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The Twin Sisters
-Scene change back to Snow, bashing away at the crystalline Serah.
-Three aircraft swoop overhead. They mark him as l’Cie… and he keeps on at Serah.
-lol he proceeds to take out a squad of PSICOM soldiers with his bare fists. I suppose that makes sense since he’s l’Cie and thus has super magic fists.
-Still, there’s just too many. He’s overwhelmed.
WHEN A HUGE SPHERE ERUPTS FROM HIS ARM AND WONDER TWINS EMERGE
-A different squad watches this over a cliff. They seem like non-Sanctum folks.
-Tutorial time – Eidolon battle. The entities who saved Snow are Eidolons.
-As with many past FF games, I have to beat them to gain their powers. “But be warned: attacking alone will not overcome them!” A puzzle. I like the idea of this way better than a standard fight.
-The twins put a Doom counter on me. A time limit.
-My goal is to fill the Eidolon’s “gestalt gauge.” Interesting word choice. It’s not a loyalty gauge or an obedience gauge. Gestalt implies that there’s some unifying system that me and the Eidolon are part of.
-These are the Shiva sisters. That makes sense. They look a lot like Shiva’s design in FFVIII.
-The game suggests a defensive role.
-I’m not understanding this fight at all. Libra says she yields to those who amass chain bonuses, but I can’t build a chain bonus on her.
-…AH! I used Libra again. Her final “???” trait says she yields to those who defend against and endure attacks. Got it. (Also useful to know that multiple Libras can be useful.)
-Yeah, now in Sentinel mode, her gauge is rising. I don’t need to attack.
-Can I just say how FRIGGING COOL Nix’s design is?
I don’t know why they need the wheels but I’m glad they have them. They seem to act as magical foci.
[Later edit: now I know and it’s the best thing ever.]
-Died because I wasted too much time figuring out the puzzle. Second try, here we go.
[Later edit: Easily one of my favorite new mechanics in FFXIII is the “Retry” option when you lose a fight. It gives me the freedom to play around with the mechanics, experiment with different strategies. When things go wrong and I die, I don’t have to slog back through random fights – I can dive right back to the interesting part.]
-Uh I think I’m getting it? I filled the gestalt gauge. But nothing’s happening. There’s Gestalt Mode: X thing that popped up. Am I supposed to mash X?
-That’s not working. I swapped to an offensive thing in case I need to do a finishing blow. That didn’t do it.
-LOLOL THE SHIVA SISTERS DANCED AND MERGED INTO A FRIGGING MOTORCYCLE AND SNOW HOPPED ON LIKE “FUCK IT, LET’S DO THIS” AND FHDJKLSFHDSLFDHSFKLDSJKL
IT’S RIDICULOUS AND STRANGE AND I LOVE IT DEEPLY
HOLY SHIT WHAT A WAY TO GET AN EIDOLON!
[Non-rhetorical question: what did I do to seal the deal at the end? Did I just have to fill the gestalt gauge and survive the rest of the fight, or once it filled did I just by chance push some “finishing blow” fight-ender?
I checked the data log later and it said I just have to “press X to assert your dominance over the Eidolon and claim victory,” but I could swear I did that a bunch but nothing happened. Do I press X at that point and then just eventually I win?]
-Got the Shiva Eidolith.
Q: Hey, what do you call it when the Shiva sisters transform into a motorbike?
A: An ice-cycle.
…I’ll show myself out.
-Snow collapses from all the shit that just happened, barely staying conscious.
-An Australian-accented woman walks up to Snow, pulls a spear on him.
“You want to keep breathing? Shut up and come quiet.”
This reminds me strongly of Tidus first meeting Rikku in FFX. But she looks waaaay nastier than Rikku. I like her already.
-The woman’ has some soldiers and mechs on her side, but I don’t think she’s Sanctum.
-She’s l’Cie! I’d bet the farm she’s a future party member.
She must be the woman we saw briefly in that Snow flashback, the woman at the bar pursuing someone.
-She takes a woozy Snow into custody and carts Serah onto her copter.
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The Only Way is Up
-Back to Team Lightning, blasting off past the dragnet.
-Sanctum ships pursue. There’s a real Star Wars feel here.
-Sazh eventually shakes them. He’s got some real game as a pilot!
-The group watches a TV news report inside the jet. The Purge has “successfully concluded.” The reporter even has the audacity to mention how the exiles are adjusting to their new home on Pulse, as if they just moved voluntarily to a new neighborhood.
-There’s even a clip of Primarch Dysley lamenting need to enact a Purge, but in a “what can you do?” way.
PRIMARCH: “In all the centuries since the War of Transgression, Cocoon has been spared Pulse aggression and prospered for it. It is essential that we maintain this peace. That is the Sanctum’s focus.”
-Vanille feeds my “she’s Pulsian” theory by asking who the Primarch is. How could she not know if she’s from Cocoon?
-Interesting! Sazh calls Primarch Dysley “Murderer-in-Chief.” He’s both against the l’Cie and Pulse AND against the Sanctum.
LIGHTNING: “Just another tool of the fal’Cie.” She’s hostile to the Cocoon fal’Cie. VERY interesting.
-This interlude breaks up as Sanctum ships re-engage.
-WHOA THAT’S A SANCTUM FAL’CIE!
A glowing fiery orange thing, like a generator, and some Sanctum ships get caught in its tendrils.
-Our ship takes some damage too and falls to ground.
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Nothing But Grief
-The party crash lands in the Vile Peaks, in the Cocoon Deadlands.”
-Sazh and Hope are out of it, woozy from the crash. Lightning is upq uickly..
-Everyone wants to chill out for a sec. Lightning -the only professional soldier in the group – wants to press on.
-Hope moves to keep up with Lightning. Sazh and Vanille take a breather.
-I really like the dynamic between Sazh and Vanille. He’s a (relatively) older grumpy dude and she’s an energetic young woman. Again, I’m bad with ages, but I mark Sazh in his 30s or 40s.
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Datalog
-I can develop my party members further in crystarium.
-The Shiva Sisters are marked as “The Twin Sisters of Shiva, Stiria and Nix.” It hits me that I never really interacted with Stiria during the fight. I wonder whether she’ll have a particular role independent of Nix.
[Later edit: I just noticed that Snow got the frost-themed Eidolons. I wonder if that’s just a coincidence or the start of a theme. Like, if Lightning will get Ramuh and Sazh will get Ifrit.]
-The “Mysterious Woman” who captured Snow is with Sanctum. Maybe she’s a Cocoon l’Cie.
“As a servant of Pulse she should be fleeing the Sanctum army, but she seems to be working with one of the military’s units.”
I wish these datalogs would update only after we learn it (if it’s information that’ll be delivered in-game eventually). It’d be more effective to deliver the info in the game itself. Feels weirdly spoilery.
-“It is said that [Eidolons] are saviors, come to rescue hopeless l’Cie who find themselves bound to a Focus against their will.” They must’ve sensed Snow’s desperation.
-There have been no l’Cie in Cocoon for centuries. Interesting. So the Cocoon fal’Cie apparently don’t make l’Cie of their own. Or if they do, that fact is kept hidden.
-We crashed in the Vile Peaks, like a landfill stuffed with debris from Cocoon’s construction.
-The fiery fal’Cie we saw before is Phoenix. She’s like a mini-sun for Cocoon, with subordinates helping with wind and precipitation.
-Some status info. Most statuses are as expected, like Deprotect or Defaith, but some new ones of note:
Imperil reduces elemental resistance.
Pain prevents the use of physical abilities.
Fog prevents spellcasting.
Daze prevents all actions and increases damage taken. Like a worse Disable.
Curse causes abilities to fail and makes opponents’ abilities likely to succeed. Again, this sounds bad.
-Esuna only removes the most recently inflicted ailment, so if a character gets Bad Breathed for instance I’ll need to use multiple Esunas.
-Dispel is the same, only removing the most recent status enhancement from a target.
-Saboteurs can lower attributes and give status ailments. These abilities increase enemy chain bonuses. Huh. Like, all debuffs have that as a side-effect?
“Once enemies have been weakened sufficiently, it is generally best to shift Saboteurs to other roles.” Sounds like good advice. Similarly limited use to synthesist.
-The role bonus boosts ability success rate.
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Next time: the Vile Peaks
