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A Vision Shared
-Snow thinks the same as me. Serah completed her Focus after telling us to save Cocoon, so presumably that’s what we should do.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think it’ll be that simple. But I get why he thinks this.
-I also get why Sazh fears we’re supposed to destroy Cocoon. He believes the Pulse fal’Cie are against Cocoon. The answer may lie in the origins of Cocoon, why fal’Cie made it in the first place.
-Some PSICOM approach to arrest us and GET FUCKING WRECKED
Lightning is basically a superhero/martial arts star. She snatches one of the guns away, retrieves her sword, and slices the attackers in basically one smooth motion. It’s hypnotizingly acrobatic.
-New tutorial about the ATB gauge and how to execute partial commands…
WAIT A SECOND WAIT WAIT: “Becoming a l’Cie extended Lightning’s ATB gauge by one segment…” Vanille had three ATB gauges even before we fought Anima. She must’ve been l’Cie before.
Which also means to me that she has a different Focus from the rest of us. I’m watching you, Vanille.
“Entering commands manually allows you to determine their order, which is important since chain bonuses vary by command.” I don’t quite know what this means, but it must have something to do with that whole thing about ravagers combining their abilities.
-PSICOM is an anti-Pulse taskforce. Their grunts haven’t fought a real war in centuries, though Lightning assures us that their elite forces are legit.
-I’m pretty sure she’ll betray us at some point but idc, I love Vanille deeply.
-Not sure how to advance crystarium development past stage 1, whether that’s even possible right now. Snow filled out all he can on Commando, Ravager, and Sentinel.
-We stop for some intros and full names. Snow Villiers, Hope Estheim, Sazh Katzroy. I'm glad! I feel like FF often gives us the surnames only in outside material, so it's cool to see them out in the open in the main story.
So Lightning’s a code name. Last name is Farron.
SNOW: “First? Anybody’s guess.” I’m surprised that Serah never told him Lightning’s first name.
-Vanille just introduces herself as “Vanille,” no last name. Current theory: her last name is something Pulsian and so she doesn’t want to share it.
SNOW: “I’ll keep the kids out of trouble.”
SAZH: “Problem is: you’re one of them.”
-I’m bad at guessing ages, but I put Hope at early teens, Serah around late teens, Snow a couple of years older, Lightning in her late 20s, Sazh in his mid 30s.
Btw, I’m not remotely over Lake Bresha’s visual beauty.
-It hits me that there’s been no overworld map so far. Maybe there won’t be one, and we’ll just hope from zone to zone if we get an airship. Like FFX.
Or maybe we’ll get one later, like how we got one in FFVII after leaving Midgar.
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Datalog – People
-Hooooly shit, just got a huge datalog dump of “People.”
-Serah is Lightning’s only family left, so no parents or kids or other siblings in the picture.
-I wonder how Serah encountered the Pulse fal’Cie in the first place. I didn’t think she was with Sanctum’s military or reconnaissance.
-Snow was raised in a “Sanctum facility.” Sounds like an orphanage.
-Sazh is a trained civilian airship pilot.
“Though all of Cocoon’s people view Pulse beings as invaders to be repulsed, few outside of the military decide to take matters into their own hands.” I’m betting it has to do with the briefly-mentioned Dajh.
-I both hope and doubt we learn Hope’s mom’s name at some point.
-Vanille was also on the Purge train! Huh. I hadn’t noticed that.
I’ll stop harping on this theory soon, but note how each datalog refers to the Anima incident.
Lightning: “It is not long until Lightning herself becomes a fal’Cie servant.”
Snow: “Now a l’Cie himself…”
Sazh: “Sazh shares [Lightning’s] fate in becoming a l’Cie.”
Hope: “They encounter the fal’Cie and are cursed with the brands of l’Cie.”
But then there’s Vanille: “Vanille encourages Hope to join her and enter the Pulse Vestige, where they encounter the lowerworld fal’Cie.”
No mention of becoming a l’Cie. A conspicuous absence, and I’ll bet if I went frame by frame through the branding scene, I wouldn’t find her getting branded.
-Until recently, Galenth Dysley had been conservative, well-regarded. He only became ruthless with the discovery of the Pulse fal’Cie, “with the Purge policy being instigated over the span of a single night.”
Another prediction: I think he’s also l’Cie. This feels a bit like the Red Scare. I’m seeing l’Cie everywhere!
The sudden change could be due to a Focus, but Cocoon’s fear of Pulse is well-established. The Purge isn’t necessarily an overreaction beyond what we might normally expect from Sanctum’s leaders.
-Maqui is NORA’s mechanic with a “talent for taking junk and using it to upgrade machines.”
Maybe when we re-encounter Maqui, he’ll be how we upgrade weapons.
-Omg I LOVE the description of the Chocobo Chick:
“The chick has no name, as voicing the true identity of the animal might trigger ripples across Cocoon and cause a hurricane in Eden. Either that, or Sazh just hasn’t thought of one yet.”
This feels like it was written by Gundham Tanaka (for any Danganronpa 2 fans).
Spoilers through Danganronpa 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlUaswdIFHY
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Datalog – Other
-The Sanctum fal’Cie sound like demi-gods. Each is assigned a specific task, like generating energy or manufacturing food. They rarely intervene in governance.
“One theory states that, including the lower hierarchy, the total number of Sanctum fal’Cie exceeds eight million.” Yikes. I assumed there were, like, 10-15 of them.
I need to see them in action. Like, do the higher tiers generate food and lower tiers act as street vending machines?
-The Guardian Corps work as soldiers and police officers. They work alongside the general population.
-The Bodhum Security Regiment was pretty relaxed since Bodhum was a quiet town. I see that they were often sent to fight dangerous wildlife elsewhere – is that where Lightning got her skills?
-Ooh, I can develp the crystarium of my inactive party members, Hope and Sazh. Sazh is a full ravager.
-Hope can be a ravager, medic, or something new: synergist. Definitely building that role.
-Its defining early ability is Protect. Synergist is probably a generalist/support role. Hoping to learn more when we access him as a main party member.
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Next time: the wreckage of the Vestige.
