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Loss of Self
-I head to a campground to await Aranea. Prompto dines on a sad tinned dinner. (big mood)
-He looks at his barcode on his wrist. NOOOO DON’T BURN IT OFF HJFKLDHSFDLSF
(…And yet I pick the “burn wrist” option when the game surprises me by giving me the choice. It does sound more dramatic, and I understand the impulse.)
-Aranea arrives, healing his wrist. It didn’t really work in removing the barcode.
-Prompto no longer wants to see his friends in Tenebrae. Says he’s not like them. He was born here, and never told his friends. The only reason he was created was to make the Lucians miserable.
As if they’ll give a shit. But I ABSOLUTELY don’t think it’s a silly thought for Prompto. It’s an understandable fear.
-He complains a bit more about how he’d just be a burden to the others when Aranea and I let out a giant “UGHHHHH.” Not that I blame him for worrying about that, but it’s so far from the truth!
-In the morning, Aranea’s going after “that new model.” Immortalis?
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Moving Forward
-Side quests are now a thing, but I’ll skip these because I’m not enjoying the DLC’s combat mechanics. Really hoping the final boss isn’t a snowmobile battle.
-Prompto follows some barking and sees a dead magitek trooper.
-In a horrifying vision/nightmare, Prompto imagines he IS that magitek soldier, fleeing from a hostile Noctis.
This is incredible! It flips all of Noctis’ casual battle boasting on its head to hear it aimed at Prompto.
-PRYNA! HI PUPPY! She leads me to a swarm of downed magitek troopers, one gasping its last breaths. Prompto sees himself in the trooper.
Tears streaming down his face, he blasts it. Puts it out of its misery. Again this is frigging AMAZING character stuff.
As he fires, he sees his childhood self. Remembers the letter Lunafreya sent him as a kid: “All I ask is that you continue to support Noctis, and that you remain ever at his side.”
-In this vision, kid!Prompto flips through photos of the group together. That’s his value! Himself. Being himself is the support they need. It’s what he wants to be too.
-He picks up his camera. “It’s time.”
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Sins of the Father
-Prompto returns to Aranea as she boards her snowmobile. He’ll join her.
“I can’t choose where I came from, but I can choose where I’m going.”
I love these two.
-We fight our way into the facility housing Immortalis, and it’s hard to describe just how much I want this DLC to end. The story is awesome, and I can’t stand the mechanics. The aiming is stressful, trying to find the right gun is stressful, getting into a rhythm and then running out of ammo and having to change tactics suddenly is stressful, not knowing where the damage is coming from is stressful.
These are all things that don’t tend to be a factor in more melee-heaving stuff, which is why I enjoy things like “Sekiro” and “Episode Gladiolus” but not this. Just not my cup of tea.
-On occasion, creating daemons accidentally becomes a weapon for Verstael. He wants to use their raw power.
-Verstael found a way to create a magitek “slightly less powerful than the Diamond Weapon” (hi again FFVII). The ego also stays intact. He wanted to become his own final test subject.
-Ardyn helped him out a lot. What a guy. Though even now I don’t know why Prompto was brought specifically for this, when Random Magitek Trooper #72 could have delivered the killing blow to complete the ego transfer.
-boss around the corner, a monkey mech called Barbarus.
The first half of the fight is slow but steady. I keep my distance and go for the sniper rifle on its face. The second half is much rougher. Barbarus is on fire, far more aggressive, and harder to predict.
My main strategy is running away and waiting until Aranea can do her Highwind tech. I die a lot and it’s pretty frustrating, but I SOMEHOW make it in one try.
-Immortalis, final boss time no doubt.
-NOOOOOOOOO A SNOWMOBILE FIGHT
-Oh thank the sweet lord. I just have to aim and fire. Aranea takes care of the driving.
-Immortalis’ design is interesting. A titanic worm mech with some claws/eyes at the front that I have to shoot.
-I die near the end, but this is not so bad. Very much just aiming and shooting.
-Whew! Second time’s the charm. That part was by FAR the most fun section of the DLC for me, probably because it was so stripped down. Felt more like an aiming tutorial/mini-game.
-There’s a wonderful moment at the end where Prompto does his goofy player finger point thing, “Couldn’t have done without you, GURL!” Then, more quietly and seriously, “Thank you.”
HE’S GROWING UP
He rides off on his snowmobile back to join the group.
-Ardyn watches this from a distance, then toots out Prompto’s acapella FF victory fanfare.
LOLOL. He’s a little shit, probably a big shit, and it still feels like he spends an exorbitant amount of info trolling unnecessarily, but Ardyn does crack me up sometimes.
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Afterward
-Prompto has rejoined the group. Noctis apologizes for falling into Ardyn’s trap.
PROMPTO, SARCASTIC AF: “I know! How could you have done such a horrible thing? After everything we’ve been through!” I LOVE IT, because he’s destroying the trope I feared the DLC would dwell on.
Of COURSE it’s not Noctis’ fault. Nor Prompto’s.
-Noctis will help make the world a better place, regardless of place of origin. Prompto at his side.
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And that’s it! I see this DLC as the polar opposite of Episode Gladiolus. The story was far more interesting, as was the character development. And Aranea interest me more than Cor. (Still sad there’s no Episode Aranea DLC.)
[Later edit: or DLC for any XV women. Hell, give me Episode Camelia, a political sim where she has to lead Altissia via negotiations and crafting alliances and I’d be down.]
But while I really enjoyed the mechanics of Gladiolus, I did not enjoy the mechanics here. No interest in touching whatever the time trial and intensive training modes are.
-The rewards here are a Lion Heart (gun?) and the Trigger-Happy technique, which I think I already had. Also the cosmetic tundra gear, which I’m 100% gonna use cause it’s sweet af.
I’m curious: for those of you who play shooters, how does this stack up? It’s hard for me to discern how much of my dislike is for the genre itself versus this particular iteration of the genre. I heard that Dirge of Cerberus was seen as a bad shooter, and I wonder about Episode Prompto.
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Next time: Back to chapter 12 in the main game. My friend’s guide tells me that the next DLC, Episode Ignis, comes after I beat the main game.
