Now I'm done with the game! Last time we left off it's halfway through chapter 12, but it took me a bit longer than I thought I would to finish up 12 and 13. I did a lot of grinding! I haven't actually gone through all of the postgame, but I've finished the main story and have gone through a good chunk of the sidequests. It's about time for me to wrap up this 'reviewing monsters' segment, so I snuck into the wiki and looked up the bestiary list to wrap up any stragglers to the bestiary.
It's been a fun ride, and it's just a shame that this game has a pretty fun bestiary but had a whole lot of repeats, especially in the middle areas. I think I'll try doing this again whenever I decide to play through the original version of Final Fantasy VII (a game I have purchased but never played) since that's going to have a lot more for me to talk about since there's the remake version of some of the monsters to talk about.
Anyway, FFXIII... it sure has been a ride. Not all of it has been unpleasant, but not all of it has been pleasant, either. I feel like the story could've been a lot more extravagant, with more meat in the middle... a good chunk of the story felt like they were stretching out the "main RPG characters meet each other" for way longer than it should, the concepts aren't adequately explained despite a huge amount of cutscenes -- sure, they did so in the datalogs, but they could've done so in the main cutscenes -- and while the open world segment was great, it felt so disjointed from the otherwise tight plotting. I have seen how some of the other Final Fantasy games worked, particularly VII-remake and IX, so yeah, despite the absolutely stunning visuals and me giving the game a huge thumbs-up for prioritizing story; I kind of felt like it could've told the story a lot better by actually not relying so heavily on cutscenes. It's still a fun game to play through, at least. If you liked this game, then I will thumbs-up you because I actually liked it too. And if you're the ones who hate this game... then I'm happy because all other Final Fantasy games are going to be better than this one, yeah? It's a flawed, flawed game, but one that I enjoyed playing through. And at the end of the day, that's what matters in a video game, right?
It's been pretty fun. Let's dissect the rest of the enemies.
Aquila Velocycle & DagoniteThe final dungeon of the game, which takes up chapter 13, is the bad guys' core, Orphan's Cradle. And it's got a trippy background and a whole lot of the Sacrifice enemies from chapter 12 running around. A bunch of new repaints show up, though. And... and they're kind of just rehashes of old enemies, just really, really tough. The Aquila Velocycle is the final form of all the Velocycles we've fought through the game, and as always, borrows its name from the Latin name of a bird of prey (aquila = eagle). Not much else to say here, it sure is still a cool design.
The Dagonite (borrowing its name from the Mesopotamian god Dagon) is a repaint of the Sahagin/Orobon enemy, but with a creepier-looking head with four eyes and really sharp jaws. Click
here for the concept art that makes the distinction between the three Sahagin variants a lot more explicit. Not much to say here, though.
Sanctum Templar & Megrim Thresher
Sanctum Templar is just a fancier version of all the 'big dude' PSICOM warlord type enemies. Not a whole ton to say, although comparing this to the very first PSICOM Marauder you fight, it's pretty neat just how much they keep adding like a cape, collar decals, shoulder armour things through each successive power-up of this enemy type that they look pretty damn badass at this point.
The Megrim Thresher (a.k.a. "Tiger" in the original Japanese, a reference to the Tiger tank from WWII like all the Armatures) is a repaint of the Midlight Reaper spider-tank that was the boss of the Nautlius level. Not much to say here, I do kinda like the idea that all of these old 'bosses' end up becoming reduced to just slightly-stronger-than-average enemies at the final stage in the game. Oddly, 'megrim' is a kind of flatfish, which... huh?
Jabberwocky & Bandersnatch
Okay, I was kinda baffled why there were fish-people hanging out with the Cie'th and random PSICOM robots, but apparently Orphan's Cradle just has a bunch of monsters hanging around, huh? Borrowing their names from the monsters in Lewis Caroll's work, Jabberwocky and Bandesrnatch are a repeat of Enki and Enlil from the Sunleth Waterscape. They're actually a lot easier to fight, however, and instead of the weird resistance/weakness ping-pong of their predecessors, these are just two weirdo turtles that heal each other, and the resistance/weakness difference is the much less interesting physical and magical attacks. Not much to say here, other than oh yeah, Orphan's Cradle has got a bit of a miniboss rush like Taejin's Tower, but the difference is that Jabberwocky and Bandersnatch shows up a bit after their elaborate miniboss fight as regular enemies.
Immortal & Tiamat Eliminator
Immortal ("Invincible" in Japanese) is the second miniboss and it's... it's a red-and-gold version of the various Berserker-style enemies you've fought throughout the game. It mostly functions identically, still with the same odd 'forge blade' gimmick. Not a whole ton to say here.
Tiamat Eliminator (borrowing its name from the primordial ocean goddess from Mesopotamian, but also very likely from D&D since we've got Bahamut running around too) is the final miniboss, and it's a repeat of the Ushumgal or the Proudclad. It's a lot weaker and goes down a lot more easier than the Proudclad did, though. Not a whole ton to say, I do really enjoy this bizarre bug-tank-angel-robot design, so I'm happy to see it as another miniboss.
Wladislaus
The miniboss between Immortal and Tiamat Elminator is a new model! Classified as a member of "The Undying", a specific cadre of Cie'th you meet in the sidequests that actually retain their intelligence after Cie'th-i-fication. It's certainly an interesting concept, but FFXIII doesn't do anything with the Undying other than giving us an interesting blurb, and there's no real sense of urgency or threat or anything resembling a faction to them. A shame. Wladislaus borrows its name from... a Polish monarch? Sure.
Wladislaus is a pretty cool enemy, though, looking for all the world like some sort of Resident Evil horror, Unlike the more wretched looking crystal mutation of the Ghast-type enemies, the crystals covering this dude's head looks more like some sort of crude helmet. One of Wladislaus' arms is larger than the others and it's still holding a big-ass sword, whereas there's this bizarre backpack of little stumpy arms that sprout from his back. A pretty cool anatomy, and he does look a bit more dangerous than your average Cie'th enemy while still looking wretched and pathetic. Wladislaus is an interesting enemy, even if the mechanic around his fight boils down to 'beat him up while he charges for one very powerful attack', and said attack grows stronger every time he uses it.
Barthandelus Round III
And we get to the final boss fight marathon! Final Fantasy XIII has three final bosses, although they're technically kinda-sorta the same dude but not really. The plot near the ending of FFXIII is admittedly a fair bit convoluted and I don't want to bog this down with a plot summary and details. We first get to fight our old buddy Bart, who still has the same basic design but with those two giant... horn-wing-shoulder-pad things. I guess they were going for kind of a more angelic vibe with him, which is what the Fal'Cie all kinda are? Not much to say about the monster design other than I still find all those creepy faces on his shoulders creepy as heck.
I actually do kinda think that it's odd that after the game builds up to "take down the Fal'Cie", you only really fight... Bart, Dahaka (who's more like a weird territorial jerk) and Anima (the starter boss)? And Orphan below? I get that not all the Fal'Cie are combat-oriented, but I genuinely thought that after all the buildup and showing us Eden's original forms, Phoenix, Kujata and Carbuncle, they'd be bosses, you know? And they even went through all the trouble of giving them unique 3D models. I dunno. They could've had an epic one-on-one fight between each member of the main cast and a Fal'Cie they hate the most... or, well, mostly Sazh and Kujata, really. But still.
Orphan
After you defeat Barthandelus, he sinks into a weird liquid metal pool, and then bursts out combined with an angelic half, as the 'shell' of Orphan, the unborn baby Fal'Cie that is the true final boss of the game. And it's... it's sure a Final Fantasy boss! I never really find myself caring too much for these elaborate "look at god and despair!" final bosses, but Orphan's a pretty all right robo-god. There are two parts of this thing, the black half being Barthandelus's face and his giant arm, and the other side being a feminine angelic figure with a bunch of wings, caressing the central and 'true' form of Orphan. As you might expect, at least in the first half of the battle, the 'evil' half casts powerful spells and the 'good' half heals them.
The true shape of this form of Orphan is seen several times when it does the "leave the entire party at 1 HP" attack, where it lifts itself out of the metallic pool its lower body is submerged in, and shows that instead of a body it's actually a big-ass crystal sword. I mean, sure? It sure is a cool, weird final boss with a lot of religious design thrown into it, and I actually like it. It's just such a pretty long boss fight that I felt kinda exhausted just looking at his CGI model again.
Orphan, Round II
Right after you kill Orphan, the two 'parent' parts just slough off, and the
real Orphan starts off the final phase of the battle. A far more cohesive and less cluttered design, Orphan's like this cool looking weird sun ornament, which also gives me the vibe of a clock with all those spokes. That central face can
transform into either an eye or a mouth while it's attacking, and it's... it's neat.
If you manage to stagger Orphan in this form he transforms into the more fragile form on the right, growing little arms and swapping his elaborate sun-clock back and swapping it for a set of metallic crown-wing that sort of reminds me of Bart's final form. It sure is a weirdo final boss, but... I dunno. I really just don't have much to say here beyond "it sure is memorable as a final boss". I dunno. I think that there's a lot of buildup to Orphan, but Orphan himself is kind of a bland-cookie generic enemy since he doesn't have much screentime and Bart's the one doing all the string-pulling and interaction with the hero. Oh well. I don't dislike them! They sure are cool like, "church ornaments come to life" weird-deity enemies, but at the same time I just don't have much to say here.
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And with that final chapter over... we get side-quest enemies!
I actually did a lot of exploration in-between chapter 12 and 13 as I grinded a lot because those dang Dagonites keep fucking me over in the final dungeon, and I went through a lot of the sidequests in Gran Pulse, the open-world area of the game. And... and hoo boy, a lot of weird enemies are apparently gated in the sidequest system (let's just say that it's not the best-implemented gameplay mechanic). We'll cover every single one of these guys!
Cactuar, Giant Cactuar & Cactuar Prime
Right away I'll note that you actually have to activate an event after rescuing a bunch of Chocobos, then bring them to a specific spot in the game to activate the Cactuar encounter, and to have them run around the overworld. While perhaps not quite as famous as Moogles or Chocobos, the Cactuars are another Final Fantasy staple since they have shown up in
Final Fantasy VI. Known as
Sabotenda (from
sabo, cactus, and
puritenda, the English word pretender) in Japanese, these were apparently designed to resemble
Haniwa, a clay statue used in funerary rituals during the Kofun period of Japanese history. In FFXIII, just like all their appearances, the Cactuar are utterly weird, make funny noses, strike funny poses, run around a lot... and has the potential to be absolutely
deadly to your party with its signature move, "Thousand Needles".
FFXIII's Cactuars are a bit more lenient, though, and you have to work to actually get the Cactuar to be dangerous. Otherwise it's just a regular enemy that makes funny noises and have a rather annoyingly large HP pool. If you allow the Cactuar to finish its Cactus Dance move, it'll transform into a Giant Cactuar (THE Sabotenda in Japanese). This, by the way, is something you have to go out of the way to do; I killed like a dozen of them and didn't realize this was a thing until reading the Wiki. The Giant Cactuar will then attempt to do another dance, which will turn it into a Cactuar Prime (Saboten Master), which can then have an attack that can one-shot your entire party. Not much to say, it sure is a cute secretly-deadly mascot.
Microchu & Picochu
So here are the first of the 'Ochu' type enemies, who only show up in another area you have to unlock, Aggra's Pasture. The only things hanging out there are Cactuars, Triffids... and these cute little plant babies, the Microchus and Picochus! Turns out that their prefixes, 'micro' and 'pico', are basically indicators that they're smaller versions of an adult version we'll see slightly below. But let's just say that these Ochus are very, very cool plant monsters!
And the Micro/Picochus, as much as they're annoying to deal with when they call in big mommy... they're adorable little gremlins, aren't they? A body like a nut, that cute little flower tail and little plant-sprout on its head, those eyes, that mouth, the chicken feet... They are absolutely adorable little baby chick versions of a plant monster. And then their adult forms are...
Ochu & Neochu
Yo, these guys are cool. Giant, two legged monsters with a massive maw filled with teeth, giant vine-tentacles and that gloriously bizarre set of eyes on top of the massive maw, the Ochu (and its sidequest-specific variant, Neochu) are giant plant monsters that really bring to mind some sort of hideous anglerfish or frogfish from that giant maw. I really do love just how much of a cool plant monster this is, with its body really looking like it's covered entirely in vines, moss and smaller plants, its legs looking like giant tree stumps... I dunno. I just really, really love this thing, and that cute little flower on top of its horrifying looking head just makes it so much better looking. Why is this enemy not utilized a bit more in the game? I absolutely adore it when I dicked around and tried to explore and unlock areas, and I am delighted to see this big mofo, but man, I kinda wished that they had used this model a lot more.
Far, far more interestingly to me is the fact that a trip into the Wiki tells me that the Ochu is actually a Final Fantasy staple... and is an adaptation (and Japanese transliteration) of the Otyugh, one of my favourite Dungeons & Dragons monsters!
Scrolling down a list of all Ochu appearances, it's pretty fun to see how they went from the D&D "giant maw monster with tentacles and stumpy legs" and slowly added more and more plant elements to it until the Final Fantasy Ochu got its own distinct flavour as this giant plant maw-monster with vines. Absolutely amazing, and FFXIII's Ochu is probably still one of my favourite enemy models in the game.
Strigoi & PijavicaThese two are new common enemies, but they're not too different power-level wise and design-wise from the Vampire or Varcolaci. They show up in specific sites unlocked after you progress a fair amount in the sidequests storyline, but otherwise are unremarkable. The Strigoi borrow its name from a restless vampiric spirit from Romanian mythology, and the Pijavica just means 'leech' in the Serbo-Croatian and Slovakian languages.
Bituitus, Mithridates & Geiseric
So a bunch of the sidequets in the overworld has you muck around and hunt down 'elite' versions of monsters, but when it comes to the elite Cie'th... these guys called the Undying exist. Sentient Cie'th driven by anger and hatred and are technically 'intelligent' undead. Except that there's absolutely nothing to really sell that, and not even the sidequest flavour text really manage to do so. I really wish that there was a sense of urgency or even a mini-plot or story to them.
Bituitus the Pillager is just a more elaborate Wight-type Cie'th, with three sets of wings that makes it look like a butterfly. Mithridates the Lone is basically the same model as Bituitus, but at least summoning him felt like you needed a lot of effort to basically convert Taejin's Tower into a massive music box to summon him. He's essentially still the same thing, though.
Geiseric the Profane is another 'Undying', a Ghast-variant this time around. He's a lot more impressive because of his completely unique looking face. It's hard to tell here, but that huge rock-crystal face actually has a regular, human-sized face on its forehead, covered partly with human-sized hands that act as the 'eyes' of the larger face. It's otherwise just a Ghast model with a new head, but they went through some effort to make him look creepy. All these three guys borrow names from kings who have opposed Rome at some point in their history.
Numidia & Syphax
Another set of enemies, these ones are a palette swap of the Chonchon and Penanggalan from Taejin's Tower. Not a whole ton to say here, the Numidia borrows the name from a kingdom that waged war with Rome, and Syphax is the king of one of the Numidian tribes. I did like the boss fight, around 20 or something Numidias show up and your heroes have to keep beating the Numidias down until one of them reveals itself to be the boss, the Syphax.
Amam & Zirnitra
Another random boss that's just the Managarmr model with a couple extra colours, Amam is yet another 'giant beast' named monster enemy that shows up twice as a sidequest boss. Not much to say here. Apparently, it borrows its name from the Egyptian crocodile god Ammit? A bit of a stretch, but sure.
Zirnitra (borrowing its name from the Slavic dragon god of sorcery) shows up as a mark four times and pretty late in the sidequests, and it's the most powerful among the Wyvern-type enemeis. A pretty cool, elaborate-looking head -- both its regular head and its abdomen head. Zirnitras are a bitch to take down due to its very high-damage 'feeding stoop' attack. Not much to say here design-wise, it sure is a pretty cool variation of the Wyvern.
Zenobia the Butcher & Tonberry
Zenobia isn't an actual enemy in the game, but I will include her here because of how cool the design looks. A gangly Cie'th monster with giant masses of tentacles for arms? She's set up as one of the most powerful members of the Undying, and you get an elaborate cutscene as she rises up from the ground to fight you... and then in the same cutscene she gets shanked in the leg by this adorable little motherfucker, the Tonberry, who becomes the real boss.
Tonberry's another recurring mascot in Final Fantasy, but unlike the Cactuar and Chocobo I had no idea this was a thing! Look at that adorable little play-doh person with a fish tail, stub hands, his adorable huge shoes, his googly-eyes and his little lander and his little knife! Look at how adorable it is... and then it very slowly advances towards your party members and starts shanking you over and over and deal so much damage. It's a bit of a "oh fuck the adorable thing is actually terrifying" when you fight the first Tonberry, but later on you fight three of them at the same time. An amazing experience for sure. An absolutely adorable-looking cutie and I absolutely love that he's actually one of the more hilariously dangerous enemies in the game.
Ferruginous Pudding, Corrosive Custard & Monstrous Flan
Beating up Tonberry unlocks an area called the Faultwarrens, where the giant towering stone man that's larger than mountain turns out to be the Fal'Cie Titan, and basically sets up a neat battle dungeon for you where the final leg of Cie'th sidequests are located. And you get to see a bunch of brand-new enemy variants. These three are just larger versions of the Flan-type enemies you've met earlier in the game, though. The Rust Pudding combine to become the Ferruginous Pudding ("Oxide Pudding" in Japan), which in turn become the Corrosive Custard ("Gigant Metal"). Dire Flans, meanwhile, can combine into the Monstrous Flan ("Jumbo Moose"). Cool to see that these guys have even larger versions of themselves, and I love the Flan, but otherwise ehh.
Rafflesia, Flowering Cactuar & Gigantuar
The final and most powerful version of the nudibranches, the Rafflesia (its name borrows from the gigantic corpse flower from South-East Asia) has a pretty cool and very bug-like face... but is actually not much tougher than its predecessors. Or maybe I'm just over-leveled when I meet them. Either way, I appreciate the colours and the name.
Two Cactuar variants also show up in the Faultwarrens, the Flowering Cactuar, which has a flower on its head and can cast a surprising amount of powerful elemental spells; and Gigantuar, which is a giant and also has three little nubby hairs and can unleash insane amounts of damage.
Borgbear & Borgbear Hero
Oh I get it, they turned 'Bugbear' into 'Borgbear' because these are cyborgs! The most powerful versions of the Goblin/Munchkin family, these guys are pretty cool elite versions. Borgbear isn't nparticularly all that impressive, it's just the usual Munchin/Goblin look with pale-white skin and golden cannon-club arms, but Borgbear Hero, though! Look at that elaborate Tron-Mayan crown and arm-blades! I actually like these guys a lot, they look so different and weird.
Raktavija
Raktavija is just an elite-r named version of the annoying Vetala enemy, and shows up in the Titan's Trial a couple of times. It's basically a much more powerful version of the Vetala, and borrows its name from an Asura from Hindu mythology that can duplicate itself whenever a drop of his blood touched the ground. Not much to say here.
Attacus the Soulless
Attacus the Soulless (straight up just "Sparctacus" in the original Japanese) is a slightly repainted version of Wladislaus up above, and is essentially the 'boss' of the Titan's Trials, slaying the giant Humbaba that was supposed to be your original final boss and becoming the final boss. It's no Tonberry, though, and the entrance got a bit of a m'eh from me. He basically is a tough son of a bitch with a really high defense and HP pool, and his sword gets bigger and bigger as you beat him down, but otherwise eh. This, by the way, is where I ended up clocking out of the game -- the rest of the sidequests I did while listening to podcasts and whatnot, but Attacus is just kind of annoying to fight. There's only just three stronger bigger boss fights after him anyway, and I've never been the sort of gamer to obsessively go after such insanely huge power-spiked 'bonus bosses'.
Vercingetorix
These last couple of enemies aren't ones that I've fought, but I'm including for completion's sake. Vercingetorix (borrowing its name from a chieftain of the Arverni Tribe, another Rome enemy) is the final Cie'th stone mission, and you can only fight him after clearing all the other Cie'th stone missions. It's a super-duper elite version of the Wights, and is actually the evolved form of one of the weakest members of the Undying -- Bituitus, up above. Unlike the other Undying Cie'th, Bituitus doesn't actually have his crystal 'shatter' and be freed, but instead turns into a crystal structure that transforms into this eight-winged glowing monstrosity at the end of the game. Pretty cool design for a superboss, for sure!
Shaolong Gui / Long Gui
And then one you finish the Titan's Trials, some of the Oretoises in the overworld are replaced with Shaolong Gui (Small Dragon Turtle) and Long Gui (Dragon Turtle), the ultimate bosses in the game. They are just the regular Adamanchelid/Adamantortoise enemies with a different shade, but are immensely tough. Not a whole ton to say here, though.
And... and we're done with Final Fantasy XIII! As I mentioned above, it's been kind of a fun ride even though the game isn't... it isn't the most ideal game, let's put it that way. And particularly in the middle segments a lot of the humanoid enemies got a bit repetitive. There are a lot of cool looking monsters in this game, though, and while it's not the most well-received Final Fantasy game ultimately, I do really enjoy this 'mechanized fantasy' art style. It's a bit messy and I really wish some of the monsters had a bigger presence or buildup, but oh well. I might do FFVII somewhere down the road. We shall see.
In addition to the obviously great emotions that revolve around the death of Enoch as well as the fun madcap and wink-wink-fourth-wall-leaning writing (the logo shows up twice as part of the time loop!), there are still also a couple of great moments here. The show is still extremely oblique with Fitz's fate and I feel like it's going to be a thing that will simply be saved for the final episode or something, but Elizabeth Henstridge gives us a great performance as Simmons gets an emotional breakdown when she finally remembers, but the urgency of their timeloop situation means we (or the 'restored' Simmons after the time loop) don't get to learn any of the information that she learns. Honestly, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if we learn that Fitz is dead all along or transformed into a computer or some shit, but at this point... eh. As much as the writers basically stretch the 'star crossed lovers doomed to never be together' aspect about Fitz and Simmons, I really do feel like the writers wouldn't give the two of them a 'bad ending'.
9/10, huge boost because of character.
