I never thought a Final Fantasy game would remind me of Werewolf...

[auronlu]

So I got to the end, and I see why some people were pissed. What's the good of a great game that ends on an awful cliffhanger!? I haven't played the DLC yet, but for all intents and purposes, that's a Werewolf: The Apocalypse ending.

Obviously, a sequel is needed, and if it never transpires, that's rotten.

Why am I reminded of werewolf? WW is an apocalyptic universe based on the premise that the apocalypse is inevitable, and nothing Our Heroes do will change fate. So they have to find reasons for fighting and striving and protecting, even if sooner or later it's all going to come crashing down. A bit like how I feel about climate change at this point -- I think we may be approaching the point of no return, and I see absolutely no hope that enough of the world is going to change energy and consumption practices in time.

In Werewolf, most characters live life day to day by not thinking about the Apocalypse: it's too distant, too hard to wrap one's mind around, so let's get on with the day's tasks. Many others optimistically believe that maybe, just maybe, there will be a way around it. Inevitability is hard to believe in!

For about ten years, I played on a werewolf RPG which was text-based RPG, a MUSH. I had a character who went by the nickname Hope-star, tasked to "bring hope and healing to a place well-chosen." Eventually she underwent trials to become a Harbinger, basically a seeress. During the course of those ordeals, she had a vision of the Apocalypse that came with the certainty it WAS a true vision, and nothing could avert that future. It was a devastating secret to bear. How can one hope, or inspire others with hope, if you know that the world is going to end soon?

I spent a good eight or nine years roleplaying with that paradox, and came to a simple answer: everyone dies, but that doesn't make life not worth living. Journeys end, but we still take trips: it's the experience and not its termination that matters.

So the ending of XIII-2 gave me a strange sense of deja vu: haven't I been here before? It's not quite the same as Werewolf, because I don't believe for a moment that XIII-2's story really ends there, in the Apocalypse, with no hope of changing it. Lightning wouldn't have been pushing Serah forward with promises of hope if there was none. I'm convinced that Lightning will take the Goddess' place and set things aright, sooner or later. She's already in the chair.

But still, similar themes of hope, despair, journeys and endings. Very mythic, which is one thing I adored about X. Very archetypal.

I am still digesting. I should probably be annoyed at Squeenix for designing a game which begs a sequel, when I'm not sure they'll ever do the sequel. But I'm too interested in the game itself, in the world and timelines and myths. What Squeenix does as a company is separate in my mind from gameplay and gameverse. Both those things, I enjoyed very much.

I guess X stays my favorite, though, since even the tragic parts of the ending are "worth it": beloved characters are lost, but the world is saved.

ETA: after more hours of digesting, I think the problem is that so much of the game was built on a premise of hope -- we'll meet Lightning at the end, we'll rescue Fang and Vanille and Snow, we'll save the future --that it's not fair to disappoint those promises. In Werewolf, we always knew things would end badly.

Then again, I've only played the main ending. I know that there is a secret ending. I have enjoyed the game enough that I'm quite willing to do some more exploring to unlock what I've missed. (Although I hope they don't involve overmuch button-mashing; the pace of combat is sometimes hard on my arthritis.)

Comments

[thene]

It's worth trying out all the alternate endings and the secret ending - the only two particularly hard parts imo are completing the Bestiary and doing the Paradox version of Serah's solo fight with Caius in the Void Beyond. And some of the alternate endings are great stories and would make a wonderful basis for fic.

They've pretty much announced a sequel already, so no worries on that count. What bugged me about the ending was this.

Wow.

[auronlu]

I was still on "everybody dies", which the canon ending seems to imply, but when you put it that way...yikes.

Although the last time we saw Snow, he was basically going crystal or disappearing entirely, so he might be added to the body count. It's a little hard to say.

The bestiary is biting my ass. i'd already gotten all the critters except the meanest bosses, and they tend to require faster reflexes than my arthritis is capable of. i do not look forward to paradox caius!

I have the DLC, but I'm not sure I can manage Lightning's-- it's a major button masher. Give me some more clock puzzles, for goddess' sake! They're like circular Suduko!

Re: Wow.

[thene]

Doing the Sazh DLC helps a lot with the Serendipity shards - by playing one of the minigames, Chronobind, you can build up lots of GP to use there. I've still not done Lightning or Snow myself; should really get to that soon.

You can always grind up before trying those meanest bosses - Raspatil completely kicked my ass the first time. Yomi is also pretty bad. But even when I was maxed-out, Serah's Caius was hard as hell and required a lot of effort in the reflex department, and I had to grind a really good Paradigm Pack to help her (a Flanitor, a Reaver and a Zaghnal, I think it was; my spouse did it with an all-chocobo party instead.)

I have a horrible feeling Noel is meant to be the main character of the sequel, and you have no idea how hard I DNW. I am hoping Lightning, Fang and Vanille are back but...why did they have to be crystallified in the first place ffs?

[lassarina]

^^ This. The bit Thene linked is what had me dragging my feet about XIII-2 the whole way through. I mean, I don't think they pulled it out of left field; they straight up told you Serah was going to die and Light was going to be crystallized because they told you they were reverting the entire game if you fixed time (and Serah, like Yeul, would lose her lifespan to her visions.) But that list is stark and brutal, and I am unbelievably fucking angry about it because this pair of games had so many awesome badass female characters and then...nope. It's like the ultimate "get back in the kitchen, uppity female" slap to the face.

[thene]

I'm pretty sure Lightning will shortly return from the crystal fridge and hopefully Fang and Vanille too, but really, Squeenix, really? You can only write important women if you're going to kick them down? And leave Noel, Snow, Hope, Sazh and Caius just...sitting around?