Well, the dialogue is pretty bad throughout the game, but having played through so many years of Metal Gear Solid I'm pretty much desensitized to bad Japanese dialogue at this point. Chapter 7 had that awesome scene of
Fang to the rescue, fuck yes finally she's in my party,
but basically that was the chapter that made Hope almost intolerable for me. Actually, Lightning too, though every scene with her and Fang was hilarious, natch.
Chapter 8 felt like... why am I here, if you're not going to put some stupid minigames in? I don't really like minigames, but that chapter seemed like it was designed perfectly for them. Almost insulting that they didn't put at least one in. I mean, it's a carnival, ffs. Storywise it was OK, but oddly short, considering that it's sandwiched between two much longer chapters.
Im on lvl 9 of my main cystariums, 45% complete with the missions and while i havent had much trouble with some of the B level ranks, these target times are fucking insane. Im getting 0 stars on some of these while acing others within 15 seconds.
How the fuck im i suppose to beat the B rank giant mech infront of the tower in under a minute when it takes so long to stagger the fucker? Going in with a preemptive strike isnt helping.
I guess im suppose to ace these after im super powerful and my characters have absurd amounts of HP and stats, because the inconsistencies between these fights is racking my brain.
It's pretty amazing. It's really been forcing me to think long and hard about what upgrades I want to pursue for each of my characters. I can't even imagine what's waiting in the next stage.
I heard after the game & before the very last boss.
I wondering if the game let's go back any other time than that?
KuwabaraTheMan said:
It's pretty amazing. It's really been forcing me to think long and hard about what upgrades I want to pursue for each of my characters. I can't even imagine what's waiting in the next stage.
I just found it oddly convenient that he was there and just became that at that moment for maximum dramatic effect. It just felt contrived.. I know, it's Final Fantasy.
Dajh was there because his ability as a Sanctum l'Cie is to detect Pulse l'Cie. Jihl knew this, which is why she and PSICOM took him in the first place. Given that that Sazh is one of many Pulse l'Cie on the run, it only makes sense they'd make use of Dajh to try to track him (and the others) down. As for turning into crystal, well obviously his focus was to find Sazh (and possibly Vanille).
I had more problems with the appearance of the crystal than the mere presence of him.
I feel your pain man. I was stuck somewhere in 7 since last week, not wanting to even play. I had the day off today, and just decided to forge through, and finally just arrived at 11. I'm finally a little excited now. I mean, 9 and 10 had some interesting story moments, but the dungeons that capped them were the dreariest, most endless corridors of drudgery I can remember in an FF, aside from maybe that brutal dungeon at the end of XII.
The 24 hour-long nightmare is finally over. A whole *day's* worth of play to get here. :lol
And thanks for the tips on that boss, guys. For whatever reason, it still hadn't registered with me that debuffs built up the chain gauge. I read "chain" and flipped in my ravagers and marveled at my losses, and then just used the recommended MED/SAB-only builds and ended the fight in like, 60 seconds.
Question: What's the point of the chain gauges that appear when you're buffing/healing your own party members? Can you be staggered, or can you charge them up for a benefit or something?
Oh god, Lightning's first words in the RSS chat feed upon us gaining our freedom. "I think it's safe to say it won't be boring here." :lol :lol :lol So perfect.
Dajh was there because his ability as a Sanctum l'Cie is to detect Pulse l'Cie. Jihl knew this, which is why she and PSICOM took him in the first place. Given that that Sazh is one of many Pulse l'Cie on the run, it only makes sense they'd make use of Dajh to try to track him (and the others) down. As for turning into crystal, well obviously his focus was to find Sazh (and possibly Vanille).
I had more problems with the appearance of the crystal than the mere presence of him.
Yeah, she said that the moment we walked out and saw the main Gran Pulse area. I was thinking to myself, "Yeah, no shit, did you see how big that big monster was?" :lol
Well, I'm bumming around in Gran Pulse trying to do missions, but all my weapons are still at base level and it's really hard. Are there any recommendations on which weapons I should upgrade and what to do to maximize upgrade efficiency?
I didn't really feel it. Sazh didn't react the way I thought he would after hearing about Vanille's role in Dajh becoming a l'cie. With him being the mature yet keep things loose fatherly figure I expected him to comfort Vanille and relieve her of her guilt after he goes to find her. I think that would have been much more powerful, especially considering the fact that through their travels together he knows she would never have done something like that purposely. Instead we get a response out of Sazh that you'd expect from a more immature overly dramatic character like Hope. And if Sazh is going to blame Vanille for his son being in the wrong place at the wrong time while Vanille and Fang were handling their business then shouldn't he be equally as mad at Lightning for leading him to becoming a l'cie while she was handling her business? Not seeing much of a difference in the two situations. Seemed like drama for the sake of drama. Though this is FF. And maybe if Sazh had actually been watching his son this wouldn't have happened! ;D
With regards to the Snow/Hope story, I'm just glad they cleared it up relatively early. So many "Ugh" inducing moments like Snow being oblivious to Hope having something against him despite Hope virtually drawing him a picture. Or Snow just happening to obliviously make a string of insensitive comments that fuel Hope's rage.
Also, and I mentioned this as one of the things that I didn't like in my final thoughts post, I'm surprised nobody else really has a problem with the Barthandelous(sp?) guiding the main characters as far as they got plot device. It's so played out in stories that have a hint or more of action in them and generally only serves the purpose of expanding villian power levels or justifying how a particular story's protagonists have managed to defeat the hordes of antagonists that they shouldn't have stood a chance against.
There's a couple more than XII (like 60 or so vs. XII's 48), but they made more attempts to mix up the missions in XII.
Some of them are harder and more interesting than XII's and you can redo them at any time, which is nice, but some of the hunts use the same damn enemies (or generic enemies you could already get in normal encounters with), and very few require a "trick" to finding them or luring them out, you just find your target and kill it.
Magnus said:
Question: What's the point of the chain gauges that appear when you're buffing/healing your own party members? Can you be staggered, or can you charge them up for a benefit or something?
I didn't really feel it. Sazh didn't react the way I thought he would after hearing about Vanille's role in Dajh becoming a l'cie. With him being the mature yet keep things loose fatherly figure I expected him to comfort Vanille and relieve her of her guilt after he goes to find her. I think that would have been much more powerful, especially considering the fact that through their travels together he knows she would never have done something like that purposely. Instead we get a response out of Sazh that you'd expect from a more immature overly dramatic character like Hope. And if Sazh is going to blame Vanille for his son being in the wrong place at the wrong time while Vanille and Fang were handling their business then shouldn't he be equally as mad at Lightning for leading him to becoming a l'cie while she was handling her business? Not seeing much of a difference in the two situations. Seemed like drama for the sake of drama. Though this is FF. And maybe if Sazh had actually been watching his son this wouldn't have happened! ;D
With regards to the Snow/Hope story, I'm just glad they cleared it up relatively early. So many "Ugh" inducing moments like Snow being oblivious to Hope having something against him despite Hope virtually drawing him a picture. Or Snow just happening to obliviously make a string of insensitive comments that fuel Hope's rage.
Also, and I mentioned this as one of the things that I didn't like in my final thoughts post, I'm surprised nobody else really has a problem with the Barthandelous(sp?) guiding the main characters as far as they got plot device. It's so played out in stories that have a hint or more of action in them and generally only serves the purpose of expanding villian power levels or justifying how a particular story's protagonists have managed to defeat the hordes of antagonists that they shouldn't have stood a chance against.
At the moment, he was consumed with rage, especially since he understandably felt betrayed by Vanille. However, he also recognized that killing her wouldn't actually do anything to change what had happened. He reacted hotly at the time, but after the moment had passed he listened to what Vanille had to say and did forgive her. I thought it made sense. If he hadn't had that initial anger, it wouldn't have made sense for his character. Dahj was everything to him, and watching him turn to crystal understandably put him in an a very emotionally unstable place.
There wasn't any reason for him to be angry at Lightning because he had chosen to go fight the Fal'cie of his own accord, since he thought that destroying the Pulse Fal'cie might have been Dahj's focuse.
When I equip the Connoisseur Catalog do I only have the rare item drop increase or will it also have the normal drop increase of the Collector Catalog?
People keep saying this but it's not true. FFX had lots of breathing moments in between long "dungeons" - little towns with stores, buildings, secrets, sidequests, mini-games. It also had a greater variety of enemies and NPCs to interact with. So there were more variety to preoccupy your time.
It is true. Have you played FFX recently? I played it last approx 6 months ago, and if I had $1 for every time the floating winged eyeball showed up in a different color, I'd be halfway to purchasing a new game. Now lets talk about the dogs. Now the elementals. etc. On the front of FFX towns, I never considered an area with 3 siderooms/buildings (one for a shop, one for an inn, and one to move the plot forward) much of a compelling anything. FFX's story simply had a different pace because it was a different story. It was a pilgrimage, a long journey. FFXIII is a mad dash of fugitives. Of course there's not going to be downtime - do you expect them to stop in the local cafe showing off their l'Cie brands and ask for the local rumors? FFX has practically no sidequests at all for the vast majority of the game, unless you count finding Destruction Spheres in the extremely linear "dungeons" of the Aeon temples. The minigames don't show up until nearly the last 3rd of the game, and even then they're maddening. The Chocobo races, the lightning dodging, the butterfly catching, collecting 10 of each monster? - I didn't find any of that to be particularly compelling or enjoyable. The one thing I'd say FFXIII needed to steal is a monster arena (sans the grinding necessary to unlock the monsters). Missions kind of take the place of that though.
I'll give you one point - there were a lot more NPCs to talk to in FFX. I don't really miss them though. I still don't think it'd be appropriate for fugitives to go around talking to everybody
(biggest weak point in the story of FXIII to me is Sazh and Vanille showing up in a theme park...yes, that's the best place to go...I bet there's no security or cameras there)
.
Amir0x said:
I had issues with FFX in much the same way I do with FFXIII, but its battle system didn't take forever to unlock, the limits on Sphere Grid were so much different, and you controlled each of your party members and swapped them out as you deemed necessary, allowing me the type of micromanaging I demand from my RPGs.
So in that way, I can say I definitely enjoy FFX's battle system more as well as the fact it had a lot more to do in between.
The sphere grid is exactly the same for much of the duration of the game until you get Lvl 3 Lock Spheres. Everyone's stuck on a dictated path that has small sidebranches. The only annoyance is that early in the game you need to farm for specific sphere types that you run short on (damn you Power Spheres!) - but eventually you're just sitting on stacks of 99 of them. Why even bother? (yeah I know they're used for crafting). Swapping out party members in X is not much different than swapping the jobs of your party members in XIII. Around the same time that you'd get L3 Sphere in X is around the same time they let you take all your characters down any Crystarium path in XIII.
Amir0x said:
You've got a cherry picked selection of jobs available during most of Chap 1-9. And even as the case goes, when you have Afroman as Synergist you have Haste, but when you have Aussie 2 as Synergist you don't. And you frequently only have two characters, limiting your options even more. And on top of that, you only control the lead character, making your selections of jobs even more shallow, essentially turning your options into bare bones deck shuffling.
it's maddening. I can see the actual battle system of FFXIII brought to its logical conclusion, and it's amazing... but they simply never do it. They're always trying to hold the game back. A few big tweaks and it could have been one of the best.
I understood the entire battle system of FFXIII by the end of Chapter 3. At that point, it should have been hands off... but it wasn't. It went on and on and found new ways to prevent the player from exploiting all aspects of the system. This is compounded by the fact, once again, that you're missing things like basic A.I. gambits for your allies, continuing the steamlined, "hands-off" approach that is so unappealing to me.
Well, neither of the Aussies are natural synergists, so...don't expect their Synergist trees to be spectacular. Hope gets Haste before the game ends though. I have a problem with only controlling the lead character - what your teammates are doing is just as important as what you're doing, and I found the AI to be smart enough to do what I'd do more than 90% of the time (debuffing and buffing are the worst of the AI). I found the limitation to two characters and a subset of jobs to be forcing me to think up different strategies and giving me a good opportunity to see how different pairs of jobs worked together. Maybe everything was obvious to you from the get go, but it wasn't for me.
Amir0x said:
I'll just go where my heart desires! I wanna get killed by all manner of nasty beasts! Feel the wind in my hair! Roam the expanses of the veldt slaying all manner of monster for my goal to be the greatest monster hunter EVER!
I have to give the game some credit for reinforcing just how different Cocoon and Pulse are thematically (in the storyline) by demonstrating a drastic gameplay change between them as well. It really is a different world.
Rpgmonkey said:
Dunno about buffs, but healing spells get a boost from the gauge just like normal attacks.
I see a gauge attributed to each character appear momentarily in the top right-hand corner of the screen when that character is being healed. It fills up quickly, then depletes quickly, like an enemy gauge does when you do nothing but sic ravagers on it. It doesn't seem to have any bearing on gameplay at all. I can't figure it out.
At the moment, he was consumed with rage, especially since he understandably felt betrayed by Vanille. However, he also recognized that killing her wouldn't actually do anything to change what had happened. He reacted hotly at the time, but after the moment had passed he listened to what Vanille had to say and did forgive her. I thought it made sense. If he hadn't had that initial anger, it wouldn't have made sense for his character. Dahj was everything to him, and watching him turn to crystal understandably put him in an a very emotionally unstable place.
There wasn't any reason for him to be angry at Lightning because he had chosen to go fight the Fal'cie of his own accord, since he thought that destroying the Pulse Fal'cie might have been Dahj's focuse.
Ha, I'm an idiot. I forgot all about him having his reasons for going after the fal'cie in the beginning.
I still don't think it fits his character though. But now that I think about it, when he initially goes off on Vanille he hasn't learned exactly how she was involved yet right? In that case I could see his imagination getting the better of him and understand the rage. But then that would just move the bad writing from him to Vanille and Jihl. Vanille because she exaggerates her blame in the matter and never explains things to him (though this is the fault of more bad writing as I believe there were a couple of times she was going to try and tell him but he just happens to drop a guilt trip on her right at those times) and Jihl because she reveals it to Sazh like it was some premeditated crime by Vanille to turn Dahj into a l'cie.
Ha, I'm an idiot. I forgot all about him having his reasons for going after the fal'cie in the beginning.
I still don't think it fits his character though. But now that I think about it, when he initially goes off on Vanille he hasn't learned exactly how she was involved yet right? In that case I could see his imagination getting the better of him and understand the rage. But then that would just move the bad writing from him to Vanille and Jihl. Vanille because she exaggerates her blame in the matter and never explains things to him (though this is the fault of more bad writing as I believe there were a couple of times she was going to try and tell him but he just happens to drop a guilt trip on her right at those times) and Jihl because she reveals it to Sazh like it was some premeditated crime by Vanille to turn Dahj into a l'cie.
she is completely willing to die if it meant keeping everything that's happened a secret. She's just as unstable as the rest of them and feeling guilty for something that may have not been entirely her fault is in line with her character. She'd even take the blame for Fang and probably die for her.
Ha, I'm an idiot. I forgot all about him having his reasons for going after the fal'cie in the beginning.
I still don't think it fits his character though. But now that I think about it, when he initially goes off on Vanille he hasn't learned exactly how she was involved yet right? In that case I could see his imagination getting the better of him and understand the rage. But then that would just move the bad writing from him to Vanille and Jihl. Vanille because she exaggerates her blame in the matter and never explains things to him (though this is the fault of more bad writing as I believe there were a couple of times she was going to try and tell him but he just happens to drop a guilt trip on her right at those times) and Jihl because she reveals it to Sazh like it was some premeditated crime by Vanille to turn Dahj into a l'cie.
I don't think that's bad writing for any of those characters, though. Each of their actions make perfect sense in context. Vanille is feeling guilty and believes that she deserves to die. She was even the one convincing Sazh to keep living in order to get revenge. Similarly, Jihl is sadistic and wants to turn Sazh and Vanille on each other. She's just employing the most basic type of psychological warfare there, and hoping that they can do her job for her.
I wished we had the option to select which mission to redo in the mission review menu instead of having to go all the way back to the cie'th stone that you accepted the mission from. Would make it a lot easier. The maps may be linear but they're looong.
At this rate I would PAY to have an option to mute Vanille. Currently in Chapter 6 and everytime she jumps she makes a moaning sound. ANNOYS the shit out of me. Everytime she speaks I just want to mute my speakers. My gah. >:
I don't think that's bad writing for any of those characters, though. Each of their actions make perfect sense in context. Vanille is feeling guilty and believes that she deserves to die. She was even the one convincing Sazh to keep living in order to get revenge. Similarly, Jihl is sadistic and wants to turn Sazh and Vanille on each other. She's just employing the most basic type of psychological warfare there, and hoping that they can do her job for her.
I think I'm just trying to give her character too much credit in terms of intelligence. I guess I can understand her feeling a degree of guilt, but believing she deserves to die is a bit dramatic, no? The reason I think it's bad writing is due to the way she clings to it as a secret and believes she should die as if she were more responsible. With the way she acts you'd think she sacraficed Dajh to the fal'cie to save her own skin or something as shameless as that. Not that he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and they didn't realize it nor know that the fal'cie would turn him into a l'cie. (This exaggerated dramatization isn't just a problem with the Sazh/Vanille story, but something similar can be seen with the Snow/Hope story. If you were to take someone who hasn't played FF13 and just show him/her some of Hope's lines when he's angry at Snow that person would think Snow killed Hope's mom in cold blood.)
And I get Jihl's intention. But, IIRC, when she begins telling Sazh that Vanille was involved in Dajh's transformation she does it as if she knows Vanille hasn't told him. Which would imply one of two things: 1.) There isn't just a problem with Vanille overreacting to her responsibility in all of this, but rather a FF13 world problem where something like that is a big deal and blame is justified. Which goes back to being too dramatic to be believable. Or 2.) Jihl is an amazing psychologist and somehow knew that there is no way Vanille admitted her involvement to him.
I think I'm just trying to give her character too much credit in terms of intelligence. I guess I can understand her feeling a degree of guilt, but believing she deserves to die is a bit dramatic, no? The reason I think it's bad writing is due to the way she clings to it as a secret and believes she should die as if she were more responsible. With the way she acts you'd think she sacraficed Dajh to the fal'cie to save her own skin or something as shameless as that. Not that he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and they didn't realize it nor know that the fal'cie would turn him into a l'cie. (This exaggerated dramatization isn't just a problem with the Sazh/Vanille story, but something similar can be seen with the Snow/Hope story. If you were to take someone who hasn't played FF13 and just show him/her some of Hope's lines when he's angry at Snow that person would think Snow killed Hope's mom in cold blood.)
And I get Jihl's intention. But, IIRC, when she begins telling Sazh that Vanille was involved in Dajh's transformation she does it as if she knows Vanille hasn't told him. Which would apply one of two things: 1.) There isn't just a problem with Vanille overreacting to her responsibility in all of this, but rather a FF13 world problem where something like that is a big deal and blame is justified. Which goes back to being too dramatic to be believable. Or 2.) Jihl is an amazing psychologist and somehow knew that there is no way Vanille admitted her involvement to him.
sacrificed Dajh to the fal'cie to save her own skin. It's not people being idiots, it's them blowing things out of proportion which is what happens when you're "in the moment". It isn't until much later in Pulse that Sazh looks at the situation rationally and tells both Vanille and Fang that it wasn't either of their faults.
Does anyone know if the missions in Taejin's Tower affect the 5-star achievement/trophy? I honestly don't care too much but i'd rather know so I can completely write it off if it does.
Does anyone know if the missions in Taejin's Tower affect the 5-star achievement/trophy? I honestly don't care too much but i'd rather know so I can completely write it off if it does.
Thanks, I just wanted to continue on...no patience for that sort of thing. If anyone managed a 5-star on 2 or 3 as they progressed originally then major props. I thought I did great on the third one but the target time was like 2:30 which blew my mind.
Chapter 11 and Tiara related question, sort of spoiler I guess
So I just beat Dahaka and he dropped this Tiara item that i've read mentioned multiple times as being something important here, can someone please reiterate what the procedure about dismantling it and what the rewards for it will be ?
Thanks, I just wanted to continue on...no patience for that sort of thing. If anyone managed a 5-star on 2 or 3 as they progressed originally then major props. I thought I did great on the third one but the target time was like 2:30 which blew my mind.
Chapter 11 and Tiara related question, sort of spoiler I guess
So I just beat Dahaka and he dropped this Tiara item that i've read mentioned multiple times as being something important here, can someone please reiterate what the procedure about dismantling it and what the rewards for it will be ?
Thanks, I just wanted to continue on...no patience for that sort of thing. If anyone managed a 5-star on 2 or 3 as they progressed originally then major props. I thought I did great on the third one but the target time was like 2:30 which blew my mind.
Target time varies depending on what +dmg items you have equip. You can can increase the target time by using weaker weapons if you are having a hard time hitting it. I had to do this a couple times on some fights where the target time is only 30-40 secs. But most of the time going for the most damage will not hurt.
I've got 5 stars on every mission now. It's actually not too hard. You just need to grind a lot to get characters that are of sufficient level.
BTW, on your map screen you press Square button to get the list of missions. I think everyone knows this. But what I did NOT know till just today (like 140hours in) was that you can press right on the dpad and it will show you exactly how many stars you have in each mission!! I didn't know about this feature till after I got 5 stars on every one. I had just been using pen and paper to keep track! /foreheadslap
sacrificed Dajh to the fal'cie to save her own skin. It's not people being idiots, it's them blowing things out of proportion which is what happens when you're "in the moment". It isn't until much later in Pulse that Sazh looks at the situation rationally and tells both Vanille and Fang that it wasn't either of their faults.
I guess it just comes down to individual tolerance levels. What you deem as believable I deem as being too dramatic.
But let's say I buy it and can understand Vanille's feelings, I can understand her feeling guilty enough to believe she deserves to die. Wouldn't it logically follow that she wouldn't want to put herself into a position where something similar could happen again and another innocent life could be affected? Yet she does the same thing in the beginning of the game. Remember, Vanille/Fang went to the fal'cie at the plant looking for answers one way or another. The fal'cie felt threatened and turned Dahj into a l'cie. Isn't Vanille doing the exact same thing in the beginning of the game when she tags along with Lighting and the gang as they go seek out answers from the Bodhum vestige fal'cie? What if instead of turning the gang into l'cie, the fal'cie turned some innocent citizen who was nearby from the purge into a l'cie? Wouldn't Vanille have just been part of the same thing that's supposedly making her feel guilty enough to believe she deserves to die? And they continue to go after fal'cie throughout the story. You'd think for someone who is so crushed and guilty about the Dajh situation she'd stay as far away as possible from similar situations.
I guess it just comes down to individual tolerance levels. What you deem as believable I deem as being too dramatic.
But let's say I buy it and can understand Vanille's feelings, I can understand her feeling guilty enough to believe she deserves to die. Wouldn't it logically follow that she wouldn't want to put herself into a position where something similar could happen again and another innocent life could be affected? Yet she does the same thing in the beginning of the game. Remember, Vanille/Fang went to the fal'cie at the plant looking for answers one way or another. The fal'cie felt threatened and turned Dahj into a l'cie. Isn't Vanille doing the exact same thing in the beginning of the game when she tags along with Lighting and the gang as they go seek out answers from the Bodhum vestige fal'cie? What if instead of turning the gang into l'cie, the fal'cie turned some innocent citizen who was nearby from the purge into a l'cie? Wouldn't Vanille have just been part of the same thing that's supposedly making her feel guilty enough to believe she deserves to die? And they continue to go after fal'cie throughout the story. You'd think for someone who is so crushed and guilty about the Dajh situation she'd stay as far away as possible from similar situations.
I guess it just comes down to individual tolerance levels. What you deem as believable I deem as being too dramatic.
But let's say I buy it and can understand Vanille's feelings, I can understand her feeling guilty enough to believe she deserves to die. Wouldn't it logically follow that she wouldn't want to put herself into a position where something similar could happen again and another innocent life could be affected? Yet she does the same thing in the beginning of the game. Remember, Vanille/Fang went to the fal'cie at the plant looking for answers one way or another. The fal'cie felt threatened and turned Dahj into a l'cie. Isn't Vanille doing the exact same thing in the beginning of the game when she tags along with Lighting and the gang as they go seek out answers from the Bodhum vestige fal'cie? What if instead of turning the gang into l'cie, the fal'cie turned some innocent citizen who was nearby from the purge into a l'cie? Wouldn't Vanille have just been part of the same thing that's supposedly making her feel guilty enough to believe she deserves to die? And they continue to go after fal'cie throughout the story. You'd think for someone who is so crushed and guilty about the Dajh situation she'd stay as far away as possible from similar situations.
Vanille didn't want to involve anyone. She willingly boarded the train because she believed it was going to Pulse, so she wanted to go back home, forget about her Focus and don't harm anyone. Later when the train was derailed she went to Vestige in hopes of finding Fang there.
