ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Nov 23, 2015

1) You fight the dragon on the plains, cutting off the flow of flans to the Sunleth Waterscape. You go back there and fight Royal Ripeness again, but since he's cut off he actually dies this time. After completing the fight, Snow vanishes because he's not supposed to be in tha.t time period, and you've resolved the paradox.

2) After the Sunleth Waterscape, you go to Academia 400, which is where the Academy HQ is, as well as basically being the capital city of human society on Pulse. Anyway, Hope headed up a project to build an artificial Fal'Cie which is now ruling over the city. When Serah and Noel arrive, he recognizes them and panics, turning all the citizens into Cie'th to fight you. None of the enemies are strong, but you seriously get in a fight something like every 10 or so steps, it's awful. While in Academia, you meet Caius who tells you that your mere existence is a paradox because you were supposed to die 200 years ago. Serah starts to panic about this, but Noel snaps her out of it and you move on. Eventually you meet Yeul, who gives you an artefact and is immediately killed by Zenobia (the one undying you never fought from 13). After a boss battle, you unlock the gate to Augusta Tower 200.

3) Seeing as Caius told you that you were supposed to die 200 years ago, Serah and Noel immediately decide that they might as well go see what happened. So you go to Augusta Tower and find out that your progress is stymied by a gap of about 10 feet, requiring you to spend a bunch of time looking for Augusta Tower 300 so you can find the key to lower a bridge and cross this gap. Once that errand is over, you meet a replicant of Alyssa who takes you up the tower. On the way up, a paradox effect happens and you learn "the forbidden history," which is basically just that Hope was assassinated way back when and the machines and the AI have been running the academy ever since. This is apparently grounds for execution according to Caius. At the top of the tower, you encounter Yeul again, and she tells you that she believes in you, even though you changing the future will kill her. You enter a VR space and fight Adam (the rogue Fal'Cie), but eventually you reach the point where you can't kill him because he regenerates. Serah, thinking outside the box, yells at Hope through time and space causing him to abandon the Fal'Cie plan and destroying Adam because he was never created.

4) In the new Academia 4xx, you meet Hope and Alyssa who explain that since they had to abandon the Fal'Cie project, they need another way of levitating the new Cocoon. This time, his grand plan is a substance called Graviton Cores, a small rock that gives off immense anti-gravity energy. They need five of them, but they're scattered throughout the timeline so Serah and Noel have to do all the dirty work. Once you track them down, Hope takes them and Alyssa gives you an artefact for a gate that was just repaired in town. Before you leave, Noel mentions that this could lead toward the final confrontation with Caius, and Alyssa and Hope see you off at the gate.

5) Once you go through the gate, it turns out it was a trap. Serah and Noel are separated, and both of them are attacked by Caius. Serah sees a few Yeuls along the way, and gets a bunch of plot dumps basically explaining that Etro is behind everything. She gave Serah (and Yeul) the power to see the future, she's keeping the gate and the world destroying Chaos contained in Valhalla, etc, etc. Caius tells Serah that she's a massive gently caress up and then kills her, sending her into a dream world.

6) In her dream world, Serah is back at New Bodhum with Lightning, Snow, and all the gang. Lightning tells her this is what she wants and asks her to stay, but Serah refuses and runs off. Back where the meteor landed, Fang and Vanille appear for like 2 minutes and open a rift so that Serah can leave. Following that leads her to Noel's world, where we briefly see him fight with Caius and Yeul, and he's left on his own. After walking around for a bit and feeling sorry for himself, he eventually goes to kill himself but Serah reaches out to him and brings him back. Immediately afterwards, you get a Gogmagog fight because????? After going back to Noel's village, you find an Oracle Drive that shows that Caius is behind everything, he's known the entire timeline the whole time and he's been manipulating it to get what he wants. Another rift takes you to where Lightning is, and you get to chat with her for a bit, mostly going over stuff Yeul told you earlier. She also mentions that Caius is immortal because of the Heart of Etro, a literal manifestation of her power in his chest.

7) After all that bullshit is done and over with, you unlock Academia 500, which is where Caius is waiting. After a bunch of platforming, Yeul tells you that you can't kill Caius because Etro is the only thing holding back the Chaos from devouring the world. Noel and Serah press on, and eventually reach the Academy just as the new Cocoon is launching. Caius appears and starts the final boss fight, saying that Serah and Yeul are the same, why won't you understand, etc etc. Serah retorts back that she doesn't care and she will gladly trade her own life for the world. After a couple forms, you end up in Valhalla where you fight the fucker two more times until eventually he's finally beaten. Noel slashes him through the chest, destroying the Heart of Chaos and killing Caius for good. Afterwards, Serah and Noel return to Academia 500 where Hope and everyone are waiting for them, but after they return she has a vision and dies. Shortly thereafter, Hope meets up with Noel and asks what happened, before Mog falls to the ground and says "The Goddess is dead." And right on cue, the chaos that Etro was holding back swarms in the world and basically destroys everything. The final image before the end of the game is a picture of Lightning as a crystal on Etro's throne and "TO BE CONTINUED..." in big white letters.

Artix fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Nov 23, 2015

Golden Goat fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Nov 23, 2015