FFXIII-2: Plot Discussion

[Cichy]

Yeah I'm just saying that there was a lot of early pre-release criticism of a TBC ending with future DLC that expands the story. A lot of people were pissed but it wasn't like Square-Enix decided to just abruptly end the story just so they could provide DLC. I think a lot of those early negative reviews and negative feedback were a little unfounded. Especially that picture that listed a bunch of reasons why you shouldn't buy the game, after playing the game you can really see how much bullshit was packed into picture lol.

On-topic: I kind of wish that Lightning had a bit more screen time, but considering the story is so short, she did play a big role. You might not have physically seen her for 10-15 hours after the intro, but at least she did a lot of narrating. I've been satisfied with all the character's screen time atm. I'm extremely excited to see how Snow got re-branded.

Here's how I take it. FFXIII-2 was a story of Sarah and Noels journey and as such it came to a satisfactory ending. Their adventure together came to an end. Obviously we had Lightning, Snow, and others but they were not able to accompany them on their travels and only assist at points. Whatever happens past this point therefore is extra for me.
Obviously, SE has been down on their luck and got alot of negative media in recent times and I think alot of reviewers take it as a permission to shit on them. I've got my own beef with SE but I gotta say, give them credit when credit is due and I think in this case it is.

[Appie]

I've got my own beef with SE but I gotta say, give them credit when credit is due and I think in this case it is.

Couldn't agree more. I hate what they are doing to FFXI atm, but at least XIII-2 is a fun and good game. Hurray for different teams.

[Ratatapa]

This is my opinion on stuff but here we go

Stories DLC, imo those DLC will simply enhance the current story and not continuing it.

Lightning Story will surely be what happen while Serah and Noel's quest is active
Snow will surely learn exactly how he got to sunlet and what happens after
and Sazh What happened after XIII and how he got the future.

Imo the Unstonned Lightning will be for XIII-3.

Also how Sazh is at the future ATM is really blurry, cuz when Hope and Alyssa went to Academia 400x they are alone and they said their time machine is broken and cannot either use it or go back to the past, so either they brought Sazh with them first time and they hid him.

Or they made a Time to go get him and bring him back.

gonna see that in future DLC! (oh and what happen to Alyssa since she wanted to kill serah and noel when they left academia!

[Datonare]

I thought they said recently that they wanted to leave it on a TBC note because they planned on adding DLC to continue the story, rather than fill in gaps... might be wrong, but I swear I read that somewhere yesterday lol

[vadre]

I hope the DLC expands upon Alyssa, she somehow managed to sabotage the historia crux itself with what is maybe a fake fragment (?), then suggests that she'll disappear when they correct the paradox in AF500? Why wouldn't she exist in the true future they're aiming for? Also, how is she capable of wrecking the HC? I feel like if they do make a XIII-3 Alyssa might end up showing up as a baddie fighting to stop you erasing her or something, unless the current ending is regarded as the true future and she's already disappeared.

Also, I noticed in Noel's dream area (dying world) there is a VERY brief flash of a scene with Noel and Yuel running towards each other and hugging (when they're thinking about a better future), and it looks like CG. This suggests to me we'll probably end up getting a 'good' CG ending eventually.

I've gotta say, despite some reviews whining about the story's 'paradox did it' thing, I did really enjoy it. I actually enjoyed Proto Adam's chapter the best I think, his paradox seemed really well thought out but not overly confusing. At any rate ,if that schedule supposedly leaked a while back (can't find a link now, could easily have been fake) we can expect an 'expansion' DLC in March I believe, which implies a pretty hefty chunk of content. If Lightning's chapter is her visiting a bunch of existing areas with a few bits of new dialogue i'll be annoyed.

[Spira]

hmmm i cleared the game a second time (this time with min/maxing for Noel/Serah) and that kinda helped me clarify the story.

Caius knew all along that killing Etro would release Valhalla's chaos into the world, creating a timeless place. This was his intention to save Yeul. Yeul knew this, which was why she asked Serah and Noel not to pursue Caius that way. When she said she couldn't see the future anymore, it must have been because the future would have been a place where time doesn't exist.

If Serah/Noel didn't intervene at 500AF, Caius would have crashed Bhunivelze, created by 4XX af Academia, destroying humanity. But ultimately, the same things happened. Caius wanted to destroy time and ultimately succeeded.

his initial intention was to get the gate to open itself wide and let chaos seep out, when a lot of people die.. which failed numerous times. this would have been a scenario that happened if cocoon fell in 0AF, an ideal that the Cocoon fal'cie themselves desired. strange how they aligned that way.
that didn't work, so he would have to kill the goddess to allow the chaos to flow out from valhalla into the seen world instead. that was why he was fighting lightning in valhalla. and eventually, he won.

at the same time, he wanted to get someone strong enough to kill him to release this chaos from this heart - and this was supposed to be Noel. for some reason he is unable to kill himself to release the heart of Chaos. but in the end he kinda brought himself to do it, but still with noels help.

the ending you see is basically the result of his work. everything plays into his plan. Etro is dead, the seen world becomes an eternal paradox because time no longer exists and Yeul is saved.

Serah may be dead, but if time is warped, then the seen world is no different than Valhalla, whereby there is no such thing as life or death. By that same reasoning, there is no reason to believe that Caius or Lightning are dead either.

[Spira]

I hope the DLC expands upon Alyssa, she somehow managed to sabotage the historia crux itself with what is maybe a fake fragment (?), then suggests that she'll disappear when they correct the paradox in AF500? Why wouldn't she exist in the true future they're aiming for? Also, how is she capable of wrecking the HC? I feel like if they do make a XIII-3 Alyssa might end up showing up as a baddie fighting to stop you erasing her or something, unless the current ending is regarded as the true future and she's already disappeared.

Alyssa's existence is a paradox and she apparently knows this. Alyssa was supposed to have died during the purge, but because of the miracle of 0AF, and possibly some other paradoxes in time, she still lives.

In 4XX af, the artefact she gives Serah/Noel is kinda rigged, which is why they get sent into the Void Beyond, for Caius to finish them off. She struck a deal with Caius because she wanted to keep existing and knew that if they solved the time paradoxes, she wouldn't exist either. hence the statement she made.
Yeul knows this too, which is why if you ask the appropriate Live Trigger question she will mention that they'd been betrayed by someone they knew.

You can also get a paradox ending showing this in more detail

edit: not relevant but i dont wanna triple post..
if you read the stuff they detail in the fragment entries, it tells you a lot more about the story background.
it also hints that we'll next see Snow in the coliseum, and that Sazh had also been traveling thru time.. (kinda evident in last episode, but still) and by using the Historia Crux too.

[Lucavi]

Here's how I take it. FFXIII-2 was a story of Sarah and Noels journey and as such it came to a satisfactory ending. Their adventure together came to an end. Obviously we had Lightning, Snow, and others but they were not able to accompany them on their travels and only assist at points. Whatever happens past this point therefore is extra for me.
Obviously, SE has been down on their luck and got alot of negative media in recent times and I think alot of reviewers take it as a permission to shit on them. I've got my own beef with SE but I gotta say, give them credit when credit is due and I think in this case it is.

I think its justifiable for anyone to criticize the company if what they're pushing and selling doesn't allign with what actually appears in the game. Many a player is going to look at the commercials and trailers and whatnot and expect to get a lot of Lightning. Then they play it and, well... no. There's nothing wrong with slamming SE for that. There's also nothing wrong with comparing XIII and XIII-2 to the Star Wars trilogy in terms of staleness; when you've got a company outright admitting that they spent more time trying to please others instead of trying to make new ideas and tell an original story, you're going to have problems, and go figure, they did (at least critically - certainly not commercially).

I'm not going to apologize for anything that SE does. They're a grown-ass company, and they're a Japanese company. They should know exactly how this goes down, and they should know the weaknesses of Japanese companies by now. They're too slow - they've always been to slow - to evolve when times change. It has bitten them in the ass time and again, much like many other Japanese companies. They've earned their criticisms just as much as any FPS company has earned theirs for re-releasing stale content that has no critical depth, but will attain commercial success.

[Appie]

Doesn't Serah have a type of Lcie mark too? When you enter Academia 400 the first time they make a soon to Serah's arm before summoning all the Cieth and it seems like a brand

Just saw this cutscene again. It's more of a reference to the mark she had in XIII at that place on her arm. Which makes the man-made fal'Cie go bonkers.

Sazh was brought to the future by Hope. As for Snow's mark, not certain, will probably be explained in some DLC. Might be the idiot needed power so he turned l'Cie again (not as smart as his girlfriend to learn magic on his own).

Need to fix this after reading a little in the interview with the dev team in the official guide. Sazh and his kid actually end up in Serendipity somehow shortly after the events of XIII, he manages to get out. This story will be told in the DLC. How the fuck he gets to the future will probably also be explained, but I seriously remember Hope saying in Episode 6 how he brought friends and then Sazh shows up in his plane. So the DLC will probably tie it up to that point.

The interview also mentions how Snow intentionally went looking for a fal'Cie to have the power to be able to warp through time. This story will be expanded upon in a novel released in Japan soon according to the interview. His actual travels through time can be read in the graviton cores fragments you collected in your menu.

Serah may be dead, but if time is warped, then the seen world is no different than Valhalla, whereby there is no such thing as life or death. By that same reasoning, there is no reason to believe that Caius or Lightning are dead either.

The interview also mentions Caius how he is not dead because he "died" in Valhalla and how the Caius in the secret ending, after his supposed death, is still the real one. His existence is a paradox too.

For Lightning however it seems slightly different, going to quote a question from the interview in the book:

Is there a meaning to the throne of Etro that is seen at various moments in The Void Beyond?

Daisuke Watanabe, Lead writer: "The throne of Etro that appears in The Void Beyond is empty for most part of the game. This symbolizes the ever diminishing power of Etro. However, in the ending, Lightning sits on the throne. This symbolizes that the world's very existence relies on her to embody the divine will. As Lightning wants to maintain hope, she enters the crystal stasis in order to protect the will of her sacrificed sister, Serah. We are planning a DLC release to reveal the background to this."

So apparently she isn't in a "stoned state" but an actual crystal stasis (assuming the guide didn't make translations errors), not because Etro died but because of the sacrifice Serah made (she knew she could die by seeing the future, just like Yeul). I'm sure this backstory DLC will explain it better.

[Cichy]

hmmm i cleared the game a second time (this time with min/maxing for Noel/Serah) and that kinda helped me clarify the story.

Caius knew all along that killing Etro would release Valhalla's chaos into the world, creating a timeless place. This was his intention to save Yeul. Yeul knew this, which was why she asked Serah and Noel not to pursue Caius that way. When she said she couldn't see the future anymore, it must have been because the future would have been a place where time doesn't exist.

If Serah/Noel didn't intervene at 500AF, Caius would have crashed Bhunivelze, created by 4XX af Academia, destroying humanity. But ultimately, the same things happened. Caius wanted to destroy time and ultimately succeeded.

his initial intention was to get the gate to open itself wide and let chaos seep out, when a lot of people die.. which failed numerous times. this would have been a scenario that happened if cocoon fell in 0AF, an ideal that the Cocoon fal'cie themselves desired. strange how they aligned that way.
that didn't work, so he would have to kill the goddess to allow the chaos to flow out from valhalla into the seen world instead. that was why he was fighting lightning in valhalla. and eventually, he won.

at the same time, he wanted to get someone strong enough to kill him to release this chaos from this heart - and this was supposed to be Noel. for some reason he is unable to kill himself to release the heart of Chaos. but in the end he kinda brought himself to do it, but still with noels help.

the ending you see is basically the result of his work. everything plays into his plan. Etro is dead, the seen world becomes an eternal paradox because time no longer exists and Yeul is saved.

Serah may be dead, but if time is warped, then the seen world is no different than Valhalla, whereby there is no such thing as life or death. By that same reasoning, there is no reason to believe that Caius or Lightning are dead either.

Alright, now I'm getting bit of a clearer picture thx. So now that the timeline is destroyed I bet eventually we will get a DLC in which somehow we get rid of the chaos. I mean now the timeline doesnt exist so you wont be able to travel in historiacrux so that will need to be wrapped up. Once the timeline gets active again they can think of 13-3.

[Gokulo]

Hope's "I brought friends" was just a general thing, rather than referring to time travel. He specifically said in Ch.5 that only he and Alyssa were able to use the capsule to get to 4XX. Aside of that we don't know if he met Sazh in that time period or after getting to 500.

[Appie]

Oh I know only Alyssa and him got through with the capsule. That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of options where he actually helped Sazh get to where he is, but we'll see soon enough. Also, I haven't seen in it in English yet, but I thought he said something like "old friends", not refering to the army he brought with him, but actual XIII cast.

[Jaxzer]

When was the last FF in which the villain succeeded in his plot of world destruction, destroying time itself rendering life and death meaningless? Caius is one bad motherfucker.

[Gokulo]

What I got from the game was that Etro is a shitty goddess, because it's basically her that screwed multiple people over and the whole world in general with her actions

[Cichy]

Yeah but if she dint intervene in 0 AF the world would been over anyways.

[Gokulo]

Yeah, it seems that no matter what the planet is already in a no-win situation, Etro just bought people 500 extra years, that's all D;

[vadre]

With regards to Sazh time travelling, one of Snow's fragments says he passed Sazh snoozing inside the historia crux as he was moving about. I guess he managed it somehow.

I really can't see us getting XIII-3 as much as it might make sense, it took them 2 years + to make this game and I doubt they'd be able to recycle half of the environments AGAIN in XIII-3 for padding.

[Ratatapa]

Yeah but if she dint intervene in 0 AF the world would been over anyways.

How? She wasn't responsible for Vanille and fang crystalization

The problem started cuz she made Lightnings crew out of crystal statis, which started Yeuls curse and all

[Gokulo]

And everything would be fine and dandy if they just stayed as crystals instead of finishing the job?

[vadre]

How? She wasn't responsible for Vanille and fang crystalization

The problem started cuz she made Lightnings crew out of crystal statis, which started Yeuls curse and all

She intervened before that as well when they were turned into Cieth vs. Barthandelus if memory serves.