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The Power Within
-This place is huge!
-Our brands all suddenly light up as various Pulse robots come to life.
-Now all party members can be any combat role. Not planning to change my current path due to prior investment.
-Vanille recognizes this place as an ark. The fal’Cie who made their home on Gran Pulse feared invasion. They built an army of living weapons and stored them in arks all over the world.
-The Arks were set up as a l’Cie training facility. The Primarch wants to train us.
-Brought Lightning’s Gladius to star rank. I don’t have the right transformational catalyst yet.
-Enemies deeper down here are more biological. Gloopy, oozy.
-The dancing bird enemies feel like a major difficulty spike.
-Boss room. A foursome of mechanical beasts.
-Oh man, this place is the “Hibernatorium.” What are the odds these things are about to wake up from hibernating?
-They’re berserkers. Not bosses, just tough regular enemies. Only two of them woke up.
-Something new: a greater behemoth turned his arm into a weapon I know from “Bloodborne” as a whirligig saw.
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The Dreams of Man
-We reach the end and Cid’s here. Hi Raines!
-Lightning’s PISSED – she reads him being here as a betrayal.
RAINES: “I put you on the path to being here. That was my Focus.” L’cie to the left of me, l’Cie to the right.
-Barthandelus wants us to destroy Cocoon “to restore the Maker. The entity responsible for creating both humans and fal’Cie.”
-He wants us to bring back XIII-God. Does this mean we’ll have to KILL the Maker? Very JRPG if so.
-This whole things sounds very “Supernatural,” with the Maker abandoning both humans and fal’Cie.
[Later edit: now I understand where the fal’Cie Orphan got its name.]
-Humans forgot about the Maker’s order and warred amongst themselves. The fal’Cie wanted to bring back the Maker’s old order.
This feels like an appropriate time to mention I have LITERALLY NO IDEA how far into the game I am. If I had to guess, I’d say I’m pretty far probably because of the abilities I have at this point – a lot of advanced magic and abilities. I feel maybe 55% sure I’m far into the game.
-Calling him back requires an appropriate sacrifice. The lives of Cocoon.
So who is Ragnarok in all this? A being on par with the Maker, something like Supernatural’s Darkness? Or maybe an antagonistic fal’Cie, like Supernatural’s Lucifer?
-Hope asks a great question. Why do the fal’Cie need us? Couldn’t they just stop providing food and water and light, or even worse, actively obliterate humans?
-No. Raines says the fal’Cie exist to maintain and nurture Cocoon. They can’t directly act against it.
-For the 73rd time this game, Snow realizes someone he trusted lied to him.
-Raines has been following the fal’Cie orders. No longer. He’s here of his own free will.
But why??
RAINES: “Seeing you fight brought it all back. Brought back the future that I once strove for. I too will challenge my fate.”
Ahhh. So he’s throwing his lot in with us. (Even if his attempt to fight the fal’Cie requires him killing us, since we’re intended as the instruments of Cocoon’s destruction.)
We’re Sam and Dean basically. I CANNOT STOP SEEING THIS AS A GIANT PARALLEL TO SEASONS 4 AND 5 (and beyond really) OF SUPERNATURAL, I’M SORRY
-Boss time. It’s a really cool fight, tactically! He keeps switching stances, forcing me to react with various paradigms. Like, when he goes into a Guard stance I swap to a buff/debuff paradigm.
-Visually, he becomes more angelic and less human as he draws on more power.
It fits, since the fal’Cie are like the Maker’s angels. He’s using their power.
-Victory!
RAINES: “Just do what you know is right. Trust yourselves.”
-And… huh, he gets the dubious reward of crystal mode. I guess even though he fought the fal’Cie plans, he fulfilled his Focus before doing so.
SAZH: “What? Did he complete his Focus?”
SNOW: “I don’t think so.”
What? I thought he just said he did. He said bringing us this far WAS his Focus.
[Later edit: the datalog clarifies that he almost fulfilled his Focus and rebelled at the last second, but I guess it was close enough.]
-His crystallized form is different. It doesn’t persist like Serah’s - he dissipates into light.
-Yay! Access to Stage 8 of the Crystarium. BUT HOLY SHIT IT’S EXPENSIVE! 4000+ CP per ability.
-I can now access the Moogleworks shop.
Tempted to save up for the Collector Catalog that increases the odds of getting items after battle… but I doubt I’ll actually do it.
-Moving on, to the “Central Conflux” of the Ark.
-Tbh, this is not my favorite dungeon. A lot of the segments keep repeating. Not as bad as the desert prison in FFVIII, but the fact that it even makes me think of that place doesn’t speak well of it.
-I love these enemies-fighting-enemies encounters. Daemons versus behemoths for example. Adds a neat tactical element to the fight.
-Woot, got Sazh’s Deneb Duellers to star level!
-I saved up 60k and now I can at least test whether one of the store-bought transformational catalysts can upgrade Sazh’s or Lightning’s weapons.
-No luck on the 60k Mnar Stone. The Uraninite can upgrade the Gladius, and one of the 30k stones upgrades the Deneb Duellers. (I save scummed to check.)
-Going to go with the Gladius for now. It transforms into “Helter-Skelter.”
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Next time: continuing to the Hypogeum part of the Ark.
