Final Fantasy XIII Log: Part 6
I’m really close to the end of Final Fantasy XIII this time. In fact, I’m past the end. But there are still no spoilers as I discuss my adventures in the final chunk of the game. So much for beating it before the English version came out, though.
I finished all of the missions I could find in that last area, so I finally decided to get on with the main game. And there was a lot of dungeon crawling, sort of. Most of it was pretty narrow and straightforward, as usual, but I did get to a tower that was a little more traditional. Said tower also had a lot of missions to do. I closed out Chapter 11 in a town area that I found very annoying, but I’m not really sure why. Maybe the monsters. But the boss battle at the end of the chapter was a rerun, and kind of underwhelming on top of that. There was almost an “oh snap” moment, but I guess it turned out to be fake.
I ran around doing some more missions I found before I finally moved on to Chapter 12. It started with a ton of crazy, confusing, over-the-top cutscenes that led into a battle with the mecha Kyogre from Pokemon XD. I went through a lot of large, but still mostly linear areas. Some of the areas were named after classic summons like Ramuh, Siren, and Leviathan, which I only discovered by checking my map frequently. I could definitely notice my progress here, as monsters who were previously boss-caliber for me were suddenly becoming more reasonable to defeat. There was one particular enemy here called Puraudo Kuraddo, which is probably supposed to be “Proud Clad” or something, but all I could think was “Proud Crud,” because it does look really cruddy. Towards the end of this chapter was one of the greatest scenes in this game, but sadly, it wasn’t really a story scene. It was about the misadventures of a giant monster.
Finally, there was Chapter 13. The final dungeon looks like it belongs in a 3D Mario game. (In fact, I think it actually was in Sunshine.) It was kind of confusing; there were some sections I didn’t check, and it turned out I couldn’t go back to them. So, after I’d nearly finished the whole place and almost gotten to the end, I decided to reload an old save so that I could explore those other areas. I found quite a bit of missed treasure, and probably gained a lot more CP for it as well. But a lot of the monsters had stupid gimmicks that made me loathe fighting them over and over. But I persevered and made it to the very end. There was one sub-boss, a final save point, and then one more sub-boss that immediately (well, after cutscenes) transitioned into the final boss. I don’t even remember if I beat the second sub-boss on the first try, because the final boss was so rough for me that it must have taken me ten or so tries to finally finish.
However, as with many other Final Fantasy games, there was another stage to the final boss. After a frustrating first stage and fifteen minutes of cutscenes, no less. I actually timed it, because after failing once, I let them reroll and had time to go to the bathroom, check something on my computer, cook up a can of ravioli, see my computer’s screensaver come back on (10 minute delay), and eat half of the ravioli before the battle finally started again. And I’m a very slow eater. So after failing again, I timed it just to see how long it really was. Anyway, the second stage wasn’t really as hard as the first, because there’s an obvious gimmick to it. Executing the method to defeat it was a little difficult and annoying, though. But I finally pulled it off after a few tries, and then the game really was over.
The ending was quite a spectacle, and a little weird. It was somewhat satisfying, but also left me with a few questions. I guess that’s what sequels and spinoffs are for, eh Square-Enix? The spoiler I accidentally read last week finally came into play here, which took a lot of the impact out of one aspect, since I was kind of expecting it. The other big Japanese song played here as the credits rolled, and then I got an opportunity to save the game so I could actually use the final Crystarium level later.
I still have some trophies to earn, but my playthrough logs will end here. I think I’m going to do a little review post about the entire game, though.