[ancapailldorcha]

Sazh DLC coming out on the 28th for Xbox360 (29th for PS3) for anyone who is interested.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1218883p1.html

[panevthe3rd]

Just saw this game on thehut.com for 25. I already paid my 45 but i think it was worth it anyway

[ancapailldorcha]

Just bought the aforementioned Sazh DLC. I bought it for 2 reasons: Sazh and poker. It fails tremendously on both counts. The "story" consists of Spoiler: Sazh flying his ship before being mysteriously getting sent to Serendipity where he must win coins to see his son again. That's all I've played so far.
As far as the poker goes, it's Texas Hold 'Em and the rules are quite well explained. Square thought it would be helpful if Sazh gave audio cues to help new players decide what to do. I consider myself to be a decent card player and the cues would have you throw out good hands and ruin your chances.
In short, please don't buy this.

[elekid]

Are there any battles or new areas to explore in it? It definitely doesn't seem worth it if there's not.

[ancapailldorcha]

None so far but I haven't played a lot of it. I do know that Sazh joins the party as a Synergist if you finish it though.

[ancapailldorcha]

Just finished it, you don't even need to leave the one room it starts in There are no battles and no exploration. You get fortune tokens or something from winning games and getting enough of those nets you a cutscene and you get Sazh as an addition to your party.
That's it. The whole thing.

[hypersquirrel]

I dunno about it being all bad. I nealry died laughing when I was able to infuse my purple chocobo with Sazh.

Unfortunately that was the only enjoyable part of the experience. Chronobind is dreadful and the AI on the poker was just plain bad. Possibly worth 200 points but definitely not 400.

[ancapailldorcha]

It's the audio cues on the poker that really got me. Throwing out top hands while keeping crap ones? I hit a straight and Sazh started moaning about the cards and how folding was the only way to go.
Basically, get good hole cards and go all in. The AI seems to always want to go all in for some reason.

[tread_softly]

Just finished the game there, onto gathering the remaining fragments etc.

One thing I'm still stumped on though, maybe I'm just really thick, but could someone explain it to me.

Spoiler: Hope and the Academy created the fal'cie Adam in order to re levitate Cocoon, but obviously that didn't work out.
We know the crystal pillar is eventually going to crumble and Hope wants to save Fang and Vanille and the people living on Pulse.

When Cocoon falls, it's going to destroy Pulse, as we see from Noel's world in the future. So Hope decides that instead of trying to support the old Cocoon, creating this new Bhunivelze is a great idea even though it will take 100 years and Cocoon might fall in the meantime.

Noel and Sarah then get the Graviton cores that will levitate Bhunivelze. But why bother with the new planet at all!? Why couldn't they put the Graviton cores into Cocoon? This would take the weight off the pillar, saving Fang and Vanille and there would be no danger of it crashing into Pulse at all.

Why the need for the new planet?

From playing the game, everyone seems happy to be living on Pulse. Fair enough, there is some danger from monsters, but looking at places like Academia, Pulse has become their new home and there isn't much talk of wanting to live on Cocoon again. So it's not like you could say Hope wanted the new planet to give the humans somewhere to live because they hated life on Pulse.

Can someone explain it to me?!

Oh and thanks for the cop out ending SE, money hungry for more DLC!?

[ancapailldorcha]

Right, my thoughts on this:

It's well established in the FFXIII universe that Pulse is crawling with monsters. Cocoon was a technologically developed safe haven while Pulse is a primitive and dangerous land. Noel states that, Fang & Vanille's pillar eventually becomes unable to support Cocoon and it falls, wiping out all life on Pulse. Living on Pulse is therefore, not a long term option. I'm guessing that Hope was afraid that testing the Graviton cores on Cocoon might break the pillar, killing Fang & Vanille. Creating a new Cocoon gives him the opportunity to perfect his model as well as meaning he would not need to rely on any fal'cie. Also, it doesn't state how his invention would work or what it's form would be, only that it would be powered by the cores. So, if he gets it wrong, Cocoon would fall and everyone on it would perish.

Hope this helped. The writing in this game was truly horrific. I like thinking about things like this but it's way too subtle.

[tread_softly]

Hmmmm, it does seem like the only explanation, albeit a tenuous one.

That's one of the things I disliked about FFXIII, that half the story was told through the datalogs; I hate that getting to grips with the stories in these games involves research!!

Poor Pulse, it really does get a bad rap. I loved that they explored more about it's people and past in this game, I was left wanting to learn so much more about it after XIII. But now it seems that all the humans on it want to feck off back to an alternative Cocoon again!

Spoiler: I was confused about something else as well, we were told that if Cocoon were to fall, it would destroy life on Pulse, another reason why I wondered why Hope wasn't trying to re levitate it again.

It was only until I replayed Academia 4XX to get the paradox ending that I chose another option in the live trigger with Hope. I asked what would happen if Cocoon were to fall. He said that they are going to be able to control the fall, so that it doesn't fall as fast. Therefore, there will be less damage from it falling.

I thought this was pretty integral to know, it means that Pulse isn't going to turn out like Noel's future. But the only way you'd find this out, is by choosing that particular option in the live trigger. It's ****!!!

[ancapailldorcha]

Spot on. The storytelling is some of the worst, if not the worst in the series. It's a shame because I really enjoyed the world the gave us with FFXIII. There was just no way to find out about it except for the datalog. Now they removed the linearity they also lost the momentum of the story. There are some brilliant moments (mostly featuring Caius) but it's essentially MGS2 all over again.
And this nonsense with the DLC has got to stop. I caved and watched all the paradox endings on youtube and it turns out collecting all those fragments is a complete waste of time.

[ancapailldorcha]

Anyone get Jihl Nabaat? She's tough so be warned.

[bleeding_souls]

how long is the story roughly, i heard it was pretty short

[ancapailldorcha]

I'd say about 20 hours. It's not long. That's if you completely ignore the sidequests mind.