---
Pulsian Menace
-We enter the fal’Cie’s room. All I see is a metal containment tank.
-Snow pleads for Serah, even offering himself to become l’Cie in exchange. Lightning swings her weapon at it. But it just sits impassive.
By the way, major props here to Snow. Offering himself as l’Cie is no small thing.
-Gears suddenly spring to life. The container opens, emits a blinding white light, and the fal’Cie emerges.
It’s hard to make visual sense of. Like a mechanical alien.
-Hope starts to run until the fal’Cie raises a barrier, trapping us in.
-Lightning readies for battle. Sazh says under his breath “Dajh…” Must be someone who he lost to a fal’Cie, given his personal hatred of them and l’Cie. Or maybe they were killed by a l’Cie for its Focus.
-Boss time! Anima has two drill-like “manipulators” that do magic and seem to retaliate when I hit Anima.
-The fight itself seems pretty straight forward. Kill the manipulators, then attack Anima. Shift focus back to the manipulators when she regenerates them.
-Only got two stars. I wonder what the five-star strat is. Target only the boss and just chain heal?
-The fal’Cie has a crystal at its core. After “defeating” it, we seem to get sucked into that crystal.
-This cutscene is confusing, a mass of mechs and tentacles. I think the fal’Cie is using its tentacles to wrap around us.
Shit. It’s branding us l’Cie.
-Perspective shifts back to reality. The Vestige erupts with energy and obliterates the surrounding area, Sanctum attackers included.
-It falls to a watery area below. Tidal waves surge and turn to crystal.
---
A Modest Proposal
-UHHH WE’RE BACK IN TIME?? THIS IS WILD, WE’RE SEEING NORA PRE-PURGE IN PEACEFUL BODHUM!
-Lebreau tends bar. Snow asks after “her” (Serah), told to meet at the usual place.
-There’s an odd zoom-in on a bar patron. We don’t see her full face. She’s looking for someone.
I don’t think she’s Vanille. Her hair’s too dark, and she looks grimmer.
-Snow and Serah meet up. Serah wants to tell her sister about something, presumably the l’Cie mark.
-The scene is sweet, in a DOOM ON THE HORIZON sort of way.
-She doesn’t even know her focus! That’s suuuuuper frustrating. And she knows that if she doesn’t solve the puzzle, she’ll wind up a crystal prisoner at best, a zombie at worst.
-Awww, Snow gives her a necklace to comfort her, then proposes marriage.
She’s delighted, and at least it helps take her mind off the incoming eternity of torment.
-Bodhum’s design is fascinating. The fireworks are taking place inside what looks like a giant netted egg, reminiscent of XIV’s Omegascape or X’s blitzball sphere.
-Snow and Serah celebrate with a hoverbike ride. She’s worried about telling Lightning she’s l’Cie.
SNOW: “Hey, our engagement is way bigger news.” It’s really not, but I get that you’re being jokey and trying to lighten the mood.
(I’ll be honest: something about Snow rubs me the wrong way, but I think it may just be his style rather than anything substantive. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt when possible to counter that.)
-I cannot get over these graphics. This is basically a movie.
-The theme music from before now has lyrics of some kind, though I can’t make them out.
-They soar off into the sky.
SERAH: “Thank you, Snow.”
---
Bound in Darkness
-Back to the present. That was just a flashback, not a long-term time jump like we got early in FFT.
-This image right here is instantly among my favorites in any fantasy setting. Movies, TV, games, all of it. Tidal waves crashing onto the vestige, frozen in pure crystal.
LOOK AT THAT!!! LIKE HOLY SHIT?
-This is Lake Bresha, below Hanging Edge. Sazh starts to panic. Vanille is grateful to be alive, and Snow is all “IT’S A MIRACLE! THANK YOU SERAH!”
-Before Lightning can lay another smackdown on Snow, monsters attack.
-Snow instinctively fends it off and punches back but with a blue light blasting from his brand.
At least being l’Cie gives you superpowers.
-It’s magic. So that’s how magic gets into this game! It’s not just using AMP devices.
-Tutorial time for the paradigm system. Here we go.
-I assign characters roles by changing the party’s paradigm.
-I can switch paradigms as often as I want.
“These roles define the spells and abilities available to a party member, as well as their general behavior in combat.”
All this time, I’d assumed that I’d eventually control multiple party members at once. I no longer think that. Looks instead like I only control the party leader directly, but I use paradigms to set how the other characters act.
It’s strange to say, but more than any other game, this system reminds me of FFXII: Revenant Wings. I control the general composition of my party (though this is more flexible since I can change roles mid-combat).
-There are offensive and defensive paradigms. I can imagine going to an offensive paradigm when the enemy is staggered and swapping to a defensive paradigm when the enemy charges up big attacks.
-There seems to be a job system of sorts? Ravager, commando, sentinel, medic.
-The “Solidarity” sample paradigm makes Snow a sentinel (a tank) and Vanille a medic (healer).
-We see a quick flash of everyone’s new l’Cie brands. I’m not sure Vanille didn’t have it before just now.
-Poor Hope. The Ultimate Unlucky Student. He’s living ALL the nightmares. Lost his mother, turned l’Cie, and now worst of all, he has to hang out with Snow for the long haul.
---
Datalog Review
-Lots of new datalog info. I’ll check out the story stuff now and the mechanics stuff next session.
-That explosion was a “final wave of power… from the dying fal’Cie.” So it actually died. I wondered if it was just toying with us, testing us, but we actually hurt it.
“Upon defeating the fal’Cie, [Lightning and the others] are drawn through a rift into a dimension where an immense, otherworldly presence awaits.”
Aha! The thing that branded us is not Anima. Unless it was Anima’s spiritual representation, but I don’t think so.
“Onto their bodies, it sears cursed brands; onto their minds, the vision of a beast destroying Cocoon.”
-I didn’t pick that up in the cutscene because it happened too fast for me to visually process. I’m thankful for the log here.
-Serah and Snow bought Lightning’s birthday present. So that’s where she got her survival knife.
“Serah searched for a gift that would help keep Lightning safe during her dangerous work as a soldier.” Now I feel bad that I mocked the survival knife as a birthday present.
-So Day 10 is gift shopping. Day 11, the Bodhum fal’Cie is discovered while Snow proposes. Day 13, the Purge. No lore from Day 12 or from before Day 10.
-The fireworks in Snow’s flashback were from Bodhum’s annual beachside display. It was a tourist destination. That explains why Hope and Mama Hope were there.
-I’m not sure what to make of Anima’s nature. It looks almost purely mechanical and magical. I didn’t see any “meat,” anything biological.
How long was Anime active anyway? We fought a ton of Cie’th in the Vestige. Were they all Sanctum reconnaissance troops? I don’t know that they had enough time to be given a Focus and fail it.
“It appears Anima was brought to Cocoon in the Vestige centuries ago…” They’re probably Cie’th from an earlier era.
---
Next time: exploring the paradigm and crystarium systems, then moving ahead through Lake Bresha.
