Strange. Eight hours in, and I’m still stuck in chapter four? What manner of madness is this?

Well, it can actually be explained in one word: Odin.


When we last saw the crew, Lightning and Hope had decided to take the path of “kick ass and kill anyone in our way” leaving Sazh and Vanille to wander… somewhere else. I can’t recall if they actually gave a specific destination… people just seem to walk and end up where they want to be in this game.

Chapter Four Part 2 starts with something I imagine most vehicle fans would jizz their pants over: Hope driving a massive bipedal machine that flattens anything in its path. Cool right?

WRONG! (Come on, have you read my other blogs?)

Allow me to deviate for a second to comment on something I’ve glossed over so far. For much of the game now, I’ve actually been having slight niggles with the in-game camera. At times it feels awkward, getting stuck or unresponsive, other times it seems to drift so your character is on the far side of the screen. I chalk this up to it being slightly to close to the character: not over the shoulder like Gears of War, but not far enough back for a suitable fixed position like FFXII either.

Given that I complain about almost everything else, I let the camera go, because honestly it only happens sometimes, and only when your exploring the world. The combat camera is the important one, and that’s perfect. Exploring the levels isn’t exactly a matter of life and death.

When Hope hops into his giant machine, however, the slightly-to-close camera has a complete **** fit. Unable to decide whether to focus on the whole robot or Hope himself (a tiny figure sitting on its top), it constantly zooms in and out, swings in all directions, and will actually spin very fast should to get over zealous trying to control it. Couple this with the monstrous machine’s wonky control system, and you have the stuff of mass frustration.

Thankfully it doesn’t last long, and after roughly ten minutes of stomping about, crushing conveniently positioned robot battalions, it ends, and you’re left with a confused feeling of “What was the point in that?” Seriously, this is an RPG. Not an action game. We have war games if we want to get in a tank and drive over people. Ten minutes of awkwardly marching a mech down a linear path is just a minor distraction. Hmmm… perhaps that was the point?

After an amusing (and somewhat relieving) end to Hope’s new toy, he faces the inevitable scolding from the “You’re slowing me down” queen, Lightning. Except something is different this time. Her anger causes pain, light, and then quite suddenly, an Eidolon to burst forth from her body. Odin has arrived.

         


Subduing Odin is, quite frankly, a total *****. He’s the toughest enemy so far, and, as I discovered, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll fail the first time due to being ill prepared. He also involves an enormous amount of trial and error.

All I had to go on was the previous Eidolon fight with the Shiva Sisters. I fought them with a single person, while one of the sisters healed me when my health was low. Essentially all I had to do was cast Libra, then carry out the respect earning prerequisites (as odd and occasionally unresponsive as they seemed). Very little information was given other then that, let alone tips on future fights.

In the Odin fight, I had two characters to use, and the respect requirements had changed. Odin liked people who healed the wounded, and build battle chains… but which people? Did it have to be only Lightning, or could Hope help too?

I had no idea. The only way I could find out was to experiment: watch the bar while Hope heals. Die. Restart. Watch the bar while Lightning heals. Die. Restart. And so on.

This was made extra difficult by the fact that Odin’s attacks were strong, long, and seemingly uninterruptible. He had a string of up to four or five powerful attacks, that hit multiple party members, and froze my action queue for the entire length of the combo. By the time he finished, whoever he targeted was dead before I could cast any queued “cure” spells at all.

To make matters worse, he had a nasty habit of unleashing these attacks the second the battle started. Thanks to the inability to move my characters out of the way, often both party members got caught in his path, resulting in an insta-loss mere seconds into the fight. During the times I was able to survive, Hope and Lightning’s AI’s did their best to stay apart and flank Odin, but it still seemed like an awful lot of luck was involved.

As it turned out, only Lightning’s actions affected Odin’s respect bar (handy to know for future Summon fights I guess). This immediately caused problems for me. See, I assumed that each character had a role. From the little research I’ve done, I know that Lightning is a great Ravager and Commando, while Hope is a master healer. So naturally, I’d put no points into the healing branch of Lightning’s skills. Nor did I have a Paradigm set up with her as a healer. So automatically I was unable to win in the first encounter; even though I survived, I couldn’t garner enough respect, and so was killed by the Doom Counter.

Yet even after setting up the right Paradigms, Odin kept wading through me like a hot knife through Vanille (I wish), leading me to wonder if I hadn’t levelled my characters sufficiently. Thankfully, there was a nice contingent of enemies just before the Encounter area, so I took out my frustrations for thirty minutes or so on them, grinding and raising Lighting’s healing skills.

After that, the subsequent fights with Odin went a lot better, as my tactics were refined and his habits became more familiar, and eventually I was able to claim him as mine own.

Phew. What a battle. Aside from the cheap insta-kills, and the respect requirements experimentation, it was a lot of fun, and no doubt a preview of the stronger enemies to come. It was only later that a friend reminded me that I could have used an Attack boosting Shroud to make the fight a lot easier. Damn, why didn’t I think of that?

             


The very next battle gives Lightning the chance to show off her shiny new partner, who takes three Technical Points to summon. Odin arrives via a dramatic cutscene, where Lightning launches into the air, slices his crystal in half and releases him. In a moment that nicely highlights the new emotional bond between the two, Odin very gracefully and lightly catches her hand as she falls, and the scene ends with the two in an identical battle stance.

It’s amazing how a small clip like that can convey so much. During the fight to claim him, Odin looked evil, ominous. A great white knight, bearing down on Lightning with only her death as his goal.

After gaining his respect, things have changed. The way he catches her hand is so gentle and uncharacteristically caring that it shines a whole new light on him. Now he’s her White Knight, towering over her protectively. Even the way he mimic’s her pose is sweet.

This is all before he starts going to town, slicing and chopping everyone in his way. Which gives me a chance to explain how the Summons finally work.

Summoning Eidolons in XIII is similar to the ones in XII, in the way that they become a new party member and help you on the battlefield. They have two bars: one for health, that degrades over time or with damage, and a “Gestalt” bar. The Gestalt bar can be filled by healing the Summon, and by letting it dish out as much damage as possible. The higher the bar is, the longer you’ll be able to use the Eidolon in its Gestalt form when you eventually activate it.

In Odin’s case, he transforms into the horse, and Lightning rides him around either performing auto-attacks like the regular combat system, or entering them in manually (up + triangle, left + X). A number counts down with each attack, meaning it’s recommended you use his ultimate move only when it reaches “01”. With that, the Summon is over, and normal battle resumes.

Given the amount of technical points Summoning requires, it’s obviously supposed to be a strong and “in case of emergencies” skill. My first attempt left a lot of enemies standing, though they were heavily damaged. Leads me to wonder if XIII Summons will end up like XII ones after all; great to use on hordes of weak regular enemies, but not as effective against strong ones or bosses. We’ll have to see how it goes as the game progresses; I’d really like to see a Final Fantasy with Summons I actually want to use occasionally (Go Go Yojimbo).

            


Back with Sazh and Vanille, things are chugging along as usual. Many friends told me that this section was one of the most drawn out and annoying in the game. Not because it’s bad; the final section of Chapter Four consists simply of a long path to explore and grind in, full of treasure, puzzles and enemies. Almost sounds like regular FF!

What makes it annoying is how slow the combat is. Since we’re forced to use Vanille and Sazh, we don’t have many options in terms of Paradigms. Both are good Ravagers, but we know how well that works on the Stagger bars. Sazh is such a terrible Commando though that the battle time tends to equal itself out. The presence of even one strong enemy can make the smallest battles drag out for three or four minutes.

After an hour of running around, hitting switches and grinding enemies, it’s finally time to move on and leave Chapter Four. We’re treated to a small character building cutscene, that just makes me want to throttle Vanille even more, and a catch up with our long absent friend Snow. He meets Cid! Hooray! He had to be in there somewhere, we all knew it.

And then Fang kicks Snow’s head in. Ouch. She’s a pretty cool chick. Shame her voice is so awful. I’ll still be looking forward to having her in my party. What awaits in Chapter Five?


Eh. Still rather indifferent.

It was nice to finally use a Summon, and to meet an enemy I really had to work hard to beat. The insta-killing and trial and error system may have been a little harsh, but at least when we die it’s a simple matter of “retry”.

Lightning is finally beginning to soften, letting down her shields a bit after the Odin fight, and showing a little care for Hope. The other characters haven’t really changed. It will be interesting when Fang finally arrives, since she doesn’t seem like the type of person who’ll take orders from Lightning, nor will she put up with irritating brats like Vanille. Sweet.

Most of all I’ll just be happy to see a change of scenery; trash piles really aren’t the most impressive backdrop to stare at for hours. More progress to make tomorrow!