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The Weight of Vengeance
-Snow and Hope begin their escape from Palumpolum.
-All Shiva’s ice ramps from Snow’s rescue are still part of the environment.
-It’s so uncomfortable to see Snow being supportive of Hope. He should be supportive; it’s just rough hearing Snow go “Great stuff, Hope!” and knowing it only rubs salt in a wound.
-Commando is GREAT against staggered enemies. Launch is lovely.
HOPE: “You think it’s s****d to fight?”
SNOW: “It is if you get killed.”
WHY DO YOU ALWAYS SAY THE WRONG THING SNOW??
SNOW: “Let us [adults] duke it out. The army’s no match for NORA, right?”
LIKE LITERALLY EVERY TIME, YOU SAY THE WORST THING OF ALL POSSIBLE THINGS
-Hope reaches for his knife.
-Fang possibly saves his life by calling to check in on Snow. Lol the phones are like flip phones crossed with Pixie Stix.
Omg I love fang “I’m great you’re great everybody’s great, anyway…”
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It’s Called Interference
-Perspective change to Rosch. He wants the GC to open fire in a fire zone (which I guess is a designated “CIVILIANS ARE HERE, BEHAVE!” area). Anything for the l’Cie.
-It’s cool that the GC are not mindless drones. They protest. They protect this city, and while I bet in two seconds they’ll acquiesce to Rosch’s orders, it makes me happy that they don’t do so quietly.
-Rosch pulls a sweet long dagger or short sword to emphasize his point: he serves the people of Cocoon. That’s who he’s doing this for, hunting the l’Cie at all costs. Not the Sanctum or his own power.
-It’s an effective argument, given how Pulse is perceived. Rosch is an interesting one.
-Back to Our Heroes. We’ll meet up at Hope’s dad’s place.
LIGHTNING: “Snow, listen to me. It’s about Hope. His mother was-“
HOPE: “Lightning! It’s me.”
ARRGH. One of my least favorite plot devices: where crucial information isn’t shared because of a minor interruption.
-Oh. There’s actual interference on the line. That’s better; it’s not just Lightning getting totally derailed by something insignificant.
YAY! FANG TIME
-Fang is an already developed character with a head-start on her crystarium progress. Commander, sentinel, saboteur.
-This is my first party comp where I’ll need to use Lightning as a medic.
-SHE’S SO FRIGGING COOL LOOKING
-Her weapon is the Bladed Lance. “Used for hunting as well as traditional martial arts.”
-Fang has my favorite fighting animations in the game. I have a real weakness for staff-fighting.
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The Pulse L’Cie
-There must be SO much shipping and fan art of these two.
-Fang wasn’t born on Cocoon. “I’m from Gran Pulse. The ‘world below’ you all hate so much.”
-She and her “partner” went into a crystalline sleep down there and awoke here on Cocoon. That’s why Snow now thinks Serah can wake up.
-VANILLE’S HER PARTNER! I should’ve seen that coming, since I knew Vanille was from Pulse and shared an accent with Fang.
-Scene change to Hope and Snow. The Sanctum is will “target civilians, and Purge anyone who’s a threat.”
-Yup, soldiers are rounding up civilians. Snow wants to get them out of harm’s way.
-This part of the city feels vaguely Zanarkandy. The geometry of it, the advertisements, the lighting.
Platypus truck.
-The citizens are staying calm. They trust the soldiers even now. That’s how great the fear of Pulse is.
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Mob Injustice
-Snow busts into a crowd, punches a soldier, and fires into the air while shouting “I am a Pulse l’Cie! I’m here to kill you all!” Effective crow-dispersal tactic.
-The aerial soldiers look super cool.
-I used those Incentive Chips I found before to power up my weapon. I assumed they’d boost my modifiers, but no. Probably should’ve sold them.
-Snow’s plan worked and got the citizens to safety, but everyone’s now angry at and terrified of them.
-Look at this girl’s carbuncle doll! Not XIII-Carbuncle, but still.
-We get some distance between the mob and flee. Snow’s getting practiced at the whole escape-on-a-jet-pack thing.
SNOW to HOPE: “Kind of hard to help out someone that’s trying to kill you.” Right on the nose.
-Hope has, well, no hope. No hope of any sort of normal life.
-I’m finding a more effective standard combat strat than pure COM-RAV. I start with COM-RAV, then swap to RAV-RAV for a couple of rounds to push enemies into stagger. The COM trait slowing gauge degradation seems to last a while. Then back to COM-RAV during stagger.
-Still don’t know how to deal with the hoverbikes’ Gatling Gun… wait, I have sentinel! I can swap to that.
-IT WORKED! Sentinel + Medic let me tank it.
-Snow grew up an orphan. He wants to make his own family now.
-Later, Hope asks what he’d do if that family he wants were taken from him. What if he couldn’t just get them back? What if he knew who was to blame?
-Even Snow recognizes something strange in this question. But before we can pursue it, boss time!
Ushumgal Subjugator.
-Nothing too rough. Got it staggered and it goes down quick.
-Arrrrgh! Hope keeps getting flashbacks to Nora. Snow’s sunny, “everything’s gonna work itself out! I’m gonna be awesome!” attitude isn’t landing, and Hope calls him out.
-We get more flashbacks, but this time from Snow’s perspective. The NORA members harmed. Nora herself dying.
And just like that, the happy-go-lucky façade rips. Snow shows all the guilt he really feels. (I still feel a lot of this is not guilt he SHOULD feel, not his fault from what I know, but I get why he feels it.)
“I know! It’s all my fault! But I don’t know how to fix it. Where do you start? What do you say? All I can do is go forward.”
HOPE: “You’re running from what you deserve!
SNOW: “Why don’t you tell me what I deserve?”
H: “The same fate!”
-In answer to Hope’s anger, an Eidolon. The blast of magic knocks Snow off the edge, leaves him clinging for life.
-…huh. Or not. I really thought that was an Eidolon moment, but it looks like it was just a general l’Cie emotional magic thing.
-Hope breaks out his knife. “Nora Estheim.”
He raises his knife when a nearby gunship fires on them, knocking both Hope and Snow off the edge.
He was really gonna do it! No last minute change of heart.
-Snow manages to catch him in mid-air and position himself on the bottom. His body cushions the fall, and it’s a doozy. It’s one of those falls that would clearly kill both of them in a non-game setting.
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Next time: back to Lightning and Fang.
