FINAL FANTASY XIII [2009]
This one took a while to write because... chapter 9 was very long. It's a long, battle-intensive chapter and one whose enemy selection is pretty damn repetitive. It's a good thing that the game finally opens up with a lot of flexibility and more complex dungeon designs, but it's also something that I feel should've been tossed at us around half the game ago. I didn't mind the "interactive CGI anime" vibe of the previous segments because at least I got to watch a bunch of cool stuff, but this part of the game (at least pre-chapter-11) felt particularly draining. Yeah, this sure is a very flawed game, pacing-wise, but I'm already one foot in and I do want to finish it to see how it all ends.
Again, not here to critique the game (too much), in to the monsters!
PSICOM Raider, PSICOM Infiltrator, PSICOM Destroyer & PSICOM Dragoon
Chapter 9 features a record amount of just repeated enemies with different colours, since our main characters are assaulting a giant PSICOM battleship, the Paramecia Palamecia. We get our batch of generic PSICOM goons, filling in the repetitive 'melee enemy', 'gun enemy', 'bazooka variant' and 'airborne variant'. Since our characters are the ones attacking the battleship, that 'Infiltrator' moniker feels like a huge misnomer, huh? Not much to say here, the colouration is pleasant I suppose but not my favourite PSICOM colours.
PSICOM Huntress
The one new model for the generic PSICOM goons is a lady, the PSICOM Huntres -- on one hand, it's surprising that it took some 10 hours of gameplay and beating up generic PSICOM and Corps goons without coming across a single woman (although, to be fair, the generic PSICOM uniform isn't explicitly male), but on the other other hand, at least these guys are elite troops? They have a uniform that shows a fair bit more skin, but it's honestly not as fanservice-y as it could've been, so I do appreciate their restraint. The Huntresses are pretty annoying, they can rapid-fire cast spells on themselves and their allies. The PSICOM Hunterss is part of the 'PSICOM Epopts' sub-group. Epopt is a term borrowed from Greek, roughly meaning 'someone who is initiated into the mysteries'. Okay, that's your vocabulary of the day.
Deckdrone, PSICOM Reaver, Viking & Thermadon
Thankfully it's not all humanoid enemies on board, but a lot of the enemies are just recolours of foes we met earlier in the game. It makes sense, since we're in a PSICOM base and these are all recolours of PSICOM enemies, but... eh? Deckdrone here is a gold-and-orange repaint of the Watchdrone we met earlier. PSICOM Reaver is a pretty black-and-purple-and-white repaint of the Executioner minibosses... and the Reaver's model is actually slightly altered, it's got two devil horns compared to its weaker minions.
Viking is one of the most obnoxiously annoying enemies in chapter 9 due to the simple fact of its large, large health-pool and that multiples of them show up in the same fight. Design-wise it's still near-identical to the Myrmidons and Orions of the previous chapters, except this one swapped out the metal-claw arm for a double-barreled mini-lightsaber gun thing. Eh.
The Thermadon (who doesn't show up as much as the others) is a neat little variant, but ultimately just a recoloured version of the Lucidon we've met before, joining the Viking as the obnoxiously annoying enemy to fight in this level.
Flanborg
In addition to the Thermadon up above, there are a bunch of more interesting militarized animal-cyborgs we find on board the Palamecia. Flanborg is the stronger version of the Flanitor (and shows up with them!) althogh without the capability to heal. Iabsolutely love what's going on here, with its face being just this massive pincushion of... nuclear rods? Are those supposed to be Simpsons style nuclear rods? Or are they just cool glowing things?
Okay, so that is why it's called a Vespid! So we met the regular Vespid a long while ago, back in the nature reserve, and I thought it was an interesting choice to take the somewhat unconventional look and call it a cyborg wasp -- and the reular Vespid does have parts of it that sort of ends up looking similar to a wasp while also clearly being pretty robotic. The upgraded version here, Vespid Soldier, actually does away with the mask-face and the shield-wings, swapping them for a far more buggy face with little mandibles, and gives it actual wings. Sure, those wings are more devil-bat wings and less of an insect's wings, but the Vespid Soldier still looks pretty dang cool and recognizably some sort of murderous mutant cyborg wasp. Probably the most interesting variant enemy in this sequence of the game.
Kalavinka Striker
Acting as a miniboss twice in this game, the Kalavinka striker is a version of the earlier Garuda Interceptor with a different set of wings. And those wings really do actually make this one feel different -- although they also remind me of paper clips. Kalvainka Striker actually causes the paperclip feathers to charge up with electricity, so they're some sort of weird conductor for it, then? A neat little variant, and it still has the creepy abdomen-face that still does nothing. The Kalavinka borrows its name from another figure in Buddhism, an immortal with a human's head and a bird's body.
Barthandelus
We get to fight another fal'Cie at the end of chapter 9, and Barthandelus here is either our big bad for the entire game, or at least is going to be one of the big bads. I'm still not 100% sure what his deal is, other than he is a god-like being that seems to be manipulating everyone and crafting out characters' journey for some vague goal that seems to be contradictory. Okay, pretty interesting. At this point in the game I've seen around six or seven different fal'Cie, all of them looking different and mostly faceless -- those with faces often have them be weird mask-like accessories or just runic carvings that only kinda-sorta look like a face. So I do feel like it was pretty surprising to see Barthandelus have such a human-looking face. Or, well, as human as an ornately decorated grinning robot death-mask can get, anyway.
I feel like this is a pretty fun design, even though these sort of giant elaborate bosses have never really been my 'thing' as far as enemies go. It's certainly more memorable than the other fal'Cie boss we fought, Anima, anyway. That giant central face actually will break apart to reveal Barthandelus's "Thanatosian Smile", and by smile I mean a giant wall of nothing but laser cannons. We don't really get to see what Barthandelus looks like below that, but I think he's just meant to terminate in that weird slug-like lower body. I guess he's "fused" to the Palamecia?
Oh, and there are four upside-down porcelain faces on Barthandelus's shoulders, and each of these have a separate health bar (Right and Left Pauldron; Right and Left Ailette). Each of the faces will cast a specific elemental spell, and breaking one of them will cause the other three to attack harder and faster while also making Barthandelus's central face weaker. It's actually a pretty fun boss fight (the fact that in-game he shows up right as I'm given freedom to arrange my party probably helps) and, as with most J-RPG villains, of course this isn't even his final form.
Pulsework Soldier & Circuitron
Then we enter Chapter 10, another one that is filled with more 'repaint' monsters. These ones feel like they actually have a fair bit more story impact, though. Chapter 10 takes place in the Fifth Ark, an abandoned Pulse training facility, so we actually get to see the 'proper', perfected versions of the rusty Pulse robots we've seen in the junkyard area, Vile Peaks. So the Pulsework Soldier is a silver, non-rusty version of the Pulsework workers, and Circuitron is a more stable-looking version of the Bomb. They're both repaints, but they do look a fair bit more complete, with Circuitron having two actual 'eyes', and the Pulsework Soldier having those two screw-like 'eyes' that spin around. That's a pretty cute robot face, too.
Noctilucale & Alraune
Feral normal animals also show up in the Fifth Ark, although they feel more like beings that just end up flourishing in a forgotten underground facility. In practice, parts of the Fifth Ark does end up feeling like a giant-sewer level. The Noctilucate (named after an order of Dinoflagellate plankton) is basically one of those Crawler slugs with a huge cool-looking neon-blue Avatar flower strapped onto its back. So I guess some of these nudibranch enemies are plant-animals? These guys can show up in large swarms of ten or so.
A bunch of the monsters in chapter 11 are admittedly just repaints. Alraune here (who only inhabits the 'Vallis Media' valley where our heroes make camp) is basically 100% the same thing as Noctilucale up above, just a lot more green and flower-themed. Alraune is, of course, German for 'mandrake', and is yet another example of a recurring creature in Final Fantasy.
Phosphoric Ooze & Alchemic Ooze
And Phosphoric Ooze ("Luminous Jelly" in Japanese!) is, of course, a Flan repaint, but such a nice shade of glowing, radioactive green. That little batch of black head and the circular, neon-blue eyes just give it an extra oomph to make it not too simple. As usual with these flan boys, very charming. Interestingly (and surprisingly), if you take too long to kill them, two Phosphoric Oozes can combine into a big boy called an Alchemic Ooze, which is actually pretty devastating! I do really like that battles against the Phosphoric Ooze can basically be trivial or a giant chore depending on your team composition. They really do make a lot of these non-PSICOM repaint enemies have their own identity, huh?
Skata'ne & Stikini
Repaints of the Incubus and Succubus enemies, these guys are still classified as 'daemons', and more or less behave similarly. Skata'ne are the weaker ones that deal more damage, and the Stikini are the ones with a fancy giant three-pronged shuriken thing behind their backs that cast lots of powerful buff spells if you don't kill them quickly. Their heads are more explicitly bird-like instead of looking like a mask... but there's still an artificial look to them, and instead of eyes they have little clusters of depressions, again, similar to what you'd put in a mask or a helmet. They still look bizarre and just ethereal. No real explanation as to what they are, beyond showing up in Pulse-related areas.
Their names sort of give them a bit more of an origin, with "Skatene" being a vampiric being from the Choctaw Native American tribal myths, having the ability to shapeshift into giant owls. Meanwhile, Skitini are vampiric beings from the myths of the Seminole people, who also transform into giant owls to eat human hearts from their mouths... and also will 'vomit up their internal organs that are hidden or hung in a tree, otherwise they can't return back to their human forms.
Imp & Ahriman
Okay, so the Gremlins from previous areas have a far, far more organic-looking counterpart! These look more like 'spooks' for sure, although I did really enjoy the inhumanly confusing anatomy of the regular Gremlins. The Imps look more like demonic grinning bat-creatures, and I just adore the combination of that Mike Wazowski eyeball and huge fanged grin combo.
If left alone too long (and considering that this area have a bunch of higher-priority enemies like the oozes and behemoths) the Imp will summon their bigger, tankier cousin, the Ahriman (a term for a devil or destructive spirit in Middle Persian). The Ahriman is just a tougher green Imp, but it's got a history of cropping up in nearly every Final Fantasy game as some sort of eyeball monster.
This one is memorable for simply being utterly weird, I feel. The way they move, particularly how they 'sheathe' the giant curved metal shield thing, is pretty interesting.
Greater Behemoth & Behemoth King
Another organic Behemoth, this one does the typical 'more spikes, more power' deal that so many other Behemoth variants have done before. Like the Lodestar Behemoth, though, the Greater Behemoth can stand up and heal to full health if you don't kill it fast enough, and I absolutely was taken aback that the organic ones can do it, too. I mean, the Behemoths are already fantasy animals, so I really am not sure why I was so surprised, but I guess it's a lot less of a shock to see the robotic versions stand up? I mean, it really shouldn't be a shock, even a chihuahua can stand on its rear legs. Chihuahuas can't pull up an organic buzzsaw weapon out of nowhere, though. Again, between the Phosphoric Ooze, the Greater Behemoth and the Imps, I actually appreciate that these newer variants actually add just enough difference in terms of design and abilities that actually make them feel like upgraded, stronge versions of the enemies we fought in the past. Which is something that makes chapter 10 so much more fun to play than the huge slog that is chapter 9.
Jumping forwards a bit, Chapter 11 has the big-ass Behemoth Kings roaming the plains of the first huge-world area you travel to, which is exactly what it says on the tin. It's far bigger, far kinglier and far more scary than all the other Behemoths and they're some of the creatures that basically scream 'yeah, level grind a little, maybe'. As with the Greater Behemoth up there, the Behemoth King can stand up and pull a giant spinning buzzsaw wheel out of nowhere.
Cid Raines
He doesn't actually end chapter 10, showing up around two-thirds of the way through, but Cid Raines (the name is a recurring theme in every FF game) here is easily the big encounter in chapter 10. He's more of a character that's built up, unlike Barthandalus (who really only shows up and interacts with our cast ten seconds before the battle) or some of the other antagonists (who get taken out in cutscenes). Cid's story is a bit complex and I have to admit some of his reasonings did go over my head, but he's basically a double-traitor and his death is framed as a tragic heroic middle finger to his fal'Cie overlords. He's an l'Cie like our main characters, which means he has access to everything we can do, except with jacked-up stats and, well, he turns half his body into crystal. Including his hilarious anime hair, which is a bit of a hilarious detail -- ironically, human-form Cid doesn't even have spiky anime hair.
Halfway through the battle Cid will sprout six crystal angel wings, becoming faster and deadlier, and his fight is memorably tough for me. There were a bunch of puzzling and weird boss fights in this game (the difficulty spike between regular enemies and bosses is a bit harsh in this game) but Cid was the one that made me have to look up a guide to see if I'm doing things wrong. Normally I'm completely indifferent to more humanoid bosses, but FFXIII have had over-the-top giant robots throughout the game as bosses that actually having one that's just a crystal angel man is actually a refreshing one.
Bahamut
Chapter 10's actual final (and much easier) encounter is actually another Eidolon, this time belonging to Fang, the last member to join your party. That's four out of six! Bahamut is yet another extremely recurring enemy and summon in the game, borrowing the concept of a powerful godly dragon from Dungeons & Dragons. This Bahamut is extra-D&D-flavoured because it's actually a metal dragon! Well, a metal dragon-man. He's got a skirt and human legs and everything. I actually find Bahamut to be kind of funny with those tiny wings that clearly don't work on reular physics. I think he might be my least favourite compared to the other three Eidolons we've seen, which is surprising since I usually like the more monstrous-looking ones. I dunno. Bahamut just doesn't do it for me.
Chapter 10's actual final (and much easier) encounter is actually another Eidolon, this time belonging to Fang, the last member to join your party. That's four out of six! Bahamut is yet another extremely recurring enemy and summon in the game, borrowing the concept of a powerful godly dragon from Dungeons & Dragons. This Bahamut is extra-D&D-flavoured because it's actually a metal dragon! Well, a metal dragon-man. He's got a skirt and human legs and everything. I actually find Bahamut to be kind of funny with those tiny wings that clearly don't work on reular physics. I think he might be my least favourite compared to the other three Eidolons we've seen, which is surprising since I usually like the more monstrous-looking ones. I dunno. Bahamut just doesn't do it for me.
Bahamut's Transformer vehicle mode gestalt mode turns it into a significantly cooler weird eagle-jet thing, which really reminds me on those bizarre beast-vehicle Transmetal modes from Beast Wars. Not much to say here, gestalt mode Bahamut is actually cool. Why can't the regular Bahamut also have those badass dragon wings?. In this fight we finally get a bit more of an explanation on Eidolons; they show up specifically when an l'Cie's commitment wavers and they basically give their l'Cie a forceful choice of life or death. And if they survive the test, they get cool giant-transforming-robot-god-buddy summoning powers. 'Kay.
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...and finally, chapter 11 starts! Where, after some 20+ hours of gameplay (and admittedly, I did spend some time reading through the datalogs or replaying some fights in which I fucked up) we finally leave behind the pretty corridor dungeon design of the first 10 levels and enter the pretty, more open world of Gran Pulse. Chapter 11 is actually quite long, and while I could probably do an entire page for chapter 11 alone, I actually don't know just how much of the game is left, and most of 9 and 10 have been repaints anyway, so let's go through the half dozen or so early chapter 11 monsters I've fought!
Alexander
Let's get this dude out of the way first, because he's another Eidolon battle you fight in what's essentially the prequel to chapter 11. Alexander is yet another Final Fantasy long-runner, named after Alexander the Great. Who is... an actual person and not a mythical figure like Shiva or Bahamut, but okay, sure. Alexander is the Eidolon associated with Hope, whose huge Eidolon moment felt like it was shoehorned into this chapter randomly. Wouldn't Hope's huge emotional moment be earlier in the story? I actually feel like it would've thematically made much more sense for Hope to get his Eidolon earlier, and that this feels like a cheap 'oh yeah, here's another Eidolon since we're opening the world for you'. Eh. Hell, even the boss fight for Alexander feels remarkably easy.
I actually find Alexander's design to be absolutely goofy in all the best ways. A huge chonk of a giant robot man with a glorious mustache and giant big-ass shoulders? And his 'gestalt mode' has him summon a bunch of random giant rook chess pieces (all of which have little rocket boosters) and become a small castle wall? It's not forgettable, that's for sure, and actually makes Alexander perhaps the most visually fun Eidolons!
Goblin
So finally, we enter Archylte Steppe of Gran Pulse, a huge open field with free roam, a lack of corridors, random monsters running around and side-quests. Finally! And with that, we get to see the real natural form of the monsters in this world, some of which are... absolute weirdos!
Because, well, um what? That's how a Gran Pulse Goblin looks like? It sure is a green, horned angry humanoid and its arms are even shaped like oni clubs, but what is this thing. It's got wheels for feet, noodle-looking limbs, giant clubs for arms and the center of its body is just a huge donut with its mouth opening up to a yawning void that goes through it. What is this thing? Is it even organic? How does it eat? Certainly a weird looking dude, the Goblins roam the Archylte Steppe on their weird roller-blade feet, beating up other organic creatures. It sure is a unique creature, but I'm not the biggest fan of this one.
Flan & Dire Flan
We had covered Alraune up above, the first enemy you fight in chapter 11. Didn't have much to say about it, and I do not have much to say about the Flans, either, although I am 100% glad to see that they're one of the creatures roaming around the overworld. The Flans and Dire Flan play off the same 'they will merge to form the big version' thing that the Phosphorus Ooze has. These are coloured correctly for Japanese pudding, though, and now I'm hungry.
Ectopudding & Hybrid Flora
The first one that also acts as a tutorial for the side-quests is this dude, the Ectopudding. Even though he looks less like a ghost and more like just a Pudding/Flan monster made out of clear water, but okay. Pretty cool texture on this one, I feel, he does look like a puddle come to life. His Japanese name is "Grand Pudding", but he doesn't really look like a flan or a pudding, huh?
The Flandragoras that our party first meet doesn't have the 'merge' ability that make their other cousins so much harder to fight, but large versions of the Flandragora show up here! They're called the Hybrid Flora, or "Mega-Harvest" in Japanese. I like the Flandragora, so obviously I also like this giant tomato slime boy. Not much to say, though.
Gorgonopsid & Megistotherian
The most common enemy, running around in packs around the fields, are these Gorgonopsids, not only named after the gorgon but after a genus of real-life extinct proto-mammals! In practice, the Gorgonopsids in FFXIII are basically just less hairy Silver Lobos with more spikes, and they run around breathing poison on you. A very cool alternative to just having 'lion' or 'wolf' for sure!
Likewise, the Megistotherian (borrowing its name from another extinct mammal) is just a bigger Silver Lobo from chapter five, and basically show up as the common 'alpha' for the Gorgonopsids. In one of the game's more exploitable farming segments, you can ambush a Megistotherian fighting a Behemoth King for easy experience points.
Uridimmu & Ugallu
So I'm not sure if these two are one-time 'bosses', or just something that's going to be a common creature later on. So the side-quests in this game are pretty simple World of Warcraft style "here's a named enemy, go kill it", given by Cie'ths who failed to complete their mission and turned fully into crystals... two of the ones I've done pits you against 'repainted' Gorgonopsids, Uridimmu (a legendary Mesopotamian human-headed dog-man) and the gigantic Ugallu (a lion-headed, bird-footed Mesopotamian storm demon). The Ugallu actually uses Silver Lobo textures judging by the hair, although his skin is all like a leopard print.
Navidon
Some Gorgonopsids hang around the larger Navidons, another member of the Armadon group that's much, much tougher than the Scalebeasts or the PSICOM robot-versions. I like just how different this one looks, though, with a more grisly mouth and a weird little crystal-like orb running down the ridge of the Navidon's head. This one is ice-themed! Its scales also look a lot more like weird fish-fins, too. A unique look for sure among the different Armadons. (Also, the King Behemoths show up in this chapter, but I covered them up above.)
Even more Gremlin equivalents, these ones look more like tribal statues come to life, with the very totem-esque set of wings... and those bulging eyes and screaming mouths look painted even though in-game they move around a bit. These guys basically act like the Gremlins and Imps, dancing and tottering around. Leyaks will summons Rangdas, which will in turn summon... anything from an annoying-but-doable Gorgonopsid, but sometimes their buddy is a goddamn King Behemoth. Ha!
They borrow their name from Balinese mythology, with Leyaks being cannibals who practice black magic, while Rangda is the demon-queen of the Leyaks, often portrayed as the antagonist in traditional stories against the guardian deity Barong. While Rangda is often depicted with tribal masks, these don't actually really match Balinese aesthetics all that well.
It feels like forever since we've seen a Cie'th enemy, huh? Edimmu is another one that's a named enemy in a sidequest, although his model is significantly more elaborate than the wights that our party have killed before, with a whole lot of random metallic protrusions around the shoulders and whatnot. Like all Cie'th enemies, Edimmu borrows her name from an undead being, specifically vengeful ghosts created by bodies that were not buried properly from Sumerion myths.
So let's talk a bit about the Cie'th Stones, which aren't enemies but are technically kind of NPC's. So far the only end-points of l'Cie that our heroes have encountered are those that get turned into crystal and obtained 'eternal life', or those that fail and transform into shambling Cie'th. Turns out that Cie'th that have lost their energy turn into these strange floating structures, resembling a sculpture with that weird rainbow-like crescent. Kind of interesting, and even in death their failed missions remain -- which is what ends up becoming our heroes' sidequests.
Triffid
Um, what? What? So the Triffid here is encountered in the Yaschas Massif, a seemingly smaller cliffside area connected to the Archylte Steppes. I went there in search of one of the side-quests, the Ugalllu up above. A lot of the monsters there are just repeats, but then there is this guy, the Triffid. Named after the famous man-killing plant from the classic sci-fi novel, the Triffid here shares the model of the Vespids, which makes me even more confused. The Vespids were robot-wasps, and we have seen their organic counterpart in the undead-themed Barbed Specter...
Um, what? What? So the Triffid here is encountered in the Yaschas Massif, a seemingly smaller cliffside area connected to the Archylte Steppes. I went there in search of one of the side-quests, the Ugalllu up above. A lot of the monsters there are just repeats, but then there is this guy, the Triffid. Named after the famous man-killing plant from the classic sci-fi novel, the Triffid here shares the model of the Vespids, which makes me even more confused. The Vespids were robot-wasps, and we have seen their organic counterpart in the undead-themed Barbed Specter...
But then turns out that yet another creature with the same anatomy is a fully plant monster, the Triffid. It hides in the ground pretending to be a flower and everything, before bursting up and chasing you down with its ragged flower-petal wings. its entire face is like just a giant flower with a weird pineapple hanging down as a 'bug mouth' or something, its abdomen looks like a plant bulb and even the stinger is textured like a pineapple. Definitely one of the weirdest monster plants I've seen, and probably one of my favourite.
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I certainly haven't explored all of the Steppes, and that's just the first big area. Not covered here are a bunch of giant beings called Oretoises that are these giant diplodocus-elephant fusions that are the biggest of the 'don't fuck with these guys' giant monsters... I'm going to save them until I actually manage to kill them. There is a bunch of wyvern-esque creature that I haven't figured how to call down yet. And there are a bunch of things like a weird worm-like flying dragon and a huge walking castle that eats Oretoises that so far have only shown up in cutscenes. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of the world now that it's opened up!
Anyway, I'm actually quite pumped to explore Gran Pulse. I'm not sure how many more variants of enemies are wandering around the place, but I'm sure excited to explore! Again, the game suddenly feels so much more larger and freer than it has ever been before, and it's just kind of a shame it took nearly 20+ hours of gameplay for me to feel as excited as this.
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