gamerdad I pressed onward. Crossed the swamp. Fought the beast. Entered the mines. And I saved my game on the doorstep of chapter 3.

Even in the orginal incarnation of this game, the crossing of the swamp on the back of a chocobo was a kind of barrier. Sure, you had fought some hard-won battles in the introduction of the story and even that has been true in this remake. In fact, I gave up on one of the sidequests because I just couldnt seem to make any progress without getting obliterated early in the fight. I’m not sure if I need more levels or simply a different strategy, but as I left this particular zone having explored every corner and fought every beast a dozen times and unearthed every treasure, I was even then reluctant that my skills could have used just a little more polishing before facing off against the legendary Midgarstormr guarding the swamp. It was a tough fight. I mean, I’m not playing on crazy hard or anything, just having set my difficulty level to normal right from the start. I am a middle aged dad after all. But I used up most of my magic doing urgent heals and pounded away on the beast with the best of my spells and skills and even a couple synergy moves (which I’m just starting to figure out!) And at the end it was a combination of some luck and Saturday morning patience that pushed me onward and into chapter 3. The barrier, the swamp, has been crossed.