The Narthex

I didn't know this place is the Narthex. The penny drops. Barthandelus 3 was easy. The next one, not so much.

Final Fantasy 13

I could go on. Don't these characters ever smile without a script? I'm done. Zirnitra is too much. I declare my game over. Match play, and inside the leather.

Done.

Orphan's Cradle to Oerba, and Back Again

Chances are you'll get lost in Mah'habara trying to get back from Oerba. Just remember that Atomos takes you to Sulyya Springs, whichever of the two docking stations you leave from. Or else if you're at Sulyya Springs, he takes you to the middle of Mah'habara. So, to get out of Mah'habara and back to the Archylte Steppes you have to jump over Atomos, then hug the left wall until you get out.

The graphic is a bit mysterious. To clarify, Atomos is a huge, rolling metal sphere with red hot teeth like a buzz saw. Left to itself, it rampages around cutting out new tunnels. If you find it docked, you can board him and ride to Sulyya Springs — or back again to the middle of the map.

You should already know how to go from Vallis Medea to Orphan's Cradle, and vice versa.

The Tesseracts

Just what is a tesseract anyway? I thought I knew... Lessee, now... [Merriam-Webster] n. the four-dimensional analogue of a cube. What I thought.

Final Fantasy 13 conflates the concept with platform cataract, apparently. As environments go, it's weird enough.

This part of the game is not my cup of tea, but then I discovered that by examining Eden, it's possible to return to the beginning of Orphan's Cradle, and from there head back to Gran Pulse or Edenhall to level up a bit. These are all round trips.

Saw a brown preying mantis ca. 6" long on our mailbox this afternoon. It was taking shelter from the downpour whipping around the front porch.

Today is...

Respect for the Aged Day (in Japan).

Day after tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of Fall. Curiously Anglophilic Neo-pagans call it "Mabon," or Harvest Home. Wyrd.

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Jabberwock and Bandersnatch are defeated (rather handily), but... Why are they in this game? Is that pointless episode part of Mid-Victorian Fantasy XIII?

Orphan's Cradle

The Proudclad 2 has a weakness, it turns out. Toward the end, it doesn't recover, so keep hitting it. You do have to stay alive, though ;-) After that, it's on to Chapter 13, and a somewhat unexpected chance to level up for awhile before taking on the final bosses. You come upon a couple of warp portals, and you can drop back down to Gran Pulse for awhile and look around for chocobos or whatnot. Or go back to Edenhall. The portals are two-way affairs, so there's no reason not to. Barthandelus III will keep for a bit, or even, considering the downbeat ending if you've been reading ahead, maybe for months.

Proudclad 2! Again?!

Hey, there he is again! And you have to wade through of bunch soapflake c'ieth to get to him! And a rabid cauliflower! Apparently, he's blocking the door to Chapter 13 though, so... no help for it. Time to cheat and look him up on Youtube. (Knock it off! Sun Tsu says intelligence-gathering is ok.)

→

←

The path to this point relied on some cheap tricks with jump points, but it didn't slow me down for long.

Proudclad... pfffftt!

Cerberus and Evened Odds and Combat Clinic, I think 'twas. Right now, though, I'm lost in a maze of (easy) monsters all battling each other — and Y.T. if one has gotten too close. It's like a catalog of all that's come before. Nice touch. But I haven't found the way out yet.

According to my t-shirt...

I have the body of a god.

Unfortunately, it's Buddha.

Cancer notwithstanding, my rotundity also makes me by the world's standards a wealthy man. The gods are toying with us.

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Speaking of toying with the gods, I've inched along and am now trying to get past the Proudclad in Chapter 12. The end of the game must be nearby. From Barthandelus in Oerba onwards, the game gets tedious, without much in the way of rewards.

Barthandelus 2..... phhhhht!

It took awhile. No cheats or easy ways out that I'm aware of. Just hit him hard and often until he staggers orange, then hit him harder and faster. Oh, yeah, and stay alive, meaning heal up. Nothing fancy: Ruthless, Combat Clinic, Relentless Assault. Equip reducing items for 30% daze, 30% poison. You need to stay in the game. You'll need an eidolon toward the end. It won't take B. out, but it will heal up your party. Then once more from the beginning. With feeling. Max out your Level 4 CP players, and don't use low-level players in crucial roles. Grind, if necessary.

I used Lightning, Fang and Vanille. Your tastes may vary...

The Vanille theme is available on the Extras menu option when you beat this obstacle.

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Hmmm... Final Fantasy has one resonant theme throughout its many incarnations, 13 so far — short shrift for entities which set themselves up to be gods and demand worship from human scum. No matter how subtle, no matter how persuasive or awe-inspiring, whether Occuria or fal'Cie or whatever, the human scum invariably finds itself revolting ... and humiliating the high-maintenance pretenders to godhood.

In the end, playing these games through to conclusion leaves you with two huge impressions: a) there are deeper dungeons than these, and b) there are deeper, cooler heavens than those we've seen so far. As explorations of the human will to spiritual life, these games rank above the Pilgrim's Progress and maybe even reach as far as Tolstoy — Mikhail Bulgakov at least.

Paradigm Deck

These are a few of my favorite Paradigms, based on Lightning (RAV 4, MED 4); Sazh (SYN 4); and Vanille (SAB 4, MED 4).

Smart Bomb — rav/rav/sab
Relentless Assault — com/rav/rav
Bully — com/syn/sab
Diversity — com/rav/med
Evened Odds — med/syn/sab
Combat Clinic — med/sen/med

Ruthless — com/rav/sab
Convalescence — med/syn/med
Solidarity — com/sen/med

None of which makes it easier to take down Barthandelus in Oerba... What? Again!? Yech. I'm taking a break!

How to beat Hecatoncheir with just Fang and Vanille

Vanille on Hecatoncheir

In a nutshell, Level up!

Not to put too fine a point on it, that's the whole trick. You'll grind back and forth through the tunnel, the whole way back and the whole way forward,  again and again, over and over, until it's second nature and you rarely if ever get k.o.'d.  You have no choice about this — the game is linear.  Get past Hecatoncheir, or give up.

When you're done, Vanille and Fang will both have Level 4's in two or more abilities, plus maybe a Level 3 or so, with weapons upgraded to level 12 and 24. Status should show both characters with HP over 3400, not counting accessory bonuses.

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N.B. —  If you get lost trying to make sense of "Gestalt bar," "Stagger bar and "SP bar," the Mumbling Mystic Masters of Button Mashing Mayhem at IGN, etc., are trying to obfuscate and confuse with  technical short-hand wizards' vocabulary to impress the girls they imagine are also playing the game.  

Sad.  The only bar that counts is the thin narrow bar that gradually fills up purple (if you're spamming Synergist spells), with the illegible word under the bar, flush right.  When that fills to the word, hit Square.  

This topic is discussed professionally in the Datalog (green up Triangle), emphasis on clarity.  If you have an HDTV, the word under the bar is legible.

Flirt and Squirt

There comes, after the rather mundane Cid Raines has passed, even more dubious life. Allons, enfants, this looks like the start of pressing forward onward into the depths of whenever.

Tomorrow's buzz–in,
      And yesterday's flirt and squirt,
            Pawn another Now.

Here we are with the first five eidolons, still wondering what this game's about, but at least it's nice to look at, this Cerobi Archylte Steppe. How can Square-Enix make games that don't look this good? Weird.

Barthandelus

After several days, I got rid of the upside-down choir. Now we've got the bad boy himself to deal with with Team Lightning, Snow and Vanille.

Part 1. The Choir

Ruthless (commando, ravager, saboteur)
Combat Clinic (medic, sentinal, medic)

Part 2. Laughing Boy

Ruthless
Combat Clinic

Yes, that's the same as before. Stay sharp about Destrudo and make sure you're in Combat Clinic well before that strikes. Mix in an occasional Relentless Assault, Solidarity, Diversity or whatever, but don't get carried away. Time is of the essence! Develop a major sense of urgency immediately. Strategy here is to stagger this clown at least once, maybe twice, and get his green line down to about 1/4 normal.

Then hit him with Odin. Watch your purple line, and whatever you do, don't bring on Odin until you've got a good chance to finish off Barthandelus with Sleipner!

Piece of cake, but unfortunately I survived with only two stars. Now on Chapter 10, The Fifth Ark

The only other advice I could add is Concentrate! Once you've won this scrimmage, it'll seem easy, but it's still kind of a high water mark for nasty bosses.

Chapter Ten, by the way, unlocks some nice rewards just for being there. Sweet!

Paramecium

Paramecium sp. A Eukaryote. Technically not a giant fal'Cie ship in the sky. That would be a Palamecia. Weird choice of names, 'ey?

Incidentally, Vanille and Fang are from the same town, Oerba, and have Australian accents. Go figure. Maybe they got to Cocoon on a giant Paramecium?

I've been playing this game for about a week and a couple days, now. I'm being pwned by Barthandelus at the moment.

Paramecia are giants in their own tiny world, up to 300μ long, nearly visible to the proverbial naked i. They defend themselves with poisonous hairs, and pack so much structure into a single cell they resemble the art of Salvadore Dali. Like Dali, paramecia can afflict the unwary with gastric disturbances.

It's art. Note the ambiguity of referent and the stinging reminder of Purdue. Ah, the cruel fate of associate professorship!

Cringing for the Future

Like Alaric in Arizona, I've reached the outskirts of Palomporom, where the outlook for happy endings seems to be fading fast. These people don't seem to like each other very much. Me, I'm just mad at the Havoc Skytank. Bad Boss.

Update: It's been pwned. On to Chapter 8.

Talk is Cheap

I've run afoul of Aster protoflorian Linn.^&dagger, so it's time to change the subject.

How 'bout that World Cup?? FIFA is bigger than the Olympics most places in the world, so what do we get on ABC for that hour before the final game? Wouldn't know, wasn't watching. Over on Univision, they had ONE SOLID HOUR of world class Closing Ceremonies. Yeah, only Univision cares about soccer, so guess what I watched?

Spain vs. Netherlands, kind of a dull game. Spain won, 1-0, in 119 minutes. It was fun to watch, once Team Orange crumbled. Everyone loves to laugh at losers.

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^†"Linn." Heh, just fooling, Dr. Linnaeus.

How I Beat Aster Protoflorian

Aster Protoflorian wasn't easy, but there's a method. In a nutshell, in order of importance: Use your own head, then Odin, then Sleipnir, to peel off this were-onion's first Stagger. After that, you're on your own in a normal boss battle, so take 'im down again. Made in the shade!

First, buff up with Symbiosis. Don't waste time, but switch over to Slash & Burn, alternating with War & Peace as needed, but it seems that a good offense is the best defense. Keep an eye on Hope (and your own stats!), and don't allow your HP to drop too far. You can't afford to be low on HP when Aster Protoflorian goes electric on you (Thunderga?) or unleashes Efflorescence on your sorry backside. Whack at this knuckle-dragging weed until you get his orange burnout bar as high as you can by yourself (you can't do it without Hope).

THEN SUMMON ODIN! (This requires a little preparation, so be prepared, obviously.) Your goal is to weed whack and get the orange bar as high as possible in the time allotted. Be very careful. That purple bar under Odin's stats MUST NOT go to zero, but keep weedwhacking until you can't stand it, THEN PRESS SQUARE.

Odin now gets a second, even more powerful, life as SLEIPNIR, Lightning's favorite steed! Don't do this too soon, because the longer you spend with Odin, the more time you have on Sleipnir. WEED WHACK!! You should be able to max out the pest's burnout bar and knock him down with one or two extra blows before your little pony goes back to the sky.

Aster Protoflorian takes TWO iterations on the full orange bar, so now you start again. Before Odin left, the weed's orange bar dropped back to zero (bad), your HP maxed out (good) and all your debuffs (and all the were-onion's buffs?) vanished (very good), so you're in good shape.

At this point, you're fighting a normal boss battle again. Max the orange bar, toss the bouquet straight up as often as possible, and keep a wary eye on your HP. If Hope collapses, you'll need Phoenix Down. SLASH & BURN!! You'll be facing a black and white stats screen before you know what happened.

Funny thing, you've been concentrating intensely. If you've been doing it right when that flower goes down, your visceral reaction is to immediately stifle a whoop of celebration. At most, the only reaction anyone will notice out of you is a slow, evil smile. I think you could probably earn a black belt in Final Fantasy XIII.

The games we play, the games we love

Final Fantasy XIII

Overall: 10 stars out of 10.

Eye Candy: 10 stars out of 10. Graphics are heartbreakingly gorgeous, girls cute and sexy.

Music: 7 stars out of 10. There are tunes in this soundtrack that will be played at weddings and funerals for a year or two, but the rest of us may wonder why. Sazh's Theme from the Salvage Yard is actually memorable. I like it.

Story: 10 stars out of 10. The game starts very, very slowly, like sunrise in a Wagner opera. Be patient and enjoy the meaningless mayhem while you can. It won't last.

Playability: 8 stars out of 10. This is not a great zero-sum game, like chess or Go, or a great princess-and-monster, like the original Tomb Raider games or Zelda, but it is fun, unclassifiably hard fantasy and hugely cathartic. This point can be overlooked. It has high catharsis value, and ranks as one of the mysteriously great healing games of all time. I can't explain this. My dreams, following chemoembolization for liver cancer, were grim, dire and hellish. My dreams, following the first three chapters of Final Fantasy 13 are models of immense satisfaction and quiet pleasantry.

Pentimento: Subtract 20 points for gratuitous aggravation. The characters slowly talk their way through raging selfish ignorance to gradual awareness that other people exist and perhaps the world is not as simple as a sheltered 14-year-old might think. The overarching soliloquy, varying only in minor details per cast member, telegraphs its feathersoft punches, and the "come to realize" moments could be engraved on grains of rice while the rest of us are waiting for the first obvious flipflop to drop.

Recommended: Yeah, sure, why the hell not? I run hot and cold on this point.

I am a huge fan of the Homeric passage though Hell: Alice in Wonderland, James Joyce's Ulysses in Nighttown, Dante's Inferno, Hanna Green's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Ovid's Orpheus and Eurydice, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tom Jones' What's New, Pussycat? and, of course, Childbirth, and Golf. The best games all have this hellish overtone, more or less literal as the case may be.

I began to love Final Fantasy XII during the maddeningly difficult Barsoom Passage, the details of which I shall not divulge. But that stretch of the imagination wound my nerves up tighter than cheese wires, and when I staggered out the other side of the abyss back into daylight, I felt reborn, renewed, refreshed. Not bad as a working definition of catharsis.

Add to these Final Fantasy XIII, which is slowly becoming to my mind one of the great games of all time.

I'll admit, I still wonder what's going on, even though by now I've acquired the Omni-Kit. Which is a little like getting your first BSA flashlight — it's shaped like an L, with batteries in the handle and a light that browns out and flickers erratically in the right-angle head — which makes you wonder if the Boy Scouts of America knew what they were doing when they bought 20,000 of these pups. What's going on? Does the master storyteller have a firm grip on the tiller?

Consider.

• The plot is linear. That's odd for modern JRPGs.
• There is no coherent group. The characters are cranky and uncooperative, and don't like each other very much or work well together, and that also is very uncharacteristic of Japanese culture, where the herd instinct is almost the only thing Americans think they know about Japan.
• There is no plot. No plot at all, just episodes and incidents. This group of intrepid wayfarers is fluid, dynamic, recombinant and incoherent. It breaks apart at the drop of a hat, flows together by dribs and drabs, and wanders where it will over the rigid, unforgiving box canyons, ambush alleys and one-way-in-one-way-out death grounds.
• None of this terrain is memorable. None of this is a Barsoom Passage or a Feywood.

By now, Snow has acquired a motorcycle he's not qualified to drive, and Fang, whom we've met but not by name, has acquired him and his crystal fiancee (we'll grant the implausible bits).

Lightning has insulted everyone and gone off by herself, abandoning Hope (catchy ain't it? — actually, it's the kid) behind, alone in the wilderness.

Like drops of mercury, everyone eventually re-coalesces (except Snow, who has dropped out of the story for the length of a Bible) to confront the miniboss at the far end of a Slough of Despond (whatever), including Lightning, who meets the overwhelming odds against success with cold logic and necessity. For now, her companions are useful. They may meet again, she says, as enemies.

And whatever Snow is up to, Sazh's group comes out of this adventure with the tidy gains of expanded roles and a utility kit.

Got it? Normal RPGs have strong cohesive groups which wander at will over the world map. This RPG has a incoherent schizophrenic aggregation, hardly a group, that meets its various ineluctable fates with no clear sense of purpose whatsoever.

Oh, there be "Focus," whatever that is. None of the characters know either.

Someone is playing games with our expectations! It remains to be seen if this risky strategem can realize its potential or not.

True, though, you don't play videogames to turn pages. They're not intended to program wetware with natural languages like, say, a book. The purpose is strong, engrossing, visceral, visual entertainment: Battles, puzzles, hide & seek. So at a minimum, how are the battles? Are the swarming minions many? Are the minibosses HAIRY? Are the boss battles INSANELY DIFFICULT? (Think "Aster protoflorian Linn.") Yes, yes, yes!

In a nutshell, by the time you've found your second eidolon, you know this game is going to be something special. And that's all I have to say about that.