Could some one explain Final Fantasy XIII plot to me?

[SinisterGehe]

I been spending time suffering trough FFAXIII while doing work at home and waiting stuff to render on my work computer (sometimes hours on end) (I do 3D environment rendering)
...

I Managed to Finish it just now a while ago.
Here is a visual representation of my experience of it:

Spoiler

Now would someone with mightier brain than mine explain the fucking plot. It has more time paradoxes on it than drunken let's play of Metal Gear. And so thick that if printed on paper it would [1]create a reality devouring blackhole that would devour create itself to devour itself, in order to create the time paradox that devours itself, so it could devour itself...

So did anyone understand it and explain it in manner that doesn't require a flow chart the size of Russia. That would collapse on itself and... [*1]
Seriously can someone explain it to me so I can at least pretend to have enjoyed it. I think I'll start knitting as hobby while waiting stuff to render.

Edit:

If someone can create a flow chart of this. Please do - I want to see this mess visualized.

 

[Zhukov]

The Pope was up to some evil shit that possibly involved bringing about Armageddon, so Miss Pinkielocks and Co set out to stop him with the power of friendship... or something?

I remember it vaguely making some kind of sense at the time.

 

[SinisterGehe]

The Pope was up to some evil shit that possibly involved bringing about Armageddon, so Miss Pinkielocks and Co set out to stop him with the power of friendship... or something?

I remember it vaguely making some kind of sense at the time.

I remeber it clearly and it makes no fucking sense.
When the dude with the afro (Forgot the characters names already) with chocobo in hes afro, Met hes kid and turned in to crustal. you learn that hes purpose was to meet someone, that he already met earlier, but it only makes sense if he was supposed to meet him after he became L'cie (or what da fuck). Which would been impossible because... I don't even fucking know-

And the Pope guy that turned in to the thing. HE COULD TALK - so why the fuck cant they issue those orders they give via mental image to the maincharaters verbally. And if some of the 'things' are protecting the thing thing cocoon. But need it to exist so they can issue those tasks, why would the pope want to destroy or harm it, if they need it.
Like a statue that makes concrete so it can escape while chipping it with an hammer to stop existing, it is a like a Möbius loop!
Also what the fuck are those gigantic super develop robot super beings meant to be and serve what purpose. And what is the pope supposed to be if he is one - and isn't one... Wtf?

I have dealt with metaphysical lectures that make more sense than this, even when they are not supposed to make sense!

 

[sextus the crazy]

From what I can tell from Spoony's review, it's a bunch of people who get cursed with an undefined task that causes the space pope to hunt them and causes the party to aimlessly wander in search of something...

 

[NearLifeExperience]

Does it really need explaining? It's Final Fantasy! It floats on androgynous, whiney teenagers taking turns beating monsters on the head, it doesn't need a coherent plot. On top of that, it's part XIII, at this point they need it even less, since blind fanboys will buy regardless.

 

[Furioso]

It really doesn't make any sense when you break it apart, watch Spoony's reviews to see what I mean. ...Yea that's really it, you're totally right, they say that they made the game a hallway to focus on an engrossing story, but they didn't do that either. I suspect that they sunk their budget into the graphics and hoped they would carry the game.

 

[Fidchell Attano]

I been spending time suffering trough FFAXIII while doing work at home and waiting stuff to render on my work computer (sometimes hours on end) (I do 3D environment rendering)
...

I Managed to Finish it just now a while ago.
Here is a visual representation of my experience of it:

Spoiler

Now would someone with mightier brain than mine explain the fucking plot. It has more time paradoxes on it than drunken let's play of Metal Gear. And so thick that if printed on paper it would [1]create a reality devouring blackhole that would devour create itself to devour itself, in order to create the time paradox that devours itself, so it could devour itself...

So did anyone understand it and explain it in manner that doesn't require a flow chart the size of Russia. That would collapse on itself and... [*1]
Seriously can someone explain it to me so I can at least pretend to have enjoyed it. I think I'll start knitting as hobby while waiting stuff to render.

The big cheese thinks the world sucks, so he wants to hit the reset button. Unfortunately, the only way to hit said reset button is to mark certain individuals with the ability to become said reset button.

The individuals lives go to hell, they end up going to another planet to find refuge, they go back to kill the guy who turned them into reset buttons, albeit that would play into his hands and is exactly what he wanted, but their defense is that they are doing it because they WANT to, not because they have to.

They kill him, kill some stupid looking face wheel thing with the most HP of any Final Fantasy game and the weakest boss of any Final Fantasy game.

Two of them turn into the reset button, but instead of making the reset happen, they give the world two continues instead.



One of the continues is wasted on FFXIII-2, the reason for them being freed from their crystal prisons as L'cie instead of being stuck there forever was because the goddess whom we heard little to nothing about in previous entries decided to let them out. Unfortunately, this also turned Caius Ballad, the main enemy of this game into an immortal as well as a L'cie. It also made the constant reincarnation cycle of this girl he knows a living hell and he is sick of watching her die so he wants to destroy time (He is doing us a favor, because there is no plot-involved issues in this game besides time travel paradox did it, travel in time kill this guy and fix it.)

Turns out every time something changes in the time stream, Yeul gets closer to dying and then reincarnating, and the time stream changes a LOT.(Although, this is Caius's fault, since he is constantly fucking with the damn timeline just to make sure his evil plans of destroying time so Yeul doesn't die anymore he is actually the one killing her, you think he would realize the folley in this considering how smart he seems to be.)

Turns out same thing happens to Serah, the plot device-errr I mean Lightnings sister and the main protagonist of this game.

They travel through time

Kill Caius

Unleash Chaos upon the universe by killing Caius and causing the timestream to be utterly destroyed

and leaves "To Be continued" on the screen.

Also, Lightning is sitting in limbo turned into crystal.

Paving the way for XIII Lightning returns.

Lightning is back (ugh) and she needs to do something or else the world will be destroyed and to make matters worse or better there is no time since Serah and Noel broke it. General change, aging, deaths, babies being born, simply does not happen anymore.

But everybody knows this and they are trying to fix it.....So, if time is standing still, how is everybody still moving you ask?

Final Fantasy XIII logic is bull **** That's why

And Motomu Toriyama is incompetent scum who should be fired.......Out of a canon into the sun and lynched by sun people then given a phoenix down only to be sent to the moon to be brutally sodomized by moon people then killed.

 

[debtcollector]

Wait, time paradoxes? Is this XIII or XIII-2? Because if it's the latter, then there is no point in explaining it. It makes too little sense.

If it's XIII, though, here goes: The Dyson Sphere world, Cocoon, is going through a Red Scare thanks to the revelation that Communists (or a relic from Pulse, the hated wild world below) have been living there this whole time. The government, Sanctum, exiles all citizens who may have been exposed to the relic to Pulse (ostensibly. In reality, they just tried to kill them.) On the deportation train are Lightning (the ex-soldier trying to save her sister), Sazh (the black guy whose son was taken captive by the government), Hope (the whiny kid) and Snow (also trying to save Lightning's sister). Also Vanille, but we'll get to her later.

Through a complex series of events, these five people end up derailing the deportation train and inciting armed rebellion (resulting in the death of Hope's mother, triggering a revenge complex in the hopelessly wussy Hope, which we will also get to later) and getting caught up inside the Pulsian relic itself. It turns out the relic was holding a Fal'Cie: a god-like machine that coerces people to carry out demands by offering a chance for immortality and power, and also by threatening them with an eternity as a howling monster. This Fal'Cie was from Pulse, meaning it probably would make its servants--l'Cie--attack Cocoon or some such. Having already branded Lightning's sister (who seems to have successfully carried out her task), the Fal'Cie then brands all the other main characters.

Thus follows a series of interpersonal events that are as straightforward as they are inconsequential. Suffice it to say that each character reveals his or her motivations, deals with their own issues (this is where Hope's revenge complex kicks in and goes nowhere) and the party becomes a more cohesive and trusting unit. Also, it is revealed that Vanille and her sister(?) Fang are in fact Pulse inhabitants, sealed in the relic for 500 years after a war between Cocoon and Pulse. These two characters are more or less responsible for Sazh's son's capture and imprisonment, Lightning's sister's branding, and everything else as well.

Eventually, however, the party faces the Pope, Galenth Dysley. He is the theoretical leader of some ruling council, and the good guys want to kill him because they've realized at this point that the ruling council is just a voicebox for Eden, the prime Fal'Cie in Cocoon, who controls all the millions of lesser Cocoon Fal'Cie and basically calls the shots. Turns out they were completely wrong, because the Pope was really Barthandelus, the real prime Fal'Cie, who's been manipulating everything this whole time. His motivation is to convince the party to tap into their l'Cie powers (those haven't stopped being things that are relevant) to become the beast Ragnarok and destroy Cocoon--or else they'll become howling monsters for eternity.

The Pope's goals are nebulous at first and most of the rest of the game involves figuring out why he's apparently insane as well as finding a way to halt the l'Cie curse--because the party's time is running out on their non-howling monster clocks. As for the latter question, there is no way. As for the former, the Pope intends to kill every living soul in Cocoon, allowing them to pass into the afterlife via the Door of Souls. While the Door is open, the Pope intends to look into the Great Beyond at the face of the Maker and then kill him. This would allow Fal'Cie to start a new world, where they would be allowed free will beyond simply forcing others to carry out their wishes. (This was mostly taken from subtext and enigmatic datalog posts--I may be misinterpreting certain facts, but the gist of this is true.)

Anyway, the party heads to the capital, finds the Pope and fights the fuck out of him. Also, the Pope awakens Orphan, the Fal'Cie who is basically the battery for every other Cocoon Fal'Cie--if the heroes kill Orphan, Cocoon dies. After an overlong series of mid-battle cutscenes the party apparently halts their curses through the power of belief and teamwork or some shit, kills Orphan, and initiates the Final Cutscene (also the destruction of Cocoon). Vanille and Fang decide to become Ragnarok in order to catch the falling Cocoon, saving the world at the cost of their earthly lives.

See? Simple as that.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Seriously can someone explain it to me so I can at least pretend to have enjoyed it. I think I'll start knitting as hobby while waiting stuff to render.

Here you go:

500 years ago, Vanielle and Fang were chosen by Pulse to destroy Cocoon. Because apparently lesbian couples are good at blowing up floating moon-cities.

They attempted to do so, but Vanielle chickened out. Fang became a partial Ragnarok and cracked Cocoon's shell, but before she could finish the job, the goddess Etra (reject sister to Pulse and Cocoon) stopped her and turned them both to crystal.

Because they hadn't actually finished the job, Cocoon had the idea of bringing both of them up to Cocoon to finish the job. Why? Because Cocoon and Pulse are allies, not enemies. They're trying to summon their creator god who abandoned them by Killing All Humans. The plan to do so was to drop the Coccon moon onto Pulse and the resulting devastation would kill all humans, smash the Doors of Time open, and summon the Creator God back (he's off looking for those doors).

Anyway, Fang and Vanille were crystals for 500 years. Then they weren't. Vanille and Fang went exploring and bumped into Sara. Sara got branded. Meanwhile, Fang and Vanille tried to continue working on their Focus and went to blow up a reactor, but only managed to get the Kid marked.

Thus, Fang and Vanille accomplished nothing but getting two random innocents involved. They also got separated. Fang got caught by Cid while Vanille got caught up in the Purge (which was caused by their attack on the power plant and Sara's discovery).

The game occurs. Sara gets everyone else involved and turns to crystal. Yada yada. The Moon Pope spends the entire game trying to get them to turn into Ragnarok and finish the job, destroy Cocoon, kill all humans, and summon the Creator God.

He finally gets Fang and Vanille to do so, but AFTER completing their Focus, they then save Cocoon with the molten shell caused by Cocoon's reentry and the crystal dust that smothered their home town, combining them into that Crystal Pillar... which they are stuck inside, in their eternal lesbian lover's embrace.

....

Now, if you need me to explain FF 13-2, I'm gonna need a flow-chart.

 

[Silverback91]

Basic summary is more or less

Space pope: "NOW, DESTROY THE WORLD BY KILLING ME AND FULFILL YOU DESTINY!"

Party: "NO! We will save the world! By destroying you!"

 

[SinisterGehe]

Seriously can someone explain it to me so I can at least pretend to have enjoyed it. I think I'll start knitting as hobby while waiting stuff to render.

Here you go:

500 years ago, Vanielle and Fang were chosen by Pulse to destroy Cocoon. Because apparently lesbian couples are good at blowing up floating moon-cities.

They attempted to do so, but Vanielle chickened out. Fang became a partial Ragnarok and cracked Cocoon's shell, but before she could finish the job, the goddess Etra (reject sister to Pulse and Cocoon) stopped her and turned them both to crystal.

Because they hadn't actually finished the job, Cocoon had the idea of bringing both of them up to Cocoon to finish the job. Why? Because Cocoon and Pulse are allies, not enemies. They're trying to summon their creator god who abandoned them by Killing All Humans. The plan to do so was to drop the Coccon moon onto Pulse and the resulting devastation would kill all humans, smash the Doors of Time open, and summon the Creator God back (he's off looking for those doors).

Anyway, Fang and Vanille were crystals for 500 years. Then they weren't. Vanille and Fang went exploring and bumped into Sara. Sara got branded. Meanwhile, Fang and Vanille tried to continue working on their Focus and went to blow up a reactor, but only managed to get the Kid marked.

Thus, Fang and Vanille accomplished nothing but getting two random innocents involved. They also got separated. Fang got caught by Cid while Vanille got caught up in the Purge (which was caused by their attack on the power plant and Sara's discovery).

The game occurs. Sara gets everyone else involved and turns to crystal. Yada yada. The Moon Pope spends the entire game trying to get them to turn into Ragnarok and finish the job, destroy Cocoon, kill all humans, and summon the Creator God.

He finally gets Fang and Vanille to do so, but AFTER completing their Focus, they then save Cocoon with the molten shell caused by Cocoon's reentry and the crystal dust that smothered their home town, combining them into that Crystal Pillar... which they are stuck inside, in their eternal lesbian lover's embrace.

....

Now, if you need me to explain FF 13-2, I'm gonna need a flow-chart.

Ill let you have one flow chart.
I understand what you explain, but this shit makes no cake. Like what the fuck. This is like bucket of rope after being trough a tubmledryer and then you try to find the ends only to realize all the ropes been woven in to loops.

How the fuck are you supposed to figure this out without having a notepad and flowchart editor ready while playing. And even after that it seems to collapse in to singularity blackhole of bullshit.

And if the story isn't enough bollocks, try fitting it in tot he context of the world and you got blackhole in a blackhole...

Like a game isn't supposed to have a premise which you can drive a fucking TI-class supertanker trough.
Is it me or is every newer Final fantasy game adding exponent to the amount of non-sense and bollocks equation?
Like they used to be about. "Gather X of Y and defeat the Z" or "Defeat X, that must be found or exposed"

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Seriously can someone explain it to me so I can at least pretend to have enjoyed it. I think I'll start knitting as hobby while waiting stuff to render.

Assuming you're being serious and I'm not missing some joke (judging by other people's responses), here's what I believe happened:

Cocoon and Pulse were at war with each other in the distant past. Pulse launched an attack that Fang and Vanille were part of. The attack failed because Vanille bailed, leaving Fang to transform on her own, but since Ragnarok was still summoned, Fang and Vanille both became crystal and were allowed to live. The Pulse humans lost and were wiped out.

Fast forward several hundred years to FFXIII. Vanille awakes and causes the people of Cocoon to flip out because they've been tainted by something from Cocoon, Serah being one of the tainted. Everyone tainted is being sent to Cocoon, and Lightening won't allow her sister to be sentenced to, what she sees, death. So, that's where the game starts. Lightening, along with Sazh, attack the purge train, hoping to save Serah and Sazh's son.

Realizing that they can never truly save their loved ones unless they completely topple this unfair government (yeah, bit of an insane logic jump there, but okay), Lightening and company decide to take on the leader of government. Everyone comes along for their own reasons, but when they get to their goal, it's revealed that their leader is actually a Fal'Cie, the very thing they've been fighting against. He brands them--those marks on their arms--and gives them the focus (goal/purpose) of destroying Cocoon. If they fail, they become Cieth. If they succeed, they destroy their home.

Lightening and company escape to Cocoon, where they learn more about the history of the Fal'Cie and how they long for the return of their own 'god', the being that made the Fal'Cie. This is when the true plot of the Cocoon Fal'Cie is realized: Cocoon is a nest meant only to be sacrificed. The Fal'Cie believe that if they cause enough death all at once--wiping out every living sole on Cocoon--their god will hear the anguish and pain and finally come back. You know, like a sacrifice to a god in the old days on Earth.

Lightening and company decide they can't let this happen. The stop the plan by killing Orphan (the last boss), but Orphan still manages to bring Cocoon falling down. Fang and Vanille, still having their brands from Ragnarok, transform into the crystal pillar willing so they can save Cocoon. Cocoon, and all the people in it, are saved.

In short: the story is about crazy demi-gods missing their mother, so in order to get her attention, they decide to start slaughtering millions of small rabbits. Only the rabbits decide to fight back.

EDIT: And...I see the person right above me just told you pretty much the exact same thing. Sigh. He even quoted the exact same part from your original post. Man, I have no luck.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Nothing in this sorry game makes any sense. Just like Advent Children. Just enjoy the pretty graphics and try not to think too hard about how awesome Final Fantasy used to be.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Basic summary is more or less

Space pope: "NOW, DESTROY THE WORLD BY KILLING ME AND FULFILL YOU DESTINY!"

Party: "NO! We will save the world! By destroying you!"

Ahh... So visually it would lok something like this:

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I understand what you explain, but this shit makes no cake. Like what the fuck. This is like bucket of rope after being trough a tubmledryer and then you try to find the ends only to realize all the ropes been woven in to loops.

How the fuck are you supposed to figure this out without having a notepad and flowchart editor ready while playing.

Well, to be fair, if you open your menu and go to the cutscene archive, you can rewatch all of those "backstory" cut-scenes in the proper order once you get near the end of the game.

Edit: Alternatively, you can watch them in order on YouTube.

Actually seeing them in chronological order makes that first chunk of plot make a LOT more sense.

As to the god stuff - Moon Pope explains that before (and after) your boss fight with him. He talks about summoning the Creator God by killing all humans. And, when I say boss fight, I mean the one back in Fang and Vanille's village.

Is it good story telling to have the final (repeating) boss stop and explain the plot? No, not really. But it does follow once you know it.

As to the Time Doors and Goddess Etra, that's all explained in FF 13-2, where the Time Doors and the Goddess Etra are the main plot. Playing FF 13-2, and then going back to play FF 13 again made FF 13 make a far more sense.

 

[SinisterGehe]

I understand what you explain, but this shit makes no cake. Like what the fuck. This is like bucket of rope after being trough a tubmledryer and then you try to find the ends only to realize all the ropes been woven in to loops.

How the fuck are you supposed to figure this out without having a notepad and flowchart editor ready while playing.

Well, to be fair, if you open your menu and go to the cutscene archive, you can rewatch all of those "backstory" cut-scenes in the proper order once you get near the end of the game.

Actually seeing them in chronological order makes that first chunk of plot make a LOT more sense.

As to the god stuff - Moon Pope explains that before (and after) your boss fight with him. He talks about summoning the Creator God by killing all humans. And, when I say boss fight, I mean the one back in Fang and Vanille's village.

Is it good story telling to have the final (repeating) boss stop and explain the plot? No, not really. But it does follow once you know it.

As to the Time Doors and Goddess Etra, that's all explained in FF 13-2, where the Time Doors and the Goddess Etra are the main plot. Playing FF 13-2, and then going back to play FF 13 again made FF 13 make a far more sense.

So to understand the movie, you need to watch it backwards. Then take the other movies it references and watch them in the right order. SO you can watch the movie again and understand the plot.

Like the story of Bioshock infinite had insane plot, but it made perfect sense and you understood it once you got to the last stretch.
Like when did SE stop with the tradition of "Plot that makes sense at the end of the story, with the devices introduced in the game"

Like don't get me wrong I love games that reference outside material. But when it references itself referencing itself as a reference. I drop the marbles, call the chips and say bollocks.

 

[Lieju]

Like a game isn't supposed to have a premise which you can drive a fucking TI-class supertanker trough.
Is it me or is every newer Final fantasy game adding exponent to the amount of non-sense and bollocks equation?
Like they used to be about. "Gather X of Y and defeat the Z" or "Defeat X, that must be found or exposed"

I could actually get it if the plot of the villains was something you never even meant to figure out, and have the main characters be trapped in this situation without a clue, as these regular people getting involved in things far beyond their control or understanding.

But then you'd need to write interesting characters and let the players sympathise with them.
It's kinda my rule; a scifi/fantasy-story can have a badly-explained world and plot, or one-dimensional characters but not both.

Because apparently lesbian couples are good at blowing up floating moon-cities.

Of course we are. All we need to do is to get married and make out and God sends in a hurricane to our location. Apparently they didn't get the memo.

 

[4RM3D]

A while ago I wanted to play FFXIII-2. But first I wanted to catch up with the story because it has been a while since I played FFXIII. Then I found this awesome video that explains everything pretty well: