Beat it

[owlmoose]

Finished the final battle this afternoon. I think I'll need some time to sit with it before I can give a fully formed opinion, but for now, my reaction shot.


Overall, I would say that it was enjoyable, although I never fell in love with it like I did FFX or X-2. Worth playing for sure, and I look forward to continuing on with the Cieth Stones and other missions on Pulse. But I missed things like being able to explore Cocoon, and sidequests other than the marks, and the total lack of puzzles. When I play a Final Fantasy game, I want to feel like I'm getting to know a world, and although we get that with Pulse, Cocoon never became more than a series of unconnected sets to me.

Endgame: So... I am confused. If killing Orphan is the terrible thing that's going to destroy Cocoon, why do they kill Orphan? And when and how did they come to the conclusion that their goal was to fight Orphan rather than protect it? It made sense after the fact -- kill Orphan to end fal'Cie rule of Cocoon, then use the power of Ragnarok to keep Cocoon together -- but I never got a sense that they got together to discuss this plan. If I have one serious gripe with this game, this is it: the tendency for character development and important exposition to be explained in the Datalog rather than shown on the screen. (I also wish that they had just added new character information to the Datalog rather than overwriting the old. I have the feeling I missed a lot.)

We got Bartandalus Part 3 pretty easily, and we also beat Orphan Part 2 on the first try, but Orphan Part 1 was harsh. We tried several different party configurations before throwing our hands up and going back to level up and upgrade our weapons some more. Against all conventional wisdom, our final party was Sazh, Vanille, and Hope; the combination of buff/debuff/heal while Sazh played Commando almost full-time was slow, but effective. I don't know that I would *recommend* it, exactly, but it worked for us. (Lightning would probably have worked just as well as Sazh, but Sazh had notably more hit points, so it was a lot easier to keep him alive.) Has there *ever* been a final boss who talks as much as Orphan? Blah blah Ragnarok metaphysics blah. Just shut up and die already! Geez.

The very end scenes, I did enjoy: Fang and Vanille joining to become Ragnarok and fulfill their focus together was poetic and beautiful. It leads me to wonder whether protecting Cocoon after the fall of Orphan was what Anima intended as their focus all along, and if Lightning and company were only bound to support them toward this goal (and so they turned to Cieth when it appeared that Fang and Vanille were going to continue at cross-purposes). The reunion with Serah and Dajh at the end was beautifully bittersweet -- you could see how much their lost companions were missed, and I am sad that the six of them won't continue to explore Pulse and have adventures there together. A lot was left unexplained at the end: did anyone still on Cocoon survive the crash, who will lead the people now, where did everyone on Pulse go, what about Hope's dad? But overall, despite my nagging questions, I was satisfied.

BTW, T got impatient and skipped through the credits; was there any sort of cut scene between them and the end card? Maybe one that shows Fang and Vanille melting again? It's nice that they're together at the end, but I'd rather them have an existence that's more like a life. Please say yes.


So this thing where you can keep doing side missions after the final battle? Awesome. So, so awesome. This may be my favorite development in this game. Now we can play around at leisure without worrying that I'm going to stumble across some awful spoiler on the Internet. I hope they keep this model for future games, even if it does mean that the final boss is a little easier on the grand scale than usual.

Speaking of spoilers: now I can properly research the story I started the other day without fear. Excellent.

Comments

[wounded-melody.livejournal.com]

The consensus on message boards where I asked about the people on Cocoon is that they survived. Probably bumped around *a lot*, but still alive.
Sorry to say it looks like Fang and Vanille are still in the crystal, but I get the vibe that they are almost like the Fayth from X--able to communicate outside of their frozen bodies. At the very least it is implied they will revive one day, to "greet a new dawn".

(darn lack of an edit reply button)

[wounded-melody.livejournal.com]

Also, I feel like the people of Cocoon are going to end up at least partially populating Pulse. I also envision Lightninh being asked to take some role in rebuilding the governing body, but don't know if she'd be interested in that.

[sarasa-cat.livejournal.com]

Although I had to put gaming on hold because life is too busy, I've given up on avoiding spoilers.

When I play a Final Fantasy game, I want to feel like I'm getting to know a world, and although we get that with Pulse, Cocoon never became more than a series of unconnected sets to me.

Do you think this is because the characters have few opportunities to speak with NPCs? Or because everything on Cocoon is (effectively) a dungeon crawl therefore there aren't any towns to explore (and NPCs to speak to within the towns)?

[lassarina]

I, too, am a little sad that there are no side quests except the Marks. And I agree that it was harder to sink into the world when everything was hidden in the datalog.

It was still some fun, though not as much as say, XII.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

I have to say FF13 is my favorite FF game since the PS One era ended. I haven't fallen in love with the world of a FF this much, ever--prior to the PS2 era, most game worlds were standardized, and as I know I've mentioned before, the PS2 era never offered me characters I could gnaw on. In FF13, I got characters and a world I can chew on, flaws and all (just the right kind of flaws for fanfiction, imho--if it's too good, you don't need fanfic at all). I don't mind the info in the Datalog--it would have bogged down the story and wound up in Exposition City otherwise. (A huge problem for FF games in general. They try to avoid "As you know, Bob" by making certain characters total newbies, but even then, the "As you know, Bob" moments happen frequently. Even FF13 still had a few, but far less than its predecessors.) All the important, story-germane information appeared in-story. I didn't have any problems with missing explanations, aside from a couple plot holes, though a little more detail wouldn't have hurt!

I also quibbled about the sudden desire to kill Orphan, but I think what happened as they went along was they realized they had to end him to stop him. What they did is end it on their terms. Though FF13 is rather juvenile in spots (it's an FF game, after all XD), I found its themes more consistent and mature than usual. Its mythology was solid. We have some interesting criticism of religion, exploration of free will, existentialist themes, and even a touch of heroic tale deconstruction. I'll get into that during my critical analysis, which will no doubt take me far too long to write. XD

I found Lightning/Hope/Snow extremely effective and still do, but everyone's playing style demands a different set-up. Sazh/Vanille/Hope sound like an interesting team, though--but perhaps not the fastest. Effective at least, and decently well-balanced, if magic-skewed.

The ending does show Cocoon soldiers landing on Cocoon--I think maybe you missed it? It flashed by quickly. You can see the Cocoon ships landing on the ground. It is suggested the Fal'Cie are dead, but the people survived and now have to make Pulse their home. I find this intriguing, especially given their xenophobia. I think it's also suggested that Fang and Vanille can wake up one day, but I suppose that day will wait for the sequel! Or fanfic! :D

No extra scenes, sadly. I hope you saved after the credits, though. That's what gets you into the post-story. I'm still farming Adamantoises, though I have 95% of the missions complete. Sigh. XD

Good luck with your fic! :D