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Final Fantasy XIII |OT|

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Naeblish

Member
I'm on ch7 my self, been reading up on the last few pages, basically what i got from it is that all chapters till 11 are boring and linear, 9 and 10 being the worst. Chapter 11 is heaven. Chapter 12 has too many enemies. Greeeaat, can't wait to play more tonight :lol .
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Naeblish said:
I'm on ch7 my self, been reading up on the last few pages, basically what i got from it is that all chapters till 11 are boring and linear, 9 and 10 being the worst. Chapter 11 is heaven. Chapter 12 has too many enemies. Greeeaat, can't wait to play more tonight :lol .

I think the slog through chapter 11's ending is a bit brutal because there's a bit of back tracking, Halo style. With 12 and 13, it's very easy to just waltz by everything if you need to/want to, so at least you can minimize the encounters you have to deal with.
 

Atrophis

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
Chapter 10:

Okay, I guess I must have lucked out and had the right Paradigm configurations since
Cid
apparently changes his patterns based on what your party's patterns are. I somehow got him to a stagger and raped him for 7/8 of his life bar in a matter of seconds. Then it took me another 4 minutes to grind that last bit down because he was constantly in Guard. But I beat him in 6 minutes and change and got the 5 star rating! :lol

Meanwhile, the dungeon itself is absolutely fucking atrocious. I actually thought this was going to be a short dungeon like Chapter 8, just kill
Cid
and it's off to Gran Pulse. But nooooooooooo, first the designers want me to go through this fucking bullshit! I never thought I would find another level that I would curse as much as The Infamous Library of identical blue rooms in the original Halo, but this bullshit dungeon matches it. It's just a bunch of identical rooms cut and pasted together with the same bullshit enemies in different patterns. I mean, the Chapter 9 dungeon at least had you going inside and outside and every part of the level looked different. This whole chapter is just identical orange room after identical orange room. Fuck the level designers who thought this shit would fly in this day and age. Halo had a lot of repetitiveness because it had to be finished by the Xbox's launch and it was even cancelled before being resurrected. Squenix had 5 years to make this game, so what the fuck is this shit?

God, I can't wait to be outside exploring Gran Pulse in Chapter 11 after this total pile of bull-fucking-horseshit. Fuck Chapter 10.


Heh me and a buddy at work have been comparing notes as we are playing pretty much at the same pace. He is a little ahead of me though and said 'beat the boss and you're pretty much in Pulse'.

It goes without saying I was incredibly pissed to have another hour of copy and pasted dungeon to wade through :(

Cid
was a pain to kill though. Took me quite a few tries but when i did finish him off he went in like 2 minutes flat :lol
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Well now this was pretty awesome, I just power leveled 80k+ CP in like half an hour time.

from the flower field near Vanille's eidolon fight, retrack all the way back to the tunnel, then back again, enemies should respawn in between, and they're all easy enough to die within seconds. End result was a cool 80k or so CP in a matter of half an hour. I think i'm gonna do this one or two more times now.
 

Jrmint

Member
Skel said:
Question about Chapter 11 - Taejin's Tower specifically

Not sure if it's a spoiler, but I'll spoiler just in case.

On the third tier (right after the fight with 5 Pulsework Gladiators) the guide says there should be a chest right at the top of the steps with a "Simurgh" weapon in it. When I go to where it says it should be I hear the chest sound but do not see it. Is this unlocked after a certain point in the dungeon or what?

Thanks.
Reposting this, anyone know? I really hate feeling like I may miss a weapon.
 

onken

Member
badcrumble said:
Could you give a bit more detail about what you think would be an advisable setup for doing this? Which other two characters would be a good idea, any particular equipment, et cetera. I've maxed out the three main roles with everyone and am decently far along (at the 21,000 CP cost tier) in the secondary roles, and any method for taking these guys out that doesn't involve grinding for TP between battles would be invaluable.

By the end I was using Fang/Lightning/Vanille, since there's pretty much nothing those 3 can't do. I did the majority of my grinding with the following equipment. Make sure you don't equip dash shoes, as the buff runs out a lot quicker than if you cast it manually. Get your weapons upgraded to tier 3 asap (no need to max out), that 6th ATB bar really comes in handy. When you've got all the traps you want then ditch the "best choice" and replace with "good choice" to farm ingots instead.

Fang
Maxed-out Lance of Kane (dragoon branch)
Genji gloves
Best available attack+
3rd best available attack+
Best choice

Lightning
maxed-out Ultima
2nd best attack+
imperial guard (she kept dying a lot)
6-element protection thingy (a LOT)
Good choice

Vanille
maxed out Erinye's Cane
best available magic+
royal guard
Good choice
Best choice
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
dk_ said:
Why should I upgrade the sprint shoes (+star)? Does it have any effect or wasted resources?
Upgrading it won't do a thing.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
Just got up to chapter 4 and like the game so far (never had to grind for a single second)

Now I only wish I could understand the weapon upgrade system. I find myself on the verge of buying the strategy guide *just* so I can read up on that one gameplay system =\
 

Elios83

Member
7Th said:
It's mostly information from the LE Guide and the Analects, but the bit about
Fang's Ragnarok being incomplete due to the lack of Vanille is my interpretation as, in the Analects, they're BOTH called the Chosen that have to bear the burden of the Beast.

Anyway,
Barthandelus/Balanders motivation and what really happened 600 years ago with Fang and Vanille's Focus are a total cloud of ambiguity... but I can still tell you that you got something very wrong: the Goddess that stopped Fang's Ragnarok and the Maker that Barthandelus wants to call back are different entities. The Goddess that stopped Fang's Ragnarok is some sort of "divine providence" and the she made it so that they were both crystallized despite not fully completing their Focus; the Maker that Barthandelus wants to call back is God Pulse, creator of the land, humans and the fal'Cie.


Yeah that makes much more sense actually because
a goddess who prevented Coccoon from being destroyed in first place wouldn't be too happy about the sacrifice Barthandelus had in mind XD.
By the way I wanted the story to be more detailed with less ambiguity on key themes.
It's interesting that they used themes taken from both
FFX and FFXII
for FFXIII plot.
 

lljride

Member
PuppetMaster said:
Only one trophy left till platinum! Stupid all items and weapons trophy.

Nice, how hard was the 5 star all missions trophy? Does the gold watch (or w/e increases 5 star time) help out a lot, or were they pretty easy regardless?

Just asking because I'm having a hard time getting 5 stars with even some of the earlier missions, but I haven't really started grinding a ton yet.
 

Lost Fragment

Obsessed with 4chan
Woke up. Smoked a joint. Turned on FFXIII.

I had never opened up the menu while on a chocobo before, so that picture took me by surprise. I think I laughed at that for like 15 minutes.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
lljride said:
Just asking because I'm having a hard time getting 5 stars with even some of the earlier missions, but I haven't really started grinding a ton yet.
Equip the first tier weapons, 5-staring them will be easier.
 

Ricker

Member
Finally,Gran Pulse...also got the Loremaster trophy and the theme opened up,it`s kinda plain though but still,a nice little extra,I see there`s like 8 other things that can be unlocked like that,not sure i`ll get them all...I plan on staying in Pulse for a while,even though I haven`t played around there yet,I want to upgrade and the like before moving on.
 

Llyranor

Member
Alright, chapter 11 and the game opened up. Just did a few hunts and the battles have been pretty nice. Now that I can change leaders around, setting up different parties and paradigms has gotten even better.

People may not like it, but I quite like the fact that you can just retry battles at will. Gives you ample opportunity to reassess what went wrong, and figure out some new battle tactics/paradigms to compensate. Good stuff. I love this kind of on-the-fly customization.
 

Baha

Member
Scythesurge said:
Last night was the first night I didn't get to play this game since it came out :-(

I want to be done with chapter 10 already

Yeah, chapter 10 was a floor or two too long imo. Easily my least favorite chapter so far.

Llyranor said:
Alright, chapter 11 and the game opened up. Just did a few hunts and the battles have been pretty nice. Now that I can change leaders around, setting up different parties and paradigms has gotten even better.

People may not like it, but I quite like the fact that you can just retry battles at will. Gives you ample opportunity to reassess what went wrong, and figure out some new battle tactics/paradigms to compensate. Good stuff. I love this kind of on-the-fly customization.

Exactly, one of the few reasons why the early chapter grind isn't so bad. The retry function is definitely one of the best additions to the series. It doesn't make battles easier, it makes them fair. No more backtracking from a save point bullshit or dealing with a new battle team with messed up paradigms against a tough boss.
 

psy18

Member
Any tips to quickly dispose
Sacrifice
? Really hate their insta-death and debuffs. Some fights becomes way too long.
 

squall211

Member
Ok, stupid question.

How do I ride a chocobo? I see them in the field, but I can't do anything with them. Is there a certain mission I have to finish first?
 

psy18

Member
squall211 said:
Ok, stupid question.

How do I ride a chocobo? I see them in the field, but I can't do anything with them. Is there a certain mission I have to finish first?

Mission 14.
Look for rideable chocobo on maps, stand next to them and press x/o

10k!~
 
psy18 said:
Any tips to quickly dispose
Sacrifice
? Really hate their insta-death and debuffs. Some fights becomes way too long.

Give your team lots of buffs, mainly the one that makes your weapon whatever their weakness is and/or haste, then fight them, actually after doing that it should take only about 2 bouts of Relentless Assault to stagger each one.. Deceptisols if you have plenty of extras.
 

falastini

Member
psy18 said:
Any tips to quickly dispose
Sacrifice
? Really hate their insta-death and debuffs. Some fights becomes way too long.

They are susceptible to Fogga which prevents them from casting spells. Since that's 90% of what they do, they'll end up wandering for the majority of the fight while you smack on them. Makes them a cake walk. It helps if your leader can be Saboteur so you can pick the debuffs. Tossing a few extra ones (like Deprotect and Deshell) after you stick Fog helps bring them down even faster.
 

careful

Member
What's the argument again for saving all my weapon upgrades until Ch. 11? (Put it in noob terms please) I'm not sure I get it. I'm currently at Ch. 6 and have the Gladius at level 11 I think.
 
careful said:
What's the argument again for saving all my weapon upgrades until Ch. 11? (Put it in noob terms please) I'm not sure I get it. I'm currently at Ch. 6 and have the Gladius at level 11 I think.
Yeah, I upgraded one thing, and quickly realized I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I'd like more upgrading info also.
 

jiien

Member
careful said:
What's the argument again for saving all my weapon upgrades until Ch. 11? (Put it in noob terms please) I'm not sure I get it. I'm currently at Ch. 6 and have the Gladius at level 11 I think.

Well, the argument is generally that you don't HAVE to upgrade at all throughout the whole game, really, and the only point where it may become necessary is in chapter 11 and beyond. However, there's also no harm in doing so beforehand. It's just that when weapon upgrading becomes more important, you'll actually have access to and money for materials that will make it much easier. And that doesn't happen till chapter 11.

Edit: Also, to this guy, because I didn't think you got an answer:

Skel said:
Reposting this, anyone know? I really hate feeling like I may miss a weapon.

I don't remember the particular place you are talking about but:

Two things: One, you will have two major chances to go back to this area. One after you beat the boss of Chapter 11 (because you aren't forced to go to Chapter 12 after you beat the boss till you want to, and it's very obvious the action you have to take to move the plot forward), and again near the very end, in Chapter 13 maybe, where you have the option to warp back to Pulse before you fight the final boss, or something like that.

Two, you can't miss the weapons because you ultimately have access to all of them through the stores, I believe. I'm pretty sure that mission 46 upon completion will open up Gilgamesh Inc, which gives you access to all of the other weapons that you don't already have access to. So don't worry so much, there's virtually nothing truly miss-able in terms of items in this game.
 

Indrew

Neo Member
Lost Fragment said:
Apparently there's a dude doing a no crystarium run whose made it up to the chapter 9 boss.

That's a lot of potions... or do the characters start off with the basics (cure/fire/etc)? I don't remember. Fang must be a permanent member of the dude's party.
 

Zoe

Member
jiien said:
Well, the argument is generally that you don't HAVE to upgrade at all throughout the whole game, really, and the only point where it may become necessary is in chapter 11 and beyond. However, there's also no harm in doing so beforehand. It's just that when weapon upgrading becomes more important, you'll actually have access to and money for materials that will make it much easier. And that doesn't happen till chapter 11.

It's mostly about having more resources at your disposal. If you rack up a 3x bonus, you want to be able to max out the weapon right then and there. Otherwise you'll lose the bonus and have to wait and throw away more of the multiplier materials later on.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
I leik Halo said:
I'm about 3 hours into the game, and I was wondering if the music gets better later on. The soundtrack just seems.......... so plain.

There's a lot more variety later on. There's some nice jazz tracks, more vocals and singing, and even some chill-out and trance-like stuff.

The OST is movie-like and tied to the emotions on screen and the locals; it builds up as the game progresses.
 

lljride

Member
I leik Halo said:
I'm about 3 hours into the game, and I was wondering if the music gets better later on. The soundtrack just seems.......... so plain.

I kinda had the same feeling as you at first. I think the first song that really hit me as awesome was in Ch 5. Ch 11 has some of my favorite music from the entire series, so I definitely think it gets better as it goes along.
 
Kaijima said:
There's a lot more variety later on. There's some nice jazz tracks, more vocals and singing, and even some chill-out and trance-like stuff.

The OST is movie-like and tied to the emotions on screen and the locals; it builds up as the game progresses.

That's good to know. I really wish Uematsu or Mitsuda would fucking contribute something.
 

jiien

Member
Zoe said:
It's mostly about having more resources at your disposal. If you rack up a 3x bonus, you want to be able to max out the weapon right then and there. Otherwise you'll lose the bonus and have to wait and throw away more of the multiplier materials later on.

Yep, that's pretty much what I meant. By the time weapon upgrading becomes more useful, you'll have access to all those wonderful materials (and the money necessary to purchase them). But since you will get tons of money later, there's no harm done in messing around with the drops you get off enemies, especially because in the long run, those materials don't mean anything.
 

MechaX

Member
Rpgmonkey said:
Taking out turtles like Mario now. :D

Still kind of a boring grind, but it's much less repetitive than the Death method.

After getting one of them to drop a Traphezohedron, I upgraded Fang's weapon to the ultimate level and it made a huge difference. Now, I can actually take one of them out without the summon method. I still need shrouds, but that should change when I can make a MED/SEN/SYN combination with Fang, Lightning, and Hope respectively (I've come to the realization that I personally need to be the healer for most of my plans to work, and Lightning should make a moderately decent Sentinel for the moment).

The thing that worries me is that I lost my way to get another three Traps by upgrading one of Fang's weapons and dismantling it, since I really do need Kain's Lance at this point. Although, doing that would require 1.5 mil gil on a weapon that I'm just going to get rid of... then I'll need another 1.5 mil to get another weapon of the same attack status, but I can't do that if that weapon is the only way to beat these turtles that hold the only key to a sensible amount of gil... Ugh, this is all so horribly circular. If they decide to make a XIII International, they really need to reconsider the post-game economy by either adding in alternate ways to get gil, an alternate way of getting a Trap, or both. As badcrumble said, it feels like there's a part of the difficulty curve just missing.

Oh well, time to grind on Adamantoises for the next 10 hours.
 

B-Dex

Member
I caved and dismantled Vanille's Nirvana for 3 traps and I am still farming gil so I can upgrade and dismantle Fang's lance so then everyone will have their best weapons.

Gil is the worst part about the post-game grind. There really needs to be better ways to obtain it.

Clocked in over 73 hours now and it only took me 55 to beat the game :S. Almost 20 hours grinding for traps/gil.
 

Tabs

Member
One bad thing about the speed of battles is you really don't get a chance to analyze, and therefore better strategize, damage being done. Have you noticed that the help text for the -ra spells say something like, "Does increased damaged when staggered"?

That's a bit misleading, everything does more damage when staggered. From my own tests, -ra spells do less damage to a single target than 2 regular spells, staggered or not. Anyone else trying to pick apart the damage system?
 

Jrmint

Member
Question about dismantling.

So I just finished
Taejin's Tower and defeated Dahaka
and as a reward got the Tetradic Tiara. Now everything I have been reading says this should dismantle into Sprint Shoes, but I tried it twice and both times it turned into a Vial of Perfume.

Is it just a random chance to turn into different items, so I basically have to keep loading until I get the Sprint Shoes? Or how does it work exactly?

Thanks much.
 

Indrew

Neo Member
Skel said:
Question about dismantling.

So I just finished
Taejin's Tower and defeated Dahaka
and as a reward got the Tetradic Tiara. Now everything I have been reading says this should dismantle into Sprint Shoes, but I tried it twice and both times it turned into a Vial of Perfume.

Is it just a random chance to turn into different items, so I basically have to keep loading until I get the Sprint Shoes? Or how does it work exactly?

Thanks much.

Buy 4 cheap accessories at a store and then dismantle the Tiara. It works, somehow.
 

lljride

Member
Skel said:
Question about dismantling.

So I just finished
Taejin's Tower and defeated Dahaka
and as a reward got the Tetradic Tiara. Now everything I have been reading says this should dismantle into Sprint Shoes, but I tried it twice and both times it turned into a Vial of Perfume.

Is it just a random chance to turn into different items, so I basically have to keep loading until I get the Sprint Shoes? Or how does it work exactly?

Thanks much.

I did it without dismantling 4 items before, I think that was just in the JP version. Did you upgrade the Tiara to LV 2/*?
 
dreamer3kx said:
Just got up to Chap 10, wow some of these enemies are harder for sure, so how should I go about this Chap?

Theres a group of 10 of those slugs in that chapter that yield nice amounts of CP and in a spot that easy to respawn (you just jump up four legs and back). I stayed there and maxed the three mainroles of my characters Crysterium out. Its a perfect spot to do that. Thats all for that then run through the level
 

jiien

Member
lljride said:
I did it without dismantling 4 items before, I think that was just in the JP version. Did you upgrade the Tiara to LV 2/*?

I can confirm this, you DON'T need to dismantle items before hand. Simply upgrade the Tiara to * first, and then dismantle. In fact, if you ever dismantle anything, you should always upgrade it to * first.
 

rusashi

Neo Member
Chapter 12 was terrible. What the hell was the
Produclad? I get the FF7 reference but that things design was horrible, how did Rosch even fit in there?
Tempted to put Chapter 13 off for awhile because it looks just as horrible as Chapter 12.

Don't get me wrong, I like most of the game, the cast has been enjoyable, the story abit contrived, the villains are kind of lacking, and Rosch was not developed into one at all, but overall I do enjoy the game. But Pokemon Heart Gold has been waiting for awhile now...
 
Dedication Through Light said:
Theres a group of 10 of those slugs in that chapter that yield nice amounts of CP and in a spot that easy to respawn (you just jump up four legs and back). I stayed there and maxed the three mainroles of my characters Crysterium out. Its a perfect spot to do that. Thats all for that then run through the level

So I should grind out the level before continuing through the story (missions etc..?) Can I get back to the open area if I decide to go through with the story?
 

levious

That throwing stick stunt of yours has boomeranged on us.
Trav said:
One bad thing about the speed of battles is you really don't get a chance to analyze, and therefore better strategize, damage being done.


doesn't the R1 menu pause the battle? That could help a bit I guess, as long as you're able to see the damage being done as it's indicated.
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
Trav said:
One bad thing about the speed of battles is you really don't get a chance to analyze, and therefore better strategize, damage being done. Have you noticed that the help text for the -ra spells say something like, "Does increased damaged when staggered"?

That's a bit misleading, everything does more damage when staggered. From my own tests, -ra spells do less damage to a single target than 2 regular spells, staggered or not. Anyone else trying to pick apart the damage system?
I feel the same. I have tried sometimes to check how much damage a certain spell or attack would do for comparison purposes but it gets hard when the enemy is drowned in like 5 different sets of 4 digit numbers of the same color.
 

Jrmint

Member
jiien said:
I can confirm this, you DON'T need to dismantle items before hand. Simply upgrade the Tiara to * first, and then dismantle. In fact, if you ever dismantle anything, you should always upgrade it to * first.
Yea I just saw that in the guide, I missed it beforehand. Looks easy for the Tiara too since it has a max level of 2.
 
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