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The Road Home
-There’s a Cie’th stone at the end of this bridge. It’s carries a record of Vanille and Fang’s actions.
“Cocoon, where the slaves of Lindzei dwell, is the enemy of all life fostered by Pulse’s sacred hand. So our fal’Cie determined Pulse’s will, chose l’Cie, and gave them a Focus. ‘Become Ragnarok, and bring about the end of Cocoon.’
“And so the beast arose, defeated Lindzei’s hateful fal’Cie, and prepared to tear Cocoon apart.
I wonder who Ragnarok actually is. Like, is it a separate being that possessed Fang? Or is it some manifestation of Pulsian rage that only came into being when Fang transformed?
“But Her Providence betrayed our l’Cie, draining Ragnarok of strength. Their Focus only half complete, the l’Cie were taken to the enemy’s land by Barthandelus, curse his name.
As best I can parse right now, Lindzei is the Maker. Pulse is the Goddess. The Maker and the Goddess are on par with each other.
I’m 90% certain I’m wrong, but that’s all I got for now.
“And the Goddess said: ‘L’Cie who rest upon Cocoon will reawaken, however long they may wait. And Ragnarok will rise again, to tear the land from its seat in the sky.’ Her word is absolute.”
So that’s disheartening. Ragnarok’s rise sounds a bit inevitable.
-Sazh thinks that maybe if we do this and bring back the Maker, he’ll immediately reverse everything. I… doubt it will go that smoothly.
-What do we do now? Go protect Orphan? Take another shot at Dysley?
-Hope wants to try to stop the impending civil war. Vanille’s on board, determined to keep Cocoon safe this time around.
-New analect, #12: “The Door of Souls.” It proposes that souls of the dead leave the world by the same path that the departed gods took.
“It stands to reason that, should a great many lives at once be cut short, a flood of souls would surge through the aforementioned portal. The Door would be thrown wide, and perhaps we might even glimpse the gleaming light of Divinity beyond.”
This is some Fullmetal Alchemist shit looming.
-I can board the airship to go to Cocoon. I’m worried that I missed Cie’th mission stones, but I thought I explored well and just didn’t see them. I doubt more will become available on Cocoon.
Bhakti told me some stones are dormant until the time is right. Maybe that’s the case now. I don’t feel like running back to the Archylte Steppe just to check, so I’ll assume stone #29 is ahead of me on Cocoon, or that I’ll return here later in the story.
[Later edit and non-rhetorical question: I regret this decision. I thought the airship would give me the flexibility to move between Cocoon and Pulse, but as of the end of this session that seems unlikely. I’m really afraid I blew my chance to try solving more Cie’th stone missions.
If you can answer in a non-detailed, yes/no sort of way, will I have the chance to try more Cie’th stone missions before the game ends or did I lock myself out on that front?]
-Full cinematic as we rocket towards Cocoon.
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Start Your Engines
-Scene change to the newly revived and promoted Primarch Raines, giving a speech about the tough choices needed to awaken a new dawn.
-It’s… a race? A weird spot to give this speech, but ok.
-High above, our party rides in on our respective Eidolons.
-The camera catches us – and worse, catches Snow’s brand. Everyone attacks.
-I don’t really understand why we’re attacking the race, as awesome as it is to see our party tag-teaming with their Eidolons to kick ass.
[Later edit: maybe we just happened to land here as the closest path to Orphan and just decided we didn’t care about being inconspicuous for some reason.]
-And it IS cool. LIGHTNING RIDING ATOP ODIN!
-Now I’m in a fight with a boss? A warmech.
GAH, I hate when they shove me in with a random party and random paradigms.
-Took it out eventually, and we’re being chased again.
-A full-scale Pulse invasion overruns Eden. Oretoises, Cie’th, and other beasts stream through portals.
Where are these coming from? Is Dysley facilitating this?
-Back to Raines. Rygdea is here with a Cavalry strike force to kill him… and Raines welcomes it. He’s so tired of being a fal’Cie puppet.
-RYGDEA FIRES? Holy crap, that was unexpected. Unless it’s a fake-out. RIP Cid once more.
-Note: I’m suuuuper lost. Which means it’s time for some DATALOG REVIEW!
-This is the start of chapter 12.
-AH! The monsters came from the arks beneath the city, maybe even unleashed by Cavalry to cause a distraction so they can get to the new Primarch and then to Orphan.
-We’re fighting in the rafters/railways above Cocoon, which is a pretty awesome battlefield.
-We then jump down using Lightning’s anti-grav units. Poor Vanille is afraid of the height, and I blame her 0%. Especially since nobody told her why the jump is safe. Rude.
-Hee! I found a gunblade called “Lionheart,” a callback to one of the series’ primary gunblade users.
-Upgraded my Black Belt to star rating, +20% physical resistance which seems nice. Saving, then transforming… okay. This is more of a standard transformation like the weapons had. It turns into a General’s Belt, with the same basic physical resistance but a higher cap.
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Eden Under Siege
-Fighting through the Cavalry troops when a Behemoth King arrives… and wipes the floor with me. Dammit. He got into his second form and spammed “Sunder.”
I tried going into Tri-Disaster to launch stun him but couldn’t get there in time.
-Second attempt, got him before he chain Sundered me.
-I think I have a decent strategy here. Behemoths full-heal when they transition into the brutal second phase at lower health, but the chain gauge doesn’t reset. So I have to raise them up.
-oh god, a RED behemoth. “Proto-Behemoth.” Perfect time for a Deceptisol.
-Rosch blocks our way. Determined to stop us because he thinks we’re with the Pulse attackers.
-Boss time, in his mech called “The Proudclad.”
-Another tough fight. Things have really ramped up the last couple of chapters! It’s especially touch and go after his first phase and he just goes frigging HAM on me. It’s all I can do to survive even with double medic.
-Thankfully (cause I like him), he doesn’t die. Just retreats.
-We have to keep pushing on to expose Barthandelus behind all this.
-We see armies of Cocoon troops facing off against the oretoises and behemoths from Cocoon. They’re getting stomped. (badum-tsss)
-I IMMEDIATELY REGRET MOCKING THEM, IT MAKES ME FIGHT ONE
-It’s scary at first, but I’m much stronger than when I was on the Archylte Steppe last. Phew. Still gotta keep up my
-New type of enemy here, a Humbaba.
DAMMIT, I keep dying. He transforms and just spams me with magic.
-Okay. Doing a bit better, as long as he doesn’t blast me with Sunders. I’m finally using resist items, wind absorption and resistance gear. That helps a lot.
-This place is another massive difficulty spike. Or I’m just bad.
-Nah, chill. I’m not great at the game, but this is supposed to be tough. I made it this far, and just have to develop a strat for each fight.
And worse comes to worse, I can treat this like Archylte Steppe. Don't have to fight everything.
-Pushed through the next section, up to a door to what I think is Edenhall, judging by the citizen dialog.
-A titanic door opens. Some voices from the other side… it’s NORA!
-They’re pretty accepting of Snow being a Pulse l’Cie, mostly pissed that he didn’t tell.
(I think this moment wants me to care more about NORA than I actually do though, tbh. I don’t feel that strong a connection to them.)
-As quick as they arrived, they fly off to watch over the Pulse refugees.
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Learning the Unknown
One last note. I’ve been exploring the new crystarium circle that opened up and found one ability that seems limit break-ish for each character. Been trying Lightning’s “Army of One.” It looks AWESOME – but it doesn’t seem that powerful?
Idk, the description is vague. Going to experiment with that and the other abilities and may ask for more info next time if I don’t understand what I’m doing with them.
It’s a lesson I learned in my unspoiled LP of FFVII. I never asked how limit breaks were, never figured it out, and missed on a huge and fun part of the game. Will try to avoid that this time and ask if “the ol’ college try” doesn’t work.
On that note, next session, I’ll also try (FINALLY) exploring Eidolon use and gameplay.
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Next time: towards Edenhall.
