunivelze to assist her in her role as savior. These powers all run off a very precious and finite resource called EP. EP is valuable, because you start with only five points (though it increases after completing big story missions) and is used for various purposes, but really only three that are significant so far: Teleport, Chronostasis and Overclock.

Teleport is what it sounds like: a fast travel system that takes you to any major checkpoint (usually monorail stations, which is how the normal slowpokes get around) you've already been. It uses up two points of EP though, so it's always worth considering if it would be less wasteful to simply walk to where you need to go. That's almost always the case if you intend to travel to somewhere in the same area: for instance, Luxerion has two fast travel points on either side of town, but if you're actually in Luxerion it's a relatively short walk between them. Still, if you're short on time but full of EP - especially towards the end of the day, after which your EP refills anyway - it's probably worth it.

Chronostasis is a little more vital if you're of the schedule-fixated persuasion, like myself. What it does is pause the timer but not the world, largely because there's not a lot you can do if all the quest sponsors are all frozen solid. The liberal application of Chronostasis means that you don't have to worry too much about completing a lot of tasks in a very short time window, though it will burn through the EP very quickly. I opted to go for the Easy setting, because I discovered it lowers the cost of Chronostasis and allows Lightning to auto-regen health when outside of battle, and I'm all about conveniences. That seems way less stressful than the alternative, and I'm not particularly bummed that all these boss fights got nerfed either.

Overclock is one of the few EP abilities that you activate in battle. Like Chronostasis, it essentially pauses combat in its current state for a very brief spell with the added benefit of making Lightning's ATB bar (what she uses to mete out attacks and spells) infinite. When coupled with the stagger/knock-down mechanic, it essentially means that you can keep hitting Overclock and pummel an enemy at its most vulnerable point. It's the best way to do a lot of damage to bosses in rapid time, and seems to be the way to go with most of the larger random encounter enemies in the game too. Reason being? Defeating enemies is how you recover EP, and defeating large enemies tends to award a lot of EP at once. You might as well burn it all to complete the fight faster.

There's a few other EP skills too, of course. You can use it in combat (or out) to heal yourself fully at any time, or to resurrect yourself if you don't have a Phoenix Down equipped. The Escape ability, which simply drops you outside of the battle as if it never happened, is a freebie you can use any time if you're not into fighting at that moment - fights provide cash and item drops, as well as EP recovery, but no actual XP as Lightning's development is governed elsewhere. More EP skills unlock as you get further in the game; I started with a handful originally. There's also certain special chests in the environment that require EP to open, which I imagine hold some pretty sweet stuff. I've only found one so far and it asked for my entire EP bar, which wasn't happening at that moment.

Tune in tomorrow for even more integral game features I probably should've already mentioned!

Story

Luxerion: Not the Name of a Cruise Ship, Turns Out.

Luxerion is where Hope suggests Lightning start saving souls, since Yusnaan will be on high alert for a while. Luxerion is the other big center of civilization in the game, and is a far more sedate and pious place that weirdly feels unfinished. Not in the sense that Square-Enix cuts every corner they can, but that so many corridors and tunnels that link the districts together have tarps up and scaffolding everywhere. The city, and all its people, are over 500 years old, so there's no reason for why nothing seems complete other than that they had to abandon parts of the city mid-construction because the chaos had snuck in too far. That's corroborated with the fact that these corridors are where most of Luxerion's monster spawns occur.

The two focal points of Luxerion are the north and south stations, which are the two warp points I mentioned earlier. Around them are most of the stores and NPCs of note. To the top right are the slums, which the game refers to as The Warrens, which annoying enough is only open at night during the last six hours of the day cycle Lightning's working with. Since there's quite a number of NPCs and side-mission related targets up there, it can be a nuisance. To the top left is the graveyard, which is more or less a standard dungeon type area filled with monsters.

Upon reaching Luxerion, Lightning discovers that there's a shadowy cabal that has it out for women with Lightning's trademark rose-tinted hair. Apparently, the hair color isn't all that unusual, and many women have been butchered that superficially resemble her. The cult is lead by a figure called the Shadow Hunter, which immediately gets the brain ticking towards which former companion of Lightning's this could possibly be. The first few stages of this quest involve scouring the crime site for clues, and then the whole city for password numbers graffiti'd onto walls so you can use that code to sneak into a midnight ritual murder. It's precisely as dumb as it sounds, but I guess the game wanted to give you a good reason to thoroughly explore the city and a considerable amount of time to do so, both of which helped a lot when finding side-missions to busy oneself with until the time came to continue the story.

At this point, Lightning figures out that FFXIII-2's Noel Kreiss is the Shadow Hunter, and he's been stewing in his own guilt for five centuries after getting both Yeul, his oracle companion, and Serah, Lightning's sister, killed on his watch. Both died in his arms. As such, he's been fixated on an Oracle Drive (a recording left by an ancestor of Yeul that were the crux of many of FFXIII-2's paradox missions) that reveals that killing Lightning will immediately reboot the world, magically resurrecting Yeul in the process. Random folk around the Warren who also saw this premonition got a little bit overzealous and started murdering any Lightningalike they came across. Noel and Lightning stop them from killing another rose-haired girl in the graveyard, and then Lightning chases Noel into the Warrens. Despite getting the upper hand, Noel decides he can't kill Lightning and destroys the Oracle Drive instead. After he apologizes to her for the whole "murder" thing, Lightning wins her first "big" soul of the game which comes with a massive stat boost and another point of EP (which is darn invaluable).

We also discover another familiar soul when visiting the cathedral, who is acting as the pro-Bhunivelze religion's high priestess: It's the permanently chipper Vanille! Apparently, she and Fang managed to bust out of the pillar thirteen years ago (a number with a lot of significance in this world, it seems) and were recruited by the church. Vanille's the only one that can communicate with the souls of the dead: in typical Final Fantasy fashion, souls are meant to return to the Earth so they can be reborn, but there's been no births for 500 years. Along with being immortal, no-one can grow older or have children, though they can still be killed or die of disease. As such, there's a huge number of disembodied souls percolating around the cathedral's inner core, threatening to destroy the world with pure chaotic energy should they ever be released. This is what we call foreshadowing. Vanille's currently alone; Fang left to the Dead Dunes region to find an artifact that'll help ease Vanille's burden, but it's been years since Vanille has heard from her.

I'm already liking what this game is doing with its legacy characters, for as convoluted as this is all getting. It's easy to imagine how much half a millennium spent alone pondering one's thoughts might do to a person's sanity. Both Snow and Noel are struggling with some serious survivor guilt, and have been doing so for so long now that I'm surprised neither of them have leaped off a bridge. I guess that might be a little too dark for a Final Fantasy game, but then we are talking about the literal end of the world here. Vanille's in over her head as the head of a religion trying to keep a churning mass of angry souls at bay, Fang's possibly dead but probably not dead and It's been intimidated multiple times that this Hope isn't necessarily the Hope from the previous games, especially given he's even more emotionless than Lightning these days. Now, that's a feat.

The Bit at the End

With the itinerary for Day Three, I plan to do some sightseeing in Luxerion (more side-quests open up as you complete story missions) and then head back to Yusnaan. I already happen to know that the Yusnaan story missions can't begin until late in the afternoon, so I'm intending to spend most of the early hours completing Luxerion sidequests for the items and stat boosts. Still, should hopefully have something for you tomorrow regardless.

This game has a lot of cool stuff and ideas it is still a shame that most "reviwers/journos" simply didnt wanted to give it a chance because it is not like their favorite Final Fantasy (this includes Brad Shoemaker) and as you can see the story with the main cast gets really interesting.

You're officially further in the game than I am, so kudos to you on that.

After spending the entire first day searching for those stupid numbers, I started over once I had a better sense of the layout of Luxerion. The city is huge and it becomes much easier to do sidequests once you are familiar with locations. Chronostasis is essential to seeing most of this game and playing on easy lets you abuse the hell out of it. It definitely is the way to go if you're only interesting in seeing most of the game's content, though I believe you miss out on some outfits and enemy drops. I want to say each difficulty setting has some exclusive items. Some of the late game battles get pretty tough on normal, but most of the really tough ones are optional.

I don't know, say what you will about the story. It gets nuts by the end, but there's no way it wasn't going to be. Really enjoyed playing it though, the combat was unique and the time-based elements greatly reminded me of Majora's Mask. For all the criticism these games get, you certainly can't say they rehashed the same game three times. All three are incredibly unique.

I never pass up a chance to rant about this steaming pile of a game.

Yes, it does have a lot of cool stuff and good ideas, and almost all of it is implemented poorly. The time mechanic is a constant monkey on your back. Playing on normal the first time through? Expect to die, often, repeatedly, annoyingly. You should've started on easy! Good thing they told the reviewers that when they sent them the game. Too bad they never told their regular customers. Did I mention that every time you die, you lose time? Forget about exploring. Who'd want to explore in an RPG anyway? Especially in one that looks like a middlin' PS2 game.

Also that bit about the characters getting "interesting" is really a matter of opinion because even after finishing all three games in the FFXIII series, I really hope that none of them ever pop up in a FF again. A drooling bunch of humorless twats. The ending to this one in particular is the most pathetic, pandering piece of nonsense I've ever been witness to in a JRPG, and I've played many, many JRPGs which are commonly known for being pathetic and pandering.

Don't blame the "reviwers/journos" for not giving the game a chance that it didn't deserve.

Yeah theres nothing wrong with liking a game a lot of others didn't, but don't try to act like they just didn't "get it", it was panned hard by critics and buyers a like for plenty of very good reasons.

@sinusoidal: Well I didnt die often (only at the hardest boss in the game , when time no longer mattered at all ) and normal is perfectly doable , if you are bad is your fault not the game´. I love the characters in FFXIII , some of my favorite on the whole franchise (with Lighting being my #1 followed by Squall then Terra) so yeah it is a matter of taste , and hence it is about taste , they are not bad , you just dont like them , is not the game´s fault what so ever. The only complain I have about the game are the lackluster NPCs but that fault is in ALL the FInal Fantasy games (and add that to pretty much any japanese game). The time mechanic is so easy to exploit that I fail to see why people have such a hard time with it .... you always chronostasis and refill with battles , and you fight battles in order to extinct your enemies so you get the best equipment in the game , seems like a good system to me.

It is most definitely the game's fault that the characters are permanently serious, insufferable bores. I mean, I expect a certain amount of angst and self-seriousness from a JRPG, but Lightning's sole defining character trait in a game featuring her is that her emotions have been removed. If there's one thing can be said about the voice actor's portrayal is that she got the emotionless part dead-on. ZZZzzz....

Let's take a closer look at Sazh's story arcs. Game one, loses his kid, saves his kid. Game 2, loses his kid, saves his kid. Game 3, loses his kid's soul, Lightning saves his kid. Someone call social services already as Sazh is clearly unfit to be a parent! There's so little character development for any of the main characters over the course of three 30-50 hour games, it's just sad.

The difficulty is also most definitely the game's fault. I'm not exactly a newbie at JRPGs. I got a Sega Master System for my 9th birthday and Phantasy Star 1 not long after. My first Final Fantasy was 1. I've been avidly playing JRPGs for almost 30 years now. I blew through FFXIIIs 1 and 2 without a hitch. I blew through this one too, until the first boss where I must have died a half dozen times, losing an hour of the shitty, limited time every death. It got easier when I started looking shit up in FAQs that almost immediately informed that if this was my first time through the game, I should have played on easy. Squeenix clearly intends you to play this game on easy the first time through, only they do not tell you. They told the reviewers in the press release with review copies to play the game on easy, why not the people who actually bought their game?

The time mechanic is indeed easy to exploit. So why include it at all? The only purpose it served was to deter me from exploring the game's world. It's all "Oh, I have to be in the south square between 3 and 4 pm because that's when cookie cutter NPC X spawns and I need to complete their mindless fetch quest before day 13." So, I spend half my time running to places I need to be and the other half waiting for timed doors to open or for the people who are supposed to be there to show up. Yeah, it has some potential to be meaningful, but it's so poorly implemented, I wish it just weren't there at all.