Historia Crux



The Historia Crux is a gameplay and story element in Final Fantasy XIII-2. The Historia Crux is the crossroads of the timeline that allows players to travel between locations and visit them in different time periods. The ability to use the Historia Crux, or the power to travel through time, is a power that originates from the goddess Etro.

Though the future of the world can be visited via the Historia Crux, the events before or during Final Fantasy XIII cannot be revisited, as these events took place before the paradoxes began. The narrator of the summaries in the Historia Crux is by Michiko Neya in the Japanese verison and by Anna Vocino in the English version.

Datalog
''The Historia Crux is the crossroads between the Time Gates. It is a separate dimension connecting one age to the next.''

''This surreal plane is said to be the border of the chaotic realm of Valhalla, and only those with an affinity for the power of chaos are able to use it to travel through time. Even the godlike fal'Cie are not free to enter the Historia Crux as they please.''

Gameplay
To unlock new places and time periods, the player needs to find artefacts scattered throughout time. Visiting areas at different times will give players access to new items, new monsters, and new sidequests, and can change the course of the game in the form of paradox endings. With gate seals, any gate in the Historia Crux can be closed, resetting the storyline of that area; the player still keeps their current party, level, and items. Closing gates allows a fully powered team to fight any previous bosses with more of an advantage. Fighting earlier bosses with the Paradox Scope active can trigger paradox endings.

The date system is marked by the letters "AF", which stand for "After the Fall". Visitable years range from 3 to 700 AF. In each location and time, there are a certain number of fragments, with 160 in total, and the number of fragments the player has obtained from each area is displayed in the Historia Crux menu. Years containing X, such as 1X AF, indicate an alternate timeline created by solving paradoxes. There are also places marked with year unknown, such as "Serendipity -Year Unknown-".

All places originally marked with -Year XXX- (-XXX年-) in the Japanese version are changed to -??? AF- in the English versions. In the Japanese version, when traveling to the places of -Year XXX- and -Year Unknown-, "AFXXX" and "AF???" are displayed on the traveling screens respectively, while in the English versions, "??? AF" are displayed for both -??? AF- and -Year Unknown- places.

Story
In the aftermath of the events that took place in Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning is captured by darkness from another world and dragged to the edge of time, thus written out of history. She falls through the Historia Crux, and is transported to Valhalla.

In a distant future where mankind is on the brink of extinction, Noel Kreiss, the last remaining human in the world, prays to Etro for a miracle. A portal opens for him and Noel enters Valhalla. He travels through the Historia Crux to find Serah Farron, Lightning's sister, upon Lightning's request, and together they set out on a journey to save the future by using the Historia Crux to visit different eras to solve the time paradoxes.

Upon leaving Academia 4XX AF through a Time Gate opened by a booby-trapped artefact, part of the Historia Crux is damaged and hits Mog, nearly throwing him out of the system. Serah rushes to help him and is separated from Noel; although the two leave through different exits, they both end up in the Void Beyond.

After Caius Ballad is defeated and the Heart of Chaos within him is destroyed, the Time Gates close sealing access to the Historia Crux. It is unknown what happens to the Historia Crux in the end, as the chaos of the Unseen Realm invades the Mortal Realm and the world is turned into Nova Chrysalia.

Academia

 * 400 AF, a paradox Academia full of Cie'th, due to the intervention of Adam.
 * Gate Seal: "Flight" - Village Proper, Oerba 300 AF
 * 4XX AF, Academia in 400 AF in a timeline where Adam was never created.
 * Transcript: "The Future is Hope".
 * Gate Seal: "Promises" - A Dying World 700 AF
 * 500 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Final Battle" - Academia 500 AF

Archylte Steppe

 * Year Unknown, Archylte Steppe during the period 1 AF - 500 AF
 * Gate Seal: "The Calm" - Throne Room, The Void Beyond ??? AF
 * ??? AF, Transcript "A Giant Mistake"

Augusta Tower

 * 200 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Facts" - Entrance, Academia 4XX AF
 * 300 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Silence" - 51st Floor, Augusta Tower 200 AF
 * ??? AF, Transcript: Test Subjects ending.

The Void Beyond

 * Year Unknown, a shadow of Valhalla. Visit in both Episode 3 Parts 1 and 2.
 * Year Unknown, a shadow of Valhalla. Visit in Episode 5.

Bresha Ruins

 * 005 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Scars" - Pass of Paddra, Yaschas Massif 010 AF
 * 100 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Disaster" - Bresha Ruins 100 AF
 * 300 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Labyrinth" - Echoes of the Past, Bresha Ruins 100 AF

Coliseum

 * Year Unknown
 * Gate Seal: "Prediction" - Throne Room, The Void Beyond ??? AF
 * ??? AF (DLC)

A Dying World

 * 700 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Determination" - Academia 500 AF
 * ??? AF, Transcript: "Heir to Chaos" ending.

New Bodhum

 * 003 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Leaving" - Excavation Site, Bresha Ruins 005 AF
 * 700 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Sisters" - Academia 500 AF
 * Year Unknown, a dream world in New Bodhum known as Hollow Seclusion. Transcript: "Fate and Freedom" ending.
 * ??? AF, Transcript: "Beneath a Timeless Sky" ending.

Oerba

 * 200 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Encounters" - Pass of Paddra, Yaschas Massif 01X AF
 * 300 AF
 * Gate Seal: "How Things Were" - Village Proper, Oerba 200 AF
 * 400 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Hometown" - Village Proper, Oerba 200 AF
 * ??? AF, Transcript: "Vanille's Truth" ending.

Serendipity

 * Year Unknown
 * Gate Seal: "Eternity" - Bresha Ruins 100 AF
 * ??? AF (DLC)

Sunleth Waterscape

 * 300 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Farewells" - Academia 400 AF
 * 400 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Thunderstruck" - Sunleth Waterscape 400 AF
 * ??? AF, Transcript: "Mog's Marvelous Flan Plan" ending.

Valhalla

 * Year Unknown
 * Gate Seal: "Hope" - Final Battle
 * ??? AF (DLC)

Vile Peaks

 * 010 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Afterimage" - Twilight Odin Battle, Vile Peaks 200 AF
 * 200 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Return" - Twilight Odin Battle, Vile Peaks 200 AF

Yaschas Massif

 * 010 AF, a paradox Yaschas Massif, darkened by an eclipse caused by the fal'Cie Fenrir.
 * Gate Seal: "Visions" - Village Proper, Oerba 200 AF
 * 01X AF, Yaschas Massif in 10 AF in a timeline where the eclipse never happened.
 * Gate Seal: "The Fall" - Serendipity ??? AF
 * 100 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Reminiscence" - Paddrean Archeopolis, Yaschas Massif 100 AF
 * 110 AF
 * Gate Seal: "Maleficence" - Paddrean Archeopolis, Yaschas Massif 110 AF

Development
The director of Final Fantasy XIII-2, Motomu Toriyama, has said there are a few reasons of why the developers included time travel in the story; they wanted to tell the story of the rebuilding of the world after Cocoon's fall, and thematically felt time travel was a good fit for this story. Square Enix received a lot of feedback regarding Final Fantasy XIII's linear gameplay, and with Final Fantasy XIII-2 the developers wanted to incorporate a new gameplay system with the Historia Crux to let the player advance through different areas within the world seamlessly.

Music
The Historia Crux has its eponymous leitmotif, titled "Historia Crux", composed by Mitsuto Suzuki and performed by ORIGA. Suzuki created this theme with the concept of developing a song with multiple tunes mixing into one to capture a sense of time travel. Suzuki completed the basic structure of the song in two days and afterward added the vocals, recorded the drums and violin, and spent time on the process of arrangement. Each time he received new footage from the team he would brush up the song.

The song uses irregular time signature because Suzuki wasn't concerned about the beats, creating a rhythm that purely relies on the composer's intuition rather than logic. Suzuki remarks it must've been tough for the drummer.

The theme "The Void Beyond" is a variant of "Historia Crux", and is used during the segments the characters are lost within time and most locations are inaccessible. A prototype version of "Historia Crux" on the Final Fantasy XIII-2: Original Soundtrack PLUS titled, "Travelogue_GuideVocalDemo" features vocals performed by a male artist.

Lyrics

 * The stars shine in the deep sky
 * Endless stories of the distant yesterdays


 * Take me in your arms
 * Keep me in your heart
 * Take me in your arms
 * Keep me in your heart


 * Time is flying by
 * The only moment is now, the only moment is now
 * Feel that everything is real
 * Everything is real in the dream


 * Going on a trip to somewhere I've never been
 * Across time and space
 * Time and space, time and space
 * Time and space, time and space


 * The stars shine in the deep sky
 * Endless stories of the distant yesterdays

Etymology
Historia is Latin for "history", while Latin crux means "to intercept at a central point" - in other words, "to cross".