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Driving Forces
-Back aboard the Lindblum. We haven’t had a Snow combat section in a while.
-He and Fang prepare to hunt the l’Cie.
-AARGH! Terrifying zoom-in to the screaming, flickering face of the fal’Cie on Day 12. Snow remembering back when he was helping Serah, a l’Cie, escape.
-They get in the hovercycle, barely dodging gunfire.
-Is the fal’Cie we saw screaming the one on the Pulse Vestige by Bodhum? Anima?
-She barely hops off the hoverbike onto the Vestige. Some kind of liquid metal sucks her in. Yeah, that must be Anima.
-We still don’t know how she got branded in the first place.
-Back to the present. This wasn’t just a personal flashback; it was Snow telling Fang a story.
-lolol she smacks him upside the head. How much of the game is just Snow getting smacked? How much FFXIII fanfic is the same?
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Sun-Dappled Flight
-Scene change to Sazh and Vanille in another environmental gem. The Sunleth Waterscape.
-Hee! Sazh thought he was following Vanille down some strategic path, but she was just basically going where the pretty flowers were.
V: “Smells nice! All naturey!”
S: “Just smells damp. And I think something bit me.”
Grumpy, Bad-At-Nature-Sazh is amazing.
-A fleet soars overhead towards Palumpolum.
-I really thought this was going to be the game’s way of reuniting the full party in Palumpolum, but nope! Sazh and Vanille plan to go the opposite direction, towards Nautilus.
The split party is a cool change for the series. I’m happy they’re committing to it, at least for now.
-Then there’s that future Vanille narrator voice. Is she the true protagonist? This conceit just reminds me strongly of Tidus in FFX.
-This is an artificially climate-controlled nature reservation.
-Ughhhh. I got a new awesome-looking weapon for Vanille, a Belladonna Wand. It gives her improved debuffing. That sounds great as my main saboteur.
And yet I already started upgrading something else. I’m miffed.
FINE. I’ll switch to this. But no more switching! I’m committing from here on out to just upgrading my existing weapons.
I strongly dislike the weapon upgrade system so far. I’d like it more if I could easily refund the upgrades I put into other weapons, or even if it would at least be clear about how much each component affects the modifier.
-The Flandragoras here are great. They’re adorable and lack visibility. I always land sneak attacks.
Sorry for saying this every two seconds, but LOOK AT THIS PLACE!
-Is the game’s title screen music playing in this zone?
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A Wish for Daddy
-Backstory time! (A bit, anyway.) Sazh has a little boy, which we guessed – Dajh I assume – and “was” married.
-He’s worried about returning home as a l’Cie.
-Flashback to Day 11, the celebration at Bodhum.
OMG DAJH IS SO CUTE [Later edit: if a bit Uncanny Valley]
-Dajh wishes that Sazh would cheer up, be like his old self again. I’m guessing this has something to do with why he’s no longer married.
-Sazh makes a wish of his own. “That’s my little secret.”
-Before the scene closes, we see a mysterious woman Bayonetta-looking woman watching them.
-Back to the present. The game warns me of a powerful scalebeast awaiting ahead that I can outrun. Urgh. I really don’t like doing that. Gonna give the fight a shot, but I expect it’ll wipe the floor with me.
[Non-rhetorical question: what does gaining levels in a role do?]
-Tried a Scalebeast. I regret it. A long boring fight that rewarded me with nothing.
-I choose to fight one up ahead that’s guarding a chest. No regrets this time – the treasure sphere held 15 Iron Shells.
The fight went way better after landing debuffs with its shell stripped.
-The game just throws gorgeous environment after gorgeous environment at me.
-Nautilus is the “City of Dreams.”
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Father and Son
-The two of them lie down to take a nap. Vanille wakes up and Sazh is gone. He’s brooding on a nearby cliff.
SAZH: “My son Dajh… he was picked. He’s a l’Cie.” HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLHOLLY
-Flashback to Day 5. Dajh wanted to see a fal’Cie, so Sazh took him to a plant. A tour. The chocobo chick was meant to be a gift for Dajh.
-We see Dajh lost inside the plant.
WTF IS VANILLE DOING WITH DAJH? WHO TF ARE YOU?
-Dajh was made into a noble, heroic Sanctum l’Cie to stave off a Pulse attack.
SAZH: “Now we’re Pulse l’Cie. Dajh’s enemies.” Whatever gods exist, please let me not have to do a boss fight pitting Sazh against Dajh.
-PSICOM then showed up to collect and test Dajh. And whaddya know, it’s the woman with glasses who watched them on Day 11 at the celebration.
So that was her watching Dajh like a woman minding a precious PSICOM resource.
-They couldn’t figure Dajh’s Focus. Poor kid. Jesus.
-Dajh had a way to sense things from Pulse. He can’t fight, but he can sense. He sensed the Pulse fal’Cie.
That’s why Sazh went on the Purge train. He wanted to get close to the Pulse fal’Cie to kill it, on the theory that destroying a Pulsian fal’Cie was Dajh’s focus. He wanted to help.
-The woman with glasses is Jihl Nabaat. A fast-rising PSICOM officer in charge of Dajh’s testing.
“She lent an ear to the distraught father, and listened to all his fears and doubts.” Sounds like a good person. Not what I expected.
-The energy plant fal’Cie who branded Dajh is “Kujata.” I vaguely remember Kujata as the tetra-disaster esper from past games, but idk.
-Vanille wasn’t the one who actually marked Dajh. I think she was the Pulse l’Cie infiltrator that Kujata branded Dajh to protect against.
-Cocoon l’Cie are rare.
-lolol, while chocobos are rare on Cocoon, they’re popular because of a TV program for kids.
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Next time: Continuing through the Sunleth Waterscape.
