LogFAQs > #976502856

Okay, back to work on this now that my busy few days is over.

Chapter 5 is pretty much entirely focused on the "Hope and Light" duo. We're stuck in some bioweapons lab with maps designed like organic biochem cell structure maps - that was not lost on me.

The sucky thing is that I start off controlling Hope, and that sucks because he's vastly inferior in combat to Light. Light kicks ass and the accessories - yes, that's plural now - of a beefed-up Silver Bangle and a Power Wristband really augment that. Hope... well I need something for him, so I buy a Tungsten Bangle (hereforth W-Bangle) to give him. It helps. A lot. Also helpful: Lightning gets Launch to send staggered enemies soaring. The damage output for the staggering is, well, staggering. THe only problem I have here is that the tutorial is clunkily-worded - it doesn't explicitly say killing the enemies will lower the electric fence, which leads me to believe that it could be trained to detect intruders like us as well. This part confuses me.

What's weird is that both of them seem to be acting very differently now. Light all of a sudden has a lot of patience for training Hope to be a man, as if she doesn't hate herself for having to do this at all anymore. She got over that very swiftly. Hope also has balls now, though not any stamina - but still, you'd think he'd still show some fear, which he doesn't. He's supposed to be mid-adjustment so it's weird that he's suddenly this much of a tryhard, even if it's understandable that he WOULD try hard to be manly. It's not like he made a huge mistake or anything if you know what I'm talking about. But still, it seems like this is months after the last part, not just a couple hours.

There's really not much substance here - so little in three-ish hours that I don't need to read the datalog - but what little we get is pretty solid. Light doesn't expect much resistance from thugs in here because PSICOM is too proud to let the other branches know about their ineptitude, so the Guardian Corps doesn't know about any l'Cie fugitives. Neither would the public, so if Hope wanted to go home, he could without much of an issue.

But that's the least interesting thing. Light calls Snow the "leader of a gang of kids" and that NORA stands for No Obligations, Rules, or Authority. In other words, it's an anarchist cult. She says the one redeeming quality about her brother-in-law is that he is stubborn, and thus he won't die. Despite all this, Light doesn't think Snow is responsible for the death of Hope's mother - also named Nora, for a nice touch of irony. She blames Sanctum for that, but Hope isn't listening. Light is correct. Nora volunteered to fight to protect Hope, and Snow tried to protect her but she ended up giving her life for him. But since the game can't let us forget about Hope's personal vendetta, we're building up for a huge heated argument between him and Snow. I'm already prepared for the disappointment!

The other thing is we get a flashback to Day 12 - yay more flashbacks, because all the important story shit happened before the game! Light had the worst birthday ever when Snow and Serah announced their engagement to her, and that immediately makes me think that Serah's eventual AITA post would get a YTA judgment. It's Light's birthday, it's her special occasion, don't make it yours too and take that from her. Especially if it's becoming engaged to someone she's never liked. Light gets a gift - a pocket knife - from them, but she sees that as extra baggage and gives it to Hope. I don't know why she'd re-gift that just yet since that seemed to be the only memento of her sister she had on hand (unless that IS the reason). After this, Snow and Serah flee and are pursued by Sanctum. Snow drops Serah off on a platform of the Fallacy and it swallows her before he can re-grab her, which is why he knew he had to storm the place later. Loverboy wasn't gonna let his girl float away.

We find some bodies of PSICOM thugs and Hope suddenly has sympathy for them... Light scolds him, saying that sympathy is a distraction and he needs to focus on his goals. That's a sad reality - feeling for others, including your enemies, should help you get farther in the world, but instead it shows weakness. One of these goons seems to have a beeper of some kind... and thus we fight some very much alive goons, most of whom are weak. Seriously, everything I fight here is weak. By the time I get to the boss, I have both Crystaria available maxed out.... and then that thing gives me problems. I die once but the second time I figure out how to cheese this monkey-turtle-flower thing's stagger gauge - Light as Commando to prevent it from going down, Hope as Ravager to boost it - and I frankly don't understand why it works that way. It's like the world's most boring puzzle. I much prefer fights that require thinking on your feet to ones that punish you for even doing it the right way. The worst part is that I can't control where Light - who I'm thankfully controlling by this point - ends up so the attacks sometimes hit both characters, other times they don't. I stagger it once and that's that - it drops another W-Bangle, which will certainly come in handy, though the upgrades for this thing are trash. The Silver Bangle upgrades a lot better tbh.

For the most part, this chapter was pretty straightforward, and I'm sorry I don't have much of anything witty to say about it. It ends with Snow's part of the Day 12 flashback and Fang insisting he come hunt l'Cie with her, though I don't think he seems interested in fighting Lightning. He's gonna let her get away if he can. Fang and Snow seem to have quite a rapport where they push each other's buttons - and she hits him when he's in full Loverboy mode to snap him out of it - without totally despising each other. Yet, anyway.

Sorry this update wasn't as fun as expected. I was expecting to have more cool things to talk about. The scenery here is still beautiful, though - amazing that it's only on PS3!