LogFAQs > #976820999

Let's just say Chapter 8 was short, but really heavy.

In Nautilus, which is a futuristic Las Vegas type of place, Sazh and Vanille witness a horribly skewed news report heroizing the terrorist PSICOM faction and vilifying the good guys fighting to stop their reckless behavior from harming civilians. A brief glimpse gets Vanille to say "it's her" - obviously referring to Fang - and recognizes that she'll have to say goodbye to Sazh soon. Why, I don't know.

The two attend a parade that's quite beautiful to watch even if its portrayal of history is incorrect. It makes Cocoon l'Cie infallible heroes and Pulse l'Cie nothing more than Satan - the real enemy here isn't the civilians, it's the negative press covfefe and the government that encourages it. The goal is to control people through fear, and it's abhorrent and yet kind of funny. Vanille grabs a CD from the air that produces a miniature version of l'Cie Carbuncle, and she also recognizes the "bad guy" as Ragnarok, the Viking apocalypse. Even though, quite obviously, Cocoon was the aggressor in this war trying to do its usual fearmongering. I question literally everything here like I do in real life, because at least I'm not an idiot who needs to be told what to think.

There is a prompt on whether to enter the next area, to which I go "uh-oh" thinking something crazy is going to happen. Which... it doesn't at first. The baby chocobo nesting in Sazh's hair flies all over the place because there are chocobos everywhere. Sazh notes that it smells like shit, because of course it does, it's like a farm. Vanille enjoys the smell because it reminds her of the beautiful countryside of Pulse. The little one keeps fleeing every time I find him, and this is not fun to play. It's not an overly clever version of hide-and-seek, that's for sure. Eventually the little guy directs a bunch of them down the path, and Sazh and Vanille bond here. Sazh says he'll be turning himself in, which sounds insane, but it's the only way he can see Dajh one last time - Sanctum would certainly allow a last request, right? (Probably not, they're terrorists.) Vanille is about to confess to him what really happened with Dajh becoming a l'Cie - her friend Fang was trying to protect her (Vanille) from becoming a Cieth, for which Vanille has an incredible amount of guilt. She did not want a little guy dragged into her mess. Sadly, this is interrupted by a terrorist strike. Some PSICOM goons pay the chocobo and the other patrons of the park no heed as they start sniping at Sazh and Vanille. Thugs.

We fight our way through a bunch of thugs and other monsters and... WAIT WHAT IS THAT REALLY DAJH? It certainly looks like him but I get a sense that it's not him, but... it is? And he becomes a crystal all of a sudden, with a very different effect on his face when compared to Serah. The vile witch Nabaat comes out and starts bragging about how much better she is than a lowly Pulse l'Cie, even going as far to call Vanille a terrorist, then ask "Ironic, isn't it?" - which yes, it is. Jihi Nabaat is vile terrorist scum and even the most painful death would not satisfy me. She is an asshole through and through, bragging that Dajh's Focus "must have been to clean up the scum from the streets" which, uh, would be PSICOM. The ones who pay human life no regard. What on earth has any Pulse l'Cie done to warrant the people's fears? It's just the covfefe that's fearmongering, and ppl r 2 dum and buy into it.

It sucks that Sazh doesn't think to shoot Nabaat in the face, then fight off all the goons, because she starts playing a surveillance clip of this "terrorist attack" which is anything but. The goal is to pin Sazh and Vanille against each other, and it works. Vanille runs off and Sazh pursues, with some goons monitoring him from behind. Nabaat wants to see how her evil scheme plays out, after all. Seriously, I hate her already and want to see her head roll. Such a cocky bitch. And the fact that she sees people as nothing more than tools is just plain bad.

Sazh catches up to Vanille, who's having weird hallucinations of Sazh sitting on this throne that's there for whatever reason and twirling his guns around, with this sadistic mobster attitude to him. The real Sazh points his gun from behind her and is very disappointed in her. The two argue for a bit but neither knows what's really happening nor what to do next. Shooting Vanille won't get Dajh out of crystal stasis. Shooting Vanille won't resolve Sazh's anger. Shooting Vanille........ certainly won't help him win his PERSONA, which suddenly appears! This fight isn't hard, but it is pretty close when I tap Square to claim my bounty, which turns into a stock car.

After this is done, Sazh turns his gun back on Vanille, still unsure of what to do. He knows it's not going to make anything right. Then he says that some things can't be excused.... shooting kids is one of them. Then he trains the gun on himself, says "Enough is enough," and BLAM!

It ends with some thugs in cloaks - and a terrified prisoner Vanille in a similar cloak - carrying Sazh's open casket onto an aircraft. GEEZ. This is... yeah...

I am pretty sure that Sazh isn't dead, else what was the point of the Eidolon fight? I was half-expecting Vanille to be the one to awaken to hers earlier in the chapter but it ended up being Sazh. And he shot himself. How could he fool PSICOM into thinking he's dead? I don't think he can. I mean, I get why he chose to do that. His son had turned to crystal, he was sure to be arrested soon, and the one person he thought he could trust was involved in causing all this in the first place. He had nobody left in his life with his wife and son gone. Man do I know that feeling. I myself feel like a l'Cie, ostracized by society for no discernible reason. So I get how he's feeling. But it would have gotten better. And it still might. I don't think he's a goner. Vanille did learn Renew, after all, yes?

That's what I played this afternoon. Might get a little more in later, but IDK yet. Got a movie to watch tonight for that project.