Final Fantasy XIII-2

Did you do the chocobo sidequest with Chocolina? That was kinda funny. Sweet too.

Most of the colosseum DLC is pretty good.

I liked the gameplay in Lightning's DLC.

I'm planning on buying this soon. Any tips I should know? Which DLC are worth it?

edited 15th Jun '12 8:25:25 PM by Spirit

The Colisseum battles seem to be worth it, from what I've played of them so far. I enjoyed Sazh's DLC. Haven't bought Lightning or Snow's yet. The weapon DLC is probably worthless, and the outfits are there if you like multiple outfits. The Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed outfits are kind of cool.

That about sums it up, I think. If you don't buy anything else, Ultros and Gilgamesh are worth it solely for the comedy.

edited 15th Jun '12 8:35:11 PM by CorrTerek

People should see the Let's Play by the guys that did the Sonic 06 LP.

I mean, they make fun of a game that I actually kinda like, but they're pretty good L Pers. And some things should be made fun of. And I like the Let's Plays that they do, ever since the Sonic 06 one.

edited 3rd Sep '12 5:16:24 PM by unnoun

You know, I find Serah has characteristics resembling Gemini.

Right, so I recently got the game, and I'm currently in Oerba 200 AF, having just gotten there from the level you see Hope for thw first time.

I'm a bit unsure if I'm doing it correctly, as I'm mainly just rushing through with a Cait Sith MED and a Pulse Knight SEN. Should I take the time to farm some monster materials, or should I just push on?

Never hurts to farm a bit, get some variety. Once I got a Behemoth (ravager), I always had it on at least two paradigms.

Yea, ok. I'll head back to Yaschas Massif then.

But I'm trying to get Serah to a lv 50 RAV as soon as possible, so will I really need the Behemoth?

It all really depends on what paradigms you use; for example, the most practical way to fill the stagger guage is RAV-RAV-COM, and I found that worked best for me by having Serah and the Behemoth as ravagers, with Noel as the commando.

However, you might prefer a different method such as nuking it with three ravagers, or taking the slow route and going RAV-SAB-COM so you don't lose stagger time trying to get your debuffs in.

As far as levels go, the behemoth starts off with fairly high stats considering its place in the game, and growing it just makes it better. As for leveling Serah, you aren't just selecting Ravager for every node are you? Because if you want better stats, you should slow down and save the larger nodes for it; but don't hog them all to one role, you should mix both small and large nodes with all your roles.

edited 10th Apr '14 5:57:25 AM by TheAirman

Oh dear, up until now, I have. I tend to just look at what level they get which abilities.

I'll keep your advice in mind from now on though. Though as I tend to level them up in chunks (as in, a few nodes in SAB, then the rest RAV), I'm not sure how big of a problem it is.

If you want optimised stats your best bet is following the guide on gamefaqs. It's a complicated path but works.

Nevermind.

edited 11th Apr '14 8:31:45 PM by Nikkolas

So now I'm trying to get all the hidden endings.

The Noel vs Caius 1-on-1 match is hard. Any tips? My Noel isn't all that good of a SAB, so I'm thinking of grinding some CP then returning.

edited 2nd Jun '14 2:53:24 PM by joergenjetsam

IIRC, I had the Odinblade and was lvl 99 in all paradigms when I fought him, which made it a lot easier than everyone was making it out to be. All I can really think to suggest is a) grind, and b) get the Odinblade and have as many fragments as you can to boost its stats.

And remember: the more Wound damage you deal, the better.

edited 2nd Jun '14 3:07:50 PM by TheAirman

I went back to XIII 2 recently as well. I'm now up to 159 fragments. 160 is the slot machine one. (Shudders) I guess there's nothing for it but to leave the Playstation on overnight at the slot machine with an elastic band around L1.

I didn't have much trouble getting the slot machine fragment. Actually, I got it within the first hour or two that I tried for it. Either I got really lucky that day, or people are blowing it way out of proportion.

I finally got around to getting the slot machine fragment yesterday. I left the game to play itself, then when I went to check on it three hours later, I'd won the jackpot at some point, netting me the fragment and the casino coins trophy. I went on to get the platinum trophy today.

I figured I'd move my playthrough commentary and questions here soI don't clog up the FF general thread.

Holy shit, the "Story So Far" thing is like a straight up soap opera with that music and the cuts to different scenes. It's hilarious and awesome because soaps are a guilty pleasure of mine.

I'm remembering how much I hated the scoring system in XIII. It always made me feel like a failure. I fought that optional Cie'th boss to get the Fragment and I only got 2 stars. I was trying to Stagger it but the gauge just wouldn't fill! I had both Serah and Noel as Ravagers but it was so, so, so slow. My monster was the Pulse Knight because I figured I need some good defense. I started off the fight by Deprotecting and Deshelling and then stuck to Ravagers for the rest of it, vainly trying to fill the gauge. I just don't know what I did wrong. I got the gauge to like most of the way full in no time but then it just stopped and no matter how much I wailed on it, it would barely go up.

There shouldn't be a "right way" to fight a battle in an RPG anyway. The only criteria for determining the "right' way is where you defeat the enemy.

I dunno...I'm trying to dredge up my FFXIII memories... Ravagers are what Stagger enemies but I taught Noel Launch in the Commando Crysterium and I could swear that had something to do with it....

I dunno, I won, without any real problems. It's just this fucking star rating thing makes me feel like I didn't win at all. It's like the first fight with Barty in XIII where it took me a billion years and I got absolutely zero stars out of it. The game probably would have given me negative stars if it could and slapped the controller out of my hand.

Well I got 3 stars against Atlas...that's...like, a C? That's passing. Also I used the device to weaken it because I don't trust myself to be good enough at this game right now to actually win this fight legitimately. So long Paradox Ending... Oh well, maybe I'll be good enough to win fairly one of these days.

Everyone says this game is super easy but maybe that's later on? I dunno.

Anyway, gonna go eat right now. It doesn't seem like much of an update but all of this took a lot of time. Still getting into the swing of this game.

If anyone has any tips on why that one Cie'th wouldn't stagger, please tell me. Maybe it's because I had Noel as a Ravager too? I changed that one Paradigm from RAV/COM to RAV/RAV so maybe it was my mistake. I changed it back to RAV/COM for the Atlas fight.

One more question. In regards to Debuffs, they wear off, right? Because I kept periodically taking time off attacking Atlas to hit him with Deprotect and Deshell again and again. I never pay attention to the numbers

It's really bad game design to have monsters constantly spawn while characters are explaining things. I'm so sick of people saying stuff and me trying to pay attention and learn about their characters and the plot only to get sucked into a battle.

edited 7th Jul '15 3:26:02 PM by Nikkolas

Yeah, debuffs wear off with time. However, the icons showing that they are still active are pretty small; so with your vision its probably a good idea to re-debuff sooner than others might.

And don't worry about Atlus, it isn't possible to defeat the non-weakened version before you have end/postgame stats (although it is one of the three paradox endings that don't require the Paradox Scope, which can only be received after the final boss.)

What was the name of the Cieth boss? The most reliable party to build the stagger bar is RAV/RAV/COM (doesn't matter which role is filled by a monster). One RAV simply isn't enough to reliably build it, even with a COM to keep the thing from emptying in 3 seconds, and while RAV/RAV/RAV is theoretically the fastest way to fill the bar, you have to be careful due to the lack of stability provided by a COM.

I also recommend, when you can, to try out parties of SAB/MED/SEN, and SAB/SYN/SEN. You will more-or-less stop dealing damage while doing it, but Sentinel gives you good defense while healing and resetting your buffs/debuffs all at once. Let the monster be the Sentinel, always have Serah or Noel be the medic.

Agreed on monsters showing up during conversations being annoying. Lighting Returns goes back to the XIII style of monsters appearing in the world, so it isn't as bad in that game.

edited 7th Jul '15 6:34:10 PM by TheAirman

This was the Cie'th.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Ghast_%28Final_Fantasy_XIII-2%29

I guess it wasn't even a boss. I dunno what the problem was. I had Serah and Noel as Ravagers but, like I said, the Stagger gauge just stopped. It flew right up to like 90% or whatever and then no matter what I did, it wouldn't go up any further. Maybe Noel died or something or I accidentally changed a Paradigm without realizing it (I can get very twitchy in these fights) but I doubt it. I just ended up killing the thing as Ravager because I was attacking forever trying to fill the gauge.

I guess it's not a big deal. There will be thousands upon thousands of more battles to come for me to figure this shit out. As long as I was right that RAV/RAV was necessary to fill the Stagger guage nice and fast. I just thought I was doing something wrong there.

So unexpected little surprise here when I loaded up the game. Tutorial about "Close Gates." So would this be how I can defeat Atlus later on when I'm strong enough and thus get the Paradox Ending? I'm not exactly sure what other ways this rewinding time thing can be useful. It says you can do it to "fix mistakes." What kind of mistakes are we talking here? Gameplay ones or are there actual like, important decisions you can fuck up in the plot?

Ugh...the game is TAUNTING me! I just got the Artifacts for Bresha Ruins and was leveling up Serah and Noel. I've been thinking this whole time "next Crystarium Expansion, I'm gonna give Serah an extra ATB guage." But when I finally got that option, I also had Medic unlocked. I've already been told she is a great Medic and that's fairly obvious from her amazing Magic stat. But if I remember FFXIII correctly, the AI is better at healing than I was. The fact is, as I have noted before, I can't see very good. I can only focus on parts on specific parts of the screen. Keeping track of enemy HP, Stagger guage and so-on, while simultaneously trying to keep track of party HP, just isn't feasible. I tried it and I failed at it miserably. The AI was much better at keeping me alive and knowing when we were in need of health.

So I went with the ATB gauge. I suppose I could have had Serah learn Medic and then just have my party leader be Noel but I like Serah more. It was a tough decision deciding who I wanted to control iN XIII but here? It's always gonna be Serah.

Not that I'm down on Noel or anything, don't get me wrong. He's nothing like what my vague memories of XIII-2 said he was. He's actually very friendly and supportive for a guy with his level of angst. You'd think, being the last survivor of the human race in a post-apocalyptic wasteland he'd be more broody or something. Yet he's remarkably chill and nice and willing to both talk and listen. Stuff like him chipping in there to help Alyssa feel better during her freakout was a pleasant surprise.

In short, he's a total bud. Although you would think he'd be a bit more disturbed about the fact his memories are being fucked with. It's a huge source of worry for Serah, for obvious reasons, but Noel just kinda mentions it off-handedly. "I remember stuff that didn't actually happen to me. Kinda annoying but oh well" sums up his attitude. Most people would not be so blase about it.

Anyway! Back to gameplay. For Noel's Crystarium Expansion I taught him Synergist. I've dumped all their points up to now into their primary Paradigm (Commando for Noel, Ravager for Serah) but for this latest upgrade I decided to diversify a lot. Boosted both Sentinel and Commando for Serah to give her some much needed health and physical power. Noel meanwhile got a ton of levels in Ravager and Synergist. So now I can have like a total Support Paradigm. Start of boss fights, switch to that, have Serah nail them with Saboteur and Noel protect everyone with Synergist, and then concentrate on the attack.

Oh and as for monsters,I leveled up my Nekton to 15 'cuz it's the best Ravager I have right now. Well, I assumed it was because it had the highest magic stat to start off with.

I tried doing the sidequest in Bresha Ruins to find the guy who said there's another communicator out there. There's probably another of him walking around due to TIME PARADOX. But I couldn't find the other guy. Mog usually freaks out and flies over to things to indicate you can do that...whatever the fuck it is to reveal objects. The tutorial said you can do it to reveal people as well. If that's what I have to do to find the other him or whatever, it's not gonna happen. I don't see the reality warping or Mog's pom-pom glowing more brightly or any of that. If the game wants me to find something, it should have Mog draw attention to it just like it does at other times.

I really want that goddam Fragment though....

Fuck it, I just looked it up. I need Moogle Throw to do this. I honestly thought of that earlier on. It's good to know it wasn't just something I was missing.

I had no idea Chocobos could be used to get to places though. I thought they were just ways of getting around random battles. This Wiki guide though says I can use a Chocobo to hop up to this one area that was bugging me because I couldn't get to it. Thanks game for not telling me this rather important information. Although it does look like Mog will vocally call attention to stuff like Fragments and the whole space time unraveling thing he does. I was afraid this would be a worse version of Fable II and III's system with the dog but no, they were smart and realized just having Mog low wouldn't be enough. Thank you, Square.

I assume the other quest, the one with the guy who wants me to find a flower that only blooms in winter,is something else I have to wait and do later. Find a timeline that is all wintery. Up to this points, things have been remarkably sunny and cheerful considering.

Now I got the DLC weapons that came with the DLC Bundle - the Genji Bow and the Muramassa - but I'm not sure if they are "better" than the ones I can buy in the game. The Genji Bow has higher stats than the Amazon Bow I just made/bought but it lacks the Chain Bonus. Chain Bonus seems like the actual best attribute to have.

You know what? For boss fights, I'm just not going to give a fuck about rank. I got 3 stars against this big dude in this next timeline - Aloeidai is its name apparently - and I am perfectly satisfied with my performance. For my monster in this fight I brought along the crazy wing dudes you find who are Synergists. I figured some buffing be good. Right now, Noel's only Synergist abilities are Protect so I figured Bravery and Faith would be great here. Sure my monster died about 1/2 or 3/4 through the fight but we did perfect as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of people online back when I played XIII said the rank didn't actually matter here. For here though, it seems to be the best way to gain drops from enemies. If I want to be able to collect Monster Materials in a timely matter, I need that 5 star 200% Drop thing I think. Or maybe not. Maybe score doesn't matter here either. Please inform me people of the Internet, does the star rating really effect anything substantial?

Anyway!

Hope, what the hell happened to you. You're all tall and your voice is deep. It's weird.

Urgh, I can't decide on what to do with my Bonuses! Another ATB Gauge??? More Bonuses to my Paradigms? Extra accessories is particularly tempting... I could get 24% more Health or deal 20% more Physical or Magical damage.... Dammit I just don't know how good the bonuses are. I just figure that permanent increases via Crystarium are the superior option. The COM/RAV/whatever Bonuses mean that the stat increases you get in that Paradigm's Crystarium are better, correct? So instead of getting plai old +10 health, with the bonus I'll get +20 health from the same "slot." That's how I think it works anyway....

Fine, I'll just go with COM Bonus for Serah.

You know N Oel, earlier on I said you were cool and forthright, but now you are hiding stuff. No one is calling him out on it either. "Oh I only read about the Oracle Drive in books. BTW this is how you use it." Also while I have heard of Yeul online in discussions - discussions that typically involved mocking Caius - I had no idea this was like an honorary name/title. Kinda like the Pope. Also i never knew she had anything to do with Noel.

So after the boss and talk with Hope I went back to challenge those Behemoths which could destroy me earlier. They're no joke - you need three Ravagers to build up the Stagger Gauge in a timely manner. Even then it's not easy. I have my little Nekton buddy to help me out. I don't think he does much in the way of damage on his own but he's a Ravager and he helps build up Stagger quick. Plus his Overwhelm ability sounds pretty neat. Anyway, I doubt I'm the only person in the world who spent a lot of time grinding here. I kinda expected it but I won't deny it was a pleasant surprise when, after the sixth or seven battle, I got the Behemoth crystal. Already leveled him up as much as I can. 212 strength - amazing.

I gotta say though, this game must take Preemptive Strikes into account for your scoring. I tried fighting the Behemoth "fairly" and it's so much harder. The Stagger gauge takes way, way, WAY longer to fill unless you have that bonus going into the battle. And if the fight dragons on he will destroy you.

Anyway, after all that, I got another whole Crystarium Expansion. I decided to finally get an extra Accessory slot for Serah while giving Noel another ATB gauge. He's my healer so it seems like a smart move to give him as many turns as possible. Another lovely reward from all that was Cura. Cure hasn't been doing it for me but Cura should be very useful.

Did I mention I decided to swap everything around? Subvert those tropes? Serah is now taking after her darling fiance. She will STEELGUARD our way to Lightning. Noel meanwhile I'm investing a lot of time into Synergist, Ravager and Medic. Protectga and Shellga should be a great help.

This is my Paradigm setup at the moment: Cerberus X (COM/COM/COM with Behemoth) then Relentless Assault X (RAV/RAV/COM) then Bully (SAB/SYN/COM) and finally Solidarity (SEN/MED/COM) This seems good to me. I got my two offensive paradigms, my one full support paradigm and my one full defense paradigm. I know you can have a ton of paradigms set up but this isn't FFXII. You need to be able to switch through those things at lightning pace. The more paradigms, the longer it takes to switch. Also the more chances I'd have to select the wrong thing if I'm panicking.

Hm...well at least Noel let on a little bit about there being something amiss here. He still hasn't said a word about Caius and I assume they know each other to some extent. He also seemed to know too much about the Oracle Drive for the fact this ancient Seeress and the girl he know sharing the same name just being a coincidence.

The Oerba description doesn'tmakesense. Nobody knows Fang and Vanille saved everyone, they all think it was Lightning. Why are they protecting Fang's and Vanille's home? Actually no one has been very clear about that. Whenever someone says Lightning saved Cocoon by becoming the pillar, they don't mention Fang or Vanille at all. I mean, Lightning supposedly joining them to hold up Cocoon is all fine and good. But ifit's more "contentious" - that Lightning alone saved Cocoon - that's a whole otehr problem in itself.

But I think I'm gonna stop there for tonight. It's been a very productive session, I feel like I'm getting the hang of this game and have become reasonably powerful. Now to just sleep and try to ignore how I'll probably get my ass handed to me next time. It always happens when I get too confident in my abilities.

Yes, closing gates is how you can rematch Atlas and other bosses later. I think fixing mistakes might be a way of saying you get another chance to select conversation options that give you items or going for achievements relating to bosses.

Some sidequests will require you to get items or talk to someone from another area or time period, so don't worry too much if you can't find something needed to complete a sidequest, try keeping an eye out for them if you return to that area in a different time period. The flowers you mention in your post are an example of this.

edited 8th Jul '15 11:52:51 AM by GavsEvans123

You know what I miss? XIII's weapon upgrade system. I thought it was awesome. You could conceivably stick to one weapon for the whole game, be it their starter or the first one you bought or anything else. Just keep upgrading for the whole thing. Like, if you got a weapon that Boosted Chain, you upgraded that until the Chain Bonus was a lot more. If you wanted stats, you bought the weapon that boosted those stat and just kept upgrading it until its stat boosts were maxed out. And so-on.

I thought I could do that here when I read "Chain Lv. 1" as a trait for our new weapons but nope. I thought I could maybe upgrade that into Chain Lv. 2 and 3 and etc.. I'm disappointed now.

I was about to say "fuck puzzles" but I actually liked the puzzle on Oerba. I found it actually intriguing and a real challenge and not just BS. For me it was like playing Memory. Maybe for smarter people you could do it one turn but I found the challenge to be remembering what crystals match up with what other crystal and then repeating it until you had them all down and could blitz through the puzzle super fast. It helps the crystals only have two forms.

Hooray I got 5 stars out of Caius! I had to use one Phoenix Down because Serah died towards the end but I beat him in 2:47 with a Target Time of 4:36. I feel so special.

Of course, I didn't beat him. He just kinda left. Also Noel you can't say "I won't fight you" after you just stabbed the guy a bunch.

But hey, I don't get his deal. Doesn't destroying time count as changing it? Stop being a hypocrite, dude. It's not cool. Also I had no idea his little girlfriend was the real mastermind. She seemed to be the one calling the shots.

Cool music for his boss theme. I haven't talked much about the music. In spite of what I've heard, I have yet to be "wowed." I think my favorite songs were the Bresha Ruins battle theme and the theme I just heard during the Caius fight.

So I returned to Massif - the new, altered one - and was grinding a bit because I had just used up a ton of my CP. I think there are rare encounters in every area and I just ran into one. One of those bastards from XIII who can spawn a sword. At least I think it was one of them. It wasn't an easy fight and I only got 3 Stars but I did manage to beat it for a whopping 2000 CP. I love it.

I was kind of rolling my eyes at the "oh Lightning IS alive!!" reaction when Serah saw the Prophecy in the new Massif. We know she's alive, dammit. We've established our goal was to travel to the time and place where she is. However, something more productive and interesting is happening. Somebody finally realized "holy shit, Cocoon crashing onto Pulse? Wasn't stopping that the whole point of the last game? Maybe we shouldn't allow the future where it fell to happen. Maybe we should try to save the human race" Real bunch of geniuses, this group.

I dunno guys, what's more important, the fate of billions of lives, or finding Lightning? It's a tough decision, I can't deny.

But at least now this is Chrono Trigger proper. Well, as shameful as it is to say, it's more like Chrono Cross. Not as good as CC mind you but the parallel realities and all that is totally a CC thing. CT had a very linear conception of time travel.

Getting really annoyed here. Mog is drawing my attention to something here in this new place but I can't figure out what to do. There's nothing there I can grab as far as I can see and the little "reveal things"move doesn't do anything... Maybe I need Moogle Throw? When the hell do i learn that?

Noel: We Hunter have a legend of a goddess. "It gave us strength when times were tough."

You know, like when the bills are due, your girlfriend dumps you and THE WORLD ENDED. What do you mean "when times were tough." Times are always tough when you're the last humans alive. I mean, come on.

ANYWAY....Interesting stuff with Caius and Yeul. What Yeul? Which Yeul? I have no idea. But she done died. Was it the same one who we talked to on her own and said she was like Serah? Or the creepy one with him in Oerba? Does it matter? Did we kill her by traveling through the Gate? That's kinda what the scene implied.

Okay I'm gonna stop here and post this because I have no idea where to go. I got the Artefact in Massif 01X AF but all it did was take me to the Void Beyond and some other place. I can't do anything in either location and the game hasn't given me any clues on what my next move should be. I have learned the hard way that trying to use a FAQ just spoils things. I thought I had to do something in the Void Beyond and all I got from Googling that was spoilers about meeting Yeul in Episode 5 or something.

So what the heck do i do now?

Don't worry, this part was pain in the ass for me too. There are two artefacts in Massif 01X: the Wild Artefact, and the Mysterious Artefact. Mysterious is the one you used to get to the Void Beyond, where you are now. The Wild Artefact leads to a new area, however the place it takes you will be another dead end for now, but will be relevant later. You can go there early if you want, but having done that myself you're better off just ignoring it for now.

As you have observed, the game doesn't really give you any leads on your step, so hear goes: Step into the time anomaly to get back into Historia Crux if you haven't already done that, and go visit Bresha 05 to do some gate searching. I have a feeling you're going to enjoy what happens next.

As for Yeul, everything about her is a clusterfuck for the time being, but it gets explained later. If Mog is giving you heads up but can't find anything, chances are Moogle Throw is indeed what you need, assuming you have Moogle Hunt, which it sounds like you do.

edited 8th Jul '15 7:14:15 PM by TheAirman

Well I just lost my update... Fuck.

Um.... what the hell did I say or do?

I guess I should start by saying I am at the casino. 20,000 Gil and about a half hour later, I got the Lucky Coin Fragment. The game seems nice to be very nice to you, provided you can get the ball rolling. And it took a fuck ton of time to get the ball rolling.

Okay, Fragments. I know I made a comment on that in my poor, lost update. I have 20/160. You have any idea how depressing that is? If there were only 100, I'd feel a bit better. But 160? Ugh. Fuck you and your "True Endings."

Finally, I actually read the Fragments for the first time in forever. The Tablet of Memory one was intriguing. All about how Yeul can send her visions through time to certain people. That would explain what hapened with Serah earlier where she collapsed. Of course, the Fragment also says it can only be sent to people with "chaos in their hearts." And here I thought Evil Serah was in the next game.

Now let's rewind to what I said way back at the update that was lost. FUCK YEAH IT'S SNOW! Out of frickin' nowhere too. Between him and Serah I think the 80s are definitely "in" in FFXIII and thus FFXIII is better than I used to give it credit for.

But that whole thing with the big ass fla is so weird. It's like this game can't decide if it's serious or not. I know some people lament the 90s are gone because JRP Gs were very schizo back then. You'd have this super serious commentary about environmentalism and then Cloud would seduce a pimp. But I think XIII-2 is at least a product of the 90s in spirit. It has that strange quirkiness to it amidst all the drama.

Just so weird to go from the horrific image of Cocoon falling and wiping out the human race to learning that it was partly caused by "His Royal Ripeness"....

I guess that fatass flan is another cause of Paradox Ending? If I beat it on my own?

But Snow is a l'Cie again? How did that happen? I thought the fal'Cie were all gone except for that big one that caused the eclipse but didn't appear to do much else. XIII was terrible about establishing the fal'Cie's level of intelligence. Some were clearly human-like, others were just things. So who's to say if Fenrir or whatever it was has a mind like ours? He's the only fal'Cie I have seen in this game who could have re-branded Snow.

What else... Oh at the Steppe I spent a good while grinding. Unlike XIII, this game is actually fun to explore and stuff. Pulse was easily the worst part of XIII because XIII was not made to be an open world game. As soon as it opened up, the whole thing went to hell. But here, I am having a great time looking around and stuff.

I even got myself a way the fuck better monster than Behemoth. Cancanagh is a Saboteur yet it has about twice as much physical strength as my Behemoth. It's at 478 at present. It also has better Sab spells than Serah at the moment so overall it's the best party member by a lot.

Although this reminds me of a question I am dying to know. How far does the Crystarium go? Serah is Level 68 Commando right now and, with an Accessory, has Str of a little over 200. But if Commando only goes up to 99, there's no way her strength will ever match that of the monsters. I figured there would come a point when Serah and Noel will actually be a lot stronger than any of the monsters with better stats but I dunno.

Also while on the Steppe I ran into what looked to be the Jumbo Cactuar from FFVIII. Fucking time paradoxes. It killed me in one hit.

Anyway I got the Chaos Crystal. Had no idea this was a Fragment. Immediately set out to try and get the Just 1 Gil and Setzer's Dice, thinking they were Fragments too. But I guess it was all beginner's luck with me earlier on because, after sinking over 1,000 Coins into the machine, no Jackpot. Maybe I should try Sazh's DLC at least for the card game?

Anyway, stopping there. That slot machine got me all tired from staring at it for a half hour and getting nowhere. Tomorrow I will be visiting the infamous Academy 400 AF. I have heard of this place. Interested to see what all the fuss is about.

Also I know I can give Hope the Chaos Crystal and get a Paradox Ending? I think? I dunno if I'll do that.