What if Final Fantasy XIII was good? pt. 2

As I said then, linearity is only a problem when it's heavily restrictive, frustrating and painfully obvious. The Hallway, the Crystarium, and the Plot are all so interlinked in this manner that the game's linearity becomes the true villain of the story. True, this linearity disappears after 20 hours into the game when the characters reach Gran Pulse and the Crystarium allows access to all of the Paradigms for every character. But are the developers really expecting players to be so invested in their confusing plot that they'll play through 20 hours in the hallway?

Here's a simple response: Why can't the game be un-restrictive and fun from the start?

So it's not really that the game is linear. It's more about how restrictive and un-fun that this linearity becomes. Every detail in the game, from the plot down to how characters level up is structured in a straight-forward hallway. You can't even pick and choose what gets stronger on each paradigm, you're just following the progression chart from point A to point B. At some points in the game, the characters are even limited in how much they level up their paradigms until it arbitrarily allows it. It's the equivalent of trying to run a race with an iron ball chained to each leg.

What ticks me off more is how some developers of XIII blatantly disregard any genuine criticism:

Director Motomu Toriyama added: "We think many reviewers are looking at Final Fantasy XIII from a western point of view. When you look at most Western RPGs, they just dump you in a big open world, and let you do whatever you like...It becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when you're given that much freedom."

The last one just comes off as backhanded arrogance on the part of Toriyama. He refuses to acknowledge the flaws and mistakes of the game by dismissing critics for not "getting what he was trying to do." Kind of like Bioware and their pretense about Artistic Vision despite the vast majority of fans and peers calling out the ending to ME3 as terrible for varying reasons. Did the man even pay attention to previous Final Fantasy games? 

You could make a valid argument on how past Final Fantasy games were all linear to some degree and you would be right. The difference between XIII and every other final fantasy game is that those games had a few trademarks common in most RPGs like exploration of the larger world around them; Towns and NPCs to interact with; Side-Missions for xp and fun; A story that was easy to follow and didn't rely on a giant codex or the internet to explain itself and so on and so forth. Call all of this "extra stuff" an illusion of control if you want, but if it gets the player invested enough to finish the game then it's an effective illusion of control.

To segue way back into this exploration of an alternative XIII, the prologue was my response to the first two comments specifically Kitase. The producer mentions how the player needs to engage the characters and the world that they're in before being set loose. On that note, Act I starts with us having full awareness about who the characters are, what their struggles are about and what's going in the plot.

Brief summary from Part 1: After coming home from school for vacation, Serah is branded as a L'Cie and this provokes a purge from PSICOM. Serah gives herself up and Lightning tries to take her sister's place, but Jihl purges the town anyway and takes the two sisters away as captives.

With the beginning of Act 1, the goal is now clear: Escape PSICOM's custody.

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As the first chapter starts, you take control of Lightning just as a mercenary helps her break out of her cell. The mercenary reveals himself as Sazh, a retired Guardian Corps pilot and an old friend of Lightning's parents. Lightning briefly asks why Sazh is there and is answered that he was in the neighborhood. Of course, Sazh is really there searching for answers on his son's focus, but doesn't want to reveal that his son is a L'Cie. More focused on saving her sister, Lightning takes Sazh's help and puts on a guard uniform so that the two of them can infiltrate the front of the train.

So they go into the main compartment where prisoners are being kept and everything plays out largely like it did in the vanilla game except that we know what the hell is going on. In addition to the gunblade, Lightning's Grav-Con gravity jacket powers will be an integral part of her style in combat. She can make herself lighter to go faster, float, walk on ceilings, Make her swings heavier to deal more damage and etc. She was an officer in the military, so she got one custom tailored to her abilities. Sazh will still have his pistols that can combine into a shotgun and he gets a jacket from his days in the military that makes him more accurate and reflexive. Sazh will still be a Ravager and Lightning a Commando, though you'll still have the changes from the first part like your own choice of two other paradigms, combat movement, selection of party leader and combining paradigms once you level up enough.

By the way, yeah there may be an unintentional jacket theme between a lot of characters...not intended, but sometimes chaos makes things interesting.

So Lightning and Sazh single-handedly take over the train and since she's a crazy boss, Lightning puts the train into full speed so that it will crash into the train where Jihl has Serah. Lightning and Sazh will then use the momentum of the train's crash to jump on top of the other train. Sazh will wonder if this is a good idea, but Lightning won't care because she wants to save her sister. Once they get on the other train, more PSICOM soldiers emerge and are assisted by a hover mech with a beam cannon attached to it's head. This next battle will be trickier since neither controlled characters have any magic which means that you'll have to retreat into the lower compartments or time your dodges.

Lightning and Sazh kill the robot, but get interrupted by Jihl who now holds Serah hostage. Sazh doesn't want to hurt anyone so he puts away his guns when asked, but Lightning shoots through Serah's shoulder to get Jihl. Completely surprised, Jihl lets go of Serah who ducks to the side as Sazh fires a focused shotgun round at Jihl. But shock! Jihl erects a reflect spell even though only L'Cie can cast magic. Lightning comments on this and Jihl taunts her and slashes the compartment in half with her magic-enhanced rapier. Serah tries to jump onto Lightning's half of the car, but she can't quite make it due to her injury and Lightning and Sazh have to help her up. While the heroes are distracted, Jihl's cohort Yaag Rosch salutes Lightning and shoots a rocket into the bridge. This causes the whole disconnected half of the train to fall into the chasm below with the heroines and Sazh barely surviving the fall.

Two things about the above scene. One, Lightning shot Serah as a demonstration of her character. Serah's not dead, but this will clearly cause tension later. Lightning wants to save her sister, but she's not stupid. She knows what the Sanctum does to L'Cie and is perfectly willing to kill her own sister just to protect her from a worst fate. It also introduces a mystery concerning Jihl whose not supposed to be a L'Cie, but can cast magic anyway. This brings up foreshadowing for eventual revelations in the plot and something for the characters and the player to ponder on the truth of magic dynamics in this universe.

So once everyone recovers, Sazh berates Lightning for shooting her sister and Serah defends Lightning because 1) Lightning did it to save her and 2) She deserved it for what happened in Bodhum. Remember, Serah still feels personally guilty for the Purge and Lightning passively agrees with her. Serah's very down in spirits because she has no idea about what happened to Snow and what they're going to do about the survivors in the train wreckage. Lightning takes a proactive lead and decides that they need to head to a nearby outpost where Lightning can call for help from the Guardian Corps. Serah doesn't want to have anymore to do with the military and suggests NORA and the sisters get into a short fight. Sazh acts as the reasoning medium who acknowledges that the Guardian Corps may not be able to help and without anyway of contacting NORA or knowing what they'd do to Serah, it was a choice between lesser evils.

Lightning decides to contact Amodar and Serah reluctantly agrees having remembered him from when Snow threw Not-Tifa through a truck. So they explore this city of bridges within the chasm that used to be more populated until it was purged, fighting abandoned robots and bandits along the way. Sazh recognizes the L'Cie brand on Serah and asks her how she got it. Serah doesn't want to talk about it, so Sazh just assures her that his son is a L'Cie too so he doesn't have to be afraid of him. Serah responds that he should be afraid of her and Sazh replies that she seems more harmless than his own 6 year old son. Eventually the trio come upon the outpost and contact Amodar about the situation.

Amodar tells Lightning that she's wanted for conspiracy with a rogue L'Cie which Lightning says is true and explains the whole story. Amodar can't directly help, but warns her that PSICOM is sending a regiment in their direction to find them. Lightning also remarks that Jihl knows magic without being branded which shocks Amodar and gives him food for thought. He also tells her the location of a NORA hideout in the area, but warns her to keep Serah's identity as a L'Cie hidden for the time being since other NORA branches won't be as lax as Snow's branch was.

Just as they're about to head out, a PSICOM scout unit finds the trio and survivors from Bodhum and the fight is on. The jetpack soldiers actually stay in the air and shoot down at the protagonists because you know...they can fly and being able to fly while shooting at your enemies is a huge advantage rather then hover to the ground within melee range. Cat robots and heavy gun soldiers are harassing the protagonists. But the sister's fight back to back intent on surviving. Being sister's, they both have primary Roles as Commandoes though Serah's will be more focused on precision and damage while Lightning is quicker and overall tougher. They fight through several waves until a large Tiger Robot crashes into the scene, but then someone jumps down from a building above and dive-punches the robot into scrap metal. When Sazh remarks that diving on the robot is a crazy plan, the newcomer dusts himself off and remarks, "Since when do heroes need plans?"

Snow's alive!

The four then regroup and finish off the rest of the scout force as NORA arrives to secure the survivors. For the record, the party max in this game is going to be five. Why? To make the combat system stand out a little bit and to allow for greater possibilities in teamwork. Also, it's pretty cool to think of Sentinel Snow fighting with Commandoes Lighting and Serah while Ravager Sazh snipes people in the rear. It's also more challenging because the player will have to keep track of every character and their roles in combat as well as how they work with each other.

Serah's happy and the couple reunite and kiss. But the reunion celebrations are cut short when NORA troops surround the trio despite Snow's protests. Then the leader of NORA reveals herself as Nora and asks if Serah was the girl that Snow was hiding. Serah agrees and is perfectly willing to let them kill her, but Lightning won't have any of that crap and threatens Nora in turn. Nora tells her men to ceasefire since she had no intention of killing Serah. After all, an enemy of PSICOM is a friend of her's and a friend of a NORA commander is a sister to her. Since Lightning and Sazh had saved her and freed the Purge survivors then they're all allies as far as she was concerned.

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NORA takes the heroes to their hideout which is inside of a bridge and trade off information with each other. According to transmissions that NORA has intercepted, Jihl has a large personal interest in Serah and it may be related to a Pulse Fal'Cie that they found and secured it somewhere in the Hanging Edge. Serah asks what it's name is and according to communications, it's name is Anima. Serah reveals that Anima was the Fal'Cie that made her a L'Cie which worries the party. Serah wonders if it's possible for them to talk to the Fal'Cie, but Lightning is heavily against it though Sazh is curious as well for his own reasons. Regardless, the area is heavily secured by PSICOM troops and Nora won't risk her troops or the survivors and tells the party to rest up for now since they'll have a long trip to NORA HQ tomorrow. Lightning comments that they should keep moving due to the incoming PSICOM army on it's way, but Nora assures her that their base is completely safe from detection and has evaded the eye of Sanctum forces many times as Sazh and Lightning reluctantly admit.

While exploring the base (And wondering outside if the player feels brave), Serah ditches her schoolgirl outfit for one similar to XIII-2 (It's not Final Fantasy without fanservice on at least one character in the party) and earns a complementary remark from some kid with a boomerang. Serah asks what the boy is doing there and the boy introduces himself as Hope and his mom is working with NORA. His home had been purged by PSICOM, so he'd tagged along with his mother ever since. The boy seems to have a pretty hateful grudge against L'Cie, so Serah is a little nervous. But Hope doesn't notice the tattoo due to the cloth that she wears over the shoulder bearing the mark and he starts asking about Snow. Upon talking with the kid more, Serah finds out that Hope is a bit of a fanboy for Snow which she thinks is cute. He wants to be just as strong and cool as Snow one day, but hates how weak he is. Serah assures her that with time and practice, he become strong just like her and Snow did.

Meanwhile Lightning, Sazh and Snow are trading stories about the past few days and they're all a little somber. Snow had been left for dead and barely managed to smuggle himself into the area before meeting up with Nora's NORA. Most of his branch is dead or MIA and he pretty much considers himself a failure for it though Nora hasn't demoted him. Lighting agrees, but still places the blame squarely on Jihl and PSICOM for the Purge. At some point in the conversation, Sazh starts remarking about L'Cie and that they all have a focus so what was Serah's? Snow mentions about how Serah had a glimpse about a bumbling girl with red hair and Eden which are all connected to her focus though Serah didn't say what it was. Sazh remarks that L'Cie can't tell their focus and guesses that Serah is likely holding back all of the clues that her dreams have given her since L'Cie are aware of what their focus is.

Lightning wonders about how to get Serah to tell them more clues and rightly guesses that Serah's Focus was something morally upprehensible. That would be the only reason why she's so reluctant to share it. She also asks Sazh about how he knows so much about L'Cie and Sazh admits how his wife had been a L'Cie charged with a Focus that she didn't want to do and Sazh had to kill her when she became a Cie'th to protect their son. The story gets Snow emotional about Serah and he goes off to talk to her. Meanwhile, Lightning figures that there's something that Sazh isn't telling her and Sazh half-confesses that it he's trying to figure out his goal himself. Lightning asks about Sazh's son and then drops the subject.

A few notes about Sazh. In the original, I really don't have anything to complain about with this character. Him, Lightning and Snow were the only characters that I really loved and the former two are straight forward characters that aren't too complex that you can't relate to them. With Sazh, he's only focused on protecting his son by finding out what the kid's focus is. All of this is great! The problem is that he doesn't much reason to have joined up with the party other than coincidence. All of the other characters have something that ties them together, but Sazh is largely an outsider in the larger story up until he finds his son. Here, not only is his original goal intact, but he's also closer to the two heroines and has a genuine reason to help them apart from just using them for his own plans.

Back on track, Snow catches up to Serah while she's talking to Hope and the boy shyly runs away when he sees Snow approaching. Snow's worried that he scared the kid, but Serah assures her fiancee that Hope is just a fan. The two have a little friendly banter with Serah poking fun at Snow's fan following and whether she should scare off any fangirls. Snow plays along and Serah playfully hits them. Cause they're both really relieved to be alive and together. Then Serah asks Snow about Anima and if there was a way for NORA to smuggle her there. Snow thinks that this is a stupid idea, but Serah reminds him that Anima gave her a focus and she wants to appeal to it to remove or change the focus. Snow's never heard of that happening and Serah starts to ask if he'll kill her when she starts to turn into a Cie'th, but Snow cuts her off and promises to get her to Eden.

Next morning, shit hits the fan.

PSICOM somehow found the NORA hideout and have already infiltrated the base. Serah finds her burnt uniform and Lightning sees a Sanctum tracker that Jihl must have slipped onto Serah during the train standoff. While emotions override Serah's thoughts, Lightning gives her younger sister a "Get a hold of yourself slap" and they run off to find Snow and Sazh. Sazh and Snow are on point at the breech trying desperately to buy time for NORA and the refugees to retreat, but there's just too many of them. Nora pops in with a Rocket Launcher and wastes a hover transporter while looking for her son. Said son has disguised himself as a NORA soldier and is fighting alongside Snow and Sazh. The party regroup at the breech and it's clear that the base is screwed.

So the disguised NORA soldier, now revealed as Hope, says that there's a secret passageway that leads out of the area. But he doesn't know where it goes though the group is becoming less and less picky as the fight continues. Hope's boomerang is now bladed with an Electromagnetic Pulse that makes it effective against technology and robots. He can also control it's path with a reverse engineered guidance gauntlet and he'll start out as a Synergist. Before they can speak any further, a PSICOM robot pops onto the scene and this one is much tougher. The five characters are giving it their all and eventually kill the robot, but it makes one last stab at Hope. But gasp! Nora jumped in the way of the metal claw and gets impaled through her chest and stomach. Then the floor beneath them gives way as the fallen robot falls into the abyss, Hope and Nora fall too and only Snow is close enough to grab onto both of them. But he's tired and only has enough strength to pull up one or they'll all fall. Snow looks from Hope to Nora and Nora gives her subordinate a pleading glance. Hope sees it and thinks that she's begging her to save them both.

But Snow knows exactly what Nora wanted and lets go.

As Hope screams while Nora falls into the abyss, likely dying before she even hits the ground, Snow pulls Hope up and the kid is mad with grief. Lightning pulls the kid off of Snow and just holds him while he cries. Serah gives her fiancee a cooldown hug while he silently mourns his failure to save a woman who he loved as a mother and a leader. Sazh wants to live to find his son's focus, so he tells the cast that they need to move as PSICOM begins to take full control of the base. Hope leads them to the passageway and they all escape with Snow in the rear taking one last look at the NORA banner as it burns in the flames. They crawl through a ventilation shaft and exit in an old ruined church where the party recuperates.

Hope's in grief over his mom and hates both Snow and himself; Snow feels like a failure after losing two NORA branches and his boss; Lightning's pissed because PSICOM got the drop on them again and Serah feels guilty that more people are dying because of her. Sazh couches the younger members out of their stupor so that they can finish traversing this passageway. Hope wants to go back and help the rest of NORA escape, but Snow tells him that they're either captured, already escaped or killed. Hope lashes out and calls Snow a coward only to earn a hard slap from Lightning before Serah could do it. Lightning marshals the group together with a truthful, yet inspiring speech about moving on for those who can't go any further and that they'll all need each other to survive.

Because Lightning has leadership experience and probably knows how to get a diverse group to work together.

So the team proceeds through the passageway and enter a strange ruin known as the Pulse Vestige. In the distant past, people on Pulse and Cocoon used to meet in these magical towers that could teleport from Pulse to Cocoon and vice versa. But a mysterious calamity happened that caused the tower to lose it's magic and get trapped in Cocoon. This is also where the military is holding the Fal'Cie Anima and already the heroes can see it from a distance. Lightning suggests that there could be a hanger nearby where they could steal a ship and escape and the group agrees to this plan. So they break into the command post of PSICOM, kill a few soldiers, free a few prisoners and rack in a lot of xp depending on how many soldiers were actually fought.

They get the hanger and they're jumped by a squad of elite jetpack soldiers led by another L'Cie who looks like he's close to becoming a Cie'th. Fight ensues, heroes win and the L'Cie is incapacitated. He starts panicking as time runs out for him and he becomes a Cie'th that the party has to face. Win or lose, the Cie'th is about to deal some lasting damage when a bolt of fire hits the monster and kills it. The party turns to where the shot came from and some pig-tailed girl clumsily falls from a few stories and complains about hitting her butt. The group thanks the girl for helping them out except that she'd also destroy all but one ship and the last one is too damaged to go far. The girl apologizes and introduces herself as Vanille. Lightning asks about the spell that Vanille cast earlier and Vanille is utterly unable to remember how she had done it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Vanille.

Vanille is going to have a decent amount of changes while still keeping the spirit of her character intact. In the original, she does have a larger role later in the game, but for the rest of the game, some sat there wondering why Vanille was taking up space. A sentiment that's not helped by her and Sazh spent the entirety of the second act wondering aimlessly through Cocoon. It also raises a lot of questions, like how no one noticed her being able to cast magic before becoming a L'Cie or if she knew that her focus was the same as the party's, why didn't she just tell them?

Here, Vanille is clearly an inactive L'Cie who seems like a complete klutz. It's a partial act and it's partially true. She'll still be bumbling and optimistic, but she'll obfisticate stupidity half of the time just because that's how she is. She'll also offer a lot of wisdom to the characters later in the story and actually make a legit contribution to the party other than blatant fanservice.

Bumbling red haired girl? Serah's seen this before and it makes her panic. Snow and Lightning try to calm her down, but Serah goes ballistic and the party realize that this girl must have been a clue to Serah's focus. Lightning decides that enough is enough and demands for Serah to tell them what her focus is. Just as Vanille is about to ask how long Serah has been a L'Cie, guess whose back?

Jihl.

Actually it's Rosch and Jihl is on a portable hologram. Jihl demands for Serah to turn herself over to save her friends and Lightning responds by shooting Jihl's hologram. Jihl laughs at Lightning and goes off on a rant about her doomed battle to protect a L'Cie. She goes on about how L'Cie are pawns of fate and no matter what they do, they cannot escape it. She laughs at the irony that beings granted such power could still be more enslaved than mortal beings like her and Lightning. Serah responds that she won't complete her focus and Jihl points out the newly-born Cie'th that they'd just killed. Jihl mocks Serah more and asks how long the little girl would let people suffer for her inability to let go of her illusion of control.

Well...while the Farron sisters and Snow are in heated parlay with PSICOM; Sazh, Hope and Vanille sneak over to the damaged ship and repair enough to get them mobile. Vanille "accidently" enchants the ship to increase it's power potential and the damage capacity of it's guns and this gives Hope an outlet for his grief. Just as Jihl orders her men to attack, Hope guns down the vast majority of the platoon and suppresses the rest so that the Farron sisters and Snow can get to the ship and blast off. Rosch wants to go after them, but Jihl assures him that she had a special treat in store for them.

The party recuperates on the ship and get acquinted with Vanille while Lightning confronts Serah about her focus again. Serah can't though and only mutters that people will die if her focus is completed. Conflicted between reason and emotion, Lightning takes controls from Sazh and turns the ship towards the top area of the Pulse Vestige where Anima is. Her plan? Put the ship into ramming speed and kill a Fal'Cie.

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The party wakes up a lake of crystals known as Lake Bresha and they're getting their minds back together due to a few changes. They check themselves and what they find allows them to recall exactly what had happened several moments ago.

We flash back to Lightning's ramming speed demo just as Anima said, "No." Anima's magic chains grab the ship and throws it into the ruins destroying it. The party barely survive thanks to Vanille's float spell and the party decide to make their way to the Fal'Cie on foot. On the way, they fight L'Cie sworn to eternal servitude to the Fal'Cie (Think L'Cie monks), monsters and other creatures that only Vanille has ever seen before. Serah starts holding her shoulder in pain as they get closer to Anima and eventually it speaks and teleports the party to it.

We come back to the present day where the heroes look upon the crystalized remains of Anima and their own brand new tattoos. The tattoos that now mark them all as L'Cie with a two-word Focus: Destroy Cocoon. 

Everyone takes it as well as you'd expect.

The Farron sisters go to rows about why Serah didn't say anything or why Lightning decided to provoke the Fal'Cie. Hope and Snow get a lecture from Vanille and Sazh about the nature of L'Cie and the average time limit that one usually has depending on their focus. They all conclude that Vanille was meant to be part of finding a way to destroy Cocoon along with getting to Eden and something about Ragnarok and Cocoon crashing into Gran Pulse. Snow's in complete denial about having to destroy Cocoon for practical and moral reasons and states that they're meant to protect Cocoon. No one buys it and now everyone starts butting heads over what to do.

Serah refuses to go through with the Focus and Lightning chides her for not taking responsibility for this mess. The girl's get into a legit fight with Lightning handing Serah her ass due to greater experience and focus. The fight gets broken up and it's decided that the team should split up to determine their own interpretations. Vanille mentions a legend about L'Cie who were able to defy their fate and not turn into Cie'th though she admits that it's just a legend. Since legends have truth to them, Serah decides to pursue it despite Lightning's harsh remark and even Snow wondering if it was possible. But Serah reminds Snow of his promise and he puts on a tough guy act to go with her. Lightning scoffs and decides to head for Eden to find the next clue of the Focus with the rest of the party following.

Hope is going because he hates Snow right now; Sazh is going because he believes he'll find a clue to his own goal (son's focus) at Eden; and Vanille wanted to give the lovebirds some time together and wishes the best for both of them. She also advises Serah not to be afraid to fall. Serah asks why and Vanille playfully yet cryptically replies, "So that you can learn to pick yourself up." Serah takes the advice to heart and the party splits up with the Farron sisters pretty much hating each other's guts right now.

From this point in the game, the plot diverges into two paths: That of Serah's and Lightning's. They'll go through their own versions of Chapters 4 to 9 before reuniting midway through Chapter 9. The paths will occasionally intersect with members from Serah's party swapping with Lightning's party or something along that line. The player can pick which ever path that he wants to play as similar to Birth By Sleep, but the last 4 chapters won't be available until the first two story paths are completed. This may seem dumb because Serah's group only has two and Lightning's has four, but the party isn't complete yet. Apart from Fang, there are three additional party members that need to be recruited for a grand total of up to four recruitable characters with the last one being optional.

Who are these three characters? Two have already appeared in this story and the third is coming fairly soon.

Lightning's group finds the airship from before with enough parts from the down PSICOM fleet to repair it and start picking off PSICOM survivors for intel, money, supplies or downright revenge. Under Vanille's odd, yet effective teaching, the party start to get the hang of their magic abilities as L'Cie with Hope relishing in being a mage while Sazh and Lightning learn to combine their native abilities with those of the L'Cie. After getting all of the parts, Sazh suggests waiting for Serah and Snow and Lightning says screw that.

"Serah wants to be a grown up? Let her. If she wants to tie her own shoes and fight her own battles, she'll have to take responsibility for her decisions. And if her choices bite her in the ass? That's her problem."

With that, Lightning has the crew take off and fly for Eden though Lightning is secretly crying her eyes out due to how powerless she was to protect Serah or herself. Now she resolves that the only way to protect Serah is to complete or at least satisfy the Focus herself if Serah is going to be so pig-headed.

Back with Serah, she and Snow get into a fight about their focus. Snow still wants to believe that the Focus is to save Cocoon, but Serah knows better and starts getting emotionally overwhelmed by the false hope that Snow's persistence and Vanille's words are giving her. As the fight reaches it's peak, a rabid lion-dog monster attacks the duo and a fight ensues. They win, but it attracts the attention of arriving PSICOM reinforcements and now Serah's subconsciously starting to give up. She gets mortally wounded and it seems like it's the end for her even as Snow desperately fights on.

Suddenly, a magic light flows from her tattoo and wraps around Serah, healing her and waking her up as the PSICOM soldiers and Snow stare in awe at the Tall, beautiful Siren that stands behind Serah with a harp made of fire and Fiery Feathers adorning her long hair. The Siren plays a song that shots a bird of fire from the strings and takes out the remaining enemies and also heals Snow of his injuries. Amazed, Serah thanks the mysterious magical creature for saving her and already she feels despair being lifted from her by the warmth of this beautiful angelic being.

It bitch-slaps Serah while casting the Doom spell on her at the same and sicks the firebird on her.

The functions of an Eidolon are going to about the same as they were in the vanilla game except that they won't be mostly useless in combat. So the player as Serah will have to complete the Siren's challenge which will be to hit her so many times before the timer runs out. While the Firebird is attacking her with Firespells and golden claws. Serah completes the challenge and the Siren transforms into a bird-shaped chariot-glider that Serah can ride when in combat.

After getting her cute ass beat by an Eidolon, Serah is obviously tired and nearly faints. Just then, a kid who looks like the lovechild between Fang and Sora reveals himself and congratulates Serah for taming her Eidolon. Snow demands to know who the kid is and the boy answers, Noel. He says that he'll help the duo and that he knows a way out of this place. Snow demands to know how they can trust him and Noel shrugs and says that he'll have to take a chance. Snow doesn't like it, but with Serah's condition, he can't see any other option and follows Noel to where a squad of soldiers are waiting for them. Serah recognizes them as Guardian Corps and Noel complements her before the couple is knocked out and taken aboard an airship.

Will Lightning's group be able to find Eden? Is Lightning actually willing to carry out this horrid focus? Are the other companions as set as she is? What will happen to Serah and Snow now that they're in the custody of a Guardian division led by this mysterious youth? Can Noel be trusted? Will Serah find a way to defy her fate? How the hell can Jihl use magic without being a L'Cie? Why are the Fal'Cie so adamant on destroying Cocoon and the world with it?

All of these questions and more will be answered in part 3.

Because what's the point of making a beautifully stunning world that blends nature and science if we can't go beyond the invisible hallway?