FFXIII-2: Plot Discussion

[Appie]

Only issue I had with the game was getting lightnings crystal, I tried over 200 times before I got the monster crystal fragment skill, got almador on the fourth try, omega on the first, and all kills were her dying last to feral link abilities, finally got her on the 7th kill after getting the frag skill.

Funny, I had the exact opposite in Lightning's battle. I had the fragment skill and went 1/4 to get her, yet Amodar (the fuck I only want for completition sake, don't want to replace Chichu), won't drop after 20 or so tries.

For a time traveling plot I found it to be surprisingly well told and coherent.

This surprised me too.

As for incoming DLC's, going by Historia Crux locations we only have one on the left open? So just Lightning's episode? Of course they could just re-use zones on the Crux already, but they haven't done that so far for DLC (except colliseum battles, but even that is twice on the Crux so it can be used for the battles). So I think Lightning is the last story DLC and then the rest will be in XIII-3.

They could just add zones on the left of the Crux, I'm just talking about what they actually planned so far for story DLC. I don't see them adding story DLC they didn't plan for in the first place. Takes too long, too much money etc.

[Nevex]

Edit: wrong topic.

[Ratatapa]

Funny, I had the exact opposite in Lightning's battle. I had the fragment skill and went 1/4 to get her, yet Amodar (the fuck I only want for completition sake, don't want to replace Chichu), won't drop after 20 or so tries.


This surprised me too.

As for incoming DLC's, going by Historia Crux locations we only have one on the left open? So just Lightning's episode? Of course they could just re-use zones on the Crux already, but they haven't done that so far for DLC (except colliseum battles, but even that is twice on the Crux so it can be used for the battles). So I think Lightning is the last story DLC and then the rest will be in XIII-3.

They could just add zones on the left of the Crux, I'm just talking about what they actually planned so far for story DLC. I don't see them adding story DLC they didn't plan for in the first place. Takes too long, too much money etc.

I think there is 2-3 slots left and they said they had a snow story too

[Gokulo]

I think they mentioned telling Snow story in a novel or something else outside the game.

[vadre]

They are definitely getting better and not worse though. I'm really excited to see how dark and mature versus is going to be.

I've gotta say, the Valhalla sections of the game were really epic. The starting sequence really set the game up to be amazing (sadly the middle section just feels like filler following lightning taking on a meteor), and the sequence after defeating the bahamut trio but before the CG sequence is definitely my favourite in the game. The combination of Caius and Noel's themes for the background music is really perfect and I actually though it was quite a sad scene despite it ultimately meaning nothing in the scenes that follow it. For all the mistakes SE makes they're definitely getting better at capturing the mood of a scene to the point where I almost forgot it was just vidya gaming.

Those two sequences actually felt like they'd been directed by someone entirely different to the rest of the game to me.

It's things like that which make me think if this game was a standalone and not a budget/slightly rushed sequel it could've been really REALLY great, and not just the good game it is. They also made a bad choice with Serah, if it had been Lightning and Noel time-travelling and meeting the guys along the way a lot more people would've been happy with the result. At least she wouldn't have gotten bitch-slapped in every non-playable sequence.

Also, I really hope with Versus they're able to produce another good quality villain. It was nice to have a relatively well developed character for an enemy (although they definitely could've done more and it felt like time constraits forced them to just put his history into logs and fragments unfortunately)

[Appie]

I think there is 2-3 slots left and they said they had a snow story too

What Gokulo said and also I only have 1 slot open on the crux, right above the DLC colliseum, but like I said, adding slots would be easy, I just don't see them doing it due to the costs involved to add story DLC that wasn't planned from the start. Sazh's DLC already showed it was pretty much "cut" from the game since he is in the opening of the Serendipity zone on the Crux that Serah and Noel visit or the fact that his DLC takes one of the programmed empty nodes on the Crux doesn't help either. To me, that screams ACII DLC where they pulled 2 DNA sequences out of the game to add them as DLC later.

[Nevex]

The best thing that can happen to FFXIII right now would be making a third game that combines the strongest points of the first two that wraps up all the loose ends giving us the ending that the first two games have been anticipating (Serah and Snow getting married, Lightning finding happiness, Vanille and Fang waking up, Noel and Yeul being reuinted in a new future etc.).

I don't think all of that can happen through DLC unless they somehow manage to sneak in an epic final battle with all the 8 playable characters of the first two games (very unlikely).

[vadre]

It would be sort of cool to have a third game set in a valhalla'd world kind of like FF6's world of ruin in a way. However considering XIII-2's sales, I don't think they'd allocate any more budget than enough to turn all the existing areas that have been revisited like 5 times black, rather than properly interesting zones.

In fact it could be an excuse to bring back certain characters who weren't given a real chance to shine like Cid and Jihl who might've died and gone to Valhalla rather than wherever people are supposed to when they die.

[Appie]

People are supposed to go to Valhalla when they die >.>

As for the budget, I actually think they already started working on XIII-3 while making XIII-2 (easiest hint for this: the TBC). Also the cutscene of Noel and Yuel running in each other arms on an open field seems like it was cut short, like they had more footage but cut it short. Speaking of that scene of Noel and Yuel I'm still unsure if that scene wasn't in full CGI, which would make it cut short for sure, SE wouldn't waste resources on that for 5 secs unless it was part of a bigger CGI they had already made for XIII-3. I don't see Yuel's prophecy come true of everybody smiling in a DLC, that's for sure. Time will tell, but I would be fuckin amazed if they haven't been working on XIII-3 already.

[Nevex]

Speaking of that scene of Noel and Yuel I'm still unsure if that scene wasn't in full CGI, which would make it cut short for sure, SE wouldn't waste resources on that for 5 secs unless it was part of a bigger CGI they had already made for XIII-3

Yeah that's probably the strongest hint we have right now.

Toriyama has stated that XIII-3 won't happen but it's not out of the question that it might be a lie in order not to negatively affect DLC sales for FFXIII-2.

[ArchDizzle]

I'm ok with Serah I liked her in this game but of course I think everyone would have preferred lightning, (I played the opening 3 times before progressing because of how awesome she was) she just would have been way to powerful in this storyline traveling with Noel and would have left Etro's temple unguarded. I would guess her DLC will show what happened to her at the end of XIII when she arrived in Vahalla, and the events that unfold there as well as meeting mog and defeating the other powerful souls there since she became the leader of Etro's army, hopefully we will see some stuff she did behind the scenes during Noel and Serahs travels.

As far as future DLC and XIII-3 go, I hope sales don't stop them from doing the stuff they have planned thats my one fear, worldwide its sold around 2m copies I think, which isnt bad by any means these days but not near normal FF standards and less then half of what XIII did. I think the polarizing effect XIII had on most people and then really retarded and biased reviews are what killed it, if reviews had been more accurate I think it would have swayed more of the people who hated XIII to give it another shot. I hope word of mouth can give it some longevity and get the numbers to the 3-4M range by the end of the year, if it can I think SE will have no problems doing a XIII-3 and all of the planned DLC.

[Raldo]

I only have 1 slot open on the crux, right above the DLC colliseum

Is there a picture somewhere of the crux with everything possible opened? I've been doing the game without a guide, and it shows all the gates are open, but on the crux 'minimap', there are still quite a number of spots that are grey as if they should be there.

Note: I haven't touched the Paradox Scope.

[Fievel]

Is there a picture somewhere of the crux with everything possible opened? I've been doing the game without a guide, and it shows all the gates are open, but on the crux 'minimap', there are still quite a number of spots that are grey as if they should be there.

Note: I haven't touched the Paradox Scope.

Almost every gate can be opened just from doing story, side quests, and paradox endings.

Only ones that can't are the 3 on the far far left, 2 of those are currently opened from dlc and the other is currently locked(speculation would be that it's for lightnings dlc story)

[Raldo]

I thought the only DLC story was Sazh... but you say two are opened?

[Gokulo]

Arena DLC fight are one gate also.

[Carth]

If you have all the DLC, There's only one gate open. Since a Lightning episode has been confirmed and Snow's episode is currently planned on being a Novel, I'm pretty sure that last gate is meant for Lightning.

As far as XIII-3 is concerned, Square is either going to make the 3rd game (It was definitely planned. There's no way they'd make a TBC of that level without one), or perform the Kingdom Hearts travesty where they do a bunch of pointless spin-offs as they constantly delay the true sequel. I really doubt they'll finish up the game via DLC. Not only would they practically have to make an expansion pack, but it'd just be a dick move to finish off perhaps one of the darkest endings Square ever made with a "Wrap it Up" episode.

Sales-wise, XIII-2 did worse than XIII, but that's to be expected.

[Alkar]

If you switch the gate selection in the Historia Crux menu you also find out that the only DLC zone left to open is actually Valhalla (same applied to the gate for Sazh as it was shown as a Serendipity gate) so it's for the Lightning episode.
However they did mention updates to the Historia Crux along the way so it's likely that more gates will be added in future patches.

[vadre]

I have no idea how these kinds of things are predicted but I imagine a third game's sales would be fairly similar to XIII-2 based on the fact that I imagine the majority of the people who purchased XIII-2 were the ones who enjoyed XIII, so the dropoff between a second and third game would be far less.

It might even have higher sales if they take the feedback from XIII-2 and work on making XIII-3 the best of the bunch.

Would be nice if they went back to 3-person groups if it did happen, maybe 3 people + a monster if that could be balanced well.

[Katlan]

Just finished the game the other night. Haven't done really any of the paradox endings or seen the secret ending yet. but, just so I got this all straight...

Originally there was only one real time line, one Yuel, ect... And Yuel wasn't constantly dieing and being re-incarnated since she wasn't seeing the future of different time lines; or is Yuel always destined to die because even if there is only one real time line she will still be able to see the future of that one time line? But when Etro intervened and helped Lightning and crew save Cacoon from the Fal'Cie, alongside freeing them from their crystal sleep, Etro essentially changed the "real" time line, creating all the paradox's, and this caused the appearance of different Yuel's in all of the possible time lines along w/her ability to see the future of different timelines. Moreover, every time "that" Yuel's time line was changed she then died since she never existed? aka: Etro intervening, in order to save humanity, was the first paradox?

Etro, using her power to create the first paradox (seen in XIII), weakened her already fragile state and this caused Caius to have to watch all the Yuel's die over and over again (since now multiple Yuels existing and not the single one he was only supposed to protect). Thus enraging Caius and leading to him creating his plan to get himself killed, or kill Etro, in order to bring Valhalla to the real world and prevent any more Yuel's from dieing.

Etro then basically summoned Lightning to help protect her and gave lightning some of her power (or lightning became an embodiment of Etro?). But Lightning also learned that if she killed Caius then she was going to doom the real world, so she was essentially stuck in an endless battle to prevent herself from dieing and not being able to kill Caius since she needed Noel to kill Caius since Caius's power could only transfer to Noel.

Now, it seemed like Lightning was already in the crystal slumber (or w/e) when she saved Noel and Sarah in Valhalla at the very end. I would assume that once Sarah and Noel started to prevent the events at 500af Lightning then realized what was going to happen so basically retreated and gave her life in sacrifice in hopes of preventing the end of the world (since she had Etro's power in her she used that power to try to sustain life in preparating of what was going to happen).

Fast forward to the very end.... When the gate was closed and Noel and Sarah were on the ship, Noel thought they had changed reality but also closed all of the paradoxes so no more alternate realities could come true. They basically created a new reality by closing the original paradox that was created when Etro saved everyone in XIII. But Sarah's vision then meant that there were still more paradox's since she was essentially seeing a new timeline possibility?

Then at the very end when the two realities collide we see lightning, who had already sacrificed herself, on the throne trying to prevent the end of the world?

[Appie]

Going to try and explain this in some points:
- Yuels and Caius existed long before the events of XIII. They always looked into the future. They always died pretty young. Caius was a l'Cie before Etro gave him the Heart of Chaos when she felt sorry for him that he fell in a battle trying to protect Yuel. This was the start of all the pain Caius had to endure of seeing somebody die over and over again. The curse of immortality.

- Etro only actually intervened in getting the XIII crew out of their crystal stasis, everything before that was the crew doing their work or Bathandalus playing tricks on them. This was the first paradox yes. Etro felt sorry for the crew and the sacrifice they made that she released them from their crystals. This caused chaos to seep through Etro's gate, which when Etro tried to fix this also sucked in Lightning. This is something that Yuel mentions that "wasn't supposed to happen, somebody who should have returned, did not".

- Lightning needed Noel to get Serah, so they could fight in the visible world while Lightning fights in the unvisible world. Lightning can't play around the visible world for long periods of time. Noel actually taking Caius' place solves nothing as is pointed out in a paradox ending. He would carry the curse of eternal life.

- Other stuff concerning Lightning will probably be addressed in the DLC, but going by what is ingame so far: Lightning would already be in Crystal Stasis when we end the fight with Caius, he mentions he already put Lightning to "sleep", but Noel and Serah don't believe him, to which Caius replies that "time in Valhalla doesn't flow as it should, what happens in your future already happened in my past". I'm sure the DLC will touch on this, but I have no reason to doubt Caius, can't think of an instance where he actually lied to the main cast when it mattered, just them not believing him.

Lightning mentions she can see the whole timeline so she probably knew some of the shit that was going to happen and going by an interview with the lead writer she put herself into crystal stasis to maintain hope after the sacrifice Serah made by dying. What this vision was, is also unknown at this time. It could very well just be that she saw the fusion of the 2 worlds before it actually happened. Timeflow stops after this and so would "seeing into the future", which was Caius' plan to free Yuel in the first place.

Hope this clears up some of the stuff.