The L'Cie have been manipulated by Barthandelus, given almost no choice but to play into his hand. Using the ship he provided, they return to the Sanctum metropolis of Eden.
The L'Cie teleport in to Eden, simultaneously summoning their Eidolons. They arrive in the middle of a motorcycle race. I found this to be a bit of a forced action sequence, but maybe it's just not my thing. I don't get too excited about car chases in movies either. Chaos, of course, soon erupts. When the L'Cie arrive, the Fal'Cie trigger an "invasion" from Pulse. Portals open all over the city, spilling out creatures from the surface of Pulse. I can't remember if I figured it out later on, or if it was sufficiently explained at the time, but these creatures come from Arks that the Sanctum has hidden on Eden in order to incite this battle, not from Pulse itself. Once again, the Cocoon Fal'Cie are using fear to manipulate the populace, which is a major theme in the game.
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| Chaos erupts at the racetrack in Eden's streets. |
The party makes their way through the streets of Eden toward the headquarters of the Fal'Cie, being attacked by both Sanctum and Pulsian foes alike. They had been lured by the threat that the Cavalry would attack and destroy Orphan, however, as they arrive at the center of the Sanctum, these Cavalry soldiers have been turned to Cieth by Barthandelus. They realize that once again, this was a ruse to force the L'Cie themselves to charge towards Orphan. The party arrives at the last dungeon, called "Orphan's Cradle", where the Fal'Cie Eden has been tasked with making paths for them to arrive at Orphan. This area is kind of cool, it has a nice looking background of fast moving objects, making it seem like you're in hyperspace or something like that. It has some potential, but the progression of bosses and monsters, rather than getting pleasantly more challenging, get's increasingly annoying and frustrating.
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| Examining these manifestations of the Fal'Cie Eden opens up paths in Orphan's Cradle. |
The above battle summary screen is from one of the bosses in Orphan's Cradle, and illustrates quite well what I don't like about FF13's battle system. The target time is ~7min, meaning if the player has the right strategy it should take about this long. I obviously didn't, as my battle duration is ~20min. What that tells me is since I didn't pick up on what the designers had in mind for this boss, I had to dance around for 20 minutes. You know what that makes me want to say to them? F* you! F* you designers, and F* your stupid game! Now a 20 minute battle isn't in itself bad if it's interesting. In this case though, due to the supposed "streamlining" of this system, it was basically just repeating the same attack patterns over and over again... for 20 minutes. The only good thing I can say is at least my leader didn't get one hit killed and cause an auto-defeat at the 15 minute mark, as this game sometimes does to you.
The counter argument would be why didn't I stop and use the retry option when I saw it was taking so long? Well, that sort of seems to be how the designers thought they would counter this problem. The thing is, you don't know the target time during the battle, nor do you know how long it's been unless you're watching the clock. In this battle system, if you're glancing at a clock, your inattention might just make you dead as well. So, all I knew was this battle was taking a frickin' long time, and I didn't want to have to do it again. Without knowing the target time, I didn't know if there WAS a better strategy. Then it ends, you look at the summary screen and go "Hey? What the F*!" If it was just one boss in the game that played out like this, it might be forgivable, but it's a number of them, including almost all of the bosses leading up to and including the final boss in Orphan's Cradle. By the end of the game I wasn't excited that I won so much as I was sick of it and just wanted it to be over.
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| This is The Narthex, an empty area leading to the final boss. I'm not sure what giant robots like the Fal'Cie use these couches for, but it does create a mysterious atmosphere. Narthex apparently comes from the name of an area in some churches. |
One Final Fantasy tradition that this game thankfully upholds is that of a series of final bosses, three in this case. The first is Barthandelus, after his defeat he seems to combine with his owl companion, rising as a mother/father, light/dark combined being with Orphan in the middle. There is certainly some interesting symbology (blogger thinks this is a made up word? Hmm... not going to look it up) and mythology going on in this game, if nothing else. (The correct word is probably symbolism... still not going to change it.)
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| The combined form of Barthandelus, Minerva, and Orphan. |
As a player, you've made it this far. You've pushed through to the end through flashes of brilliance, and a lot of frustration, to give this game a chance to finish up on a high note. Then the plot devolves completely into a convoluted S* fest. Bart (or Orphan... or whatever he is now) tortures Fang in order to make her become Ragnarok, and destroy Orphan. She is not powerful enough though, in an apparent repeat of Fang and Vanille's past attempt at doing so. (Later on, it is implied that the two must combine in order to become the full power Ragnarok.) In order to completely dissolve all of Fang's hope, the other party members are turned into Cieth! Just when all hope seems lost... The L'Cie are not Cieth anymore! They come rushing in from outside to save... What? What just happened? The characters explain it off as "Must've been another Fal'Cie ruse." Sazh is, once again, the only one who delivers it straight, saying something like "I don't know what just happened... didn't make a lot of sense... but let's keep fighting!"
Fighting this combined boss was another exercise in frustration, I couldn't find the right strategy. It turns out he is very vulnerable to certain de-buffs, with poison being the most important one. Maybe it's just my old school experience getting in the way, but when does poison ever work on a final boss? Who is going to think of that? This would be a nice a easter-egg, but in this case using poison may be the only way to defeat this guy. I once again had to resort to looking up hints. The striking thing is I've beaten this game before, but the answers are so unintuitive, I had to look them up despite that. Once I did, the battle was cake. I hate this! It's like each boss has one strategy, and you have to trial and error it until you figure out. That is, bad, bad, bad game design.
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| I saw this screen so many times I was compelled to take a screenshot. |
You may have also noticed what I think is a giant pink elephant in the room plot wise at this point in the game. From the beginning of the game, the L'Cie fear their focus is to destroy Cocoon. Barthandelus confirms this, and they realize they are being manipulated into doing just that. Destroy Orphan, and destroy Cocoon. The L'Cie want to save Cocoon. So they must not destroy Orphan. So, of course, they charge in guns blazing... and destroy Orphan. They even stop Barthandelus from making Fang destroy Orphan, and immediately follow by doing it themselves. In the end, the day is saved by Fang and Vanille morphing into Ragnarok, then turning into a crystal pillar to save the plummeting Cocoon. This is not logical, no one knows this is even possible. Everything the L'Cie do is based on some flimsy notion of overcoming adversity with sheer will power. It's like the message of the game is shoot first and figure it out later. Snow's reckless "Heroes don't need plans" philosophy turns out to be the one that wins the day. I mean... just F* this game man, F* this game. The storyline was one of the things I was prepared to give as a strength of the game, but it completely falls apart at the end, in my opinion.
I'm a little surprised at how frustrated and angry this game makes me, but I think it comes from being a long-time, devoted fan. I was a Final Fantasy fan back when the only game available was the first one for the NES. Honestly, I have regarded every other FF as a masterpiece. I'd say I find FF5 to have the most flaws otherwise, but I still thoroughly enjoy that game. Then this highly anticipated game comes out, and it basically blows. It's such a mystery to me how a company that could almost do no wrong completely crapped themselves on this one. For those familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, FF13 reminds me a lot of the fiasco that was 4th edition. The company decided to "streamline" so much, and aim at a wider audience, that the final product strayed so far from series conventions as to alienate long time fans.
FF13 was a big success sales-wise, because people bought it on name alone. The sad part is that the sequels have sold many, many less copies, likely because 13 was so disappointing, and yet they are very good games, in my opinion. I can breathe a little easier now that this one is done, all that is left is the rankings!
Although we leave the L'Cie for now, who have saved Cocoon, and shed their brands, it is not the last we shall see of them. To hear their future, in better times to come, return soon... to This Bard's Tales!
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