Splinter Cell Conviction Notes

The intro cut scene starts after  I choose Realistic difficulty.

We see a woman shoot Sam in the middle of a mission, a double crossing.
This is a flash forward as the time on the bottom of the screen tells us that this is happening 72 hours in the future.

We see a man being interrogated in a blackened room. He is talking about Sam Fisher. He tells the men that Sam gave everything for his country and it gave nothing back. Sam's daughter was killed by a drunk in a hit and run. Sam had to kill his best friend in the middle of a mission or risk blowing his cover. Sam is now disillusioned with it all and has lost himself looking for something to keep him from suicide.
This man who is being interrogated tells the men that Sam can be found in the City of Valetta. Seems that Sam has heard from sources that his daughter might have been murdered.
The camera pans down over a street to a restuarant where Sam is sitting. A waiter gives Sam a headest.
A woman from third eschelon speaks to Sam and tells him that people are coming for him. Sam is dubious and asks how third Eschelon found him.

Mission 1
We get control and are asked to look up, there is a hovering camera eye above the street.
We are told the multiple hostiles are inbound. The handler tells us to go to a nearby market stalls for more cover than the street table.
We are told to go to a waypoint 15m away. A set of white letters appears on the side of the market stall telling us to take cover here.
Taking cover is done by pressing the left trigger.
To stay in cover rather than just crouch we must hold the right trigger. While doing this if there are cover points in front of us we can press A to make Sam go to them and take cover automatically.
The handler overloads the city power grid and take out the street lights.

As this happens The scene shifts and we find ourself in a flashback.
Sam is in a house and the projector lettering is telling him to go to Sarah, his daughter.
In her room she can't sleep because she is scared of the dark. Sam tells her in his own inimitable fashion that you can see better in the dark.
We have to turn the light on and off.
Sam is telling her about bringing the mobile down on the monsters heads when there is a noise downstairs. Sam tells Sarah to stay in bed and goes back to investigate.
We are back to the present in the street.
We get to shoot up three enemies.
Right Stick when pressed in is sight mode.
Right trigger is shoot.

Now we are back in the flashback, robbers have entered the house.
Sam goes towards two of them and is surprised by another, when someone is in close quarters pressing B makes Sam do a context sensitive execute move.
He takes the dead thugs gun and we can now mark targets.
Pressing Right bumper when aimed at someone makes a red dot appear above their head.
Pressing Y makes Sam do an execute move where he takes the two of the marked targets out much quicker than the player could.
Sarah comes out of her room and sees the bodies, Sam tries to shield her but she has seen too much.

We are back in the street.
We can now progress forwards. There are more enemies. Using B to stealth kill an enemy allows you to mark targets and use the execute move.
We are now looking for the leader of the gang.
In the next part of the stree we are approaching the leader. The cover points we should use are marked for us, I suppose it is the tutorial.
I manage to screw up though as the stealth kill opportunity i thought i had sees me. This results in a gunfight. I manage to kill the bad guys and I have to chase the gang leader into a toilet.
We are no in interrogation mode.
We grab hold of the man and can shuffle around until we are near environmental object to bash him off until he tells us what we want to know.
Seems a man named Kobin hired them to kill Sam.
Kobin is the one who has Sam's daughter killed.

Mission 2
Sam is going after Kobin, his mansion is huge and built like a fortress with heavily armed guards.
We get control of Sam in the street around the mansion.
He takes the mirror off his car to use as a gadget.
We go out into the street and there seems to be nothing stopping us from walking right up to the mansion's walls.
I climb over a wall and drop onto a guard killing him. This earns me an execute kill which I use to take out the two guards on the main gate.
I climb up a drainpipe and pull another guard out of the window from the ledge and drop him to his death.
Inside the mansion there is a central lobby and balconies and rooms above it. We find ourself on the second floor with lots of guards. I take them out as stealthily as i can, howver when the bodies are found some guards start searching for me.
I manage to kill all the guards and progress to the next area.
When you are spotted in cover a ghost of you appears. This is your last known position, if you move away from it without being seen the enemy continue to converge on that position. This allows you to flank and move to intercept them.
Between areas you come to equipment stations. You earn points for kills and stealth kills. You can spend these points upgrading your weapons.
In the next area there is an environmental trap, shooting a large hanging piece of arts chain brings it down killing a few enemies standing guard under it.
The next room is filled with guards and many places to hide. There are also pipes running around the ceiling for us to attack from above or to move around unseen.
Putting out the lights is given great emphasis.
The next area is a large office/bar area. We can hang around on the ledges surrounding the room and take pot shots at the guards.
I go in and take out all the guards.
I then get to interrogate Kobin. He tells us nothing, more scared of someone else than Sam. It is a trap designed to lure Sam, suddenly the room is filling with heavily armed swat team members. Held at gunpoint with Kobin as a hostage Sam is told to surrender.
He is shot with a tranquiliser dart and Kobin kicks him in the head when he is down.

Mission 3
We see sam being taken to a plane and flown back to America. He is taken to a secret hangar somewhere in the Blue Ridge mountains.
There are a few men present here, Prentice, Robertson and Ried who is the new director of third Eschelon. Anna Grim is here, she is the handler voice we have been hearing.
It seems Reid wanted Sam brought in to find out something he knows about EMP's. Anna  is working as a mole inside third eschelon which seems is being used for something dishonest behind the president's back. It may be Reid who is the bad guy here.
When Reid and the rest leave they leave Anna with the task of interrogating Sam. She shoots the guard left with them and tells Sam that his daughter is alive.
Anna tells Sam that her people have Sarah and that if he helps them he will see her alive again.
Sam hits her to make it look like he escaped, and also because he wants to.
She gives us a snake cam and tells us where to get C4. Anna gives us the keys to her car and tells us to get out of the compound.
We go forward and kill a few men to get the C4. Anna tells us that a chopper will blow our car off the road before we get far. We have to disable the chopper before making our escape.
We enter the hanager and take out the guards as messily or as cleanly as we can.
Our next objective is to disable the base power supply.
After that we are tasked with planting c4 on the base satellite dish.
Now we have to lock posts in place at the gate to prevent cars following us.
In cut scene we see same get to Anna's car and trigger the C4 blowing up the dish and helicopter.

Mission 4
Sam calls someone named Vic Costa and asks for help. Seems that Sam and Vic go way back. We see a flashback of Sam, Vic and a few other soldiers on a road in Iraq, presumably during the first gulf war twenty years ago.
The squad are joking around until one of them steps on a landmine.
The enemy arrive and take Vic away leaving Sam for dead.
Sam wakes up, he is told over the radio to wait for evacuation, howver he goes off looking for Vic.
This feels to me like more of a straight forward shooter level. We have an AK47 and a whole lot of enemies to get through.
We progress along the road until we reach a base, through the base with heavy fighting.
I have to say as a first person shooter the game isn't bad.
Through the first base we come to another.
This base is much more heavily guarded, I tired stealth but it seems impossible to get some of the guards by stealth as they are facing each other too closely.
We progress through the base which seems to be an old school. Eventually we come to the place where the person we are rescuing is. The twist here is that we have been playing as Vic, Sam is the one being tortured. After saving him we have a last stand type scene where Vic and Sam are pinned down by mounting numbers of soldiers. There are lots of exploding barrels to shoot and eventually when the time runs out USA planes fly over and bomb the enemies saving the day.

Mission 5
Sam is meeting up with Vic in the present. It seems to be a crowded funfair that they have arranged to meet in.
We are told that Vic is being tailed in the hope of them finding Sam. We are tasked with killing off the tails without any members of the public seeing.
Three markers appear for the tails and we have to sneak up on each one and interrogate them before killing them.
After this is done we meet Vic at the Washington monument base.
He tells us about a civilian contractor named Whitebox which has been working on EMP tech Vic thinks that Reid is working with Black Arrow to do something nasty with this EMP tech. Vic gives sam some new gizmos. A portable EMP which will knock out anything electric in a small area around Sam.We now have to escape the fair as it is evacuated and filled with swat team members. This is a fun sneak fest around the fair taking out enemies as able. There are some nice sneaking around points which let you run rings around the enemies. Lots of stealth kills then using the execute function to take out the groups you can't sneak past.
Eventually I get back to the car and escape.

Mission 6
A flashforward again and it seems that Anna has betrayed us, she is holding Sam at gunpoint and urging him along a corridor.
back in the present Sam is heading for the Whitebox building to see what he can shake loose from a visit.
The way in is by clambering up the side of the building in a very Uncharted like fashion. There is an air exchanger high on the side of the building which gets us in.
We then climb down through the buildings duct system and into the security system control room.
Inside the control room we can use the security cameras to listen in the the scientists.
They are talking about the buyout by someone named Gallagher?
Another group are talking about the results of the EMP gear.
The last camera shows a bad guy, possibly Robertson, holding scientists working on a huge bomb type device at gunpoint. He shoots one of the scientists who backchat him just to show he is a badguy. He then takes a female scientist away, presumably to rape her. We have to rescue the scientist.
I take out the group of enemies and get to question a scientist. He tells us that they are working on EMP countermeasure equipment for Darpa. Robertson has all the data kept to himself, which also means that the individual groups of scientists don't know exactly what is being made here. The scientist lets Sam into an elevator using his passcard.
When the elevator doors open we find lots of shot up scientist either dead or dying.
We get a sticky camera here which we can use to see where we aren't and also mark targets.
The scientist as being killed in what looks a coverup of what was going on here. We are heading for Robertson in hsi office.
Anna calls and lets us speak with sarah, Anna wants the data from the whitebox emp project.
I make it into Robertsons empty office. We are told that we will need a good five minutes to get all the data and we will have to defend the link while it is working.
Basically we are in a smallish room and will have to stay alive through waves of enemies.
After this is accomplished, by the way it's hard as hell. Use the box of grenade refills in the middle of the room and try and lob one through the doors they come through, of course at the end they come through all doors at once.
We have now to stop a trace that is finding Anna. Setting off the EMP bomb inside the building will do the trick.
We have to make our way down to it.
At the bomb we are ambushed.
We have too fight to the controls to set it off then fight to get out of the building.
Anna is interested in Galliard's names, she knows that he is someone who deals with Reed.

Mission 7
Reed is up to something at the Washington monument, he is meeting someone there and Anna wants us to try and record the conversation.
There are television crews there and it may be possible to hack their equipment and use it to record the conversation.
This looks like another large real world type environment.
I make my way unhindred to the tv control booth which is handily empty. Hacking seems to be done with one button press these days and Sam is in control of the cameras. We have to watch the scene in the distance using the three cameras and keep the speakers centred.
Galliard and Lucien meet and discuss plans, without actually giving too much away. Something is going to be happening in Paris it seems. Blackarrow have disappointed them both. Fisher is mentioned. There is also a mention of the overall controller of the operation, someone named Maghito.
Anna tells us that we have to interrogate Galliard. Galliard is the senator type from the conversation. Anna calls him up and stalls him while we sneak up.
The usual interrogation technique which is to beat the person within an inch of their life is employed.
Galliard tells us that Maghito is in control of the world. The EMP's are set up in washington, 3 of them. In a few hours they will be set of and after that Reed has something planned in the powerless aftermath.
As Galliard is about to tell us too much he is shot by a man in police uniform.
We then have to chase him through the enviroment.
Police get in our way and we have to knock them down with melee without killing them.
The chase is long and filled with people running around screaming as the man takes pot shots at Sam. There is a bit of quick jumping and climbing. The man eventually gets to a car on the main road and as he does it explodes when he starts it.
have to say the you can talk all you want about interactive movies, but that chase sequence was one of the best bits of cinematic style gameplay I have ever played.
We are told by Anna that Third Eschelon are on their way and the normal police have been pulled back. We have to hold out until the agents sent to extract us arrive.
We have a cafe to hide in to survive a few waves of enemies.
Once done a car arrives for us to get in and get away.

We see another Flashforward, Anna is leading Sam into the oval office and Reed has the president at gunpoint. Sam is made to kneel in front of Reed.

Mission 8
Sam is going after Reed in the third Eschelon headquarters.
We have to get into the transformer room without detection and we are back to strict old school stealth game rules. Moving cameras with light cones. Guards that once they have seen you end the game.
Killing a guard isn't an option either as their bodies can be seen by cameras or other guards and the alarm sounded.
I manage to plant the C4 in two plant rooms then get to the eleavator. In the elevator Sam has a guilt trip about killing his friend in the line of duty. We come out of the elevator into a reception hall and are told to go up to the desk. Do you mean to say that I have snuck around in the basement only to walk up to the desk once I get in?
Oh it's meant to be a cool moment. Sam walks up to the oblivious receptionist and asks to speak with Reed. He is told to make an appointment, Sam blows the C4 and the building goes into red alert. However he is inside locked in now rather than outside locked out. Why would a super secret organisation have a receptionist and huge foyer anyway?
We now have to get past guards into the secure area before lockdown doors cut us off.
I am sick of this bit already, each time I fail to get into the doors in the time limit I have to talk to the receptionist again, without a skip option.
I eventually make it, not before what was a nice moment became a nightmare of repetiton.
Now we have to meet Anna's contact Fryman in the server office.
I work my way through the office cubicles taking out the guards.
Eventually I make it to the server office and meet Fryman.
He gives me night vision sonar goggles that can see people through walls and in the dark.
I then have to go back the way we came to Reed's office.
There are invisible security beams of light here that we can see with the goggles.
We basically have to pick out a path amongst the confusing view given by the goggles.
In Reed's office we find Kobin. He tells us that Reed is working with Maghito to set off the EMP devices and in the confusion to take out the President.
Anna tells us to go to her office. We have to negotiate another maze of light beams.
After a few rooms full of guards we get to Anna's office.
She tells us that Lambert was the one who faked Sarah's death. Lambert thought there was a mole in Third Eschelon. He wanted Sam to be clear of any baggage that could be used against him. To this end he took Sarah out of the picture by faking her death.
Lambert is the best friend of Sam who he shot in the last game to keep his cover.
Grim tells Sam that the three EMP's will go off, they can't stop it.
However they know where one is and task him with going to stop it.
Anna tells Sam that his daughter lives near the blast. I am not sure why this is relevant as I didn't know an EMP would harm humans??
Anyway Sam has a strop then knuckles down to go and stop the EMP.
Anna tells Sam that she is going to try and stop Reed from killing the president.
We now have an altered gameplay sequence where we have to escape the building before it blows. We get unlimited executes which basically means we just press y when we see an enemy to shoot them in the quickest fashion possible. We use this to run through the building and get to the lift and escape before the whole place goes up.
Vic Coste tells us in voiceover that he is going to go and rescue Sarah, while Sam goes to stop the emp bomb.

Mission 9
We arrive at the site of the EMP bomb to find Blackarrow security in heavy numbers.
Making our way through the factory we eventually find and rescue the scientist taken from Whitebox earlier. She tells us that the EMP is being charged by two generators. However if we shut down one generator the resultant mix up will fire the EMP. We have to cut the power to both generators simultaneously.
Vic is going to come in with a helicopter and blast the generators, we have to find them and tag them for him.
I make my way through some nice set pieces with lots of guards in outdoor factory areas.
The first generator is tagged. On the way to the second A helicopter starts to make things hard for Sam.
Once the generator is tagged Vic comes in with a helicopter and shoots down the enemy helicopter and blows both generators at once. We then get to see a scene where Sam and Sarah are reunited.
This does not last long as they are now on the way to save Anna and stop the president from being assassinated by Reed.
We see the EMP pulses take out the power to the city and start fires all over the place.
On the way to the Whitehouse the chopper is shot down by a surface to air missile.
Everyone survives, Vic will help Sarah get to safety and Sam goes on to the Whitehouse.

Mission 10
We go through the theatre that the helicopter crashed into and out into the streets. Where we fight some black arrow men.
Eventually we get through their outer perimeter and arrive at the Whitehouse.
Reed is using Black Arrow to assault the Whitehouse. If he manages to kill the president before the Army arrive then he will say that Black Arrow are helping to guard the whitehouse. If the Army arrive before he kills the president then Reed will blame Black Arrow and let them fight it out.
We now have to get into the Whitehouse through heavy Black arrow resistance.
Blowing up a handily placed tanker at the gates gets us in. We then meet heavy resistance and sneaking is not much of an option compared to full frontal shoot em up action.
We make our way up to the Whitehouse and inside through a side door.

Mission 11
Inside the Whitehouse it is third Eschelon soldiers versus secret service. Looks like the third Eschelon are winning. Sam now has to find his way to the President.
We fight our way through the Whitehouse room by room.
We are told that the man Reed hopes will be made President is being kept nearby. We go and kill his guards then brutalise him.
Making our way through we get a cut scene Showing Reed and Anna getting into the Oval office.
We then fight our way through the enemies until we come to a room where lots of black arrow are fighting secret service.
In the Press room we meet up with Anna. As all the flashforwards have shown this is where she is going to double cross us. However it turns out that she isn't.
The plan is to tie up Sam and lead him to Reed only to surprise attack him together.
We get into the oval office and mark all the soldiers. Then Anna and Sam Take them out.
The president is greatful. She leaves with the Army who turn up to rescue her.
Then we get to beat up Reed. We get the option to kill him or not. I don't and Anna does it for me.
Sam walks out again quitting. Anna asks him to help take down Maghito.
We see Vic Coste being interrogated as we did at the start of the game. He seems to be waiting for Sam to come and rescue him, and on cue there is an explosion and his guardss rush out of the room to see what is going on leaving him smiling at the camera.

Credits Roll.
Took around 10 hours on realistic. 330 achievement points.

I play out the last level again and this time kill Reed for the achievement.

Final Fantasy XIII Notes

One big gripe about this game is it's insistence on making you press buttons to do everything. Choose save location, press a random button to even start the game loading. Once a loading screen is done you press A to continue, you have to pay attention to the loading screen or you wait longer than you have to. Why oh why?
There are ten A button presses that the game pauses at before you can play.

Lush canyons with pterodactyl type birds.
Cities by the sea, huge and futuristic.
Lightning with a gun and armed soldiers facing each other down.
A dark underground techno tunnel
The city interior, a woman in robes.
All the heroes riding a bird.
seems that these are random impressive scenes from the game over the credits.
Ok nice titles, lets have some game.
Logos
I get to choose new game etc.
Straight into it, there seems to be no difficulty setting here.
The thirteen days after we awoke were the beginning of the end a female voice tells us.
A train runs through lush mountains on a monorail type system.
Inside are people in robes and armed guards patrol
Two of the heroes are posing as robed figures.
Lightning springs into action and takes out a lot of guards with guns and a force field type protective weapon.
The train enters the city and there are flying ships fighting and attacking.
Lightning blows one up with a rocket launcher.
Huge robot dogs are being brought in by wormhole type rings.
The defenders look outclassed.
The train is stopped by a mech and the screen faded and loading appears. The two heroes, lightning and Sazh are faced by one of the giant mechs.
The tutorial asks us if we want it, I choose to be tutored.
We have a time gauge which fills during the battle. We can queue up commands which will be performed in sequence. For the first battle we are told to choose auto battle which I presume chooses the best moves.
Two attack commands are queued. We are now told to select the enemy we want to attack. I have to use the dpad to select which enemy and A to confirm. Of course there is only one enemy here.
We are told that we only control Lightning Sazh will do his own thing.
I do a few rounds and then we get a cut scene where the machine knocks the train carriages around and we find that Sazh is the comedy relief with a chocobo chick living in his hair.
Sazh asks lighting why she is trying to stop the purge, and asks if she is sanctum, seems Lightning might be a defector from the camp that is attacking.
We get to choose camera controls. The we are told about our datalog which is our inventory and control screen.
I get control of Lightning and walk forward along the narrow path we are on. There is an icon floating and selecting it with A we find it is a save point and shop.
I buy some potions, the only other item is a revive party member phoenix down.
I move forward and some soliders can be seen in the distance. We are told that contact with an enemy will iniate a battle.
The two soldiers are easy kills. I come to an obstacle and Lightning automatically jumps around over it.
A floating orb seems to be a treasure chest and gives me a potion.
We come to a point and a cut scene shows soldiers up ahead with a device that mutates into two mech dogs.
Lightning says something about it being better to die than be sent to Pulse.
I fight the guard and his two pantherons as they are called.
Another save point.
Lightning seems to have two moves so far, attack which basically uses her blade to attack and blitz is a more wild swinging move which can harm a few enemies if they are close together.
We come to another set of soliders and a tutorial starts telling us about item usage. We can scroll down to items and the use them in battle instead of an attack move for that time unit.
Lightning seems to be the most important character in the battle as even if the rest of the party have full health she will end the game if she is knocked out.
After the battle a cut scene shows the road ahead being blown up. Lightning seems to be about to use her force field to bridge the gap and leave Sazh, he grabs her and it seems uses up her power for the device, she seems angry at him.
There is a moving device coming towards them and Sazh tells Lightning that they can use that instead.
We go to the end of a bridge and use a gadget like a lift which floats to the new area.
On the other side we come to a bigger enemy who attacks first.
We get a tutorial on attack chains and staggering enemies, When we attack a single target a chain gauge fills, once it is full we stagger  the enemy, in this state they take  more damage from our attacks. this state only lasts for a set time however.
A cut scene sees Sazh ask Lightning what her angle is, he tells her she is after the falcie, whatever that may be. Lightning moves the bridge.
The scene shifts to a group of citizens under siege by heavy fire. Propaganda is blaring from a speaker and tells of the people being migrated, however it looks more like extermination than migration.
Snow gives a pep talk to a young defender. We then move through the area filled with despondent citizens to the barriacdes up ahead.
Snow tells the audience that the enemies are cocoon sanctum the psi corp no less.
Now our party consists of Snow and two others, Gadot and Lebreau.
We progress through some enemies and then come to a bunch of civilians, Snow tells them that he will get them out of here. They insist on helping in the fight. Snow arms the volunteers. A woman joins the fight leaving her son with the group.
Guess who is going to die and leave an orphan soon.
We progress through some more soldiers.
In cut scene a large ship appears and starts to mow down the gang. Snow tries to reach a rocket launcher but falls on his ass. The mother saves his bacon.
Only to see the bridge they are standing on cut in half, most of the civilians are pitched off into the abyss and the mother is hurt. Snow is left holding onto her over the abyss. She tasks him with looking after her son and falls. Then Snow falls after her. We see the boy and a girl watch them fall then move on as soldiers come for them.

Lightning tells Sazh that the purge which seems to be to do with some kind of contamination from Pulse. Seems that the cocoon citizens are so afraid of Pulse that any contact with it taints them. Psi comm are basically carrying out a military order to exile the civilians to pulse as the are contaminated. However psicomm is just killing them as it's easier.
Lightning makes a distinction between herself being psicomm and actually being guardian core as if this makes any difference and Sazh asks as much.
Another flying large robot attacks.
Then we see a huge area of the roof opening up.
A huge flying ornament appears surrounded by smaller ships.
Sazh calls it the pulse falcie.
We see the orphan and his female friend, they take off their robes. The girl seems madder than a hatter. She runs off and the boy follows.
Back to Lightning and Sazh, Lightning jumps from the moving bridge,and lands using her force field, Sazh follows.
Snow is pissed of and seems to be looking for the orphan.
We battle a few more troops and then come to some flying bike type vehicles, Snow and pal get on them and ride.
Snow goes back to the rest of the gang and muses that if he does not know who he has to protect then he has to protect them all.
The boy is there though so he can forget them.
The boy has to tell him something, but is too shy, Snow goes of to collect someone and gets ribbed about his romance.
The boy is called Hope and the girl Vanille, I am now controlling them.
They get on the bike and go towards the huge ornament, Hope warns Vanille that it could make them Lasea or however you spell it.
The Pulse Falsea.
Hope and Vanille crashland on it.
Fal'Cie is how you spell it.
They start looking around in cutscene and a pantheron attacks.
We get to explore this fairly squared off environment, some new robots called zwerg scandorids to fight and more pantherons.
We are taught here about sneaking up behind enemies for a pre-emptive strike bonus.
A cut scene shows that vanille is not afraid of Pulse which Hope describes as hell on Earth. Are we even on Earth.
Snow is looking for Sarah. He is in a large staircase type area, we fight some pantherons and then flick a switch which makes the whole escher nightmare move around. I hope they don't make a maze out of this as the world building blocks are too similar and it will be a nightmare.
We switch to lightning and Sazh who are stuck behind a door. Lighting tells Sazh to cover his ears and apologises to the door, then it lets her through??
We are taught about shrouds
Fortisol and Aegisol bestow bonuses at the start of battle.
Deceptisol shileds the party from detection.
Pressing LB while moving around brings up the shroud menu and we can select them with the Dpad.
I use deceptisol and get into the middle of a group of Pantherons before triggering the battle, this sees us get in some free damage on all of the enemies before the battle starts.
We progress up some stairs and landings with Lightning and Sazh, they comment that any humans in here will have become Pulse La'Cie by now and that they will have to show them no mercy. Looks like Snow will be classed like this when they meet him.
Snow is further along the stair path.
We trigger a platform lift and Snow actually says "Hang on baby your heroes on the way." Wow.
back with Vanille and Hope, Snows button pressing has opened a door for them.
We progress to a large raised dias in the middle of a crossroads and then some shambly zombie type mutated things arrive. Vanille mutters something about pulses and la'Cie and Fal'Cie that will take a little more explaining than that.
Snow arrives to help fight with them as they are outnumbered.
Snow tells them to wait after the rather easy fight and says that he is off after his future wife named sarah. Hope still can't get his message out because he's a twat. He is also angry with snow because he she is La'Cie or Fal'cie. Snow ignores him and goes off again.
Then Snow thinks better off it and comes back. Something happened with Snow on a train that has triggered all of this.
Back to Lightning
The Fal'cie seems to be a controlling body, becoming La'Cie seems to be what happen when you are cursed by the Fal'Cie you are given a job to do by it. If they don't do the job then they become a zombie, even if they do the job they get another one.
Lightnings sister is a la'Cie now and she wants to save her, Sazh tells her that she can't and she tells Sazh that he is as evil as the Psicomm and why not purge/execute everyone.
We fight some more ghouls and a large one called a ghast.
Then progress along a long corridor chock full of battles.
Sarah turns out to be Lightning's sister. She is lying out on a landing like someone has misplaced her. Sazh is a bit trigger happy about it all and Lightning just wants to help her sister.
Snow turns up with Hope and vanille. Lightning and Snow immediately start to argue.
Sarah tasks them both with saving Cocoon, that seems to have been her task from the Fal'Cie as she completes her focus and turns into a crystal statue.
Not the best reward I would have thought but apparently she now has eternal life according to the legends.
Lightning does not believe these legends and obviously thinks that Sarah is dead. She decks Snow for his belief in the legend. The Psi comm turn up to make things worse by attacking the Pulse Vestige, or ornament as I called it.
Inside things are a bit wrecked and a door with the Fal'Cie symbol on it opens. Snow goes through.
We find a machine inside a covering. Snow beg for Sarah to be restored and it falls on deaf ears. Lightning starts hitting it then the machine opens up. We now have our first boss fight.
The crystal heart is protected by two robot arms, taking out the arms allows unimpeeded access to the heart and I take it down without much trouble.
After the fight the gang find themselves floating in a crystal filled void, there is a huge robotic Satan like figure, I assume that this is the Fal'Cie. It sees them floating in it's void filled with machines and symbols. The Fal'Cie grabs them with beams of light and brands them all, I assume that they are now all La'Cie and have a focus to complete.
The ornament sends out a huge shockwave which wrecks a good portion of the city and plunges it and itself into the sea far below, the sea then freezes or turns to crystal.
Now a flashback for Snow. Where he proposes to Serah as I see that is how you spell her name. They take a ride and talk about having the courage to tell Lightning that Serah is La'Cie now.

Lake Bresha Cocoon Lowlands.
The gang finds themselve on the crystal lake.
fairly quickly before they can bicker to much they are attacked by Ghast.
Now we get some new abilities. The Paradigms.
We can change the rols of party members depending on Paradigms.
We have a deck which we can access with Left bumper.
When I press Left bumper we have options like relentless assault and solidarity
These selections change each persons behaviour, making them a commmando or ravager etc.
Choosing Solidarity makes Vanille a healer automatically.
Back in the cut scene Hope whines as usual. They are all now La'Cie.
Oh it's L'Cie.
We can now improve our powers, the crystarium, This is basically the skill tree section. We get to choose classes and then move up the skill tree.
I get to unlock a branch or crystal which gives lightning greater strength.
I upgrade everyones abilities.
I fight some monsters.
Snow thinks that they have to save cocoon and defeat Ragnarok. Sazh thinks that Fal'Cie are the enemies of cocoon. It's a conflict of interest, it seems.
Enemies turn up and we fight them.
They are quickly dispatched.
There are a lot of fish monsters, pantherons and soldiers to fight before the next cut scene.
The gang come upon Serah and she is now stuck into the crystal of the sea.
Everyone wants to dig her out except Lightning, Lightning throws a wobbly and hits Snow a few times just for the fun of it. Well he was being a bit of an idiot. How were they going to get anywhere lugging around a few tons of crystal statue.
A huge robotic beastie turns up to fight.
Another tutorial here,
The monster has lots of HP and we will have to stagger it to cause any real damage.
We are told that the relentless assault paradigm will help here.
This will mean that we won't have a healer. We have to switch to the solidarity paradigm when health gets low to get our health back up and quickly back to relentless assault.
Basically we have to juggle a healing mode with an all out attack mode and keep the stagger gauge up high so as to be doing the most damage.
Lightning takes another set of jabs at the relentlessly stupid Snow. They seem to decide by the Snow is going to go his own way. Hope still can't tell Snow what he wants to tell him.
More monsters to fight.
I come to an area with a dead end. There is a fighter stuck in the crystal nearby.
Going to the fighter and examining it makes it shoot and blow open the way.
We come across the bridge and meet an alpha behemoth. A tutorial tells us about technical points. A new menu has appeard on the battle menu called abilites.
These abilites are character specific. The first one lightning has is a scan ability the reveals the weakness of an enemy and sets the allies to use attacks that exploit the weakness.
We come to a large ship and lots of soldiers. Looks like an alternative way needs to be found. From what I can gather of the conversation here, the sanctum or whoever is in charge of the human government eradicates in the name of exile anyone who comes into contact with Pulse agencies, be it Fal'Cie or L'Cie. Cocoon i presume is the name of he entire planet. So our heroes are given a task from Pulse to save the planet, yet most humans think the planet needs saving from pulse.
Some new enemies here called watchdrones and a velocycle.
I come to some large gates called the gates of antiquity and we have a few fights with soldiers and ravagers.
We come to a large courtyard and vanille is chased by a pterodactyl type bird with teeth in it's ass. I fight it and it seems easy, however on wearing its energy down the first time I get a cut scene where the bird flies off. Lightning says that it is off to charge up. She follows it and we have to fight it again.
I do so and it's hard to fight here but not that much of a challenge.
The synergist role and saboteur role becomes available to some of my party.
I can tinker with my Pardigms and make party members behave as I want them to in battle.
The gang find a vehicle, there appears to be a small bird watching them.
back to Snow still hacking at his crystal girl.
Soldiers arrive en masse and attack him. We fight a few and after the battle he collapses exhausted in front of another regiment of soldiers.
From behind two female creatures arrive and kill the soldiers. They then start to fight Snow.
A tutorial tells us that this is an eidolon encounter. We have to perform in a specific way for the eidolon to like us, it will then become our ally. These two need snow to stand there and take their punishment only using defensive moves. If we don't do the right things the gestalt bar won't rise and if the bar isn't at the top by the time a timer runs out we die.
I manage it and the two women combine into a motorcycle the Snow jumps on.
A woman turns up and seems to be working with the solders, she captures the exhausted Snow.
He is taken along with Serah, the mystery woman is L'Cie also.

Back with the gang and they are flying away in their ship, it's not long before they come under heavy fire. Sazh shows a good set of flying skills.

In a moment of peace a news broadcast tells of the purge going well, which I don't think is actually true at all, which suggests the sanctum lies to and murders it's own citizens. The leader of Sanctum is named the Primark, I missed his actual name.
There is talk of pulse aggression and maintainence of the peace that has held since the war of transgression.
The gangs peace isn't long lived and the fighters are back on their tail.
They fly into clouds and come upon the sanctum Fal'Cie which is a huge floating structure with lighting at the bottom. They try and lose the pursurers again and fail, getting his by lightning the ship plumets towards the ground.

The vile peaks
Cocoon deadlands
The gang can obviously survive crashes from high altitudes without any explanation as we get up from the burning wreckage  and are straight into a fight with pantherons.
Vanille and Sazh are tired and Lightning won't wait. Hope goes after her. We are left in control of Sazh and Vanille.
We go a few paces and a bridge is knocked over in front of us by falling machinery.
A flashback scene is triggered and we are now with Vanille and Lightning at the same fireworks display that Snow and Serah were at.

Lightning talks to a superior, they talk about an incident that is pulse related. He tells her she is due for a promotion.

Back to the present and Hope catches up with Lightning.
We are taught about the synergists role. Synergist are support characters who enhance and strenghten other characters and themselves.
He can use protect and shell which reduces that parties damage and magic effects.
We fight some more monsters, there are a lot more paradigms now and setting each character to a role changes their default attacks totally.
I meet a new enemy called a pulsework soldier.
This area is supposed to be a junk yard used in the construction of cocoon.

Lightning explains to Hope that there are two arms to the military, Guardian corp and Psicomm. Hope asks why she got on the train, Lightning tells him that it was for Serah and this triggers a flashback.
There are psicomm soldiers loading civilians into the train to take them to the purge, some try and run and are shot. Lightning asks to join the line and is told she can't because she is Guardian corp. She quits and joins the line, Sazh talks to her in the line. She wants to save sarah before they move the Pulse Vestige to the hanging edge.
Lightning leaves Hope behind, can't say I blame her.

We switch to Sazh and Vanille. Sazh is now able to be a synergist.
We are told about enemies fighting each other and how we can uses this to our advantage.
I come across a fight with watchdrones and pulse workers. I attack the watchdrones, which might have been the bad move as it takes ages for Sazh and Vanille to wear down the pulse robot on it's own.
I come to a machine which moves a piece of heavy equipment out of the way for us to progress.
I find watchdrones and pantherons attacking a pulse robot and find that you must take out the groups in the right order to prevent them attacking you on mass. The smallest to the biggest really. Except when you have two large enemies then it pays to take out one of them then the smaller ones.
We come across Hope who whines some more.
Hope is now blaming Snow for his mothers death and thinks his father does not care about him. Sazh takes this bad, so it seems he has a son somewhere.
Using his mechanical abilities in cut scene sazh moves the machines and allows us to go up where Lightning went.
We meet monsters names incubuses and succubuses.
Lighting Joins the group again with a grumpy sulk.
Sazh makes a bridge open up by switching a switch.
We come across a large dreadnought boss. It's a two stage battle after wearing it's health down the first time it knocks a hole in the floor and the gang fall through. We then fight it inside the hole.
A little bit of chat reveals that not much is known about Pulse at all.
We are told we can now upgrade equipment.
We can now use all the junk which we have been collecting to upgrade our weapons. Applying parts of the random junk upgrades a little or a lot depending on the weapon and the piece of junk.
Lightning wants to take the fight to Sanctum. Eden Fal'Cie is Lightnings target, she thinks it ordered the purge. Lightning is alone in this desire and Sazh thinks that she's nuts. Hope goes off to join her and Vanille and Sazh are left alone.
Some soldiers arrive and we have to fight them. Sazh and Vanille leave the area to avoid the soldiers.
We have a cut scene where Hope makes one of the broken down dreadnoughts come alive under his control, he uses it to smash down a bridge to the next area.
We then get to control the beastie as we walk through a few areas, we can smash and scatter large groups of pulse robots as we do.
We make our way through a lot more fighting with psicomm soldiers.
Then as we come to a bridge Lightning finally gets sick of Hope. As she does her L'Cie tattoo glows red and an eidolon is summoned to fight them.
This large warrior seems to be impressed by the two of them working together using the dualcasting paradigm.
It turns into a horse which Lightning gets on top of when we win.
Lightning has learned her lesson and tells Hope to come with her.
We come to another fight.
A tutorial on Gestalt mode. This allows us to summon the eidolon to fight with.
We can trigger it to attack where we get a whole bunch of moves which are triggered by pressing button comibnations.
In cut scene Lightning lets Hope rest, in his sleep he calls her mom and she tells him not by a long shot.
Now we are back with Sazh and Vanille, who are in a factory level from any game ever.
There are geometric shaped robots here called bombs. little robots with wings called gremlins.
I come to an area with a large tower in thhe middle. There are four switches around the outside. The machine activates and opens a door to progress.
A strange cut scene shows Sazh and Vanille settling down for the night. Vanille makes a bed and then draws a line and tells Sazh not to cross it. She then cries in her sleep.
We see snow aboard a ship which docks with a huge flying battleship type affair.

The Lindblum
Sanctum Guardian corp.
Snow is brought aboard as is Sarah. We meet Cid Raines Brigadier general of the fleet.
He has plans to publically execute Snow and the other L'Cie fugitives.
Though he seems to understand that while the public fear Pulse the fear is of the unknown. Cid seems to want to know more about Pulse before purging all traces of it.
Another flashback to Serah and Snow, Serah wants to break up with Snow, because of her being branded L'Cie. Snow talks her out of it, and asks her what is wrong. She shows him the pulse brand and Snow is shocked and Serah runs off. We get control of Snow.
There is no fighting here we just get to walk around a bit and find Serah.
In cut scene Snow tells her that he will help her with her focus.

I am told to insert disc 2

A cut scene shows Hope and Lightning entering a crystal filled area.
Hope wants to take point and Lightning lets him.
Here we find frag leaches.
Lightning gives Hope one of her weapons, Hope thanks her for giving him a chance to follow her.
There is an elevator to use.
Monsters named Vespids
A cut scene shows that the psicomm bosses are keeping the fact the there are L'cie on the loose a secret.
Up in another elevator.
After many battles we come to a cut scene, Hope wonders how the others are doing. Lightning thinks they will have been caught. Hope asks about Snow, Lightning reveals that she hates him and his gang.
We come to an area where lightning explains that they are turning wildlife into weapons.
The area is divided up into pens with force fields seperating them. We have to kill the animals to lower the forcefields.
Silver lobo's, crawlers, feral behemoth's
A cut scene shows Lightning trying to get to the bottom of Hope's problem with Snow.
Hope reveals that he blames snow for her death. He also wants to kill Snow and is using Lightning to train for the day when he can kill him.
After another few battles the duo come to a plants obscuring the way, in cut scene Lightning uses her blade to cut it down. Hope asks if he can use one of the blades. Lightning says that it is too heavy for him. Hope looks at his little knife that she gave him in disappointment.
A flashback shows Serah and Snow telling Lightning that she is L'Cie. Lightning reacts badly and Serah runs off. Snow and Lightning argue and he storms off after Serah. Lightning is left alone with the gift she was going to give her for her birthday, it is the knife she just gave to Hope.
Lightning sees a broadcast which tells of a Pulse Fal'Cie being found in Bhodum. She obviously thought that Snow and Serah were lying about the L'Cie business and now knows that it was probably real.
Back to the present for more grinding battles.
We come to some soldiers bodies. Hope says that they can't just leave them like this, although he has killed lots of similar enemies.
Lightning tells him that he must be cold in a lot more words than that.
They then talk of revenge, and Lightning points out that the sanctum killed his mother not Snow. Hope then tells her that he will fight the sanctum too.
The sanctum soldiers we meet now are better fighters than the first lot we met.
There are velocycles here too.
Eventually we go up on a lift and encounter a flower turtle boss battle.
Finally we are out of this repetitive crystal tree environment.
We come out onto a beach. In the distance is Hope's home town.
Lightning tells him the he should tell his father what is happening.

The scene switches to the Lindblum again, Snow is approached by the unnamed woman and she tells him that they are going to hunt L'Cie.
Snow asks his blue crystal what to do. There is a flashback of Snow and Serah fleeing Bodhum chased by sanctum troops. Snow takes a bike and rides it to the large sword like structure which looms over Bodhum, is this the Bodhum Fal'Cie? Snow tells us seconds later that it is. Serah is taken inside the Fal'Cie by liquid silver trendils.
Snow sets off looking for L'Cie.

We are now with Sazh and Vanille in a forest.
Sazh thought that they were heading somewhere in particular, however Vanille only wants to go where it smells nice.
Sazh and Vanille discuss what to do next and they decide to go in the opposite direction to somewhere named Nautilis.
The monsters here are flandragora, hedge frogs, and gremlins.
Vanille asks sazh about his family, he reveals he has a son and an ex-wife.
Vanille asks Sazh what his sons name is and the scene fades out to flashback.
We see Sazh in Bodhum with his son at the fireworks, his son wishes that his father would cheer up and he does, A woman walks up and smiles at the father and son, is this Sazh's wife?
We are given a tutorial that suggests that some enemies might be too strong for just a two man party. We are told that it's ok to avoid some battles.
I take on the scalebeasts here and though they are hard I manage to take them all down.
I progress through the area fighting gremlins and scalebeasts until a cut scene.
Sazh falls asleep and Vanille talks to his chocobo. They both end up asleep. The chocobo wakes Vanille and  Sazh is missing.
We get to wander around, though if we go to far away we get turned around by the chocobo. I find Sazh and another cut scene. Sazh's son is called Dodge. Sazh tells Vanile about his backstory. Seems he took Dodge to see a sanctum fal'cie. While there Dodge was marked as Sanctum L'Cie and given a focus. After much testing at the hands of sanctum and the woman we saw earlier they found the Dodge could detect Pulse Fal'Cie and it was Dodge that found the Bhodum pulse Fal'Cie. Sazh thinks that Dodge was meant to destroy it and he came on the train to the purge area hoping to do his sons focus for him.
The odd thing is that it looks like Vanille was the one who gave Dodge his L'Cie brand. What is Vanille's role in all of this, seems she might not be such an innocent airhead as she is making out.
Climate control orbs are introduced. Seems we can make it rain using them. Monsters in the area differ in different weather conditions.
This area is a long hard slog, then we come to two large boss type monsters.
We then come to a fenced in area. In cut scene we see Sazh and Vanille climb through.
They talk about boarding a ship, then it starts raining on them. They rush onto a platform and wait for the ship to arrive, there are other people around.
Vanille asks Sazh if he hates pulse. Sazh talks about sanctum scaremongering about pulse. Vanille tells Sazh that this isn't all Dodge's fault, she appears to be about to reveal something important, like she is to blame, that she is from Pulse, but stops because Sazh starts slagging off Pulse. Vanille runs out into the rain so her tears are hidden from Sazh.

We switch to Hope and Lightning, who are trying to get to Eden. They are now deep into Sanctum military territory. Hope tells Lightning that there are tunnels they can use to get nearer to the train station, hopefully undetected.
We have a few fights with guards and velocycles before coming to a huge underground cavern with floating platforms. We can move these platforms around and encounter flanitors who heal each other rapidly and are pains in the ass.
Then lucidons which are armoued versions of the scalebeasts.
There is a Fal'Cie in the middle of this plant and it appears that this is a food manufacturing centre.
In cut scene Lightning talks about the Fal'Cie and discusses trying to destroy it. She then hits upon a realisation that Cocoon is built for the Fal'Cie and that humans are just leeches or pets of the Fal'Cie. She is angry and then has an epihany. She fought because the Fal'Cie took away her life, and with this realisation that they are all just pets of the Fal'Cie she doesn't want to fight for their amusement anymore.
Hope is annoyed but Lighting tells him that she will not abandon him.
Lightining tells hope about losing her parents. She named herself Lightning after their death. She feels it is apt because she can only destroy and not protect. Having Hope to protect is changing her. Lightning realises that Snow was the only one who helped Serah near the end. Hope goes off on one about any positive comment about Snow. Lightning comforts him.
Lightning explains to Hope that she can help keep him alive, however she can't give him hope. Lightning asks him to contact his father.
Hope and lightning go up in a lift.
It turns out to be a trap and suddenly hundreds of soldiers and vehicles surround the pair. Lightning tells Hope to run and she will keep them busy.
Snow and Fang turn up riding his motorcycle Eidolon and lay into the sacntum forces. Lightning tells Snow to look after Hope and takes off, Fang goes after her. Snow saves Hope for the second time in so many seconds.
We are now into battle using Snow and the eidolon alone.
Snow reveals that the group who captured him are an splinter cell of the military who are sympathetic to Pulse.
We are told that we will need to use the sentinel role now. Snow is a sentinel and he can be used to draw fire from weaker party members like Hope.
Hope and snow fight their way through out of the area. and then talk on cellphones to Fang and Lightning. They decide to meet up, along the way Snow manages to take every opportunity to say the wrong thing to Hope to make him hate him all the more.
The baddie leader whoose name I missed is getting trigger happy and wants to shoot up the place badly regardless of civilian casulties.
The gang decide to meet at Hope's house. Snow tells Lightning that Serah can be turned back to normal.
We now have control of fang and Lightning.
After a few battles with psicom soldiers and robots there is a cut scene.
Lightning asks Fang for her story, she tells Lighting that she is from Pulse. She completed a focus and was turned into crystal like  Serah. She was awoken from the crystal state on Cocoon and the shocking revelations is that Vanille was with her.
We rejoin Hope and Snow who find soldiers herding civilians about into cages.
Snows asks Hope to help him  fight the soldiers and save the civilians who will probably be purged.
We have a few fights then another cut scene. Snow clears a crowded area by shouting like a nutjob and shooting into the air. Hope asks what is up to and gets his answer as psicom come flying in blasting without a care for the crowd. By clearing the crowd he saved most of their lives.
After a few battles another cut scene shows Hope trying to help one of the crowd we saw earlier, hwoever they turn up in a mob and try and attack them. Rather that hurt them Snow brings down a sign between the mob and the duo. Using an abandoned psicom jetpack the duo escape the area.
We fight across rooftops and monorail lines until we get to another building. Hope asks Snow what he would do if someone took his family away. Snow tells him that he would fight to get them back. Before they can do much else a huge flying mech descends and we have a boss battle.
Ushmagal subjugator is it's name and it's a long but simple fight.
Afterwards Hope finally gets his point over to Snow and Snow breaks down and admits that he doesn't know how to fix things, only how to go forward. Hope lets out a blast of pure rage fuelled by his L'Cie brand and knocks Snow off the balcony, he comes at him as he hangs by one hand and is about to knife him with Lightning's blade.
A psicom cruiser spots them and fires rockets that knock Hope off the balcony. Snow goes after him and catches him in mid flight, cushioning Hope with his own body, they plunge through several glass windows and bounce of parts of the building before hitting the ground, Snow must be very severely injured if he isn't dead.

A flashback shows Vanille and Fang arguing about their focus which appears to be making Dodge a L'Cie. fang sends Vanille off on her own.
Lightning and Fang talk and fang reveals that Serah was made into a L'Cie because Fang and Vanille didn't do their focus correctly.
We get control of Fang and lightning to do some more fighting in the streets.
After some battling Fang and Lighting talk. Fang tells us that Pulse inhabitants live in fear of Cocoon in the same way as cocoon inhabitant fear Pulse. She can't remember anything before turning into a crystal. She must have completed her focus however.
She expresses care and concern for Vanille.
back to the fighting then another cut scene. fang wants to save Vanille then get back to Gran Pulse where she is from. Lightning bemoans the fact that she has nothing to fight for. Fang tells her that she has Serah to fight for. The cut scene ends with the explosion on the rooftops that led to Snow and Hope's fall.
We watch Snow wake up and crawl over to Hope, he is unconscious. Snow picks him up and carries him, however his own injuries prevent him getting far. Snow pick up the blade that was meant for him and finds the strength to move on.
We are back with Fang and Lightning.
We make our way through some halls of a tower block filled with pretty gardens.

Hope carries snow until he wakes up. Snow tells Hope that he was running from his own guilt. Snow gives Hope back Lightning's dagger and tells him to give him some time to try and make things right. If he can't then Hope can use the dagger on him if he likes.
Hope realises that he was blaming Snow because there was no one else to blame.
Hope manages to walk. A huge mech arrives for a boss battle and knocks Snow down. Hope is left to fight it alone.
Once hope is downed Fang and Lightning come in for a rescue. However this is still the hardest fight so far. Only after making some heavy healing Paradigms and using loads of potions as well as relentless attack once they were all healed did I manage to kill this boss.
Lightning and Hope have a happy reunion as Hope gives her back the knife. She realises that he has made peace with Snow.
We have arrived at Hope's home, his father is shocked to hear of his wifes death. Hope expects to be rejected for being L'Cie, however his father is loyal.
Fang watches the depressing news broadcasts which suggest that the people who came into contact with the gang are to be executed.
Lightning takes a moment to apologise for being hard on Serah and him.
The gang all meet in the living room to chat to Hope's dad about what is next. Snow wants to attack the Fal'Cie as he believes it is them that are behind Sanctum's policies. Hope's dad points out how stupid this would be as it is playing into the Sanctums propaganda of Pulse L'Cie being evil and would only make the people and the army hate them more. Nobody has any real idea about what to do next and suddenly the army are busting in through the roof. Hope asks Snow to get his father out as Snow is in no condition to fight.
We have to take on some soliders then we get a save point.

The soldiers turn up in batallion sized amounts, Snow goes out under a white flag and speaks to their leader, Rosch. Rosch claims that despite Snow's empassioned speech he and all L'Cie must die. Suddenly all hell lets loose and someone starts firing on the soldiers, smokebombs make it impossible to see what is going on. Inside the house the gang decide to make a break, they tie up Hope's dad, the logic of this fails me as the leader of the sanctum forces just told them that all traces of L'Cie must be purged, that includes anyone who has come in contact with them.
We go outside and are attacked by another huge flying boss hovership.
This boss has a few turrets and missile pods to shoot of then a ton of energy, it's a long fight but once I had the correct paradigms, solidarity and relentless assault it was easy.
Another tank arrives but is  shot down by the good guys on Fang's side, they arrive and the gang get into the ship and take off.

Nautilus
sazh and Vanille arrive in Nautilis. It seems to be an amusement filled floating city.
They watch a news report showing the battle in Palumpolon and Vanille recognises that Fang is now with the others. There are prejudiced comments from those around them.
They watch the holographic parade which shows a stylyised version of the war between Pulse and Coccoon, this culminates with two monsters fighting.
Sazh tries to keep Vanille's spirts up, though she seems to be expecting doom just around the corner.
We find some lifts that take us to Nautilus park, this is filled with Chocobos. Sazh bemoans that fact that he never got to take Dodge here.
We have to follow the chocobo chick around in a scene of pure childish fun which jars with the tone so far. Sazh tells Vanille that he is going to turn himself in and be executed, all he wants to do is see Dodge one more time before he dies. Vanille reacts badly to this and appears to be on the verge of telling him that it was she who made Dodge L'Cie and that he is Pulse L'cie not Cocoon L'Cie as the authorities who have him think. However, she is interrupted by a soldier attack.
We are now making our way through the amusement park fighting zwerg metrodoids, orion's and soldiers.
We come to a boss called the midlight reaper which is quite a long slog with just Vanille and Sazh.
Dodge arrives and cuddles Sazh, then turns into a crystal fulfilling his focus.
The sanctum scientist appears right behind him and tells Sazh that it looks like Dodge's focus was to find undesirables and it looks like he has done. The woman shows Sazh video footage of Fang and Vanille at the place where Dodge was made L'Cie, it looks like it was a sanctum Fal'Cie  who made him L'Cie. Also that it was done because of Fang and Vanille. The scientist gives Sazh the choice to kill Vanille himself or let her do it. Vanille runs off and Sazh follows.
Vanille is guilt ridden, and Sazh tortured by his love of Vanille and Dodge. The eidolon is released from his brand and they have to fight it.
This eidolon seems to be impressed by use of magic and when caught it turns into a car.
It is called Brynhildr.
Sazh seems about to shoot vanille and then stops saying that shooting kids is one thing that can't be excused. He then shoots himself in the head.
Vanille is led away in chains and Sazh in a coffin.

On the Lindblum the rest of the gang watch a broadcast that tells of Sazh and Vanille's capture.  There are two people here that haven't been introduced, or if they have I missed their names. They are the leaders of the anti Fal'Cie faction in the military.
We end up in control in the hanager of the Lindblum. Snow wants to take the obvious bait of mounting a rescue.
In the hanagar we basically walk along a line of the gang and have little chat.
We are going to use a stolen psicom ship to get on board the Palamecia where the duo are held. There is also the objective of kidnapping the Primarch.
In an impressive sequence we see the ship dock with the huge mothership Palmecia.
Once inside we have a few fights in the hangar then out onto floating platforms where we fight flying soldiers and robots. until we get back inside.
In cut scene we see that Sazh didn't shoot himself. They are captured by the woman.
On board the Palamecia they await execution. Vanille and Sazh exchange guilt trips.
A flashback shows vanille and Fang waking on the pulse Fal'Cie found in Bhdoum at the start of the game. We see the crystal Vanille wake up. Vanille reveals that she remembered her focus and fang did not. Vanille lied to escape her focus as she did not want to hurt people.
We have more fights along corridors inside the Palamecia. female soldiers named huntresses are the only new enemies here.
Sazh and Vanille stage their own little jailbreak when soldiers come to move them with the help of the chocobo chick. They get their weapons back, Vanille is still wallowing in self loathing and Sazh has to cheer her up.
We now are fighting on the cargo decks of the Palamecia with Sazh and Vanille.
Flanitors and flanborgs here. After some fights we see a cut scene where Vanille vows that this time she is going to go and save Fang instead of the other way around.
We take the main Lightning gang into a circular room filled with monsters, a right grind fest. Must be a big boss battle coming. Vespoid soldiers, thermadons, vikings.
We see the Primarch and science girl arguing about which colour of red alert to put out.
Then we are back with Sazh and Vanille in the bowels of the ship. Fighting thermadons, vespid soliders, flanborgs and flanitors. More grinding really.
Now out on the top of the ship with Lightning and the gang. Here we fight vikings, deckdrones and vespid soldiers in large groupings.
Then a boss turns up called a kalavinka striker, it is a large lizard bird pteradactyl type thing. It is very easy to kill.
Vanille and Sazh burst through a wall and meet up with the gang. Another kalavinka striker turns up for another fight.
Then in cut scene we see the whole gang united for the first time. Snow reaffirms his ideas about taking down the sanctum Fal'Cie and everyone is in agreement for once.
Vanille and Fang combine their powers to grab a wild bird and the gang all make their escape on it.
Using the bird the whole gang blow a whole in the Palamecia's bridge and enter to fight the Primarch.
We can now choose who we want in our team. There are a maximum of three in a party, however we can now choose which of the six team member we want to use.
The next area is a maze of random hubs and movable bridges, what real use would this room serve in real life you have to ask yourself. Anyway, it's a grind fest before the boss I suppose.
We go into the bridge of the Palamecia and find the Primarch and Jill, that is the name of the scientist. She comes down to fight us and tells the Primarch to escape. The primarch has other ideas. He shows his hand as a L'Cie or Fal'Cie and kills Jill and all the other crew on the bridge. Snow tells him that he can't use humans like that, he responds by saying what else does one do with tools.
The  Primrach tells the gang that Cocoon is a factory built by the Fal'Cie for the mass production of human forms.
The little bird that has been following the gang around the whole time flies to the Primarch and it appears it is him who has been watching. Lightning calls the Primarch a L'Cie and he tells them that he is more than that.
He turns into a gigantic robot head and reveals himself to be the Barthandelus leader of the Cocoon Fal'Cie.
We now have to fight him. He is basically a large helmeted torso and arms. We have to take out four parts of his helmet then pound his face.
He has several devastating attacks.
It is not a hard fight, just a long one, it took me about 13 minutes to kill him and I was at full crystarium powers and level 19 weapons.
Once Barthandelus is downed we find it was all for naught as the Primarch appears again none the worse for wear, was this a test?
He tells the gang that Ragnarok is the only way to kill a Fal'Cie.
The primarch tells them that Ragnarok is the beast that one of them must become to lay waste to cocoon. Ragnarok must defeat Orphan which is the font of Eden's power.
The gang are nonplussed, Primarch tells them that Serah's focus was to assemble the tools for cocoons destruction. The Primrach leaves and a huge ship crashes into the Palamecia. The gang have to escape in a handy ship. The ship seems to be controlling itself. It flies through various dogfights, enters a city and vanishes down a wormhole.
The gang find themselves in what appears to be an underground station.
From what I can gather the Fal'Cie are at war with each other and basically see the humans as tools in their wars.
Lightning and Snow chat, seems he is down about finding out that their focus might be the destruction of cocoon after all. Snow has been latched onto the hope that they are out to save cocoon.
I go up some stairs and the floor glows red and pulse robots come out of pods int he walls. Hope expresses that he thinks they aren't on Cocoon anymore.

The fifth ark
Fang and Vanille explain what arks are, it seems they they are vast caches of weaponary built for the first invasion of cocoon by Pulse forces.
There is supposedly another use for them however, to train L'Cie. So it's a grind fest then? Pulsework knights, bombs and snail type now called noctilucales, phosporus ooze.
We progress through the tunnels into a factory type area. New monsters called Skata'ne, who look like birds wearing rennaisance clothing.
We progress until a cut scene sees the gang enter a huge room with horse like robotic war machines. They are huge. It is called the hibernatorium.
The robot horse are called berserkers and they have swords which fly around them, they are not stunned when the beast is staggered and make things harder.
We move from the room to a lift and go down into more subway like areas.
Eventually we come to a lone figure, it is Raines He is the leader of the military faction that has been helping the gang so far.
He reveals that he is a Sanctum Fal'Cie agent, working with Barthandelus towards making the gang fulfill their destiny to become Ragnarok.
He tells us that the being who made Cocoon and PUlse is named the Maker. It also made the Fal'Cie and humans.
The Falcie despair of the warlike tendencies of humanity and want to draw the Maker back. To do this they think they have to sacrifice all of the humans on Cocoon to appease the Maker or anger it enough to come back. The Fal'Cie can't break out of their conditioning to destroy Cocoon by themselves they need tools. Seems that the gang are the tools that are in the process of being forged.
Sazh challenges Raines and he reveals that he is not here to help the Fal'Cie he has come on his own behind their backs and thinks that if he can kill the gang then he will derail the Fal'Cie plans.
We fight with Raines as a boss battle. He takes a bit of pounding but eventually he goes down.
He turns into a crystal and Snow seems to suddenly get an Idea. He goes off without telling anyone what he is up to. Raines' crystal starts to glow and flows like liquid up into the sky.
We are back to grinding in the  factory and tunnel areas.

After a bit more grinding a cut scene.
The gang come to what seems to be a dead end.
Snow makes a speech, about not letting the focus win. He feels they should protect Cocoon whatever it takes even if that means failing the focus and becoming Cie'th.
The gang are in agreement, apart from Fang who gets all stroppy and tells them that she will go on alone and destroy cocoon herself if she has to, after all she is from Pulse and has been brought up to hate Cocoon.
Her brand starts glowing and her eidolon Bahamut arrives. It seems to be all out attacking that impresses this one, however it packs a punch and needs a lot of healing to be done to the part in between relentless attacks.
A new path appears and takes the gang down to a ship and a gateway to Gran Pulse.
If they use the ship to escape the ark then they will be going to Pulse. After debate the gang decide to go. After all if they leave Cocoon then it's safe as they are the instruments of it's destruction.
The ship arrives through a wormhole to Gran Pulse. It is almost immediately attacked by a huge flying insect. The gang abandon ship and use Fang's Eidolon to ride away from the wreck of their arrival vehicle. Pulse appears to be a greener wilder place.

Gran Pulse
A cut scene shows the wildlife of Gran pulse to be bigger and fiercer than Cocoons.
Hope is off with the chocobo getting food and we watch as the Chocobo comes back to the gang and cheeps at them to follow, seems Hope's brand has done something.
We fight our way along a narrow corridor between cliffs meeting flans and snails.
A cut scene shows the gang finding Hope unconscious on the ground.
Hope is taken back to camp, the gang think that he is about to change into a Cie'th.
vanille wants them to go to a place, Hope wakes and tells them that they must go. Hope tells them that he will stay behind however. His eidolon shows up to suggest that he must go on.
Once the eidolon is defeated the gang all decide to go to Vanille and Fangs Hometown.

The Archelyte steppes
We find a stone, which Fang and Vanille suggest is the pulse version of a cie'th. We can help these cie'th and take on their focus. These it seems are side missions.
This is a new area and it is massive compared to what has come before, there are a lot of monsters here also. There are lots of flans, dragons, tigers, and huge dinosaur types.
I take on the cie'th stone missions which you do in order. It seems to take you out of the main plain and onto some side missions. Nothing grand, just go here fight this monster. There is a new bunch of monsters in this area. Munchkins, flans with stalks growing out of their heads, triffids.
Hope and Vanille have a little love interest scene.
I go to a map marker which I thought was a side mission one and it end up being the main mission marker.
A cut scene shows the gang arrive at a ruined city. Vanille suddenly makes a confessions that in the past she  became ragnarok and made the hole in Cocoon's shell.
Nobody seems particularly peturbed by this doozy of a revelation.
Have to say that the last few hours of play have seemed more chore than fun. Maybe because all I have been doing for what seems  like five or six hours is fighting the same monsters over and over in the same place. I know what grinding means but this just seems to be overkill.
I go back to the markers, A cut scene shows a pulse Fal'Cie fly overhead. The gang think it is going to Oerba and want to follow it.
I carry on with the missions, Have to say a map of their locations from the interent made it much easier to find them.
One mission removes a barrier to a new area where we find some Chocobo. Sazh wants to leave his Chocobo here with the rest but it stays with him.
Some new monsters here called Oberon and sahagin.
On completion of mission 14 we are given chocobo reins which allow us to ride around on the Chocobo. This allows us to use yellow jump circles which get us to previously inaccesible areas. We can also use the Chocobo to dig for elements.
A few times now I have found a cactuar to fight!
Mission 18 requires us to progress through to the twilight caves.
Inside here are new pulse robots to fight, they are called hoplites.
After doing around 17 of the side missions I find myself back on the main story trail. seems we must go through some of the story to open up new areas.
A cut scene shows a teethed ball flying past the gang. Vanille tells them that it's a Fal'Cie carving out new tunnels. Snow inexplicably wants to hitch a ride on it.
The gang come out into a clearing. Fang tells Vanille that she remembers their focus now and it was she that became Ragnarok. Vanille is anxious about this, we don't know the truth so we can't tell what is going through her mind. Her brand glows and her eidolon is called forth. It seems to be impressed by Fang being a sentinel and Vanille as a sabateour. The eidolon is called Hecatoncheir.
Vanille tells the truth, that she knew that their focus was to go to cocoon and destroy it by becoming Ragnarok. Fang gives her a hug and Vanille cries in her arms.
We then go through another long tunnel fighting robots rust flans and shape creatures.
We come to a dead end with an investigate marker. When we touch the switch a cut scene shows the gang trying to work out what to do at the dead end. There is a dormant robot and Hope starts it up. He falls into the tunnel path of the Fal'Cie and in nearly run flat by it. The robot and a  few of it's mates save him.
We can now board the Fal'Cie which is named Atomos.
It takes us to a new area.
A cut scene shows Snow and Vanille chatting about Serah. Vanille flashes back to meeting Serah on the beach in Bodhum. They chat for a while and then we come back to the present. It seems that Vanille's choice to not complete her focus led to Serah's branding as L'Cie. Vanille suggests that if Diesly was lying about Serah's focus and maybe he was lying about other things.
We progress through some more caverns.
Then a cut scene shows Snow and Lightning forgiving each other as Snow begins to doubt ever seeing Serah alive again.

Chapter 11
After running through a cliff hemmed area we come to an open expanse and a huge tower which is broken and lying on it's side.
The Fal'Cie we saw earlier flys into it.
Entering the base of the tower A cut scene shows it's enormity and technological advancement. The gang hear voices in their heads warning them to leave. Vanille tells the voices that this is their only way forward and a lift comes down to them.
Once up in the lift the Fal'cie swoops down and blows a huge hole in the wall. It looks like an attack but it seems to be actually opening a way forward for the gang.
We are told in a text screen that we must accept and complete missions from the three statues called menhirrim in the tower. The way will be blocked until these missions are done.
The first statue is close and these are the same side missions as before, go and find a specific target which only appears on the map once you accept the mission.

The three missions in the tower are close by. Simply toucht the statue to get the missions, walk a small distance and get a boss fight. Once all three are done the fire that was blocking the way goes out. The Fal'Cie is about to attack again and the three statues come to life and chop it's tail off. I am not sure who is helping who here. Is the Fal'Cie on our side or not?
On the third floor a statue moves the tower around so that the elevator can go up to the fourth tier.
On the fourth tier there are lifts which take you to the fifth and sixth tiers.
On the fifth tier another statue gives us a target to kill.
We now have to go back down to the fourth tier and up to the sixth for another mission.
There is a lot of back and forth amongst the lifts and tiers here. If it wasn't for the mission arrow that shows you where to go at all time this would be annoying.
Again after another three missions the Fal'Cie attacks and the statues intervene.
Eventually I can go to the apex of the tower where we find the Fal'Cie for it's boss battle at last. It changes shape into a birdlike creature and attacks.
Once it is downed the Statues thank us for killing it then leave. A lift appears that will take the heroes on into the broken part of the tower.
The gang look down into the area they are going and Fang proclaims that it's all gone.
Seems the village isn't what it used to be.
I find a ci'eth stone up on the apex  which leads to a mission down on the ground floor of the tower. The boss is very hard to beat.
Back up to the top I progress through the elevator. We use it and find ourselves on a snowy mountaintop.
The village is in ruins and filled with ci'eth monsters.
Some new monsters here, what look like vampire bats and severed arms.
In one of the houses Vanille finds her old robot. It is broken but Sazh can fix it if they can find parts. There are five parts to find.
We come to the end of a long broken down bridge. Serah appears before the gang, though it's fairly obvious something is wrong. She wants them to Destroy Orphan. Diesly's ruse is seen through quickly and he reveals himself. He tells the gang that he has been busy on cocoon in their absence. If they won't do his work for them he will use other tools. He has appointed Raines as the new Primarch. He is also enciting civil war and the cocoon citizens themselves to attack Orphan.
We have to battle the Barthandelus form of diesly again. A long battle but not really a taxing one as before.
Diesly reappears unharmed after the battle. He leaves a ship for the gang to go back to Cocoon, presumably to destroy it.
The gang find a cie'th stone which tells a story, it tells of Vanille and Fang turning into Ragnarok and attacking Cocoon. However somethingg robbed them of power and they turned to crystal. Diesly stole them and took them to Cocoon.
Everyone thinks that they are done for, either destroy the world or let themselves die.
Hope wants them to go back and try, because trying is better than doing nothing.
I go and find the final parts of Vanille's robot and fix it for a large reward.
I then take the ship back to cocoon.
There is a long impressive cut scene where we see Raines trying to cheer up the people  by holding a futuristic racing event. However the gang arrive back crashing into the middle of it using each ones eidolon for devastating effect. We get to fight a large robot using Lightning and her eidolon odin then it's back to the cut scenes.
Warp gates open and bring monsters from the ark we fought through earlier including the huge dinosaurs into the city. Who is doing this? Diesly.
The rogue military burst in on Raines their former leader and execute him. Seems they are now going after Orphan. Orphan is the target for the L'Cie as well. If our gang  won't kill it then it looks like Diesly is going to try and get others to do his work for him.
We get control back on the track and work our way along.
There is a cut scene where the gang all jump a huge distance using Lightnings gravity gizmo.
Then some more long corridor fighting.
We come to a road where a huge monster is tearing up the cars.
THen we are moving along the road fighting.
We come to the military commander that was hunting us at the start of the game and he attacks us with a large mech. This is a hard boss battle but I manage it second time. It has a fairly powerful fast attacka and solidarity is needed to recharge after a pounding from it.
Then we come across one of the huge dinosaurs and have to fight it.
We progress along the motorway systems of Eden until we come to a park. All the way we are seeing devastation and sanctum troops fighting the pulse monsters.
The park seems to be a huge grindfest, and since it seems that even efter the long 20 hour grindfest that was the pulse main area we need more grinding.
At a door Snow meets up with his old gang for a touching reunion, or whatever it was, it looked akward to me.
We progress along a large road towards a large building. Looks like the destination.
The road is blocked by hoard of large monsters.
A cut scene shows crystal shards floating in the air.
Dysely appears to the gang to taunt them forwards to their meeting with Orphan in the tower up ahead. We fight at the base of the tower and a large dinosaur falls through the floor here, which is good because it kills us instantly when I try and fight it.
Through a door we come to a golden hallway.
We come through waves of enemies and into the edenhall.
The Fal'Cie turn the soliders into crystal cie'th.
We come to Rush again and fight his proudclad ship.
Once it is defeated he come out and recants for his faith in the Fal'Cie.
He give the order to the rest  of the troops to leave the L'Cie alone.
Pulse monsters come for him after the gang leave and he blows them and himself up with a grenade.
The gang then descend in an elevator to Orphan's cradle.
This is a large ornate throne room type affair with three statues of winged godesses. The cavalry as they are called have arrived here and been turned into Cie'th for their trouble.
As the gang enter the place starts to crumble and the three statues vanish. The gang are transported into another dimension where they are standing on flying structures which seem to be moving through some sort of wormhole type void.
The three statues turn up and change the environment around, they open up three warp gates, one of them looks like it goes to Gran Pulse. There is a fourth option to go towards a statue.
The two gates take you to Cocoon or Pulse to level up if you need to.
The angels make new paths in the maze of floating platforms. You progress through this area of floating platforms fighting an assortment of the toughest monsters in large groups. A grindfest for the final bosses.
We encounter two boss fights which we are transported to by the angels.
Eventually the end of the boss fight grind fest is over and we reach a white room.
This is it, it final battle.
The gang all go into what looks like a throne room with large solar system type models floating above it.
Diesly appears on the throne and brings the crystal Dajh and Serah. He then smashes them in front of Snow and Sazh in an attempt to provoke their anger and turn them into Raganrok.
With the advice of the others Snow is held back. The gang tell Dysely that they are there to kill him. He gives the disappointed speech but turns into Barthandelus for a fight anyway.
Barthandelus is no match for me, I have fought him twice before and this time isn't any different from the last. He goes down quickly.
Barthandelus falls into a pit of liquid metal where the throne was before the fight and  reemerges welded to another creature from the pit, is this Orphan. It seems yes and now the two Fal'Cie are one. The creature who wants to bring about the end and the thing with the power to keep it going are now one and the same. Only it can't kill itself.
It attacks and we fight it. Once it's health is down a cut scene start.
By the way I had to look up an online guide in the wikia to finish this thing off as it's second set of attacks with Heavy status debuffs was really getting me down.
The cut scene shows the gang being decimated by an powerful attack that Orphan brings out. Fang is the only one left standing. She tells Orphan that she will do it, and become Ragnarok, the rest of the gang try and stop her.
They are turned into Cie'th for their trouble.
Fang is attacked by the Cie'th and beaten to the ground. She then is tortured by Orphan. Eventually she transforms into a she beast and attacks Orphan.
Orphan isn't even dented by Ragnarok.
Vanille does something and Orphan is damaged. The rest of the gang reappear and there is some mumbling about a dark place they were at and Serah helping them back.
After some battle rousing words the hopefully final boss raises itself from the pit. Is this just Orphan now?
It is a circular sun type brass ornate creature.
And what do you know it goes down like a glassjawed stooge.
The final cut scene starts.
Power goes down all over Cocoon and it starts to fall into the atmosphere of Pulse. Vanille and Fang finally seem to get the idea and combine to change into Ragnarok. Ragnarok runs to the base of the planet and jumps into the molten lava it is becoming. All the people of cocoon are transported into crystals and appear on Pulse.
The tower of Taejjin which was built to reach up to coccoon is rebuilt by magic and crystal and catches Cocoon and is reinforced by crstal from the seas of Pulse.
The result is a huge tower with Cocoon as the ball on top of it sprouting from Pulse's surface.
Everyone including the gang wake from crystal stasis.
Dajh and Serah are reunited with their friends and we See Fang and Vanille as crystal in the heart of the stalk holding up Cocoon in crystal stasis.

The end, wow 70 hours of play time. 480 achievement points.

You get to restart the save at the white room before you fought the last bosses. From here you can go back to the two teleports which take you to Eden or to Pulse. From there you can finish off any remaining Cie'th stone missions.