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Final Fantasy XIII |OT|

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bunbun777 said:
This. Personally for me lots of things to 'complain' about- and celebrate-- but no theater mode is the worst. Safe gripe for me and one I think can actually be remedied, yes?

A Theater mode, they better not charge for it, lol. Though has any FF ever had one?
 
"Finished" the game yesterday. Now I'm on to the missions! I actually could not beat the end with my character setup no matter what I tried (Light/Sazh/Hope) so I had to use Light/Fang/Hope. Let the postgame begin! :)
 

Brandson

Member
FFXIII is the first Final Fantasy, and actually first game ever, where I have started skipping cutscenes on my first playthrough without having previously seen them. Initially it was kind of funny when I couldn't understand half of the words the characters were speaking in each sentence as they were littered with made-up names for things in the game world. It got worse when they started referring to the same people and places by multiple names. That would have been fine but I still didn't know who or what they were referring to by the first name, so by using nicknames or formal names or whatever it left me totally confused. After 15-20 hours of that I totally lost interest in the story and the characters. Thankfully every cutscene so far has been skippable.

I just got to Chapter 11 last night and up to that point for most of the cutscenes in the game I have no idea what is going on, why it's going on, and why I should care. For devoting so much time to non-interactive cutscenes they really could have used that time better. If you are going to obfuscate so much of the story for so long, with characters acting as if they understand everything while the player understands nothing, the payoff of the story when you actually figure it out has to be worth it. Unfortunately, the story of FFXIII turned out to be so not worth my time invested in watching all the cutscenes, which is disappointing to me as someone who played through to completion and enjoyed every FF game except 2 and X-2, and including 11, to the extent it could be completed.

At one point I found myself longing for writing even at the unintentionally comical and laughably embarrassing level of Valkyria Chronicles (see Welkin's "I want to be a bridge" speech). I'm only still playing FFXIII for the gameplay at this point, which is good but also much more frustrating than FFXII since my AI characters never cast the spells I want them to or attack the target I want them to, leading to a number of unnecessary deaths. I had no difficulty getting them to do whatever I wanted in FFXII. I hope they give the player at least the option of having more control over AI characters in future games. Waiting for Sazh to buff Light with the right spell is quite annoying. He always manages to give all three characters 5 or 6 buffs before casting the one I want on Light.

And unlike pretty much every other FF, the music in FFXIII is often completely inappropriate for what you're doing in the game. Overall, this game is really disappointing.
 

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?
iconoclast said:
What loot were you restarting for? Traps?

I got my 1000 in 83 hours, but I did use an alternate save so I could sell off all of my gear to afford the rest of the upgrades. I got four Traps from turtles and did the trick to get an extra two for cheap. Got pretty lucky with Dark Matter too - managed to get five of them in a row almost as soon as I started killing the Shaolong Gui's.
I restarted if I didn't get a platinum ingot (since I used 3tp for summon each time). Same thing with Dark Matters, where I was extremely unlucky.
Ricker said:
Nice work Yoshichan
Vanille said:
Congrats, Yoshichan. :3
Thank you~ :D
 

7Th

Member
_Xenon_ said:
Is there any difference between cocoon fal'cie and pulse fal'cie? I mean
both sides want to destory cocoon and bring back the maker but why bother fighting each other? Actually why even bother creating cocoon in the first place? If they just want to harvest human they could do it on pulse as well.

Pulse fal'Cie don't want to bring the Maker back, they just HAVE to destroy Cocoon because they were created to protect Pulse and its inhabitants and Cocoon's existence is dangerous as it constantly loots material from Pulse, mercilessly killing people in the process.
 

orion434

Member
Brandson said:
FFXIII is the first Final Fantasy, and actually first game ever, where I have started skipping cutscenes on my first playthrough without having previously seen them. Initially it was kind of funny when I couldn't understand half of the words the characters were speaking in each sentence as they were littered with made-up names for things in the game world. It got worse when they started referring to the same people and places by multiple names. That would have been fine but I still didn't know who or what they were referring to by the first name, so by using nicknames or formal names or whatever it left me totally confused. After 15-20 hours of that I totally lost interest in the story and the characters. Thankfully every cutscene so far has been skippable.

The problem is that you are supposed to read ALL datalogs to get a better understanding of the terminology in the game-world. But even doing so didn't give me a better insight into what's going on. Square-Enix should take a lesson from Bioware and Mass Effect's Codex with Narration for all the important logs.

I'm just glad the post-game is an order of magnitude better than the actual game, and at this point ( 68 hours ) I've actually forgotten what the story was or all the lame Villians they throw at you. Maybe it's the MMO player in me that likes collecting stuff and I've made myself a nice little checklist :D
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I just read the final analect, it's very interesting since it mentions
Etro
and
Fabula Nova Crystallis
.
 

desverger

Member
Rez said:
it's funny how the game is all 'WHOA JAPANESE DEV TRYING TO DO COD SCRIPTED MOMENTS (EXCEPT THEY'RE COMING OFF AS KIND OF B-GRADE-ISH)' in the first hour, and then it's just back to standard PS2 era FF map design for the remaining 39 hours (well, I haven't played Chap 12/13 yet).

So true :lol

I was actually discussing it today over lunch, and we were wondering if they needed to "pipe up" the first 30 hours not to scare away Western gamers or something :p

Anyway, to answer my own post earlier in this thread; if you seem to hit a slump at Chapter 11, there's a few things you can do. Don't worry about upgrading weapons just yet if the ones you want to upgrade aren't available. I had enough components to upgrade two weapons to around level 12 or so.

Start following the yellow marker around for a bit and do the C'ieth stone missions on the way. Most of these are Waystones, meaning you can teleport between them to make traveling a whole lot easier. I recommend doing missions 1-6, 8-9 and 20. These are fairly easy and rewarding, and I managed to 5-star them with a bit of setup.

After this, the yellow marker should take you to a big cave guarded by a King Behemoth and a Megisutoterium, which is a good place to grind some CP if you need to. Afterward you can move on with the story.
 

Barrett2

Member
Well, im' about 8 hours in, and still hate this game. I find nothing compelling or interesting. I find this odd, because I have a very broad interest in RPGs, and don't mind JRPG gibberish. Hell, Crisis Core is one of my favorite games of the last five years. I don't know, the combination of little irritations I have with this game just seem to grate on me. I am yet to be able to play for more than 90 minutes in a single sitting without getting bored and turning off the system. I figure i'll force myself to play until I hit 15 hours. Hopefully I get more into it.
 
@lawblob I can't see how you can dislike it so much. Sure there are a few design choices that are less than ideal, and the story isn't going to win any awards, but I think it's an all-around solid RPG. We take what we can in this genre. In any case, your tweets re: FF13 are hilarious.
 

edgefusion

Member
glaurung said:
Finally received my LE copy from the post office...

Totally crushed. The only thing not broken is the BD case. Everything else is smashed.

*sigh*

Guess I'll drop by a local store and buy a new LE that is not broken.

Why would you do that? Send it back and tell them that it arrived in unacceptable condition and you want a new one. And compensation for the wait.
 

Exhumed

Member
I dont get why people are saying this is so bad. Sure its linear and the story isn't great but its still damn fun. I think a ton of people just want a certain kind of RPG and not willing to go with what they are releasing nowadays.

Although I must admit I do miss old school RPGs. Just finished Wild Arms 3 and damn that game was difficult to figure out where to go next. Loved the story too, beats the crap outta FFXIII.

I had a good laugh at Sahz and the Gigantuar last night :lol . Quickly one shot my entire party one by one. Think its gonna be awhile before that one happens.
 

BeeDog

Member
I'm at chapter 9 right now, I think (just
boarded/infiltrated that big-ass ship
), and I'm having fun, though the game is far from mindblowing. It is linear as fuck, but it tickles my desire to level up characters and the battle system's fun. The excellent/mindblowing presentation also helps, and the story thus far is catchy enough to keep me going. Except Vanille. I hope she dies.
 
Finally started chapter 11. Looked at my game clock and said I was @ 24 hours. Good lord chapters 8-10 took me like 8 hrs. Anyway the game has completely changed. I'm getting my ass handed to me left and right. You really need to use the Paradigms must more efficiently. I did manage to get through the first 5 marks. :D
 

Lady Bird

Matsuno's Goebbels
At chapter 12 so far.

Should have they tried to make the villain more generic? (That's sarcasm.) It's like they tried to make it as generic as possible; but without the humor to make him a parody completely. Because that's almost what he is. The forced evil laugh is cheesy, and so is how he pops every once and then to function both as a Deus Ex Machina and to tell the party all the plans and everything that is happening so the player can know, well... everything (yeah, I know he has a random reason for doing that). And the saddest part is that this representative of piss poor writing is the only thing that's making the extremely dry story progressing. :lol
 

Exhumed

Member
BeeDog said:
I hope she dies.

Glad I'm not the only one. I find her very annoying especially with all the oohs, aahs, moans, etc. The noises bother me. Never heard anyone make sounds like that so often, not even children....
 

Magnus

Member
Exhumed said:
I dont get why people are saying this is so bad. Sure its linear and the story isn't great but its still damn fun. I think a ton of people just want a certain kind of RPG and not willing to go with what they are releasing nowadays.


People like games where they are in control of their characters. Shouldn't be too much to ask.
 

Epix

Member
I'm standing next to a Ci'eth waystone (one I've already completed) and I dont see any option to use it as a teleporter to one of the other stone's I've completed. It just asks me if I want to reattempt the mission.
 

davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
Epix said:
I'm standing next to a Ci'eth waystone (one I've already completed) and I dont see any option to use it as a teleporter to one of the other stone's I've completed. It just asks me if I want to reattempt the mission.

its not a teleport stone.
 

Exhumed

Member
Magnus said:
People like games where they are in control of their characters. Shouldn't be too much to ask.

My statement still holds true. This game still feels like more of a Star Ocean kinda of gameplay rather than Final Fantasy.
 

Zoe

Member
Epix said:
I'm standing next to a Ci'eth waystone (one I've already completed) and I dont see any option to use it as a teleporter to one of the other stone's I've completed. It just asks me if I want to reattempt the mission.

Only a few of them can be used to teleport.
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
Amir0x said:
Then I have to trudge through linear hell to get back!

It actually takes less than 30 seconds, excluding warp load times, to get from the endgame save point back to Pulse.

Has anyone found a full record of the Analects online? I know I'll never get half of them, and I'm pretty curious as to their contents.
 

Yazus

Member
I'm really pissed that in Chap11, at the end, you have to fight
Barthandelus again.
And if this wasn't enought, he have 3.3 fucking million HPs, every fucking possible curse to throw at my party, and last but not least LASERS. Holy shit he is fucking me hard right now.

And guess what? When he reaches 1.000.000 HPs, he casts Sentence at you, so you have to drain away (while he casts bio and all those shit) 1 fucking million HPs in the Sentence time!

HOLY FUCK, who designed this encounter is RETARDED (or I am retarded if I'm missing the key point to kill him, which is probably true).

(I have every 2 main jobs for Light/Fang/Hope mastered at lvl4 and I cant progress further, ligfht and fang have like 1000 attack power, hope have 1000 magic power, hps are in the 4000 range... what the fuck...)
 

Zoe

Member
Yazus said:
And guess what? When he reaches 1.000.000 HPs, he casts Sentence at you, so you have to drain away (while he casts bio and all those shit) 1 fucking million HPs in the Sentence time!

That was cast because you were taking too long. I didn't get hit with it in that chapter (
just chapter 9
).
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
Brazil said:
This fucking
Bahamut
fight at the end of Chapter 10.

Ugh.

I absolutely breezed through him on my playthrough, which is kinda weird since all the other Eidolons took me a number of tries each. Debuffing for a bit with your Saboteur is your friend in this fight.
 

burgerdog

Member
All these nightmare stories about doom makes me glad I never took long enough on a boss to have to deal with it. Question time! I'm guessing the watch or clock thing you get from the last mission is required for the all item trophy? I have a ton of ingots saved up in preparation for the item upgrade crap.
 

Barrett2

Member
Exhumed said:
I dont get why people are saying this is so bad. Sure its linear and the story isn't great but its still damn fun. I think a ton of people just want a certain kind of RPG and not willing to go with what they are releasing nowadays.

Personally, I think there are a few reasons I am so down on the game. For starters, I can't help but feel somewhat aghast at the resource allocation in this game. On one hand you have stunning visuals, painstakingly-detailed characters, etc. Yet when these characters open their mouths, out comes dialogue that is so ham fisted and poorly written, it feels very grating. When my characters in DQ5 or Crisis Core say nonsensical or cliche things, it doesn't feel as awkward, because the whole experience felt like a less-serious affair. I don't know, there's just something about having such lame dialouge spoken by a crisp HD character that makes it so jarring.

The second thing that is driving me crazy is the really limp way in which the story is being presented. Granted, im' probably only 1/3 through the game, but they could not have done a worse job in the way the story and plot are rolled-out. I paused the game two times during the first hour of play because I thought I had accidentally skipped forward a few chapters, or something. The first three hours of the game I kept saying to myself: "are you kidding me? This is how the game begins?" There just seems to be an enormous layer of smugness in the way the game is presented.
 

Blizrad

Neo Member
They've tried to tell the story like a movie. I admit, it's complicated but I really like how the story is being told compared to other RPGs. You can always read the datalog when there's something you don't understand.
 

Choopy

Neo Member
Blizrad said:
They've tried to tell the story like a movie. I admit, it's complicated but I really like how the story is being told compared to other RPGs. You can always read the datalog when there's something you don't understand.

Yes, thank God for the Data log. Has saved me many times.

*Watches cutscene*

"Huuuhh?"

*Reads Datalog*

"Ohhh..."

:lol
 

grumble

Member
Yazus said:
I'm really pissed that in Chap11, at the end, you have to fight
Barthandelus again.
And if this wasn't enought, he have 3.3 fucking million HPs, every fucking possible curse to throw at my party, and last but not least LASERS. Holy shit he is fucking me hard right now.

And guess what? When he reaches 1.000.000 HPs, he casts Sentence at you, so you have to drain away (while he casts bio and all those shit) 1 fucking million HPs in the Sentence time!

HOLY FUCK, who designed this encounter is RETARDED (or I am retarded if I'm missing the key point to kill him, which is probably true).

(I have every 2 main jobs for Light/Fang/Hope mastered at lvl4 and I cant progress further, ligfht and fang have like 1000 attack power, hope have 1000 magic power, hps are in the 4000 range... what the fuck...)

It's not that hard of a battle. Just start off with Bully, then switch to protection eventually once a character gets lower on HP. From there, go relentless assault and stagger him (it's not too hard). At that point, unload on him until the stagger bar's pretty much done, then combat clinic. When buffs aren't optimal, reapply. when healh isn't near max, combat clinic. Any other time, relentless assault to aggression.

I beat it in 5 minutes. It's not hard so lng as you use buffs and are aggressive.
 
Yazus said:
I'm really pissed that in Chap11, at the end, you have to fight
Barthandelus again.
And if this wasn't enought, he have 3.3 fucking million HPs, every fucking possible curse to throw at my party, and last but not least LASERS. Holy shit he is fucking me hard right now.

And guess what? When he reaches 1.000.000 HPs, he casts Sentence at you, so you have to drain away (while he casts bio and all those shit) 1 fucking million HPs in the Sentence time!

HOLY FUCK, who designed this encounter is RETARDED (or I am retarded if I'm missing the key point to kill him, which is probably true).

(I have every 2 main jobs for Light/Fang/Hope mastered at lvl4 and I cant progress further, ligfht and fang have like 1000 attack power, hope have 1000 magic power, hps are in the 4000 range... what the fuck...)


nm I thought you were talking about someone else, man I didn't have a problem with him at all, I dont remember exactly how I beat him but I do remember beating him pretty easily.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Final boss realizations/possible tips:

I just realized Orphan wasn't very very hard, I didn't use the poison trick either though. His sword form was annoying coz it cut my life by 3/5~4/5. Combat Clinic (Sentinel/Medic/Medic) is very useful in this situation, then after that switch to Evened Odds (Synergist/Saboteur/Medic), then Relentless Ravage/Diversity until he casts the sword thing again. It's always important to start with Evened Odds. :p
 

grumble

Member
bigdaddygamebot said:
So it SEEMS like you're really only supposed to use Fang/Lightning/Hope?

That true?

Discuss.

Somewhat true. They have the best stats, but other characters are great options in certain circumstances.
 

grumble

Member
CryingWolf said:
I bought the game because I'm a lifelong Final Fantasy fanboy, and I'm going to finish it. I'm in Chapter 5 right now. Don't get me wrong, there are things I like about it, and I'm not totally bored. But the design choices that they made with this game completely boggle my mind. I haven't played a game this linear.... since Final Fantasy 10, maybe, which I hated.

In this generation, what in the world made them think that anyone wants to play a game where you essentially run through a narrow hallway for hours on end, fighting enemies that are placed in your way, picking up treasure chests that are off to one side of the path, and watching cutscenes at regular intervals? I mean, that's your RPG of the future? It's claustrophobic and it doesn't allow the player to make any decisions. There's nothing to do, no one to talk to, nothing to interact with, no choices to make; all you can do is keep going. Its so on-rails that it makes Metal Gear Solid look like Grand Theft Auto by comparison.

I just don't understand what they were shooting for here. I understand wanting to tell a story, but I feel like a captive audience.

And while I do find the world interesting, some of the subplots feel so awkward and forced.

I'm going to finish it, but so far this game is almost the complete opposite of everything I love about RPGs.

turn off the minimap. Problem mostly solved, perceptually.
 

Hyunkel6

Member
bigdaddygamebot said:
So it SEEMS like you're really only supposed to use Fang/Lightning/Hope?

That true?

Discuss.
I went with Snow/Sazh/Vanille for the end of chapter 11 and for 3/4 of chapter 12. I didn't have any trouble whatsoever. It even seemed that the battles were a bit faster due to Sazh's haste/enpower and Vanille's deprotect/deshell. The behemoths in particular didn't even have time to transform.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Tathanen said:
It actually takes less than 30 seconds, excluding warp load times, to get from the endgame save point back to Pulse.

Has anyone found a full record of the Analects online? I know I'll never get half of them, and I'm pretty curious as to their contents.

No. i mean I'd have to actually suffer through Chapter 12 and 13 to get back to Pulse. I know that once in 13, you can go back. And once you beat the game, you can too. But I'd have to suffer through another 5 to 7 hours of horror to do it :(

Yazus said:
And guess what? When he reaches 1.000.000 HPs, he casts Sentence at you, so you have to drain away (while he casts bio and all those shit) 1 fucking million HPs in the Sentence time!

HOLY FUCK, who designed this encounter is RETARDED (or I am retarded if I'm missing the key point to kill him, which is probably true).

I beat him on my first try and four starred him! /internet brag
 

Peff

Member
Amir0x said:
No. i mean I'd have to actually suffer through Chapter 12 and 13 to get back to Pulse. I know that once in 13, you can go back. And once you beat the game, you can too. But I'd have to suffer through another 5 to 7 hours of horror to do it :(

Hey at least these look good :lol Chapter 12 also has *some* areas with actual branching paths and everything.
 
Amir0x said:
No. i mean I'd have to actually suffer through Chapter 12 and 13 to get back to Pulse. I know that once in 13, you can go back. And once you beat the game, you can too. But I'd have to suffer through another 5 to 7 hours of horror to do it :(



I beat him on my first try and four starred him! /internet brag

You'd only have to suffer through 12, the portals to pulse open immediately at 13.

Though you'd need to get through 13 to unlock the final Crystogenesis thing.

Besides, chapter 12 is really good at points.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Fimbulvetr said:
You'd only have to suffer through 12, the portals to pulse open immediately at 13.

Though you'd need to get through 13 to unlock the final Crystogenesis thing.

Besides, chapter 12 is really good at points.

People said chap 7 was good at points, and chp 9 was good at points. Every chp someone says is "good at points" is actually terrible in all points, save chp 11.

Anyway, I feel like we're getting dangerously close to going back to familiar territory in this conversation, so I just want to say I'm camping in GRAN PULSE forever!

(thanks for the information on the portal to Gran Pulse though, actually. Knowing it's that soon may actually motivate me to walk that last leg, if only to unlock more Crystarium)
 
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