Summary: Serendipity. The Mystic. Slots and chocobo racing.
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Serendipity – ??? AF
-I can either go to Academia or Serendipity. Academia feels like progress, so I start with Serendipity.
-“A fantastical neverland with a staff of surpassing beauty.” It even mentions needing Lady Luck’s blessing to enter. I wish I had that dressphere from X-2 with me.
-Yup, this is the casino we saw from the other side. It uses a special casino coin currency.
-omg I just found a Lightning mask adornment to plaster onto my poor grumpy chocobo!
-The datalog notes that Serendipity is the name of a place from Gran Pulse’s myth.
“The minstrel who penned the original fable vanished before its completion. Some say the goddess herself invited him to Serendipity.” That sounds like hyperbole, but maybe we’ll actually meet the Gran Pulse dude who penned the myth here.
-The music is upbeat in late 80s/early 90s way. Reminds me strongly of music like from the pizza montage that opened Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze.
-There slot machines, chocobo racing, even some attractions under-construction. I’ll check back later.
-I enter a building with an A for a door. The music inside is like a Gregorian chant? And Chocolina is here?
-Wait… this is a “Mystic.’ She’s dressed like a golden Chocolina, but different.
-She describes the fragments we’ve collected as remnants of past time. If we present them to her, she’ll give us “fragment skills.” Am I eligible for any yet?
-Yes! I get two. Haggler (increases price of stuff I sell to vendors) and Mog’s Manifestation. The latter improves the moogle throw. Now if I throw Mog even without a treasure target, he might find stuff.
LOLOL, even the primer image they show for this makes poor Mog look queasy at the thought.
THERE ARE SO MANY FRAGMENT SKILLS! What a cool extra incentive to collect more fragments.
[Non-rhetorical question: Why do I have the option to turn Mog’s Manifestation “OFF.” Is there a hidden downside, or is it just for those doing a challenge run of some sort?]
-The Mystic says that the goddess is troubled greatly by all the different history fragments scattered throughout time…
Noel and the Mystic.
Okay. Longshot, terrible theory time. I joked in the past that Chocolina would turn out to be the Maker. In all seriousness though, I think Chocolina might be the goddess.
Think about it! The Mystic is dressed up like Chocolina, and she seems a holy woman. She comes off as a priest of the goddess, so perhaps the chocobo feathers is her version of worship.
She also says how much the goddess is concerned with disparate times. Chocolina is in pretty much every time zone, helping us to solve paradoxes which RESOLVE THE TIME DISPARITIES.
It’s probably not the case, but come on. It’s not THAT far out there, right?
-LOL – One casino guide welcomes me in a chipper southern accent. By the third time I talk to her, she drops the accent and just says, “I’m so sorry. I just started working here and I’m a little overwhelmed.”
-I can either play the slot machines manually, stopping reels myself, or auto-play.
-Hee! They even made slot machines have moods. Sometimes they’ll be luckier I guess? Idk.
-The card tables will be unlocked with “future downloadable content.”
[Non-rhetorical question: Is this a DLC I have to buy? Or is this message meant as a meta joke of sorts, where as I progress the game, the casino will “download the content” and unlock it?]
-I can race with my chocobo combat pet!
-Serah notices a chocochick, and wonders about Chocobo. Like, Sazh’s little chocobo. OH SHIT WILL WE SEE SAZH HERE??
WAIT WAIT, THIS CHOCOCHICK FRAGMENT! It’s a letter from Dajh. His “daddy” went a way to help Serah and her friends. But here’s the mind-blower:
“Hey, remember my daddy’s chocobo chick? Well, it’s a girl. So I’ve decided to call her Chocolina. Cool, huh?”
ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT THROUGH SOME TIMEY WIMEY SHENANIGANS, SAZH’S CHOCOBO CHICK GREW UP TO BE A TIME-TRAVELING CHOCOBO VENDOR GODDESS???
-The casino vendor sells tons of great stuff for casino coins. Adornments and chocobo boosts, but some mystery stuff too. A ribbon (40% resistance to all statuses), Chaos Crystal, “Just 1 gil!...”
-Best of all though is Setzer’s Dice. “This set of dice belonged to a legendary gambler whose consummate skill once drove Serendipity to the brink of ruin.”
A delightful reference to FFVI’s gambler Setzer, with some powerful dice weapons of his own. I wonder what its effect in-game in XIII-2 will be.
-Let’s try the games out. I’ll start with the slot machines.
-The owner wonders if we met before. Maybe this is a reference to a past FF game I’m not picking up on.
-I played the slots a bit. I was on a real hot streak. Jackpot! Victory mode! SUPER VICTORY MODE! Getting all puffed up with pride, when it turned out to be… tutorial mode.
Frigging troll game. XD
[Non-rhetorical question: without going into details, is it pure luck at this point, or is there skill involved?]
-I try the slots 30 times. The staff said it was like a summer’s day, but no luck.
[Non-rhetorical question: One casino staff member said I should never listen to the staff. Is this a gameplay tip that their advice is the opposite of the truth? Should I wait for the staff to say, like, “This machine sucks, I’d avoid it,” and that’ll mean it’s super lucky?]
-Okay, I’m gonna register my chocobo and try the race. I have a level 34 commando and a level 1 in my stable, so I’ll use the level 1 (since I want the level 34 for combat).
-Chocobos have speed and stamina, pretty standard, but they also have “race points.” They have a specific life span, and once they’ve used up their “race points,” they have to retire.
Tbh, I doubt I’ll spend much time with the races. They’re not really my thing. Let’s see what it’s like.
-Holy shit this is SO COMPLICATED! The game barrages me with betting strategies, odds, conditions, racing strategies. Let’s try one.
-My chocobo is a long shot in this race. I bet on Festering Poison, the favorite.
-Yeah, my buddy sucked but I love him anyway. At least Festering Poison won me 10 coins.
-I don’t control my chocobo directly exactly, but I can give it speed boosts.
-It also hits me that I can control my chocobo and bet on other chocobos. I wonder if I could eventually do a the super shift strategy of getting a great chocobo in the race as the favorite, betting on the second-best chocobo, and tanking to ensure the second-best one wins.
-I learn afterwards that I can press A right as the race starts for a quick boost. I seem to remember that from the only racing game I’ve played heavily in my life: F-Zero on the SNES.
-Anyway, I think I’m done for now. I might spend more time with slots. I doubt I’ll spend more time with races. (It seems something I might do on replay, with a guide.)
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Next time: Academic, 400 AF. There are 13 available fragments, so I expect that to be another major zone.
