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[ElFly]

Wait, no, I want to rectify. Chapter's 11 second half is my favorite part of the game.

Fuck Gran Pulse's plains and it's momentum killing mad skillz.

 

[Adent]

The Behemoth King wears leather pants. Where the hell did it get those leather pants and why would he even put them on? The pants must of been tailored too since they have a special cut out for the tail.

 

[Amir0x]

The Behemoth King wears leather pants. Where the hell did it get those leather pants and why would he even put them on? The pants must of been tailored too since they have a special cut out for the tail.

A lot of these creatures have weird patchwork mechanics and suits on

Fal'cie are robots

 

[Big Papa Husker]

well, the way I did it was in that one hallway in the chip, I fought a circuit of soldiers which had a high rate of incentive chip drops. I got up to around 200,000 gil, and purchased many upgrade stuffs.

36 Sturdy Bones for 200% value > A variety of those 800gil Upgrade stuffs -> Maxed Gladius at 26 -> Used stone to upgrade (already had it in my inventory) -> Helter-Skelter lvl19. Then the rest has been upgraded naturally over the course of the lvls.



Mission 7. Kinda slow way for money but definitely viable course for Bomb Cores. Although, if you attempt farming early on, it'll be a lot slower than 30-40 secs (like 1min30sec)

Also make sure you have Collector's Catalog/Connoisseur's Catalog for 5x drop rate

So I just got to

Spoiler

Gran Pulse

. What would be the easiest way to get tons of CP? I haven't upgraded any weapons for 3-4 chapters (Gladius @ LVL 11). Which stone do you use to upgrade it to Helter Skelter?

 

[usea]

I'm liking this game less and less as I get near the end. After ch11 started the story is all over the place. And I'm really fucking tired of the game forcing me into certain parties. The first fight in ch12 had me using 2 characters I haven't spent much cp on at all. The fight took me 14 minutes and the estimated time was 1 minute. What the hell.

Also (end of ch11):

Spoiler

both bosses at the end of this chapter (the fal'cie in the tower and barthandelus again) were way too easy. I didn't die a single time on them, despite not having done a single upgrade in the whole game and being fairly behind in cp. I miss the earlier bosses that were really hard like the first barthandelus and cid.

If I didn't think I was so close to the end I'd just quit. I'm really not fond of this game at all anymore.

 

[Giolon]

Learning what?

You need more learning? You need to game the hold your hand even more!? It was a tutorial for 25 hours! The game picked its party members for you, it limited the class you had, it restrained the Crystarium... for 25 fucking hours!

I didn't say I wanted more. I thought there was just about the right amount. It felt great when they finally let the training wheels off because I felt that I had been fully prepared in all the combinations of classes and knew inside and out what each was good for.

Besides, there was no "momentum killing" from Gran Pulse... literally almost the entire area is optional. You can bypass it all and do only the story parts and you'll be out of there in a few hours.

No, FFXIII's Gran Pulse illustrates why games need freedom - it's the flexibility that allows gamers to choose how they approach the gameplay a title provides, a way to mix things up and feel like you're in control. A crucial way to make MULTIPLE PLAYTHROUGHS interesting, as well as the first playthrough.

FFXIII is going to be one of the worst FF games of all time to replay.

When a game opens up "optional" things that yield great rewards (whether that be XP or items or other perks like travel options), I feel compelled to do them, especially knowing especially knowing that ranking 5 stars in all missions is required to get an XMB theme and knowing that the ranking system will punish you for coming back to do them later (the par time curve doesn't scale well w/ your power on some missions necessitating use of the Golden Watch and weapons like Peiades). Dropping the story to follow 10-15 hours of sidequests over two evenings definitely brought the story's momentum to a halt for me. Did I have to? No, but the game mechanics make a compelling argument as to why you should. I'm used to games presenting things as "optional" but really being required - and with the ranking system operating the way it does and the difficulty spike in the late Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 areas, they kind of are in FFXIII too to get your party up to snuff.

Gran Pulse doesn't illustrate to me why games need freedom - it demonstrates why I don't like non-linear areas in heavily story driven games. I don't like feeling like I've missed something. I like Monster Hunter for what it is. I think Fallout's great at being a sandbox , terrible for being a vehicle to tell a story. Dumping this non-sequiter of wide-open gameplay in FFXIII works for me on some level to reinforce the difference between Cocoon and Pulse, but from a storytelling perspective, I'd prefer they'd just saved it entirely for postgame. I can't sway I wasn't greatful that I did put the time in as

Spoiler

my Chocobos and teleportation network were waiting for me once I beat the game. I suppose the thing I'd have preferred for them to do was just make them available once the game is beaten regardless of mission completion status

.

Personally, I expect this'll be my favorite FF to replay. When I replay a game, especially an RPG, it's usually for the story. No random battles impeding progress, no stupid minigames to literally waste my time, little necessary grind to get over arbitrary difficulty spikes, and most of all little in the way of huge areas to scour for items. Most are no more than 10 seconds off the main path. I'm good with all that gone. It's what kills replaying FFX and FFIV for me.

If you like to be dominated by games, that just might be your personality... but not me. But you don't have to choose, and neither do I. FFXIV will be my freedom march, and FFXV undoubtedly will provide things for you I probably don't like.

You call it domination, I call it guidance. I far prefer the approach taken by FFXIII over games that just throw you into the deep end and say "swim!" or don't take the time to thoroughly explain themselves. I don't think I'd have learned all the tricks that I did had I not been forced to use particular party configurations for a couple hours at a time.

If I have a choice between wide-open sandbox or a guided experience for a story driven game, I'll take the guided experience nearly every time. I don't know what FFXV will bring but, I hate seeing MMO design creep into single player games - it's a significant part of why I dislike FFXII. FFXII isn't for me, FFXIII isn't for you. I don't think that makes either of them bad games.

 

[Amir0x]

So I just got to

Spoiler

Gran Pulse

. What would be the easiest way to get tons of CP? I haven't upgraded any weapons for 3-4 chapters (Gladius @ LVL 11). Which stone do you use to upgrade it to Helter Skelter?

You can upgrade Gradius to Helter-Skelter by using Uraninite. I had a piece of Uraninite laying around in my inventory that I got from somewhere naturally in one of the chapters, but I forgot which.

As for CP:

I totally did amateur video of my CP Farm circuit... the best way I can see for the moment until I get that damned Growth Egg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laAyfCXcdZM

10,000 average circuit in like 2 minutes, would be 20,000 circuit with growth egg. 300,000CP in under an hour. It's good for early grinding in Pulse to get to a place where you can take on a great many of the hunts.

I guess I'm not the first one with this idea since I searched for the vid and seen someone else posted an extremely similar video, but hey!

It's video of my 1337 fighting skillz in action.

This is the best place for us just entering Gran Pulse. If you've done no grinding whatsoever, do the first seven missions or so and you should naturally get some CP that way. You'll pretty quickly be at the proper Crystarium level to face these battles painlessly.

 

[Amir0x]

When a game opens up "optional" things that yield great rewards (whether that be XP or items or other perks like travel options), I feel compelled to do them, especially knowing especially knowing that ranking 5 stars in all missions is required to get an XMB theme and knowing that the ranking system will punish you for coming back to do them later (the par time curve doesn't scale well w/ your power on some missions necessitating use of the Golden Watch and weapons like Peiades). Dropping the story to follow 10-15 hours of sidequests over two evenings definitely brought the story's momentum to a halt for me. Did I have to? No, but the game mechanics make a compelling argument as to why you should. I'm used to games presenting things as "optional" but really being required - and with the ranking system operating the way it does and the difficulty spike in the late Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 areas, they kind of are in FFXIII too to get your party up to snuff.

So, you blame the game for your lack of self-control? Oh well. I think the developers should listen to individuals who actually can control themselves, rather than those that can't. But that's just me.

The fact is you can avoid all of this. If your complaint is you want to stay on the guided rollercoaster with Toriyama gently cradling you in his arms as he floats you to the finish line of the horrendous story, that's fine... but don't blame the game if you decide to ignore it and go off on your own. Time to man up and take responsibility.

Personally, I expect this'll be my favorite FF to replay. When I replay a game, especially an RPG, it's usually for the story. No random battles impeding progress, no stupid minigames to literally waste my time, little necessary grind to get over arbitrary difficulty spikes, and most of all little in the way of huge areas to scour for items. Most are no more than 10 seconds off the main path. I'm good with all that gone. It's what kills replaying FFX and FFIV for me.

well if your taste is to replay for the god awful story, then it is what it is - but the game allows you to skip Gran Pulse entirely for that death march.

 

[Nose Master]

People complaining about the last boss:

Spoiler

The second to last boss is the real last boss. The last-last boss is the stereotypical Yu Yevon cakewalk

.

The base stats on characters are so fucking unbalanced. Lightning, Fang, and Hope have such astronomical gaps in stats compared to the others. Namely, Sazh. Jesus christ. That guy has the STR and MAG of a two-year old.

 

[Fun Factor]

If there's one thing I dislike about this marks sidequest so far though, it's that it doesn't really explicitly tell you where the mark is. You have to travel across a huge ass plane on foot, and it takes minutes to get from one place to another. Like many other aspects of the game, that's unnecessary tedium. .

You can teleport with stones later on.

 

[cnizzle06]

So after completing GOWIII, I'm trying to push myself back into this game cause I refuse to buy a game and not finish it. I just reached the part where you're snow and you get the sentinel briefing. I assume I have a whole lot more to go?

 

[Xevren]

Namely, Sazh. Jesus christ. That guy has the STR and MAG of a two-year old.

He's getting too old for this, man!

 

[Magnus]

I totally did amateur video of my CP Farm circuit... the best way I can see for the moment until I get that damned Growth Egg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laAyfCXcdZM

10,000 average circuit in like 2 minutes, would be 20,000 circuit with growth egg. 300,000CP in under an hour. It's good for early grinding in Pulse to get to a place where you can take on a great many of the hunts.

I guess I'm not the first one with this idea since I searched for the vid and seen someone else posted an extremely similar video, but hey!

It's video of my 1337 fighting skillz in action.

Holy shit, this is "early" grinding in Pulse? I'm not doing anywhere near that amount of damage upon arriving into Chapter 11. :lol

I better get moving on weapon upgrades I guess. All I've done is upgrade the Gladius to Level 10, and Hope's Vidofnir to Level 6 or something. :lol

 

[careful]

I totally did amateur video of my CP Farm circuit... the best way I can see for the moment until I get that damned Growth Egg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laAyfCXcdZM

10,000 average circuit in like 2 minutes, would be 20,000 circuit with growth egg. 300,000CP in under an hour. It's good for early grinding in Pulse to get to a place where you can take on a great many of the hunts.

I guess I'm not the first one with this idea since I searched for the vid and seen someone else posted an extremely similar video, but hey!

It's video of my 1337 fighting skillz in action.

Nice. I just got to Pulse so this is gonna come in handy. (Though I'm definitely not doing that kind of damage.. Got the Gladius at lvl ~15 maybe)

By the way, I can come back to the open area after I finish the game, correct?
And I remember hearing it's also possible to re-do missions?
If so, then which missions do you guys recommend to do before continuing with the story? Is there a map of Pulse somewhere online.

 

[ULTROS!]

My Gradius is at Level 9, should I use the Uraninite or use the other materials? Does the Uraninite level points carry over to the weapon

Spoiler

Helter-Skelter

?

 

[Amir0x]

Holy shit, this is "early" grinding in Pulse? I'm not doing anywhere near that amount of damage upon arriving into Chapter 11. :lol

I better get moving on weapon upgrades I guess. All I've done is upgrade the Gladius to Level 10, and Hope's Vidofnir to Level 6 or something. :lol

Well to put in perspective, I only finished nine hunts up to this point, and I just got to GP yesterday... and I didn't even come close to exploring all the plains.

In this time, though, a handful of hours... I already maxed all my primary roles using this CP grinding technique.

I stumbled on this technique quite by accident... I was trying to sneak past the Behemoth and Wolf fighting (because there is a Mark right behind them), thinking I couldn't beat them... but accidentally hit them and destroyed them in 50sec. Noticing the Behemoth in the path behind that was easy to preemptively attack, and the fight that the line to respawn either creature is right by the save point, it was like CHA-CHING!

 

[jiggle]

My Gradius is at Level 9, should I use the Uraninite or use the other materials? Does the Uraninite level points carry over to the weapon

Spoiler

Helter-Skelter

uraninite is to transform gradius into helter
and u can't do that until gradius is lv 26

 

[Giolon]

So, you blame the game for your lack of self-control? Oh well. I think the developers should listen to individuals who actually can control themselves, rather than those that can't. But that's just me.

The fact is you can avoid all of this. If your complaint is you want to stay on the guided rollercoaster with Toriyama gently cradling you in his arms as he floats you to the finish line of the horrendous story, that's fine... but don't blame the game if you decide to ignore it and go off on your own. Time to man up and take responsibility.

I'll happily bypass any of this kind of stuff in a game that doesn't punish you for doing so - this one does. Why make the game harder than it has to be by skipping them? The power curve starting in Chapter 11 is pretty ridiculous. There's a difference between lack of self control and recognizing when you'd be putting yourself at a distinct gameplay disadvantage.

well if your taste is to replay for the god awful story, then it is what it is - but the game allows you to skip Gran Pulse entirely for that death march.

I thought the story was pretty good - far from the best I've ever played, but still pretty good. To each his own.

 

[Cep]

So has anyone found it possible to beat all the hunts without grinding and without abusing death?

 

[MechaX]

The base stats on characters are so fucking unbalanced. Lightning, Fang, and Hope have such astronomical gaps in stats compared to the others. Namely, Sazh. Jesus christ. That guy has the STR and MAG of a two-year old.

I would imagine that the designers would attempt to defend that by saying "Well, for 90% of the game, each of the characters are good at something!", like Sazh being the only one to know Haste for a long time, Snow still having the most HP, etc. But towards the last stretch of the game, none of that even matters at all. Hell, Fang ends up outclassing Lightning in every respect late-game as she has higher stats in both physical and magic and can make a good ravager and an absolutely broken commando, and she ends up being the best Synergist in the hands of the player. Meanwhile, Sazh (and to a lesser extent Snow) tally up with crap stats. This could have easily been mitigated if there was more to it than just STR and MAG or if they had some really good character-specific perks outside of the summons.

So has anyone found it possible to beat all the hunts without grinding and without abusing death?

It depends on the extent of grinding (Death abuse won't work on a few of the later hunts). Some guy did beat

Spoiler

Long Gui

with level 1 weapons... But you have to grind a far amount to even survive a hit from the later hunts. When considering that there's no way to mitigate the low HP with other factors (like in FFX, you could get around low HP with Auto-Potion & Phoenix Down and stuff like that), there is going to be a fair amount of grinding no matter what you do.

 

[Amir0x]

I'll happily bypass any of this kind of stuff in a game that doesn't punish you for doing so - this one does. Why make the game harder than it has to be by skipping them? The power curve starting in Chapter 11 is pretty ridiculous. There's a difference between lack of self control and recognizing when you'd be putting yourself at a distinct gameplay disadvantage.

I thought the story was pretty good - far from the best I've ever played, but still pretty good. To each his own.

you want the game to be too easy, you have to work for it

you want the game to be appropriately challenging, don't work for it

the game finally starts allowing such options starting with Gran Pulse. You want every last aspect of the game to be finely tuned to the point of complete detachment from the experience, but I can't imagine how that benefits anyone. This way allows for both types of players to do what they want. The only problem is that this didn't happen earlier in the game to allow players more freedom from the get go.

 

[ULTROS!]

uraninite is to transform gradius into helter
and u can't do that until gradius is lv 26

Oh wait sorry, what I mean is that if a material with high level points (44,000) would be carried over if the Gradius has been maxed if, for example, you need 22,000 to max it out.

 

[Magnus]

Well to put in perspective, I only finished nine hunts up to this point, and I just got to GP yesterday... and I didn't even come close to exploring all the plains.

In this time, though, a handful of hours... I already maxed all my primary roles using this CP grinding technique.

I stumbled on this technique quite by accident... I was trying to sneak past the Behemoth and Wolf fighting (because there is a Mark right behind them), thinking I couldn't beat them... but accidentally hit them and destroyed them in 50sec. Noticing the Behemoth in the path behind that was easy to preemptively attack, and the fight that the line to respawn either creature is right by the save point, it was like CHA-CHING!

Dude, I guess you must've been much stronger than I am, upon beginning your use of the circuit to grind, right? I mean...I think I managed to kill a Behemoth King once in Gran Pulse, and it took like, 5 or 6 minutes.

I'm definitely going to fiddle with upgrades as best I can (I think I have that Uraninite too, from a boss kill somewhere in Chapter 10 or 11) and do whatever I can with the measly 30,000 gil I have lol ), and go and try to tackle those two encounters in your video.

 

[dreamer3kx]

Why couldn't SE just add a little different colored arrow icon for missions, this map is driving me nuts in Gran pulse, also the area where all the chocobos are there's a floating icon there on the map, looks like its in the water but Im not sure, what is it, I can get to it.

 

[crimzonflame]

I'm liking this game less and less as I get near the end. After ch11 started the story is all over the place. And I'm really fucking tired of the game forcing me into certain parties. The first fight in ch12 had me using 2 characters I haven't spent much cp on at all. The fight took me 14 minutes and the estimated time was 1 minute. What the hell.

Also (end of ch11):

Spoiler

both bosses at the end of this chapter (the fal'cie in the tower and barthandelus again) were way too easy. I didn't die a single time on them, despite not having done a single upgrade in the whole game and being fairly behind in cp. I miss the earlier bosses that were really hard like the first barthandelus and cid.

If I didn't think I was so close to the end I'd just quit. I'm really not fond of this game at all anymore.

At the beginning of chapter 12 you could have just switched back to your old team. You are not forced to use them at all.

 

[scotcheggz]

How is everyone killing turtles in chapter 11 here?
At the moment I'm running between the two killing the goblins and dogs to get my TP to three+. I don't mind killing the turtles, but grinding for the TP between them is driving me crazy, it makes it take soooooo much longer.

 

[Cep]

It depends on the extent of grinding (Death abuse won't work on a few of the later hunts). Some guy did beat

Spoiler

Long Gui

with level 1 weapons... But you have to grind a far amount to even survive a hit from the later hunts. When considering that there's no way to mitigate the low HP with other factors (like in FFX, you could get around low HP with Auto-Potion & Phoenix Down and stuff like that), there is going to be a fair amount of grinding no matter what you do.

Well then, it looks like I may not bother with the hunts then.

I have a zero-grinding policy when it comes to games. Damn shame.

God, I miss the days when I could take on Gilgamesh at level 20.

 

[Amir0x]

Dude, I guess you must've been much stronger than I am, upon beginning your use of the circuit to grind, right? I mean...I think I managed to kill a Behemoth King once in Gran Pulse, and it took like, 5 or 6 minutes.

I'm definitely going to fiddle with upgrades as best I can (I think I have that Uraninite too, from a boss kill somewhere in Chapter 10 or 11) and do whatever I can with the measly 30,000 gil I have lol ), and go and try to tackle those two encounters in your video.

Well the key is the preemptively strike. If I fought a King Behemoth without preemptive strike, I would more than likely take forever to kill him.

 

[Zoe]

Why couldn't SE just add a little different colored arrow icon for missions, this map is driving me nuts in Gran pulse, also the area where all the chocobos are there's a floating icon there on the map, looks like its in the water but Im not sure, what is it, I can get to it.

Spoiler

Look for a baby chocobo

 

[Threi]

im watching vids of the JP version now (wanted to experience it fresh without any nerds claiming its the worst thing ever or some crap like that) and I'm noticing the job names are so much more straightforward. Why couldn't they just keep em like that?

 

[jiggle]

CH12

Spoiler

wtf is this blurry mess of a cool CG movie


anyone think the eden race track was one of the thing they cut from the game?

Oh wait sorry, what I mean is that if a material with high level points (44,000) would be carried over if the Gradius has been maxed if, for example, you need 22,000 to max it out.

helter starts off at lv19 after transformation

 

[Styles]

How is everyone killing turtles in chapter 11 here?
At the moment I'm running between the two killing the goblins and dogs to get my TP to three+. I don't mind killing the turtles, but grinding for the TP between them is driving me crazy, it makes it take soooooo much longer.

I know what you mean. Stupid how you can't buy those TP recovery items in shops.

 

[Zoe]

Oh wait sorry, what I mean is that if a material with high level points (44,000) would be carried over if the Gradius has been maxed if, for example, you need 22,000 to max it out.

No, the points don't carry over. That's why it's important to plan out your point usage and why it's best to max something out at once rather than a little bit at a time.

im watching vids of the JP version now (wanted to experience it fresh without any nerds claiming its the worst thing ever or some crap like that) and I'm noticing the job names are so much more straightforward. Why couldn't they just keep em like that?

Gotta be like CoD!

 

[ULTROS!]

So the story of FFXIII is about (from what I know, till Chapter 12)...

Spoiler

The 6 were chosen by a fal'Cie and become a l'Cie, then proceed to run away from the Sanctum, then meet Bart and Bart claims that he is a fal'Cie planning to destroy Cocoon, Eden, and Orphan through the party and Ragnarok, then you go to Gran Pulse to visit Vanille's hometown to see if you can remove the mark, then you meet Bart again then he mentions his plans how to destroy Cocoon through a war and also make Cid a puppet, then you go back to Cocoon so you could protect Orphan.

The story displays itself so broad then it ends up with so many holes and falls flat.

Is Jihl dead? Why do Yaag and Jihl pop-out from nowhere from what I've noticed.

 

[Cep]

im watching vids of the JP version now (wanted to experience it fresh without any nerds claiming its the worst thing ever or some crap like that) and I'm noticing the job names are so much more straightforward. Why couldn't they just keep em like that?

Well not all of them.

Saboteur for instance, makes much more sense than jammer.

 

[grumble]

Dude, I guess you must've been much stronger than I am, upon beginning your use of the circuit to grind, right? I mean...I think I managed to kill a Behemoth King once in Gran Pulse, and it took like, 5 or 6 minutes.

I'm definitely going to fiddle with upgrades as best I can (I think I have that Uraninite too, from a boss kill somewhere in Chapter 10 or 11) and do whatever I can with the measly 30,000 gil I have lol ), and go and try to tackle those two encounters in your video.

I'm not an expert on this, but from what I've played it's essential to pre-emptive the fucker, stagger it to 750% and then juggle it with two COMs and a RAV (Aggression). If you do anything else, it'll fully heal up, do its stand up sword thing and proceed to rape you.

You'll in that video that you can pre-empt the first one easily, and the second one's usually a pre-empt (not always though, dear god I've been killed a few times there, be careful).

Got to admit though, those are some high-level numbers you're doing Amirox. I've got some grinding to do. Goddamn CFA, I want to play me some FFXIII.

 

[Alex]

FFXIII is going to be one of the worst FF games of all time to replay.

There's no "one of the" about it, half of the game is nothing but anime and autobattles and the second half is still rather empty compared to older titles. If you're replaying this, it's all for cutscenes. It's not like even once you toughed it down to Pulse it would give you leg room with all of the restrictions. It's really a once and done game, IMO.

. If I fought a King Behemoth without preemptive strike, I would more than likely take forever to kill him.

Back at that point, I had done shit with my weapons and CP but as long as you debuff the fuck out of them I find most things chain up pretty reasonably. The Behemoths never really scared me that much as much unless you're talking about them in conjunction with some of the other debuffing or lifesiphoning assholes.

I thought the story was pretty good - far from the best I've ever played, but still pretty good. To each his own.

The concept is really cool, pretty traditional but it had some merit. But the problem being I really dont think they had any idea what they wanted to do with it. They have this grand, base concept of two sweeping worlds and also a big character driven drama but in the end you know less about the worlds and certainly less about the characters than most of the older titles.

Half of the game is just spent time repeating the same exact same concepts and stuffing the pretties down your throat. And this is including the datalog, without the datalog...good lord.

 

[Rpgmonkey]

Why couldn't SE just add a little different colored arrow icon for missions, this map is driving me nuts in Gran pulse, also the area where all the chocobos are there's a floating icon there on the map, looks like its in the water but Im not sure, what is it, I can get to it.

The map in this game is really trippy.

Many of the markings look really similar, some genius thought it'd be a great idea to make the map rotate with the camera, and there's not even a simple "N" to give you a sense of direction!

Whoever made the map for this needs to be put in another role or just fired.

 

[Giolon]

you want the game to be too easy, you have to work for it

you want the game to be appropriately challenging, don't work for it

the game finally starts allowing such options starting with Gran Pulse. You want every last aspect of the game to be finely tuned to the point of complete detachment from the experience, but I can't imagine how that benefits anyone. This way allows for both types of players to do what they want. The only problem is that this didn't happen earlier in the game to allow players more freedom from the get go.

How shocking! I like games that have a finely tuned difficulty curve! That's crazy talk.
I find the difficulty curve at Chapter 11 such that either grinding, or doing sidemissions thus masking the grinding, is fairly necessary before moving on to keep up with the spike in difficulty post-Archylte Steppe.

I don't have a strict problem with a game opening up to non-linearity towards the end per se, but I prefer when it does, if it does at all, that it's in a way that really contributes to the story instead of sidetracking you from it as FFXIII does.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

CH12

Spoiler

wtf is this blurry mess of a cool CG movie


anything think the eden race track was one of the thing they cut from the game?

Spoiler

The Grand Prix race was gorgeous though I think it felt odd (first why why was Cid Raines giving that type of speech at the start of a race, next, of all times and places to arrive back in Eden, they choose on the track (in the middle of the racers?) lol. Would have been nice to actually fight during that nightish period.

 

[rainer516]

The map in this game is really trippy.

Many of the markings look really similar, some genius thought it'd be a great idea to make the map rotate with the camera, and there's not even a simple "N" to give you a sense of direction!

Whoever made the map for this needs to be put in another role or just fired.

The rotating map is hard to get used to, but it just sorta "clicks" after a while. Most of Archylte Steppe is really easy to recognize through land marks after a while anyhow.

You have your turtle section, your two lakes, your ruins with penguins, your armadillos, foggy behemoth area, the crash site and the tunnel mines area. Those are the landmarks I use anyhow.

 

[marathonfool]

Well then, it looks like I may not bother with the hunts then.

I have a zero-grinding policy when it comes to games. Damn shame.

God, I miss the days when I could take on Gilgamesh at level 20.

You don't need to grind at all. Just do the Missions in order of ranking. Fight the monsters you see on your path and the ones guarding treasure chests.

I completed 60 of 64 missions with lvl 1 weapons and accessories. You can nullify the low HP with damage reduction accessories and Sentinels.

I agree, grinding is the most boring, tedious gameplay possible in a game. There's a decent challenge in the missions if you want it, but it's not impossible with all the different tools are your disposal. You have to be flexible and change your gear/party to match up with the enemy.

 

[Giolon]

You don't need to grind at all. Just do the Missions in order of ranking. Fight the monsters you see on your path and the ones guarding treasure chests.

I completed 60 of 64 missions with lvl 1 weapons and accessories. You can nullify the low HP with damage reduction accessories and Sentinels.

I agree, grinding is the most boring, tedious gameplay possible in a game. There's a decent challenge in the missions if you want it, but it's not impossible with all the different tools are your disposal. You have to be flexible and change your gear/party to match up with the enemy.

I was about to make a post just like this, though I've only made it up to Mission 34 (and I death spammed out 55 XD). This game probably requires the least grind of any Final Fantasy, as long as you don't count doing Missions as grinding.

 

[usea]

At the beginning of chapter 12 you could have just switched back to your old team. You are not forced to use them at all.

Uh, no. After a long cutscene it drops you right into the battle with a forced party. You don't get the chance to switch at all.

After the battle you can switch. Of course it erases all your paradigms for your trouble. Thanks, game!

 

[Cep]

You don't need to grind at all. Just do the Missions in order of ranking. Fight the monsters you see on your path and the ones guarding treasure chests.

I completed 60 of 64 missions with lvl 1 weapons and accessories. You can nullify the low HP with damage reduction accessories and Sentinels.

I agree, grinding is the most boring, tedious gameplay possible in a game. There's a decent challenge in the missions if you want it, but it's not impossible with all the different tools are your disposal. You have to be flexible and change your gear/party to match up with the enemy.

Thanks man good to hear.

I like a good challenge, so as long is it is not impossible, I look forward to it.

Still sounds like they built the endgame so that grinding is necessary. I hate that, faux-content pisses me off.

 

[ElFly]

Is Lightning always a power-house? She has consistently had top tier strength and magic throughout the game.

Fang has way more STR than anyone else by the end. Hope has more magic.

 

[Rpgmonkey]

The rotating map is hard to get used to, but it just sorta "clicks" after a while. Most of Archylte Steppe is really easy to recognize through land marks after a while anyhow.

You have your turtle section, your two lakes, your ruins with penguins, your armadillos, foggy behemoth area, the crash site and the tunnel mines area. Those are the landmarks I use anyhow.

Oh yeah, at some point I began to adjust somewhat to each area and the map, I just thought it was really odd that I had to make such an adjustment to it in the first place. :lol

It seems so basic to me, but they just kinda threw it all out the window.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I'm still trying to figure out Amir0x's trick for getting a free extra set of attacks by switching paradigms in the middle of combat animations. It looks like he's doing the switch right when the last attack goes off but I can't get the timing right, it always pauses for me to show the switching animation which you can clearly see he bypasses in that video. Goddammit.

 

[rainer516]

Uh, no. After a long cutscene it drops you right into the battle with a forced party. You don't get the chance to switch at all.

After the battle you can switch. Of course it erases all your paradigms for your trouble. Thanks, game!

You mean to tell me that you didn't kill the boss using the Norse Horse summon mode with full Gestalt bar that the game just hands you?

 

[crimzonflame]

You mean to tell me that you didn't kill the boss using the Norse Horse summon mode with full Gestalt bar that the game just hands you?

Oh is that what he is referring to? Oh man I thought it was part of the cut scene.