Final Fantasy XIII Log: Part 3
Hooray, the Playstations fixed themselves. I thus dumped all kinds of hours into Final Fantasy XIII, and got pretty far. I unlocked more abilities, and got to “Chapter 6.” Still no spoilers.
I thought I was pretty far into the cliffy area, but apparently there was a lot more to go. It’s called “Vile Peaks,” if you were wondering. But the plot got kind of weird, in that there was a decision that I’m still a little confused by. If only I could rewind or pause the cutscenes so I’d have time to look up words that I don’t know/forgot.
At one point, I found another summon beast, and managed to figure out how to beat it on my own, though it took a few tries. Kind of proud of that. Sometime after that, I ended up in a huge dungeon-ish area that reminds me of something else I’ve seen recently. I really racked up CP there, and then blew it all in seconds the next time I got a Crystarium level up. I think that level up came after a crazy boss fight, against a big plant monster. I found it really challenging in a good way, since it required Optima changes almost every turn, and heavy use of every Role each character had. It was sooooooo not just “pressing the same button over and over again.” A lot of non-boss battles are getting to be fairly intense, too, though to a lesser extent. Except for these one super porcupine things that are practically mini-bosses.
I was hoping that all the items categorized as “materials” would end up equating to vendor trash, but I finally reached the in-game use for them: modifying my weapons. I didn’t expect this game to give me even more customizable things to play with. I don’t think I like this one as much as the other stuff, partly because where/what items you receive is a lot more random than consistently earning points from a battle. Thus, it feels more like I have to rely on luck and randomness than skill and work. There are some shops where I can buy them, but money is still really difficult to come by, so I can never afford much of anything.
I left off in a really pretty area with catchy, vocalized BGM. The characters are currently split up into odd pairings, which is allowing some interesting insight into their personalities and pasts. Especially since there’s practically a new cutscene every 5-10 minutes, and some of them last almost that long. I’m not really exaggerating. But there is plenty of gameplay to back it up, because, as I said above, the fights are getting complex. I’m having a lot of fun.
But before I go play some more… I was trying to figure out who sang the vocals in the aforementioned piece of BGM, partially because it sounded like it could be Maaya Sakamoto, and I accidentally found a huge spoiler about the game’s plot. On top of that, I never did find out who sang the vocals for that piece. I hate the internet.