[Game Journal] gimmegaming - 2023

Final Fantasy XIII - Part Three
Considering that not much happened, this was a weirdly long chapter. It's also the chapter where things were a little bullshit, but we'll get to that.

The party found themselves on the crytalised lake Bresha with the Sanctum's forces on their tales and the Serah statue missing in action. They made their way across the lake, fighting through the enemies that encountered along the way until Serah was located. Unfortunately, she was also stuck in a bed of crystal. With the Sanctum's forces closing in, the group got into an argument over what to do about the situation. In the end, Snow stayed behind to try and free Serah while Lightning led most of the crew away through a series of minor combats as well as boss fights.

Lightning's crew eventually managed to find a ship and were able to flee with the Sanctum in pursuit, eventually crash landing in what I can only assume is Pulse.

Meanwhile, Snow continued trying to free Snow only to be attacked by a bunch of Sanctum forces. He fought a bunch of them off but was quickly becoming overrun when suddenly this game's version of Shiva - a pair of twins that turn into a motorcycle for some reason - appeared and finished the job. They then gave Snow a trial of sorts and he eventually succeeded it and gained the ability to summon them. At that point, a mysterious lady showed up and took Snow captive but I'm pretty sure they're actually on the same side cause her soldiers are differently coloured to the Santcum guys we've seen so far... and also she's with the crew in the opening cinematic lmao.

So, the bullshit. There was a very sudden difficulty spike into the first boss battle where the combat very abruptly went from simple to the point of being pretty dull to being extremely intensive with a need to constantly shift back and forth between paradigms and sometimes drop potions too cause this thing could do massive damage. The next two bosses weren't nearly as bad at least, but it was irritating.

The Shiva fight was also its own special brand of bullshit. It wasn't the most engaging thing to begin with anyway because the only real way to fill the recruitment gauge is to use a shielding move over and over. But, also, the game has developed a problem of not actually telling me which button is which even in the trillion tutorials it runs. So I had to Google the controls here to learn that it was meant to be X/square depending on controller type to recruit Shiva as a summonable eidolon only to figure out afterwards that for me it is actually circle. Now, this isn't all on the game itself. I'm going to try fucking around with Steam's controller config stuff to see if that helps but I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be blank spaces in the tutorials where buttons should be either way.

But yeah, I'm still not a huge fan of the combat system. I'll admit that it's become a lot more engaging now, all though for a game that constantly thrusts you into tutorials it's kind of weird how suddenly the amount of switching around comes and the difficulty spike that comes with it is just as baffling. Not to mention how janky the camera and movement controls often are. Amusingly enough, the biggest complaint most people have with FFXIII is its linearity but that hasn't bothered me at all. This was still a pretty frustrating chapter over all though.

That being said, it looks amazing (the crytalised lake is gorgeous) and the music in the temple part was really cool. So I have hopes that future segments will be more enjoyable now that I've got shit figured out.

Times Lightning has punched Snow so far: 3
 
Final Fantasy XIII - Part Four
As Sahz and Vanille set up camp for the night, Lightning and Hope continued on towards Parumpolum via a facility where the Sanctum create their bio-engineered monsters. Lightning has been softening up a bit towards Hope thus far as he falls further into his rage and angst on his revenge quest. Meanwhile, Snow met this game's Cid and was slightly more properly introduced to Fang. It seems like Cid's faction aren't quite as against the L'Cie as most of Sanctum and are more interested in trying to figure shit out. Not that they're telling Snow (or me) much. Still, they've roped Snow into tracking down his fellow L'Cie now so we should see what both he and Cid and Fang's group are up to soon.

Some tensions did start to arise though as even Lightning wouldn't pretend Hope's mother dying was actually Snow's fault. Weirdly, other than some more flashbacks of the days leading up to the day when the shit hit the fan, nothing happened and yet this chapter took like three hours to compete.

Why? Because the last boss was total bullshit lmao. Even ignoring that it was the annoying kind of boss that constantly starts changes its elemental affinities, it starts of resistant to everything in its default state, does crazy damages, recovers its stagger bar faster than you can raise it most of the time, hit light a truck and is also super bulky. It did not feel like the kind of boss you fight when you're less than half through the game. More like an endgame boss. So I am very concerned about what might be waiting for me in the actual endgame. The gameplay in FFXIII continues to be the most frustrating in the franchise other than maybe the late game of FFIX. But the story and characters do continue to have me very invested so I'll keep powering through.

With Lightning and Hope reaching Palumpolum at the end of this chapter, it feels like we have a confrontation with Hope's dad coming our way. The only other thing worth noting is that I very much enjoy Sahz and Vanille's dynamic together.
 
Final Fantasy XIII - Part Five
Whoops, I forgot to do this entry when I actually played the game. Oh good.

So, with Lightning and Hope off on their own and Snow in the company of Fang, that left Sazh and Vanille by themselves too. They decided to head towards Nautilus the "City of Dreams" - basically fantasy Vegas by the looks of it. Along the way, they had to travel through a wetland area where strange devices could manipulate the weather to alter the active wildlife. This was effectively a puzzle to avoid some particularly nasty regular fights that you are almost certain to lose. It was actually kind of cool.

During this time, Vanille got to learn a little bit more about Sahz. He's a single father whose son became a Cocoon l'Cie after encountering a Cocoon Fal'Cie when getting separated from his father (also Vanille was weirdly there in the flashback which is interesting). Sahz's son was taken from him to work with Sanctum and he rarely got to see him. It was actually the kid who detected Anima in the Bodhum relic. Sahz boarded the Purge train in an attempt to defeat the Pulse Fal'Cie and free his son from his duty.

At the end of the wetland, there was a boss fight against a pair of creatures that focused on water and lightning damage. This was an okay fight honestly. I only lost once and I actually don't know how. It took forever because the assholes were really tanky and hit hard, but it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the previous bullshit.

The chapter concluded then with the pair reaching a train station where we got some more heavy implication that Vanille might actually originate in Pulse.

So far, Sahz continues to be my favourite character by far and Vanille is catching up to Snow who is sitting in second. Sahz and Vanille also have the best dynamic as a pair so far.
 
FFXIII - Part Six
A lot went down this chapter. A lot.

Lightning and Hope reached Palumpolum and started making their way through, only to find that the Sanctum (having roped the Guardian Corps into their shit) had put the city on lockdown and was aggressively rounding people up to search for the l'Cie. They started sneaking their way through the area that was worked on by the Fal'Cie, Carbuncle. Lightning suggested that Cocoon really belonged the Fal'Cie and that humanity were parasites, to wish Hope pointed out the way the Sanctum Fal'Cie care for their humans makes humanity more like pets. This gave Lightning a moment of realisation about her own misplaced anger and confusion and also Hope's. She resolved to do better, realising she had been a bad influence on the kid, and tried to get him to let go of his blame for Snow again... but before much could come of that things went to shit.

In the chaos, Snow and Fang arrived to save the day... sort of. The first wave of Sanctum troops were driven out but the four of them got separated into two groups - Lightning and Fang in one direction and Snow and Hope in the other (uh oh). Snow did his best to help Hope out and together they even took out a pretty strong boss. Once they had a moment of reprieve and made arrangements to meet the other two at Hope's home, Hope kind of snapped and lost it. He tried to kill Snow but they got attacked right as he was pulling the knife and Snow ended up saving his ass instead, getting injured in the process.

Meanwhile, Lightning and Fang were getting a chance to get to know each other. We learned (or rather, finally had it confirmed for real) that Fang and Vanille were originally from Pulse. They had been l'Cie that were crystalised many years prior and had suddenly uncrystallised on Cocoon when the relic was unearthed and Serah had become l'Cie. They couldn't remember their focuses even though their memories were mostly clear, so had to try and figure things out from there. weirder still, Fang's brand showed her own focus was definitely still complete while Vanille's had become active again. In the process of figuring out what to do, they had approached a Santcum Fal'Cie and it triggered a defence mechanism to turn the nearest human into a Sanctum l'Cie to defend... finding only Dahj, Sahz's son (oh boy).

Meanwhile, Snow and Hope finally got a chance to mostly talk their shit out. But they didn't get much of a chance to deal with anything because a second one of the bosses from before attacked. Hope did his best to fight it off alone and was doing okay at holding it off. Ultimately though, he wouldn't be able to win alone. Luckily for him, Fang and Lightning arrived and the three of them together proved more than a match for it and were able to get back to Hope's house where they could treat Snow and Hope could talk to his dad.

His dad was actually... pretty cool. I have no idea why things were so tense with him and Hope. They resolved their own issues pretty well and Bartholomew was nothing but supportive and helpful really. He eve helped give some perspective to Snow and Lightning who were also able to sort some of their shit out. Lightning even apologised for being such a brat to Snow. We do love some character development.

Of course, the Sanctum bombed the shit out of the house and attacked with troops. The troops were easy but a big ass mech airship boss fight came next. This was standard Final Fantasy fair at this point. You had to kill its parts before the main body. It was fun though and plenty intense since it did a lot of damage pretty rapidly. The damage dwindled once the turrets and shell were gone though and it was smooth sailing from there. Cid's faction arrived to whisk the l'Cie away before the rest of Sanctum could show up.

I've gotten more used to the combat system now and I'm enjoying it a lot more. Is it my favourite thing ever? No. I hate the ATB as a concept and it's a bit clunky besides. But it's tolerable enough now that I can enjoy the fights mostly. It helps that the bosses this chapter felt far less bullshit too lol. Fang is growing on me fast now that I have a sense for her character. She's actually really cool. There was loads of character growth this chapter that was nice to see as well and it's interesting to see the pieces of the puzzle coming together so we can see how everyone is interconnected.

Good chapter! I'm really pleased with this part of the game. Looks like we'll be back with Sahz and Vanille soon.
 
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FFXIII - Part Seven
This was a pretty short chapter honestly, but it was significant.

Sahz and Vanille made their way through Nautilus - a city that's basically one big entertainment district. They were both pretty spent both physically and emotionally with Sahz struggling with his situation and Vanille with her guilt over Dahj and with all the hate directed at Pulse that surrounded her. Sahz took her through this chocobo petting zoo and there explained his son loved chocobos and that he wanted to tell him all about them... as a last request before execution as he was planning to turn himself in. Vanille was shocked and tried to convince him not to do it by telling him she knew who was responsible for what happened to Dahj. Before she could tell him the truth though, PSICOM showed up and they were forced to make a fighting retreat through various enemies.

Eventually, they came into a boss fight with a really nasty mech that was annoyingly tanky. They managed to defeat it, but the situation got worse from there. The Sanctum showed up with Dahj and the kid went up to hug Sahz... immediately turning to crystal since helping capture the Pulse l'Cie was his focus. Subsequently, one of the PSICOM colonels, Nabaat, showed Sahz footage that revealed Vanille and Fang were responsible for his son becoming l'Cie.

Vanille took off and Sahz gave chase, Nabaat deciding to observe since l'Cie don't typically kill each other and she was pretty sure Sahz was going to shoot Vanille. And he was definitely considering it, but this triggered the emergence of an eidolon for him - Brynhildr. Together, Sahz and Vanille faced the ediolon and were eventually able to subjugate it for Sahz's use. However, overcome with emotions and unwilling to kill Vanille, Sahz promptly shot himself in the head.

The chapter then concluded with Vanille being led of in chains and Sahz along with her in some sort of coffin-looking thing. Going to be real with you, I'm not worried about Sahz. There is no way in hell we'd be given a cool new eidolon for a character who was immediately killed off before you could use it.

Given that Vanille and Sahz are now in the Sanctum's hands, I foresee a rescue mission in the near future.
 
FFXIII - Part Eight
I played for six hours today. They were not a fun six hours. We'll get to that, but first the story.

And to get something story-wise out the way, Sahz didn't actually shoot himself. He bailed at the last second and later got knocked out by Nabaat. Might as well just establish that now because it was not exactly a surprise.

With the help of Cid's forces, the remaining l'Cie infiltrated the Palencia airship where Vanille and Sahz were being held captive. They were pretty quickly discovered (read: immediately discovered) though, and so had to fight there way through hordes of soldiers and bio-weapon creatures. Meanwhile, Sahz and Vanille noticed the commotion and took a chance to launch their own escape attempt when some guards came to move them. Eventually the two groups had a touching meet up and then rode a wyvern-like bio-weapon up to a higher level where they eventually encountered Nabaat and the Pope - I mean the Primarch.

The Primarch then killed Nabaat because she was apparently in the way and revealed himself to actually be Barthandelus, one of the cocoon Fal'Cie. He claimed that Cocoon was a factory for mass producing human thralls and made it clear the world belongs to the Fal'Cie and the proceeded to attack. The party (with Lightning, Snow and Vanille active) managed to win the fight, but Barthandelus was far from defeated - he's a Fal'Cie. He mocked them all and told them that Serah's focus had been to unite them all and that one of them was destined to become Ragnarok and destroy Cocoon - the exact opposite of what Serah wanted. He then... seemed to give them a ship to attempt to fly away in. Although, the ship was kind of dodgy and nearly crashed. Luckily for them, they went through some sort of portal thing and were... saved? Guess we'll see exactly how that ends up next chapter.

Narratively, not a lot happened this chapter really. Vanille revealed to Sahz that she isn't actually an amnesiac like Fang and that she's been hiding it because she's tired of conflict. So that will be a thing later. Other than that, it was really just the infiltration and Barthandelus' ranting. Important stuff for sure, but not a lot of it. It was weird that he told them at all though since it pointed them in the direction they apparently needed to go... and he also gave them a means of transport to help them do it? Either this was a very weird writing decision or he's setting them up. The writing so far has been good, so I assume the latter.

Now, for the gameplay and why it was not particularly fun. There were a lot of fights in this chapter. Which wouldn't be a bad thing in and of itself. However, a recurring problem in this game is how the combat is balanced. Even now that I'm more used to the combat system, there's not much I can do about this. A lot of the enemies aren't necessarily hard to defeat, but fighting them takes forever regardless because they have ludicrously high defences and HP and recover from stagger too fast. So even if they can't out damage your healing without you really fucking up, a regular overworld encounter can still take like 10-15 minutes sometimes. On top of that, the strength of enemies (even of the exact same type) is weirdly inconsistent. I don't know if there's a randomness element I'm not familiar with or what, but it's another thing that can bog combat down. Often times, you're lured into fights you could avoid and then stuck with them for minutes on end fort he promise of rewards that aren't worth it. Oh and if you go too far away from fights the encounters respawn so it can be pretty easy to look around for items and end up having to redo those obnoxious fights all over again.

When the fights actually are hard, they quite often bypass "challenging" and land on "bullshit and not fun." This has been less of an issue now compared to the early game, but Barthandelus was a return to form with that. His damage output is very high, but that's not really the problem if you have a good healer like Vanille or Hope doing their thing consistently. Having Snow as Sentinel can help too (which is rare, Sentinel has been borderline useless up to now tbh). The problem is that Barty has monstrously five segments that need killing, monstrously high defences and HP for his main body and his big damage super move also resets his stagger bar for some fucking reason. Oh and despite being designed to be obnoxiously long (like almost every fight in this chapter but on steroids) he'll also eventually cast Doom and put you on a timer. So yeah, fuck this fight.

I like the story, world and character a lot. Honestly, FFXIII has some of the best group dynamics in Final Fantasy in a lot of ways. But the game design when it comes to combat ranges from decent to straight up awful. People always complain about this game being linear which is, frankly, a silly complaint. Lots of great games are linear as hell. FFX is many people's favourite in the franchise - including mine - and it's pretty damn linear. But the combat drives me mad. It ranges from mind numbing to infuriating lol.
 
Final Fantasy XIII - Part Nine
The party found themselves transported to a hidden Pulse ark within cocoon. A massive structure, probably a ship, used to store weapons and train Pulse l'Cie. The party tried to figure out why the Primarch would send them there and all figured he was probably up to some shit since he was very clearly their enemy. They suspected he actually wanted them to destroy Cocoon for some reason. Their answer came from an unlikely source, Cid Raines, who was waiting for them. He explained that the Fal'Cie - at least those of Cocoon - were planning to use Cocoon as a sacrifice to revive/summon the original creator of the world - the progenitor of both Fal'Cie and humanity. They cannot do it themselves though as they are bound to protect and sustain Cocoon. Thus, they created a bunch of l'Cie with the Focus to ensure Ragnarok would be unleashed. Cid revealed he was also l'Cie the whole time and had been given the focus to direct and aid the party... but that he had decided to go against it and fight for freedom. Basically, he was going to go down in a blaze of glory and bring the party with him so none of them would be slaves to the Fal'Cie any longer.

Cid was summarily defeated, turning to crystal... and then exploding having failed to complete his Focus. From there, the party continued to fight there way through the facility until they came to a halt seeing no sign of an exit. They had a group discussion there and resolved to take a path not dissimilar to Cid. They chose to stand against the Fal'Cie and defend Cocoon regardless of what it would mean for them... all of them except Fang. She couldn't bring herself to defend Cocoon after what it had put her, Vanille and everyone else through. She was torn though, as it turned out.

Her brand glowed and Bahamut was summoned as her eidolon, promptly attacking her to help make up her mind. When everyone in the party immediately jumped to her aid, she made up her mind pretty quickly to fight alongside them and Bahamut was quickly tamed. From there, an airship and a gateway to Pulse were revealed and the party escaped the ark... destroying the airship in the process and needing Bahamut to save their asses.

This was a good chapter. Cid was an annoyingly long fight but not nearly as bullshit as the boss before him and Bahamut was pretty easy for an Eidolon capture fight. The story elements were really enjoyable this time, albeit a tiny bit rushed and it's cool to have the group all together, all on the same page at last. The characters' dynamics with each other continue to be excellent and I am continuing to enjoy the plot. I'm eager to see how it plays out going forward.
 
Final Fantasy XIII - Part Ten
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

But we'll get to that, first we'll cover the little bit of story that happened. As everyone was preparing themselves for what came ahead, gathering supplies and exploring the area, Hope's brand started acting up and he passed out. He came to hours later and was ready to insist he be left behind, but the Alexander Eidolon showed up and snapped him out of the funk and renewed his motivation (one to go). From there, the party began making there way through Pulse towards Fang and Vanille's old home. Not a lot happened story-wise here after the brief Hope segment, but we got a lot of nice character bonding going on with everyone. The major exception to this was learning that in the past, before fulfilling her first Focus, Vanille had actually become Ragnarok. That was a pretty major development.

So, the screaming. The world opens out a lot here and a chance to undertake side-quests is given to you. Each sidequest being triggered by a special marker in sequence and each requiring you to hunt down a monster and kill it. Of course, this is a Final Fantasy game so "optional quests for rewards" actually means "do this or the last ten-fifteen hours of the game are going to suck." Given how the game design has been up to this point, I was not risking it. Sidequest time. Unfortunately, this meant an endless amount of fucking around going back and forth along the Pulse map in search of the stones that trigger the quests and then the monsters that require killing - which do not appear as markers on the map unless you are already close to them. This was an extremely tedious experience and it honestly soured a lot of the great character bonding.

Onwards to... more quests honestly... yay.
 
Final Fantasy XIII - Part Eleven
Much of this section was continuing through the L'Cie stone missions. As it turns out though, the last few were actually needed to progress. Although the sources were a little different. During the wandering around doing missions we did get a couple more nice character moments though. Fang and Sahz cleared the air over what happened to Dahj in a really positive way and were very supportive of each other, Lightning and Snow had a moment where Lightning finally accepted Snow's relationship with Serah (they're really close now tbh) and Fang figurdd out Vanille had been lying and hiding things from her and confronted her about it. That last one was very important because we learned it had actually been Fang who had become Ragnarok originally, explaining why her brand appears as though her Focus was fully completed compared to Vanille's. They also resolved that really amicably though. Honestly, I really do love how much these characters have grown and how far they've come.

Once all that was dealt with, the party continued on their way to the village of Oerba. But before they could get there, they had to pass through this huge ruined tower full of Cieth and other monsters. This was where they had to do those few story-relevant missions because a bunch of sentient statues asked them to do it to free them. This was actually a pretty cool segment after the bullshit before it and the tower was a really cool setting. Eventually they reached the top where they had to face down the Fal'Cie Dahaka. Once Dahaka was defeated, the statue bros were able to leave the tower at last to help protect Pulse from such tyrants going forward. The party were also able to head to Oerba, which was quite a shock for Vanille and Fang.

Oerba had been lush and vibrant during their time, but had fallen to ruin and disrepair and was infested with C'ieth in the modern age. They took it all in to process it, finding an old robot friend of Vanille's along the way and taking some time to restore it and lift her spirits with the help of Sahz's technical know-how.

Soon after, they were confronted by a false Serah who tried to coax them into fulfilling their focus. This, naturally, turned out to be Barthandelus again. He told them that things were pretty much going to shit regardless. He had instated a puppeted Cid Rained (I guess he's only sort of dead?) as the new Primarch to piss off the Cavalry and instigate a rebellion to destroy Cocoon from within. He tried to leverage that to get the party on-side, but they were not having any of that shit and combat begun. Once Barthandelus was driven off again, they were once again left with an airship so they could return to Cocoon - resolved to help the people there no matter what.

Finally being done with the Steppe sidequest madness is a huge relief. I really did like to see the characters having grown so much and having all these nice little moments - even if some of them did feel a bit rushed - but I was so glad to have the plot actually in motion again. As an added bonus, this Barthandelus fight was way less toxic than the first. He didn't hit as hard and he didn't use the move that reset his stagger bar in this new form either. He was still annoyingly tanky and the constant status ailments he dumped out were kind of bothersome, but I'd take that fight over the first any time. There also wasn't a Doom counter which helped a lot.

This was a much better experience than the last few sessions.
 
Final Fantasy XIII - Part Twelve
The party arrived in style on Cocoon and chaos ensued immediately with eidolons, soldiers and vehicles all over the place. Things only got worst when Barthandelus unleashed all the Pulse monsters kept frozen on the Ark. Things were nuts but the party had long since made up their minds to stop Barthandelus. They fought their way through the city of Eden towards the Eden Fal'Cie and Orphan. Unfortunately, Rosch was determined to stand in their way and they had to face him in his mech twice. Eventually though he yielded and even gave his life to stop a bunch of Behemoths from sneaking up and attacking the party from behind. Now the story is in its closing chapter as the party prepare to ascend towards Orphan and Barthandelus.

Fighting through Eden was a fun time. There was some tricky encounters but it felt fair. It was a good time. The Rosch fights were a bit ehhh... they were definitely a lot more fun than certain other battles and I had fun. But I definitely noticed that the difficulty was artificially inflated by ludicrous amounts of health more than anything which did get a bit mind-numbing after a while since it was clear I was going to win from like the half-way point on. That has been a recurring issue among many with the gameplay and I don't hold high hopes that it's going away in the finale.

Still, I am excited to see how the story concludes.
 
Final Fantasy XIII - Part Thirteen
The party continued through Eden's domain, moving through many enemies, jumping through portals and facing down a series of bosses to gain entry to each area - bosses that were later fought as regular overworld encounters. Soon, they found themselves in Eden's throne room where Barthandelus stood waiting for them. Once more, he tried to push them to complete their focuses on his terms. Once more the party fought him and once more they defeated him. As Barthandelus lay on death's door though, he fell back into some sort of magic pond where he fused with Eden - becoming Orphan (more on that shortly). The fused Fal'Cie then attacked and once more the l'Cie stood against them.

Orphan was beaten again it seemed, but would not go down easily. They revealed that the Fal'Cie did not consider humans as weaker but more powerful than them. For all their strength, the Fal'Cie had been born only to fulfil singular purposes - focuses of their own. They created l'Cie and gave them focuses to use human power for their own and to use them to act outside the tasks they were bound to. The Cocoon Fal'Cie had one goal - to die. But in a specific way. They wanted to summon back the Maker to force the world to reborn in a way that wouldn't bind the Fal'Cie.

Orphan started to force Vanille to become Ragnarok, but Fang stepped in as she had before and volunteered to take Vanille's place to protect her from the suffering. In an instant, everyone around Fang and Vanille seemed to turn to C'ieth and attacked Fang. Fang lamented this happening, believing she had failed to protect Vanille and also doomed her to suffering alone anyway and that despair triggered her to begin the Ragnarok transformation properly. As Ragnarok attacked though, Orphan was attacked and the transformation broken. The party revealed they had not been made C'ieth but shunted to another space. They broke free and interrupted. Realising her mistake, Fang joined the party for one last fight. The party took on Orphan's final form and emerged victorious... causing Cocoon to take serious damage and begin to fall towards Pulse.

As the party all began to turn to crystal, having technically finished their focuses, Fang and Vanille were separated from the rest and together combined their power to transform together into a perfected version of Ragnarok. They then used that power not to destroy Cocoon but to save it, becoming a massive crystaline structure that held it in place and protected its inhabitants, with their crystalized forms at the core. In the aftermath, the remaining party members were freed from their crystals and reunited with Serah and Dahj on a new world.

So, writing-wise, I loved this game. The narrative was really unique compared to past entries and felt almost like a deconstruction of the stories of earlier Final Fantasy games where sentient magic crystals bound heroes to save the day regardless of their will. It was a dark reflection of that and many of the other common plot beats and themes too. The Fal'Cie and l'Cie are fascinating and horrifying conceptually and tragic in a way. The way the lore of the world is represented was layered and interesting as well. The cast of characters is also great and they all have really satisfying character arcs and growth throughout the game. More than that though, the dynamics between the characters within the party are some of the best in the franchise and you could honestly make a pretty solid argument for saying the best over all. Everything in that respect was multifaceted and interesting. Character wise, Sahz and Fang were my favourites but there wasn't any character in the party I disliked. I don't think the writing beats X, but it's not that far off either. It's definitely competition for the liked of VI, VII and IX writing-wise.

The music was solid. I wouldn't say that it was in the same ballpark as games like the ones mentioned above there. It was never bad and there definitely a few tracks that were quite good - the music at Fal'Cie locations and the main theme for example. It was cool to have a throwback to the Ancient City and Jenova from VII in the Tesseract section Eden's Throne too. The visuals were, by contrast, fantastic. Every location looked amazing and so many different types of environment and setting were shown. The character and monster designs were great too.

Unfortunately... the gameplay itself let XIII down. I liked the Chrystarium as an idea. It was a lot like the Sphere Grid from X which I really liked, but messier in execution. For one thing, while it theoretically lets you customise characters a lot, it doesn't properly open up until it's too late for you to really have that choice. Compared to the Sphere Grid in X which lets you mix-and-match what characters are capable of much earlier - especially the remaster's version. So, in the end, you mostly end up focusing on the classes you're already given. Weapons were a bit of a double-edged sword too (ha). I liked the idea of most weapons not really being better or worse but more geared towards different things instead. The way weapons and accessories levelled was cool too. That being said, this really meant that once you had selected what you wanted a character to be good at and were focusing on building them like that, subsequent weapons you got were basically just shit to sell for more components. Plus, if you got a weapon you did want to try out, you had to level it up a bunch before you could really make a comparison.

The combat itself wasn't a mixed bag. This is where the gameplay really took a dive. Bringing the ATB back was a mistake. Admittedly though, I got a lot more used to it and didn't end up hating the "auto-battle + ATB" combo nearly as much by the end. Sort of. The auto-battle stuff actually did help offset the way the ATB adds artificial pressure somewhat, honestly. But in the end, the combats themselves were usually very boring. Enemies always had way more HP and defences than they really needed. This didn't make fights any harder usually. It just made them more tedious to get through because beyond a certain point victory was clearly inevitable but you still had to keep going for several minutes to end the fight. By contrast though, many boss fights were not as mind-numbing but in the worst way. They would very suddenly spike in difficulty while still having the same ludicrous bulk and become challenging in a way that felt less engaging and more unfair and, frankly, bullshit. The worst offender was the first Barthandelus fight, but hardly the only one. This did get much better later in the game - the final Orphan stage was actually laughably easy once you realise you just have to Dispel it and can then obliterate it in just a few seconds after that - but that does not make up for what came before.

The Eidolons were also odd. The actual way they played was really cool and I liked it a lot. But they often felt like they didn't have the kind of impact in combat they should have. They ended up feeling a bit disappointing as a result. Not sure how I feel about them being transformers either but I didn't hate it I suppose lmao.

The other big thing I want to talk about is the most common complaint I hear about FFXIII - the linearity of it until Gran Pulse (and after). Linear story-telling in a game is not a bad thing so long as the writing holds up. The writing in XIII holds up. The linear nature of the story wouldn't have even registered to people if the combat was more engaging. In actuality, the open-world segment of the game on Gran Pulse is the most tedious part of the game by miles. Navigating it sucks and if you do the sidequests (which you absolutely need to unless you want later fights to be hell on Earth to experience) that gets dialled up by a few million. Even unlocking the Chocobos only helps the tiniest bit.

So... where does that leave us? Final Fantasy XIII is interesting to think about critically. It's a really strong story, characters and visuals wrapped up in some of the worst game design in the franchise with some very average music on top. I had a good time mostly. But at times I also wanted to punch through my monitor in frustration. The saddest thing about this game is that it could have been a masterpiece. It might even have finally dethroned FFX for me on the Final Fantasy pyramid or at least given it some strong competition. In the end though, the game design let it down dramatically to the point that even someone focused so much on the story of games like me felt the experience was severely soured by it. I kind of wish I could have just watched this as a TV series instead.

Writing: 9/10
Visuals: 8/10
Soundtrack: 5/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Total: 26/40
 
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No Longer Home - Summary
So, No Longer Home is a simple little game with some interesting things to say. It's primarily centred around a young couple, Ao and Bo in London in the last day or so before they move out of the flat they are staying in for university, having just graduated. They are moving into Bo's family's home for a short time before Ao has to (hopefully temporarily) move back to Japan with their student visa coming to an end. Neither of them feels comfortable with where they are in life. They feel lost and like they have achieved little an have no idea where to go.

There isn't a lot to say about this narratively. Both Ao and Bo, as well as their friends, are easy to relate to and understand. The game also makes some interesting statements about capitalism, expectations, the education system and growing up in general all in an easily digestible package. That being said though, the end isn't exactly very satisfying and the game itself feels kind of like you're just aimlessly meandering through the lives of these characters... but that is also the point. The game isn't meant to give you that closure or sense of accomplishment. It's putting you in the headspace of two people who feel confused and lost. It wants you to feel like Ao and Bo feel and I'd say it achieves that well. It doesn't necessarily make for the most engaging gameplay experience ever, but it does make for a wonderful and poignant piece of art.

Mechanically, the game was similarly empty. The controls consisted of rotating a room to see various options for clicking on them with A and D, using the up and down arrow keys to scroll through the options and the enter key to select them with different options leading to different things happening in the game to, as best as I could tell, a limited extent. It is described as a point and click adventure but calling it an adventure is a big stretch. However, that's all the game really needed to communicate its messages and get the vibes across. It was as much as it needed to be. Although I'm not sure why the controls were split the way they were.

Visually the game has a very surrealist, abstract and polygonal design. It looks good and helps add to the feeling of confusion and sense of being lost. Similarly, the theatre-like transitions and constructions for various scenes also felt like a statement about the roles we play in society given the dialogue shared between Ao and Bo. I do like having the thematics of the game communicated in its visual style. The tense, but minimalist score only further heightened the experience.

And experience is the right word because I'm not sure I can call No Longer Home fun. It was engaging, emotional and impactful. It was gripping and thought-provoking, but I can't say it was amusing or fun. I liked it. I respect it. I'm glad I played it. But it isn't an experience I'm in a hurry to repeat either. I'd recommend the game purely for its narrative and artistic value, because it will hit close to home for just about anyone. But I wouldn't suggest playing it if you're looking for the best gameplay experience.

Writing: 10/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Visuals: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Total: 29/40
 
Nine Parchments - Summary
My RNG game this month was Firewatch... however my partner wanted to play this with me in co-op so I did this too. Woo!

Nine Parchments is a top-down action RPG that sure feels like a bullet hell game despite nothing labelling it as such. You play as one of nine apprentice mages embarking on a quest to retrieve the special nine parchments of their academy after an explosion scatters them to the wind. There's not much more to say about the story than that. There technically is one, but it's not really present. All the characters do have a lot of personality and even some unique interactions between them which is nice, but there's not really any character arcs or growth or anything like that either. The focus is really on the gameplay.

The gameplay being chucking one of your (eventually) nine spells at various enemies - or sometimes whacking things with a stick - while trying not to get bopped by any nasty spells, weapons or death auras while you're at it. The spells follow an elemental system of fire, ice, life, death, lightning, steam, physical and shadow which is an interesting combination to be sure. Each of these elements (other than physical and shadow) has an oppositional relationship with another element where users resist or are immune to their own element but weak to the opposing one. Each element also has its own more unique functionality like life spells being healing except when used on death creatures, ice will slow and eventually freeze enemies, lightning can cause temporary stuns to go off and so forth. Physical is the element of whacking things with a stick while Shadow is the domain of one specific special signature spell that has no resistance/vulnerability. Each character also has a tech tree of passive buffs they can develop. The spells you can get are slightly randomised with your first three being set and then other spells rolling when you unlock them.

Mechanically, it's a fun game. I liked it a lot. That being said, it's definitely not an easy game and I have little desire to attempt it on hardcore. Friendly fire is set to on by default (and I'm not even sure it can be turned off) which can make aiming difficult - especially when most spells are an AoE of some sort. This can get frustrating at times, especially with very few lives to spare. But with practice you can at least minimize the damage you do to teammates. The one mechanic that genuinely irritates me is the reflective shield enemies that bounce back spells that hit them face on. You're left with two options, smack them to death with your melee attack or strike them from behind when they're looking at your teammate. This wouldn't be so bad if melee attacks were worth anything without having the special melee staff you get for... having beaten the game already. That and the fact spells are the primary mechanic in the game and nearly half the enemies you face it feels like (I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually close to this) are semi-invulnerable to them. Selecting your spells on the wheel starts off great but does get annoying once you have to cycle through a 7-8 to get the one you want too. It's definitely a very fun game, but there's definitely some clunkiness/bad choices on the developer's part.

The one thing I can't criticise at all is the way everything looks. The characters all have great designs and move well and the various levels are absolutely gorgeous. Every environment in this game is extremely pretty to look at. We would sometimes stop moving through a stage to just look at the scenery for a while. Seriously, go look up some images from Nine Parchments. Chances are anything you find would be a great wallpaper.

The music was solid with only one really standout track towards the end but nothing bad and the voice acting was mostly good too.

Very fun game that I definitely recommend if you want something cheap and fun to play with friends.

Writing: 3/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Visuals: 10/10
Sound: 5/10
Total: 25/40
 
These write-ups will probably be subpar because it's been a bit since I played most of these games. Unfortunately though, September was a mess of commitments for me in the end so it is what it is.

Code Vein - Part One
I picked this up because it was on sale and have played through the first segment to just beyond the first boss when you get access to the home base. Mechanically it's definitely a soulslike game, although so far the difficulty hasn't been too bad. It's been easier than Fallen Order thus far, so it's certainly easier than actual Souls games or Elden Ring.

I am sticking with Fighter right now, the other Codes haven't vibed that much with me.

Story-wise, I'm certainly intrigued by the world and narrative, but not enough has happened yet for me to really comment on it. I think this game is going to fall by the wayside for a while though since I'm playing BG3 and also trying to keep up with monthly games. Not to mention the Scarlet & Violet DLC is out now and I want to play that soon.

Baldur's Gate 3 - Part One
A race against time to avoid becoming a mindflayer is a really cool plot hook that I might have to steal for a d&d campaign some time. I've only played to level four and already there's so much I theoretically could talk about. As of yet, I'm still in the part of the game where the characters are all starting to come together, but we've already started to see some interesting stuff happening.

Gale's weird affliction is something I've never really seen before, but the addiction parallels are definitely there - and explicitly stated. He's a really fun character and I'm curious to see what his deal is going forward. Shadowheart isn't the most likeable at this stage, but she has said some intriguing things and I am very much interested in that artifact of hers. Astarion hasn't revealed the vampire thing as of yet, but even if I hadn't found out beforehand it would have been painfully obvious. So far, I honestly think he's a bit overhyped as a character though. Lae'Zel exists. Wyll and Karlach are my favourite party members at this stage, unfortunately we goofed so we're not really getting to see things play out between them as much as we could. I think I'll be extra careful with that next time I do a playthrough.

My actual favourite character though is Alfira, who I have had on screen for about a minute. It's a shame she isn't a playable party member because I think she's really compelling. She's a really good exploration of a character processing grief and a prime example of how well this game handles Tieflings.

I expect I'll be meeting Halsin soon since the next major thing to do around the druid grove (where we are) is deal with the goblin camp. At this stage we've seen the spiders, met Raphael, stolen from the Zhentarim and killed some gnolls as well as done a few early character quests.

Firewatch - Summary
Firewatch is a great game and I'm glad I played through it. I started it once way back in 2019 and just never got around to finishing it. This time, I played all the way through in one sitting and it was good fun. The mystery of it all was fun to slowly unravel and the interactions between Delilah and Henry were excellent. It was really interesting getting to explore their characters through their radio conversations and seeing them deal with their personal histories as well as the paranoia the plot foisted on them.

Mechanically there's not too much to say since the game is basically just a walking sim. It was exactly what it needed to be and nothing more. The primary mechanic is navigating using a map and compass which isn't too hard although I have to admit I did get turned around in a few places that involved a lot of snaking around to get back the direction you actually wanted.

The music was solid too and the game was really scenic and pretty. Between the story, music (and sometimes lack thereof) and visuals, the game absolutely nailed the lonely and melancholic vibe it. I'd definitely recommend this one.

Writing: 8/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Visuals: 7/10
Sound: 6/10
Total: 26/40
 
Baldur's Gate 3 - Part Two
This was actually spread across two days, whoops. But we're continuing to clear the various side quests around the druid grove. First and foremost, we headed into the swamp to deal with a certain kidnapping hag who had taken advantage of a widow's grief. This took a couple of tries because the hag and her clones spamming Hold Person was incredibly annoying but we eventually kicked the living shit out of her and scared her so badly that she left, let her victim go free and gave us a boon to boot. I ended up boosting my character's Charisma to 19 so at my next ASI I can take a +1 with a feat for 20 or do +1 in Cha and +1 in Strength. Wheee. After that we saw something really fucked up involving a zombie that seems like it might be a plot line when we get to Baldur's Gate.

Today, we climbed down a well to fight a bunch of spiders. This was also an annoying fight - even more than the hag. The hag was rough because of her skillset. The spider matriarch is plenty powerful too, but the real problem was the game was being particularly buggy today and the AI was awful too. A lot of characters taking the worst possible route they could take to a location if we didn't baby them the whole way amongst other issues. But we eventually won here too.

From there, things were only on the up. We saved a bunch of people from a burning village and in doing so unlocked more questline elements. We also unearthed a Zhentarim hideout. I had a choice to kill a guy they were torturing and give them the stuff I had previously stolen from said guy (one of their lower members). I decided to kill them all and set the guy free and then we looted their base to the point that the entire party was heavily encumbered. So we wrapped things up by doing some character things and selling a bunch of stuff.

On the note of characters, we've had some interesting developments on the fronts of Gale, Asterion, Karlach and Wyll over the past two days. I won't say too much because it's a very new game and getting to know the characters in important and a big draw for people. But I really like Karlach and Wyll's stories and Gale's was definitely not what I was expecting. We've only scratched the surface of Asterion's even though we know the big reveal already. So far he's one of the less interesting characters for me though with only Lae'Zel being behind of the current companion options.
 
Baldur's Gate 3 - Part Three
So... I've been really busy with stuff and also struggling with health issues so I'm way behind on updating this. Detention will come later, but here's a quick update on Baldur's Gate 3.

We met some of the other Githyanki that came to the material plane hunting the mindflayers. It became very apparent that they would murder us in an instant if they found out about the tadpole situation, so Lae'zel is having a bit of a crisis of faith now. From there, we headed into the goblin camp at last. We talked our way in at first - and freed a baby owlbear in the process - but decided after that to just kill everyone anyway. The first of their leaders proved to be a challenging fight but we levelled up as a result of it and proceeded to body Minthara and the other guy. This let us free Halsin who was being held captive there as a bear.

With the goblins defeated and Halsin free, the Tieflings at the druid grove could finally leave in relative safety and make their way towards Baldur's gate itself. During the party that night, Halsin decided to join us with the security and politics of the grove out the way. I also rejected the advances of nearly everyone in the party because Karlach is the best and I will not be taking questions at this time.

From there, we used an entrance to the underdark and met a group of Myconid people, but have been called on by a different Myconid ruler of some sort it seems. We'll pursue that as we continue on through the underdark, heading to a place where the growing tadpole cult of the Absolute is said to be meeting for answers about them, the weird delayed transformation we are experiencing and the nature of the Absolute itself.

Sorry it's slim on the details, it's been like a month!
 
Detention - Summary
So, I played this game for my challenge last month. Since this month is nearly over, I should probably do my write-up. Detention is a short horror game set in 1960's Taiwan during the White Terror, when Taiwan was under martial law. It follows students Wei and (mostly) Ray as they become trapped at their isolated school during a storm and find it haunted by nightmarish, zombie-like creatures called Lingered.

The game does a good job of pretending that it is going to be a very typical side-scrolling horror game with little substance. Just "the school is haunted, survive." But it quickly starts to become clear that a lot more is going on and the horror quickly shifts from typical "ghost/zombie" horror to something a lot more abstract as you must not only solve puzzles to progress but also unravel the mystery of the school and of Wei and Ray's history to get to the truth. In the end, the story becomes more sad and existential than anything. Which is fantastic, honestly. I like what this actually became so much more than what I thought it was going to be. The story draws a lot on a lot of folktales and mythology from Taiwan and makes very good use of its actual history too. I'm still disappointed I didn't have time to play Omori, but I'm really pleased I finally played this because it's been in my Steam inventory for a long time and it ended up being really good.

Mechanically, the game is pretty simple, but effective. It combines basic side scrolling movement with point-and-click puzzle elements. It also has the interesting mechanic of using stillness, the direction of your gaze and holding your breath to avoid the various creatures haunting the school grounds which I assume is taken straight from Taiwanese folklore and made for a really interesting way to integrate it into the mechanics of the game. The puzzles weren't too crazy hard or anything, but they did require legitimate thought and a lot of clicking random stuff to solve. At times they were legitimately fairly challenging. So I'd say they were in the sweet spot for making them engaging but not so difficult as to be frustrating to the point of overshadowing the plot.

I can't say a lot about the music and audio because there isn't very much of it. Quite intentionally so though, as it really adds to the eerie atmosphere of the game. What is there sounds right and does its job well, but it's the quiet that adds the most.

Visually, Detention has a very interesting aesthetic. It's very muted colour-wise and blends hyper-realistic elements with more cut-out looking ones. It adds to the discomfort and atmosphere.

So yeah, good game actually!

Writing: 8/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Visuals: 7/10
Sound: 5/10
Total: 27/40
 
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Baldur's Gate 3 - Part Four
So, we actually hung around the myconids a bit more because as it turns out the other Sovereign was honestly standing just... right there and we completely missed him before. He looked cool as hell so we decided we like the myconids very much. We were also introduced to a deep gnome named Thulla from a smithing clan in Baldur's Gate. From both of them, we learned of a vicious band of duergar dwarves in the area who had attacked Thulla's clanmates and waged war on the myconid circle. We agreed to go fuck up the duergar.

On the way out we also ran into a hobgoblin and his friend... a mindflayer. The mindflayer wasn't hostile though, he actually had freed himself from the control of his elder brain and was living a somewhat more chill life doing research into shrooms and the like. He provided some insight into the mindflayer's history and agreed to help us look into our tadpole problem.

We headed down to a lake nearby where we found some of the duergar and a bunch of deepgnome corpses. We also learned Thulla had stolen boots from one of them, which honestly makes me like her more. Anyway we killed them all but we didn't find the captives and there wasn't nearly enough dead gnomes for this to have been all of them. Before heading back though, we searched the area and found a bunch of petrified guys. We unpetrified some... which resulted in the spectator that turned them to stone to begin with attacking us. We killed the spectator pretty easily and then the drow we saved immediately turned on us because they didn't want to have competition for the adamatine forge (oh yeah, that's a thing). So we killed most of them and knocked one we decided we kinda like out and left.

We were rewarded when we got back, the myconids gave us some loot for doing their murder and we got more info on the forge. They also pointed us towards the main duergar colony and asked us to kill all of them too. We are on board with this because it seems likely Thulla's group are being held there.
 
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage/Gateway to Glimmer - Summary
Okay so, I still have this game. It's from the PS1 era and that made for an interesting experience.

Story-wise... well calling what this game has a story is a stretch. Spyro gets pulled into Avalor on the way to the beach and roped into freeing the place from an evil dictator called Ripto and his goons. He has no choice if he wants to continue on his trip, so he helps. What a guy. That's good enough as a premise though and the characters are a fun and quirky bunch. What Spyro lacks in narrative, it makes up for with just a generally fun atmosphere.

Speaking of fun, mechanically the game is a lot of fun! Each world is a good time, the platforming elements are reasonable and the combat elements are a solid with some enemies needing different killing methods than others and all that good stuff - although the monkeys that throw shit at you can fuck right off. The boss fights, in particular, are good fun with their own unique mechanics. They weren't super challenging (sort of, I'll get to that) but they posed enough of a threat that it was an engaging experience.

By-and-large, the game design was great. I have two major complaints though.
1. The Orbs: To actually get to Ripto so you can beat the game, you need 40 orbs to open his door. Not talismans like you collect for getting to each next world, orbs. Orbs are another collectible that are all hidden behind incredibly tedious, boring and sometimes frustrating tasks. I didn't like collecting them as a kid, I didn't enjoy it now either. Admittedly though, many of these tasks would have been much less annoying if it wasn't for the other issue.
2. Controls: Spyro is pretty infamous for the earlier games in the series having awfully clunky controls. The camera is especially bad, moving either way too much or not at all. But the movement itself was also very finicky and overly sensitive. It usually wasn't a huge deal, mostly just a minor annoyance. But for the orb mini games which often involved chasing speedy monsters down it was infuriating lmao.

Visually, it's a PS1 game so it was what you'd expect. They did a pretty good job really and the worlds looked good enough, Spyro himself looks fantastic. But it's definitely a product of its time, the awkward transitional phase between pixel sprites and 2d or 3d models. It is what it is. Hunter looks particularly bad for some reason though, I have no idea why.

Sound-wise, things were mostly good. The game has good sound design and when it's not technically good, it's usually funny instead. The music isn't anything wild either, but none of it bad. It succeeds in adding to the light-hearted fun of the atmosphere. That being said, the game is mostly voiced by the same small group of people and it shows. You can very much hear every time Tom Kenny is voicing a character. I'm not even sure he tried to hide it.

So, overall experience? I had a fun time actually! I'm not one for nostalgia and playing again as an adult, I can definitely see the flaws. The orbs thing and the control jank definitely do sour the experience - especially for someone as impatient as me. But mostly, I try to look at it for what it is; a product of its time. Voiced games were still new, modelled games were still new and the PlayStation itself was still new. Not the PSX itself, it'd been around for four years. But comparatively, the brand was new. Honestly, the mid-late 90s and early 2000s were an interesting time for gaming now that I think about it. So, fun game. But not something I'm going to hurry to go back to again any time soon either.

Writing: 4/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Visuals: 5/10
Sound: 5/10
Total: 20/40
 
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