Breathe in, breathe
out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.
One of the most
infamous elements of Final Fantasy 13’s story
was the fal’Cie system. Many have
decried it as one of the key reasons why the game (opening and all) was so
alienating. I’ve personally decried it
as a contrived, moronic system that only exists to generate artificial tension
and genuine angst. But for the purpose
of this post, and for those who wisely dodged FF13, I’ll go ahead and explain the system once more.
The world of “The
Lightning Saga” is split into two distinct parts. The first part is Pulse, the untamed lands
that presumably stretch from one corner of the planet to the next; the second,
Cocoon, some sort of floating spherical colony that presumably contains all the
major cities and the majority of the population. It’s in Cocoon that presumably a fair number
of the fal’Cie dwell -- biomechanical yet godlike beings who use their powers
to make Cocoon a paradise for its inhabitants…which doesn’t explain why it’s
full of monsters, but whatever.
The tradeoff is that
the fal’Cie will turn normal people into l’Cie -- servants that have been
imbued with magic powers and a creepy tattoo, and given a special mission (a
Focus) to carry out. If the l’Cie
succeeds in carrying out the Focus, they turn into crystal statues. If they fail, they turn into Cie’th,
shambling, rock-laden zombie monsters.
Still, presumably the occasional l’Cie indoctrination is something the
people are willing to live with; as long as it’s not happening to them and the fal’Cie/Cocoon protects them
from the supposedly-hellish Pulse, they’ll turn a blind eye to the proceedings.
I’m a little worried
about how many times I had to use the word “presumably” to describe things, and
there are issues with this system that I can and have pointed out. But there are two things that are important
to keep in mind. First off, in spite of
the “complex” world-building the story pretty much comes down to “free yourself
from the control of the gods”; that is, living by one’s own merits and means
instead of cribbing off the divine, and working to decide one’s own fate. The second thing is that, even if FF13 was full of nonsense and garbage,
it was ITS nonsense and garbage. That
was its framework. Its rules. Its ideas.
Which brings us to…
Part 5: The Subplot
Breathe in, breathe
out. Breathe in, breathe out.
You know, a part of me
was actually curious to see how 13-2 would
reconcile its fal’Cie system. Granted
it’s a stupid-ass system, but maybe a sequel would offer the chance to play
with it a bit more. Maybe use the ideas
as a springboard. Maybe move the plot in
new directions, and quickly, now that we fully understand the context laid out
in the first game. Or better yet, show
what the world is like as a result of the actions taken in --
Oh.
In what is pretty much
a throwaway line, the fal’Cie are apparently all gone. MIA.
Nowhere to be found. One of the
key storyline elements to vanilla 13 is
almost completely axed, replaced by a time travel system that the developers
don’t even try to fully explain. It is just baffling that they would treat their canon like this; the way 13-2 plays out, you almost get the sense
that nearly everything that happened in the original didn’t matter. The fal’Cie are gone. And in another throwaway line, it’s revealed
that the people have started adapting by learning how to use magic without
being branded as l’Cie…which in retrospect sounds like a bullshit hand wave,
but I guess I have no choice but to allow it.
There’s no indication
as to how the world’s adapting to such a massive change, especially after the
three-year time skip; the most we see is people chilling out in the beachside
hamlet of New Bodhum, which of course is located somewhere in Pulse. Considering that not too long ago there was an
entire propagandist movement to convince the populace that Pulse was a
nightmarish world overflowing with hellions looking to assault Cocoon and its
peoples, you would think that we’d
get to see how people would react to the revelation that Pulse is just a
naturalistic world left nearly-uninhabited for centuries. But then again, that would require…you know, thought on the developers’ part.
To be fair, the fal’Cie
aren’t completely erased from the canon; in fact, they form a pretty big part
of The Subplot. But before I can get to
that, I have to make it very clear that in games like these, context is
everything. Who are we playing as? Who are we up against? What are we fighting for? Where are we fighting? Questions like those and more need some kind
of answer…and if you’ve been reading these posts, you’ll know that 13-2 has consistently failed to deliver
us anything satisfying. And if you’ve
ever seen a bad movie, you may know the end result: if you’re not being
entertained, you’re more likely to zero in on a movie’s flaws. If there’s nothing to latch onto, the mind
wanders and we get annoyed and cynical -- or more simply, start with the
nitpicking. In a way, you can consider
the goal of any story to offer up something to latch onto. It’s all about offering up distractions to
cover up the flaws of a work.
So, what distractions
does 13-2 have? Well, it tries to compensate by making the
same moves as its big brother: relying on its “all-star” cast.
You can probably guess
how well that’s gone so far.
Serah was a non-entity
in the original game, and is inoffensive at best in 13-2. Lightning is barely in
the game for ten minutes, but is treated with more reverence than the
pope. Sazh has been banished to
DLC. Fang and Vanille are lucky to get a
cameo, if that. Snow’s friends are
re-introduced and re-dumped in almost the same breath. There might as well have not even been NPCs
in the original game or this game, for all the effect they have on…well,
anything. That just leaves us with two
characters: Snow and Hope. AKA the two
characters EVERYBODY loved from vanilla 13.
…Should I be kind of
pissed that anyone having any ethnicity beyond the quasi-Anglo-Japanese hybrids
of JRPGs has been given the boot? Or the
fact that anyone over thirty (and ACTUALLY thirty, not just hundreds of years
old thanks to time-space shenanigans) was given the boot? Or the fact that if you’re a woman in a
Squeenix game, you’re screwed? No? Anybody?
No? Well, I guess I’ll just move
on, then.
I probably should have
expected foul play based on the little vignette you have with Snow. Apparently, everyone’s favorite hero has been
spending time in an alternate timeline/dimension trying to kill a giant gelatin
monster and do his part to fix the timeline, and Serah and Noel try to help him
do the same once they get on the scene.
Now, if you’re anything like me you’re probably wondering how Snow even got to that dimension, given that he
presumably left long before these time travel shenanigans started -- and, you
know, he has absolutely zero means to even TRY to travel through time. But that’s the least of the player’s
problems. See, in the interstice between
abandoning Serah and reuniting with her to participate in gelslaughter,
apparently Snow sought out a fal’Cie and became a l’Cie in order to gain more
power -- and after completing his Focus (which was to kill the gelatin thing, I
guess…which is pretty damn convenient), he disappears, but not before getting
an overwrought and shrieking goodbye from Serah.
*sigh*
This is wrong. This is wrong -- all wrong. First off, where
did Snow find a fal’Cie? I thought they
were all gone. Second, why would Snow
seek out a fal’Cie to gain more power, given that magic has been discovered and
slowly but surely harnessed by the populace?
Third, why would Snow -- who by the end of 13 succeeded in punching out giant turtles, mobile suits, and
suicidal gods -- need to gain more
power? Fourth, why would the fal’Cie
give Snow a Focus that just so happens to coincide with Serah and Noel’s
objective, especially considering that the fal’Cie have a dumbass habit of
giving their peons missions that are phenomenally vague? Fifth, why would Snow agree to become a l’Cie
again if the Focus he gained would inevitably pull him away from his
self-ordained Focus of finding Lightning and making his fiancé Serah
happy? Sixth -- and worst of all -- why
would Snow let himself fall under the power of a fal’Cie when the entire point
of the last game was moving past being pawns of the gods? Especially considering that the fal’Cie put
the original six characters through hell, and considering that they very nearly
ended Serah’s life with their bullshit system, and considering that blustery hero Snow was the absolute LAST
person who should be doing something so contradictory to the lessons of the
last game? I know my questions could be
answered by just saying “Because Snow is a good-hearted idiot,” or “because
Squeenix said so” -- but like I’ve said before, THAT’S NOT A GOOD ANSWER.
Look. Let’s be real here. It’s obvious that 13-2 is a rush job -- a way to both make up for the shameful
mistakes of 13 and simultaneously
restock the war chest after such a massive failure with FF14. And you know
what? At the end of the day, that’s not
automatically a bad thing. There’s an
argument to be made that The Legend of
Zelda: Majora’s Mask was also a rush job, but it ended up becoming not only
a beloved part of the Zelda franchise,
but a haunting and memorable story that few who experienced it are likely to
dismiss…not to mention it’s one of my absolute favorite games ever. But the key difference here is that even if
you’re putting out a rush job, that doesn’t excuse you from making it
good. That doesn’t excuse you from
begging for handouts with one hand and flipping the bird with the other. But
that’s exactly what Squeenix did.
And you want to know
how I know? You want to know what makes
me be so bold? It’s simple. It’s because I have evidence.
I have The Subplot.
One of the first (or
should I say, only) recurring NPCs throughout 13-2 is Hope. Most people
may remember him as the whiny mama’s boy who could pull a boomerang out of his
ass, but for the purposes of boosting the game’s pretty boy quota he’s been
aged up about ten years. (See? They had a plan for that time travel all
along!) So for whatever reason, Hope is
not only put on the forefront of this game, but put in a seat of power as a
researcher and high-ranking official, to the point where you can think of his
comrades as a small army.
Now, I may be in the
minority on this, but I don’t think vanilla 13
Hope was as bad as everyone said he was.
That’s not to say he was good by any means, but given whom and what else
was in that game, he could have been a hell of a lot worse. And if nothing else, he gives 13-2 some cohesion to the original
game. If nothing else, future-Hope has
the potential to show just how the canon is advancing. The ideas.
The intent. The characters
themselves.
And you know what? That’s honestly all I really wanted from 13-2 -- and the closest I came to
enjoying it was whenever Hope was on-screen.
He’s rational. He’s
reasonable. He’s reliable. He’s kindhearted, but still dedicated to his
goals. And said goals go beyond just
doling out exposition or helping out Serah and Noel; he has to be one of the
few main characters who’s actually trying to better the world beyond just
killing monsters and demigods. Yeah,
he’s still a little too eager to go on and on about how awesome Lightning is, but that’s pretty much every character in this
game; what’s important is that he shows a level of ambition and practicality that
I can’t help but admire.
A huge part of this
game is devoted to trying to figure out how to stop the now-crystallized Cocoon
from falling; that is, they not only want to stop it, but save the people
inside and around it. Granted, you may
be wondering why anyone would want to live in a crystal-shrouded husk that very
nearly crashed into the ground like a meteor at the end of the first game, or
why anyone would want to live there now that the fal’Cie that made it a
paradise supposedly vacated, or why they can’t just leave that area and let
Cocoon fall semi-harmlessly to the ground, given that they have more than four
centuries to prepare for that fall and have no reason to live around it, or why
anyone is trying to save Cocoon in the first place considering that natural
processes like erosion will inevitably bring it falling down regardless. But…er...I think there was a point in there
somewhere…
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…Oh, right, Hope. After you handle some issues surrounding the
expedition of Hope and comrades, Hope will start dedicating effort and
resources toward finding a way to prevent Cocoon’s fall. And in those moments, you realize that Hope’s
grown up, and not just because Squeenix wanted teenage girls on DeviantArt to
go gaga; it’s because he recognizes the lessons to be learned from the past,
and how to proceed toward a better future.
Hope realizes that they can’t rely on the power of fal’Cie anymore, and
that it’s up to human guts and ingenuity to build their own path. And as much as Hope would love to go into the
past to fix what went wrong -- namely, saving his mother from the opening hours
of vanilla 13 -- he realizes that in
the grand scheme of things, he’d be doing more harm than good. The events of the past happened for a reason;
it was a grisly reason, sure, and one generated by creatures he’d do well not
to get entangled with in the future, but in the end those events helped him
become the man the future needed.
And I bought it. I bought it, and I believed it. I thought that if anyone could bring about a
revolution -- if anyone could bring some much-needed reason and breathe new
life into this slapdash saga it was Hope.
He was primed and ready to make a change, and I was ready for it. Hope actually made me believe that the
critics and reviewers were on to something.
Maybe for all its missteps, Final
Fantasy 13-2 actually DID have an improved story.
That was a
mistake. I made the assumption that Hope
-- and the writers at large -- would act intelligently, and deliver something
worthwhile both for the canon and the narrative. What I got was less than ideal.
The key thrust of The
Subplot is, to some extent, the tale of an AI gone rogue. When Serah and Noel enter the futuristic city
Academia, it’s only about forty seconds before the once-stable urban network
goes to hell. The cause? An AI detects Serah’s old l’Cie brand and
goes haywire, summoning up hordes of monsters (monsters from the original game,
I noted) to start a siege on the city.
Our heroes manage to clear a path, assuming that the AI’s acting under
orders -- or corruption -- from Caius…but as a dying Yeul reveals at the end of
their little adventure, the Caius they saw in Academia was just an illusion. If they want the truth, and to stop the
creature responsible, they’ll have to head to Augusta Tower.
Now, if you’re anything
like me, you’re probably wondering why an AI would send monsters after a girl
with a now-nonexistent tattoo, and certainly why it would send monsters from an
older game. Likewise, you’re probably
wondering why an AI would go batshit in spite of said tattoo being about four
hundred years old from its perspective, or why it would send monsters to attack
the entire city instead of just
trying to assassinate one girl. And the
answer to that is a pretty simple one (besides the usual “because idiots”
reason). See, The Subplot isn’t just
pitting you against an AI, one that has almost no relation to Caius, Yeul, the
goddess Etro, or the search for Lightning.
No, the AI is actually just a part of a greater enemy. Not an enemy by nature, considering that it
was created for the sole purpose of keeping Cocoon afloat (under the reasoning
that if its predecessors once kept it stable, its successor should be able to
do the same). No, this is a tool, and a
poor one at that, that willingly became an enemy.
It’s a fal’Cie.
A man-made fal’Cie,
whose production was sanctioned and spearheaded by Hope.
…Hope.
Hope.
Hope.
HOPE, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU MADE A FUCKING FAL’CIE?
How the FUCK could you
think that was a good idea? What made
you think you could build your own mechanical god? Did you have a blueprint? Did you know what made them tick? How could you if you’ve only just now figured
out how to create your own magic? What
happened to you and the rest of humanity learning how to live by your own means
and not relying on gods? What happened
to you and your buddies using science instead of magic? Did you just forget about all that?
Did you completely fucking forget EVERYTHING
that happened in the original game? How
could you? YOU WERE RIGHT FUCKING
THERE! You were the one bitching the
loudest about how your life was over and that there was no hope! You were the one who got put through hell the
most! You were the one who had your mom
killed because of some brainwashing into believing that the fal’Cie system was
A-OK! You fought and killed multiple
versions of them! One of your most
notable battle quotes is “I decide my fate!”
YOU GOT THE MOST FUCKING CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT OUT OF THE ENTIRE CAST!
You and your cohorts
had, and STILL HAVE, centuries to prepare for the fall of Cocoon, and THIS is
the best answer you can come up with?
“Hey, guys, let’s make OUR OWN VERSION of an unfeeling, incomprehensible
divine being that we all know is more than capable of turning civilians at
large into unwilling slaves and demons!
Only we’ll give OUR VERSION an advanced AI that will never, EVER go rogue
and decide to kill everyone!” That’s your
plan? You had to resort to more bullshit
magic that might never work instead of doing something like, oh, I don’t know,
building something like THIS:
To hold it up? You couldn’t start demolishing it, or making
it implode, or just plain letting it fall on its own after abandoning it --
which, again, you could have done over the course of centuries? No, your best plan -- YOUR BEST FUCKING PLAN
-- is to create an untamable god and hope that it’ll do your bidding from now
until the end of time? Oh, and by the
by, Hope? That fal’Cie you made? It might do its job a little better if you
put it in or near Cocoon, and NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING CITY WHERE IT CAN
FLIP OUT AND KILL EVERYONE!
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
…
…
… Breathe in, breathe
out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in…and…
*sigh*
People…people, are you
understanding where I’m coming from on this?
There’s no reason -- no reason --
for Hope to think that the answer to all his problems is going to come from
making his own pet GOD. And even if that was the answer, even if
there was no other hope and no other option, it shouldn’t have been Hope who’d
even begin to think that was the answer.
He was one of the main characters of the original game. He knows what the fal’Cie are. He knows
what they do, and what they almost did,
and yet he still thought it was a good idea to go through with this? This…this is…there’s being stupid, and
there’s just…just…
You know what? This is perfect. This is the absolute perfect way to
completely demolish Hope’s character.
There’s no way anybody -- in-game or otherwise -- could have thought
this was a good idea. There’s no way
Hope could have gotten the funding for this, researched it, entered production,
and put out a prototype without SOMEBODY raising a hand and saying, “Hey. Um…maybe we shouldn’t mess with powers
light-years beyond the mortal ken. I
mean…you know, these things nearly caused our extinction last time. Maybe we should just leave well enough
alone.” But it’s fine. It’s perfect.
Because this is not the only way to prove that 13-2 is an absolute load of shit.
Want to know how I know? That’s
easy.
This isn’t the worst
part of The Subplot.
Oh, don’t get me wrong;
Hope and his clubhouse buddies making a fal’Cie still feels like I got slapped
in the face with vomit-soaked tripe, but that’s something that feels like a
personal attack on me. It might not mean
anything to you, fair readers. But I’d
wager there’s a better chance of something resembling shock -- pure shock --
later on.
Remember how I said
Yeul tells Serah and Noel to go to Augusta Tower? Well, that’s not entirely true; see, the
Caius that was in Academia warns our heroes that if they go to Augusta Tower,
they’ll become trapped there, and help instigate some kind of disaster. Generally speaking, going there is pretty
much some kind of prophesized disaster.
So of course, our heroes see
no other alternative but to head there and investigate for themselves, even if
it means walking headfirst into a trap.
Not exactly the wisest of moves, but that’s the least of this sequence’s
problems. (The same goes for trying to
clean up Hope’s dumbass mess, as well as the fact that he’s dragged the real
plot to a halt…though in that regard, maybe I should be thankful.)
So you head to Augusta
Tower, and…well, it’s less than impressive in terms of visuals and design. If you’ve seen Tron: Legacy (or played Kingdom
Hearts 2 or KH3D), then you’ve
seen this area before -- dark platforms with glowing lines, cyber junk all over
the place, and the usual virtual furnishings.
It ties in to another complaint I have with this game, but I’ll save it
for another day; in any case, Serah and Noel decide to venture deeper into the
tower, and catch glimpses of Caius -- or at least an image of him -- doing the
same. Naturally, they decide to follow
him, even if it means getting caught in a trap.
Which they do…kind of…but it’s for a good cause. They need to figure out what the Caius image
is doing there, as well as gather information -- information that will save
Hope, considering that they find out about the origin of the man-made fal’Cie,
Adam. Apparently, it decided to send
monsters to attack and kill Hope, allowing its existence and growth to continue
unchecked. As they find themselves going
deeper and deeper into the tower with no chance of escape, Serah and Noel reason
that the only way to save Hope is to keep moving forward and take out the
fal’Cie.
Except they’re not
really trapped. They can never be
trapped. See, one of the gameplay
mechanics is that at any time on the field, the player can stop the action and
go back to the “level select” screen, better known as the Historia Crux. Even if the player hasn’t done everything
there is to do in a level, they can still bail at any time and go back to a
different area (and era, or even alternate histories). This isn’t even a matter of gameplay and story
segregation; Serah and Noel know about the Crux; they not only travel through
it in cutscenes, but mention it in a conversation or two. Given that, how is it even remotely possible
that they can be trapped anywhere by anyone?
If someone seals them in a cage, they can just go “screw this noise” and
spring back into the Crux. Time is
literally at their beck and call. It’s
their failsafe, their cushion, the very reason why they and they alone are
supposed to be this game’s champions. So
why not use it?
And I say “why not use
it” because of the context. It doesn’t
take very long for them to find out that Hope made the rogue fal’Cie (and it’s
possible that they figured that out before they even entered the tower, but my
brain has been trying to do a mass dump of all 13-2-related materials for weeks).
Why do they have to go up the tower to find out more? Why do they have to fight the fal’Cie with
swords and arrows? Time is the most
powerful weapon you have; go back to when you talked to Hope, tell him NOT to
be a dumbass and build his own god, and BOOM!
Adam’s erased without a fight.
And better yet, Hope can use his resources to do something not rock-stupid. Isn’t that a pretty good alternative? Isn’t that a possible way to create an even
better future, one where a city doesn’t fall under siege four hundred years
later? Wouldn’t that be the much smarter
thing to do?
I certainly think so,
but our heroes don’t share the same sentiment.
So what follows is a trek up the tower, travelling from one neon-lined
floor to the next. It wasn’t a pleasant
experience, I promise you. First off,
while you’re walking NPCs (and occasionally the level itself) will suddenly
spout off numbers, and you use those numbers to input passwords. Problem is, you might not be paying attention
to the numbers spoken, because like all NPC encounters in the game, monsters
will appear in a burst of noise that not only blankets the words spoken but
also brings the conversation to a halt.
It wouldn’t be a problem if I could talk to NPCs at my leisure instead
of being forced to eavesdrop, but this is what 13-2 considers “a step forward”.
Thankfully there are only four possible password combinations at a time,
so choosing the right one comes down to just overhearing a few numbers thrown
at you and hoping there’s an option where they’re in the right order.
There’s also a series
of rotating room puzzles that you need to handle in order to advance. Basically, there are some big cube-shaped
rooms on a number of the floors, and by pressing buttons on a console you can
rotate them to create a path to the switches you have to press to get to the
next console and/or activate the elevator to the next floor. It’s not at all taxing, but it comes off as a
time-sink; moving these rooms takes much more time than it should, and it’s
pretty common for you to have to rotate a room multiple times before it’s in
the right position -- and pray that you get it exactly right on the first try,
or you’ll just end up rotating and rotating to get it in just the right
spot. Compounding the problem is the
fact that the floors you’re traversing are just a series of narrow pathways --
something that I would have been axed entirely, given vanilla 13, but old habits die hard.
What this means is that
if an enemy pops up, it’s virtually impossible to run past them, and you WILL
want to run past them because by that point, no matter how you’ve built your
characters they’ll be unstoppable by the common enemy mob. And on top of that, enemies will do more than
appear in front of or behind you; they’ll spawn either a step in front of or
right on top of you, immediately sending you into a battle where, as always,
the dominant strategy is to hammer the X button until the fight is over. And your reward is to be restored the glorious
privilege of slogging your way through time-wasting puzzles in a bland
environment on a subplot that’s entirely avoidable and completely derails the
main plot. Joy of joys.
But what really pissed
me off was an instance early on. Serah
and Noel catch a glimpse of Not-Caius making his way through a floor of the
tower, and their first instinct is to chase after him. Problem is, there’s a slight obstacle in the
way. The path to the area he’s entered
is gone; that is, there’s a gap that they can’t traverse, and need to find a
key to unlock an alternate route. Said
key, IIRC, is in an alternate version of the tower, demanding a quest to go and
find that instead of…you know…advancing the plot. By the way, the gap in the path? The one that has completely thwarted our
heroes? Not even all that long. In fact, I’m pretty damn sure the player can
and has cleared gaps bigger than that over the course of the game. I’m serious.
Serah and Noel have displayed superhuman leaping ability in cutscenes
and out of them, either leaping massive distances to strike at giant monsters,
or just using insane vertical leaps to traverse cliffs and plateaus. And now, when we need to jump from one area
to the next -- when it’s “absolutely vital” that we get moving quickly --
there’s an invisible wall in our way.
And we have to take a detour so we can keep going down this detour.
I hate this game.
But you know what? You want to know a secret? That’s still
not the worst part of The Subplot.
Clearing Augusta Tower
was a multi-day endeavor for me. Not
because it was hard, mind you; the difficulty bar for 13-2 is permanently capped at Piss-Easy. It’s just that the dungeon is so exhaustively
bland that I couldn’t bring myself to get through all of it without a headache. I mean, what am I supposed to do when the
area is boring, the fights are boring, the puzzles are boring, and the context
that brought me there makes me want to punt a goat? My only hope for some semblance of
satisfaction was the much-hyped boss fight, and with it a mercy-killing of this
moronic subplot. But of course, Adam (by
the way, great naming convention there, Squeenix -- a shame there’s no
Judeo-Christian worldview in The Lightning Saga to give it more merit) goes
down just like every other boss in the game, slain by The Almighty X
Button.
Except the boss fight
isn’t quite over. See, this is the first
time that the game’s much-touted “Live Trigger” comes into effect. If you weren’t aware, the Live Trigger is a
new addition to 13-2, allowing the
player to pick responses that’ll slightly alter how a scene plays out. It’s kind of like the branching conversations
of Mass Effect, but infinitely
inferior because virtually all of them have no effect on anything…unless you
want to have a laugh (and admittedly, I did get one -- but only because it made
Serah start spouting off about starting an investigation and reiterating the
fact that she has the same voice actress as Persona
4’s Rise). But in this instance, the
Live Trigger is -- for the first time -- plot-relevant. You have four options to choose from; pick
the right one, and you’ll bring an end to the boss fight. Pick the wrong one, and Adam will regenerate
and you’ll have to fight him again, albeit in a more softened-up state…at
least, I assume it was a softened-up state, given how easily I trounced him. And "trounce" is the last word you want to use to describe a battle against something like this:
“Okay, this is
interesting,” I said to myself. “So all
I have to do is pick the right answer, and the fight’s over. Fair enough.”
The four options are “throw Mog,” “lure out the original,” “keep
fighting until it disappears,” and “scream at Hope.” Given that it wasn’t the first time I’d had
well-coiffed warriors going up against fal’Cie, I figured that it wasn’t as
immortal as one would think. So I opted
to toss Mog at it; if the little critter could find treasure chests and
chronological discrepancies, then surely picking up an enemy weakness wouldn’t
be that hard. It failed, of course. So I had to fight the boss again. But the weird thing is, Serah and Noel
actually try to reason their way through each option. That is, if you think the answer is “throw
Mog,” they’ll rationalize it and make it sound like that’s a good plan. The same goes for “lure out the original.” They’ll actually try to give sound reasoning
as to why that’s the best course of action…but of course, it ends up being the
wrong course, and you fight it again.
It was at that point
when I realized something. I only had
two options left: “keep fighting” and “scream at Hope”.
And that was when, very
suddenly and very thoroughly, I started to get a headache.
…You know, I’d like to
think that, for all my talk and posturing of being crazy and silly and awkward
and out there, I’m actually a pretty average guy. I know I seem pretty wild at times, but I
think I’ve made it more than obvious by now that I’m a nice, level-headed
person. Not without quirks, and not
immune to bouts of anger (rare as they may be), but in the end, I’m not that
much different from you or the next guy.
So I hope I can sympathize with people.
Form a common ground. I’d like to
think that the points I raise aren’t just obsessive nitpicks. I hope that what bothers me can, does, or
will bother you -- which is part of the reason why I prefer going in-depth when
it comes to games and my posts. Too few
people are willing to give games the deep analyses they need; in a way, you can
think of me as a friendly virtual vanguard.
I can pinpoint what works in a game.
What to do in a game. What not to
do, or what doesn’t work. I deal in the
trade of insight, for your benefit far more than mine.
A part of me thinks
that sometimes, when I do my Let’s Discuss posts, I run the risk of devolving
into mindless nitpicking and bashing of games I’m obligated to dislike. But I don’t like doing that. All I can do is play a game, or watch a
movie, and give a report of what I see.
Maybe that means I’ll find something worth praising and gushing about,
like Majora’s Mask, or Devil Survivor 2. That’s great.
Preferable, even. Maybe I’ll
encounter something like Halo 4, or DmC, and get burned so severely by them
that I HAVE to speak up. I have to offer
my own thoughts, because -- again -- the things that bother me might be things
that bother others, too. I’m trying to
help, because in the end we’re on a common ground here. We all want the same things, at the very
basest level. We all want good
experiences. Good games, good movies,
good stories.
With all that in mind,
dear reader -- with all that said, does ANY PART of Final Fantasy 13-2 sound like a good experience to you?
Am I just going crazy
here? Am I projecting? Am I just talking to myself, or thinking out
loud? Did you…did you see the video
there? We didn’t stop that monster using
strength, skill, or ingenuity. We didn’t
recoup our losses and retreat, or come with a viable strategy. There hasn’t been a single part of The Subplot
yet that had any level of intelligence applied, be it by the people in the
game, or the developers behind it. And
the proof -- the conclusive, decisive proof -- of that fact is the end of that
boss fight. Logic was useless. Strength was useless. Willpower was useless. Even knowledge of past events, themes, and
conversations held just minutes beforehand was useless. No.
No, no, no. In order to stop a
rogue AI-god created by someone with no business creating his own divine being
on a leash, the only option that works -- the ONLY option -- is for Serah to bitch so hard that it shatters the space-time continuum and
causes Hope to retroactively abandon his plan because a hundred-pound girl
yelled at him. AND IT WORKS.
That’s it. That’s all she wrote, folks. Say what you will about FF7, 8, 9, 10, 10-2, 11, 12, 13, or 14. This is it. This is where Final Fantasy dies. But you
know what? You know what the sad thing
is? This STILL isn’t the worst part of
The Subplot.
I know I mentioned this
before, but it bears repeating: with Adam straight-up erased and a path to a
new area open, Serah and Noel get a chance to catch their breath. During their little victory party, Noel
mentions to Serah that she’s starting to remind him of her sister Lightning,
saying so as if that’s a compliment. I
don’t think I need to explain (again) why this is more along the lines of an
insult, so I’ll come at this from a different angle.
All right then,
Noel. I’ll bite. Why does Serah remind you of Lightning? You barely knew Lightning for ten minutes,
and most of that time was spent staring at her armored back while she fired off
magic and spouted terrible one-liners.
Her default setting throughout that sequence was steely rage. Steely rage, but at the very least she was a
competent (if overpowered) fighter.
Serah was not. The most Serah
could do was squeal at a researcher currently dozens of centuries behind them,
and then flail at a monster you failed to kill as many as four times. Furthermore, if her trans-spatial whining
hadn’t worked, she would have just gotten smacked aside by a biomechanical
god’s pimp hand. And note that even when
she succeeded, she very nearly ended up tumbling into the tower’s depths, which
she probably could have avoided if she’d remembered that her sword doubled as a
bow.
Furthermore,
Lightning’s powers may have been ill-defined and annoyingly vast, but if
nothing else they were (trying to be) impressive; Serah has to spaz out to do
anything of merit, and even then there was absolutely no guarantee that anything would happen. Let’s not forget that you’ve spent the better
part of God knows how long in the company of a girl who, while (designed to be)
intelligent, is also unconfident, indecisive, and constantly longs for her
sister; even in her most badass moments (in QTE-filled cutscenes, natch),
you’re the one doing most of the badass action, while Serah just lends support
by shooting arrows or offering a quick assist.
So generally speaking, you’re not just helping to make Lightning look
like an undeserving messiah, but you’re making Serah look like a fragile moron,
and making yourself look like an asshole.
So congratulations, Noel! You’ve
managed to ruin three characters simultaneously! Give yourself a pat on the back!
As you can imagine, I
wasn’t exactly in a good mood when I got done with Augusta Tower. But I thought to myself -- I had to tell
myself -- things would get better. That
was just a rough patch of the game; there’s still a ways to go, and much
more…well, SOME enjoyment to be had. So
I took up the artifact, used it to open the Time Gate, and headed for the next
area…which, as it turned out, was a new version of the once-pillaged city of
Academia. And by “new version” I mean
the exact same city, only during the daytime and not infested with
monsters. The mere sight of that city
sent my mood through the roof, I promise you that. But not long after entering this new
Academia, I actually ended up meeting a familiar face: Hope and his assistant
Alyssa had apparently managed to travel through time, and have a little pow wow
with Serah and Noel.
Now, if you’re like me
you’re probably thinking how convenient it is for these two to show up right
when the plot has completely lost all direction Serah and Noel need
guidance and intel. Or maybe you’re
thinking that instead of just seeing the same two NPCs over and over again,
we’d actually be able to interact with other people -- you know, to establish
that the world and characters therein are more than just cardboard
cutouts. And you may be a bit distressed
by the fact that Hope and Alyssa reveal that the machine they used to travel to
this version of Academia was, in fact, a one-way trip; in other words, they
jumped in with no plan of how to get back, or where they were going, or even if
they’d arrive safely, and certainly how they’d communicate their success to
others when there are generations separating them from the rest of their
comrades. So basically, because Serah
and Noel didn’t do the smart thing and go back in time to tell Hope not to make
a dumbass decision (instead choosing to rely on some vague suggestion that Hope
himself hardly understood), Hope decided to make another dumbass decision and
moved himself miles down the timeline, reappearing in a place where he has
absolutely no chance of ever enacting any good as a result of his team’s
efforts. Guess that’s four characters
ruined, then. How about you go the extra
mile and reveal that Caius has a chocobo fetish, or that Yeul used her seeress
powers to cheat at every poker night?
Okay, so what’s Hope
doing here in the future? Well, he’s
convinced that if there isn’t an answer in the present (which he probably could
have come up with if he hadn’t given up and skipped ahead a few centuries),
there must be one in the future -- a surefire way to prevent Cocoon from
falling. And he thinks he’s found it; apparently,
there’s a floating ship that’s just now being mentioned, and if they can
harness its power, they can maybe save Cocoon.
Basically, Hope and Alyssa tell you that they need to acquire these
things called Graviton Cores; problem is, there aren’t any in the current area,
or even time period. So your new mission
-- that is, if you want to advance the plot -- is to go scour at least five
specified areas you’ve already visited all across space and time to find these
scattered Graviton Cores and bring them back to Alyssa.
And that, my friends,
is the worst part of The Subplot.
It’s not the fact that it was started by the
most moronic and contrived decision possible.
It’s not the fact that the conflict driving it is completely artificial. It’s not the fact that you have to slog
through a boring, tedious dungeon. It’s
not the fact that you have to fight a boss that doesn’t require a strategy any
more in-depth than the one you used fifteen hours ago, and also fight multiple
times if you try to use reason. It’s not
the fact that you’re forced to resolve the battle by giving in to a
horrifically-warped idea of a triumphant moment. It’s not the fact that a step forward in
character development is to be more like a pink-haired marketing tool. It’s not the fact that you’re brought to the
same location with a different paint job.
It’s not the fact that you’re forced to look at the smiling face of
someone who deserves to be thrown into a pit of snakes after all he’s put you
through.
No. None of that is the worst part. The worst part about it is your reward. After spending hours on this pointless,
moronic venture -- while Caius and Yeul continue their own chronological
shenanigans unchecked -- your reward for all of this isn’t plot advancement, or
character development, or insight into the world, or any idea more advanced
than “don’t try to make your own god.”
Your reward for all this is a roadblock telling you to turn around and
go do some arbitrary legwork if you want to keep playing; your reward is shameless,
unrepentant padding.
Your reward for The
Subplot is a goddamn fetch quest.
