I bought and played this game extensively but have never been able to get past the second Barthandelus boss fight and have long since ceased trying. I know the story up until then, and I did read the ending of the story on Wiki, but Wiki is often unnecessarily detailed and long-winded and it doesn’t really give you a good picture of fiction of any kind.
I also don’t intend, probably, to ever do the grinding required to beat Barthandelus again. Those fights piss me off to no end - I can beat up all the local monsters no problem, but for Barthandelus you have to max out every circle (I forget what the training circles were called).
So what happens at the end of the game? Vanille and Fang were the original Ragnorak, I got that. Vanille and Snow are trying to save Cocoon even though their Focus (all of their Focii) is to destroy it. Hope is there…I guess to remind the party what they are fighting for. Sazh fights for his little boy.
Barthandelus is a dick on every level. Does the party triumph? I see there is a possible sequel coming out; does that mean the ending is unsatisfactory??
The ending isn’t necessarily unsatisfactory, just completely forgettable.
I can’t remember the exact details and I already turned my copy in, but I remember it ends with the party somehow rewriting their Focus from destroying Cocoon (and Orphan) into saving Cocoon. Vanille and Fang combine into the true form of Ragnarok and use their power to halt the descent of Cocoon towards Pulse, then crystalizes it. The rest of the party wakes up from their crystal sleep on the surface, but Fang and Vanille are still in their crystal form in the remains of Cocoon, which is probably what the sequel is going to be about.
Thanks, I was beginning to wonder if anyone had beaten it, but “completely forgettable” does seem like a good reason for no one to post! I appreciate it…I guess I really don’t need to bother beating it.
Barthandelus basically wins. You end up doing exactly what he wants and kill Orphan, resulting in the destruction of Cocoon as expected. Then, while Cocoon is falling apart, Fang & Vanille pull a Deus Ex Machina and use some combined super power to sacrifice themselves to save Cocoon. Well, actually they just seem to save all the remaining people in Cocoon by preventing it from crashing into Pulse. Not sure that Cocoon will remain habitable any more. Everyone will probably have to relocate to Pulse anyway.
Well, I meant that it seemed somewhat more.. dense than previous FF’s, which mostly have pretty comprehensible plots. The slow weakening of this tendency was something which bothered me greatly about FF7, which started the slow decline of the series.
Oh, I don’t know. I played the hell out of 7, 8, 10 and 12 (and beat 9 a few times). 13 is the first time it turned into true dreck, though. (11 and 14 notwithstanding, as they’re MMOs and therefore uninteresting.)
Yeah, the story itself wasn’t anything to write home about, but it made up for it with a solid game system and a metric shitload of optional sidequests, puzzles and bosses. I usually only keep an eye on the story to let me know what I’m doing next, so I don’t really mind. 13 was a different experience, though - where 12 was merely mediocre, it was usually short and to the point and interspersed with a good deal of action. In 13 though the story and cutscenes are all over the place. Heck, the first ten hours consist of over twice as much exposition and cutscenes than actual gameplay. (And it’s still muddy!)
13 was a different experience, though - where 12 was merely mediocre, it was usually short and to the point and interspersed with a good deal of action. In 13 though the story and cutscenes are all over the place. Heck, the first ten hours consist of over twice as much exposition and cutscenes than actual gameplay. (And it’s still muddy!)