Been so busy raging over all the stupid, I forgot about that bit of the mythology. If the Unseen World has now rolled itself out onto the regular world, then for sure Pulse and Lindzei should be making an appearance.
Right. But I'm still confused on what Valhalla is kind of. It's the unseen realm but I'm trying to figure out if it's the land between reality and the land of the dead or it's suppose to be the realm of the dead in general. And if it's not the realm of the dead, if Etros can actually go to the realm of the dead considering she may have died before and has met Muin.
Add the awkward naming of the new Cocoon to the list of WTF as well.
Final Fantasy and their weird ass names. Also he names it Bhunivelze, which is the name of the original god. Which confused me when I saw the ending in the Japanese version because I thought Bhunivelze woke up and thought, oh shit he's going to do some stuff now- but turns out they just named the planet after it. Which strikes me as odd because no one in Academia is particularly religious. The only ones that seemed to care about the mythology at all is Noel and his tribe's religious affiliation with Etros. And Noel is hinted to be from parts of the Gran Pulse's Paddra tribe hidden away and not descendant from Cocoon.
1. The Historia Crux theme (not the crazy chanting part, but the first couple of minutes I really enjoy!)
I like the music in XIII but I'm not a fan of it. Even when the song opens all I can think is SPACEANDTIME and it repeats in my head forever oh god why
2. The Rambunctious Chocobo theme: Fits really well with those chocobos. I'm not into that style of music anymore but every time I hop onto one of those Gysahl junkie birds it gives me chuckles.
After seeing it in game, the song actually makes me laugh, but I hate those chocobos. Especially since they never stand still after you get off, one time I chased one of those bastards so I could quickly go somewhere only to realize I ran after them all the way to my destination anyway.
3. The story. Is it just me, or is every reviewer totally blowing it out of proportion?
I have mixed feelings about it. I actually enjoyed the time jumping, if nothing else for the game mechanics. I actually found parts of it interesting, and imo- the best parts of it were the personal issues. Noel's need to confront Caius, Caius and his need to save Yuel, Serah wanting to save Lightning.
But I have problems with the reveals, they felt rushed or just dumb. Like, Hope popping up 300 years in the future and was like "lol, I slept in a tube and gravity slowed down time." That was so bad I groaned. I'm fine with "a wizard did it" because it's future fantasy and we can work with that. But the moments when they tried their hand at science fiction was embarrassing. There's space time overlapping in our network- what the hell does that even mean, jfc just show me the way to the monster so I can kill it.
And I agree about the crazy building a new cocoon thing... why the hell didn't they just float the old one instead?
They have some explanation for that but you've got to have the right live trigger. So you miss some explanations if you don't respond the right way and it leaves it unfinished.
From what I understand, they tried to float Cocoon again but it was built by fal'cie technology and it's done in a way where they need a fal'cie to power it. That's what the prototype Adam was, an imitation fal'cie that would be able to float Cocoon, only he went crazy and they had to pull the plug after they saw Serah and Noel battling it. So they couldn't power the old Cocoon they built their own. And the reason they needed a new floating city is that while they could mitigate the damage of Cocoon falling through their own technology, there would still be the possibility that with Cocoon being so large and falling so high, there would still be enough damage that they want people off land and into the air.
What I don't understand is that they mention the 13th Ark. Last time I checked but weren't Arks made for war against Cocoon and to train l'cie. And aren't they built and powered by fal'cie so how can you use them, why are you using them, and how did you find it anyway?
Also, WHY WAS THERE NO CONFRONTATION OF ALYSSA AND HER EVIL ASSNESS. I was all geared up for some betrayal melodrama when I first went to Academia 500AF and there was just no payoff. But she faded into nothingness because originally she never survived the original purge... or something. Contrived plot, moving on.
I wanted this so bad. You would think they would considering the melodrama when she first explains her fears of not existing. But no, you don't get to. Even in the paradox ending, she just looks generic-ly evil. But one of the only things that made her interesting was the fact that she was underhanded. And it was less evil as a way to survive her survival.
Here you've got this girl who is well liked, but a lot of the cast at least once feels like she's using them. She's ambitious but she's also genuinely smart and earned every recognition she got. And now she's confronted with the choice to live as a paradox or accept death. And what's worse, she won't even die with her accomplishments, she would died at around 14, by either being crushed to death or buried alive, before she even got a chance. I would think that this would be a fascinating confrontation like "You think you're changing the world, but I want to live too, why can't I fight for me as well." But they don't and make her back into boring.
As Lightning wants to maintain hope, she enters crystal stasis in order to protect the will of her sacrified sister, Serah. We are planning a DLC release to reveal the background to this.
I think Serah's dead and this quote makes me think she really is, but it's not without a safety net. Mythology states that there's actually important stuff in the world of the dead, namely Muin and how pretty much all the fal'cie and every god except Etros is programed to fight it. So Serah being dead actually fits nicely into her being able to solve things there. I don't know what happened to Lightning but I can bet it's going to allow her to save her sister later on.
I don't see Lightning silently allowing Serah to just die. Serah was the reason that Lightning started her journey into XIII, which opened the door for her in XIII-2 in the first place. Lightning broke her fate just to see her again. If there's anything XIII universe has, it's the lengths people will go to to save the people they love. Lightning, Snow, and Sazh basically willed themselves to break the rules of reality/fal'cie for Serah and Dajh. Fang was going to destroy the world. Caius was going to destroy existence. Serah began to mess with time with someone she barely met and she was half convinced she was crazy herself. Hell, even Dysley is like that in some way, cultivated and was going to destroy the world so he could be with his maker. I don't see Lightning sacrificing her sister without any hope.
If Caius wished to kill Etro, why is his theme song basically a love-song-commitment to her (without revealing her name of course)?
What's the lyrics to his song?
Caius has a weird relationship with Etros. Etros should know about time, so I don't know why she gave him his heart if she knew he would want to destroy everything. And Caius should be somewhat aware that Etros actually kind of saved him. He was a l'cie after all. Also I'm confused, if part of the reason the world is so screwed up is because Etros intervened with Lightning and company, his story is so similar to them- why didn't his existence cause paradoxes? Was Etros just stronger then?
And I'm going to assume that Caius' Chaos Bahamut is the part of the ritual that melds eidolon and summoner together (it's mentioned in one of the fragments)- so are there multiple Bahamuts? And I don't buy the fact that Yuel reincarnated just for Caius considering that there were protectors before him, at least that's my impression
EDIT:
Also, what about Noel? His mere existence is pretty much a paradox, why didn't anything happen to him? (Not that I'd like to, I love him, but you get what I mean XD)
They even go so far as to mention that in-game. That he might cease to exist. And if the paradoxes never happened in the timelines, how can Serah and company live in the 500 AF future, that's a paradox. And a huge chunk of the Academia culture is built on paradoxes. In one of the quizzes, they actually mention that it's the most discussed thing in textbooks- and yeah while they are silly, it still shows that people understand and live with time distortions all the time. So... does that all change since these issues never came out Aaaaa what the fuck my brain I hate time travel stories.
I couldn't do it on normal, ended up doing it on easy just to get the enemy report complete. I think I need a better defender, since I've been using the same one I've had since early on (that yellow robot) and he's reached his limit ages ago.
It's not good when one is in class and suddenly 'Time and space, time and space, time and space!" comes lowly rolling through one's thoughts.
) but still...