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Final Fantasy XIII |OT|
- Thread starter Kagari
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dialmydrive
Member
I finished it over the weekend. It was well worth the 75 hours it took to complete.
Unless chapter 12 and 13 turn out to be completely different from the rest of the game and terrible, my opinion of this game will still stand pretty highly. With my favorite combat system in the series (haven't played X-2 and XII, so can't comment), it currently stands as my favorite FF as well. I don't see that drastically changing.kagete said:
The story isn't anything to write home about, but I don't play JRPGs for the story. And I realize now that I'm completely apathetic to exploration unless a particular game focuses on and excels at it. Chapter 11 was fun and all, but all I really cared about were the mission bosses/battles. It could have been simply a list of mission battles to engage in that you just select and transition into battle instantly, and my enjoyment of that chapter would not have lessened in the least.
Amir0x said:
It's hilarious. The XIII apologists make me cringe though, and I seriously have to bite my tongue a little now to stop from tearing comments apart again. :lol "I never had a problem with it, so it's amazing!"
Himuro said:
/clap
I only ever did one playthrough of that game back in '03. I dearly miss it, and should try it out again after my Suiko marathon.
I'm bizarrely looking forward to an inevitable XIII:International more than ever now.
With the bevy of changes they introduced into XII:I, I'm really hoping combat evolves XIII:I and some of the common complaints get addressed while maintaining the immaculate shine of the first game.
With the bevy of changes they introduced into XII:I, I'm really hoping combat evolves XIII:I and some of the common complaints get addressed while maintaining the immaculate shine of the first game.
Scythian Empire
Member
K' Dash said:
I think I've missed something with Hope, I thought only Sazh could cast Haste? I've maxed out Hope's Synergist role but he hasn't got Haste...
Scythian Empire said:
It's coming! And you will cheer when it happens.
Or at least, I did, because I'd invested so much into Hope already and his magic stats always seemed beefier, so I was overjoyed to see Haste show up.
I think it was in Chapter
12, or possibly very near the end of Chapter 11
Digital-Hero
Member
Fimbulvetr said:
Or
I hope Vanille will use all 3 ATB slots for cure since I'm near death.
*casts cure twice*
Uh, hello! Why didn't you use all your slots!?
The AI does weird things every now and then.
Winterblink
Member
Is that really the issue being debated? I thought it was the AI having the ability to raise and simply not doing it in favor of another which will not yield equivalent returns in the long run.Dresden said:
Scythian Empire
Member
Magnus said:
Oh snap, I've just cleared Taejin's Tower so I should be pretty close right?
I can't believe there are posts having to explain how you have more variety and control in X-2 and XII for people who have actually played those games. :lol It's perfectly fine to like XIII for what id does good (I do) but I don't get how some can't seem to recognize where it's faulty and lacking when said issues are so obvious.Magnus said:
Lady Bird
Matsuno's Goebbels
I have enjoyed FFX-2, but I'll agree with whoever said that FFXIII's battle system (not overall gameplay, just the combat) is plain better.
Shifting paradigms in order to not die, staggering an enemy and finding out the right moments to spam status effects (goor or bad ones) between the healing and ravaging is far more fun than spamming physical attacks with warriors/ dark knights and spamming prays/ mega-potions with white mages/ alchemists. Plus I feel more tension in FFXIII's battles, and they are more cinematic/ flashy as well, not that I care much about that.
FFX-2 battle system could have been better, had the battles been strategically designed like the ones in FFXIII. But they were much like FFXII's battles: most of them designed to be easily beatable by attack & heal, attack & heal, attack & heal.
Shifting paradigms in order to not die, staggering an enemy and finding out the right moments to spam status effects (goor or bad ones) between the healing and ravaging is far more fun than spamming physical attacks with warriors/ dark knights and spamming prays/ mega-potions with white mages/ alchemists. Plus I feel more tension in FFXIII's battles, and they are more cinematic/ flashy as well, not that I care much about that.
FFX-2 battle system could have been better, had the battles been strategically designed like the ones in FFXIII. But they were much like FFXII's battles: most of them designed to be easily beatable by attack & heal, attack & heal, attack & heal.
Fuu said:
Yeah, that's all that really set me off. It's fine to like shit, no one's gonna care. But when I started seeing comments like, "XIII makes me feel totally in control" and then fat dumps being taken over gambits, including accusations of limiting your options under that system, I had to correct people.
Himuro said:
Push through man. You can do it. I can't wait to hear your reactions to the remaining chapters.
Sorry, I remember the mission based structure of the game and waltzing through the game with a dark knight and a samurai but I really can't remember half of what you listed. Either I must have skipped all these things or these quests were so boring I forgot them.Himuro said:
You have the paradigm shifts, the chain gauge, the stealth element to get pre-emptive attacks, the eidolons. That's more depth than most other FF games. It took me around 20 hours to fully understand the system.Himuro said:
Haste will always come first but I've ran into this situation during marks where the enemy quickly spams debuffs: I want Hope to keep buffing himself and Lightning while Fang stays in Sentinel receiving all the debuffing. He won't. He'll cast Haste on the three of them but instead of keep going through the list he'll restart the buffing by casting Haste on Fang whenever she gets a Slow, getting stuck in a loop when the enemy is super fast. It's similar to the Raise and Esuna issues where he won't cast those unless the characters are above 80% HP.
Himuro said:
I set aside the larger half
lol ) of a day to all of the main story progression of 11, and the rest of the game. Beat it around 3 or 4am. So I think you have about
10-12 hours left?
In reference to the encounter system, I was more than a little disappointed that XIII reverts to taking you to a separate battle screen. I kind of thought maintaining one field/battle plane was a universally acclaimed and positive improvement in XII and that we'd never look back, but here we are. It's cool that you zip in and out of battles so quickly though, so it's easily overlooked.
I definitely miss the tension of having a surprise enemy join in the battle if you weren't paying attention to your surroundings. Kept me very much in the game world, instead of hopping between two game worlds, if that makes sense.
OK, so I'm finally getting back into this after a bit of a hiatus. I'm in chapter 5. Skimming some of the posts I see you guys referencing some loot that I will need to harvest later down the line.
Is there anything I should be focusing on this early in the game? Some area I should try to do a little collecting in before I regret not doing it later on?
Is there anything I should be focusing on this early in the game? Some area I should try to do a little collecting in before I regret not doing it later on?
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
FFX-2 International had even more stuff to do, it was nuts. I remember the pokemon-esque catch and battle arena stuff took me around 40 hours to complete by itself.
And speaking of that, I hate to say it but there's been times playing XIII where its reminded me very strongly of the pokemon-arena battle system specifically. As that mode used a simpler (but in some ways similar) battle-by-proxy mechanic where your control over your creature was basically using a throttle system. You varied behaviour in steps ranging from all-out assault, to full "turtling" defense.
The feeling of playing was remarkably similar to the way FFXIII's system feels at times.
And speaking of that, I hate to say it but there's been times playing XIII where its reminded me very strongly of the pokemon-arena battle system specifically. As that mode used a simpler (but in some ways similar) battle-by-proxy mechanic where your control over your creature was basically using a throttle system. You varied behaviour in steps ranging from all-out assault, to full "turtling" defense.
The feeling of playing was remarkably similar to the way FFXIII's system feels at times.
Himuro said:
I take into account a bunch of hours for repeated tries at a couple rough bosses. If you own, you may do it much more quickly. I was on the final encounter for over an hour, dealing with that ridiculous cheap death move that ended 10-minute long attempts in a heartbeat.
Crash Station
Member
Himuro said:
I'd honestly say it's a bit more like 15 since you'll probably want to go back to Pulse to do a few more missions before moving on. At least that's how long it took me but maybe I'm just slow.
Crash Station
Member
Magnus said:
It's definitely better from a technical standpoint but I personally think transitions add a lot to the atmosphere and make things more tense. For me, there aren't many things more badass than some major villain giving his bad guy speech then having the camera zoom in on his insane/evil face while the screen breaks like glass.
Only 12 hours in now. Could only play 2 hours all of last week. This game is the biggest letdown of this generation. For 12 hours I've walked in a straight line, mashing rb and a in battles, and then sitting through a cut scene with bad dialogue. So far the only differences between this game and an action game is that the fun action sequences have been replaced with turn based combat and cut scenes are even longer and lack the cheese factor a lot of action games go for.
Don't fool yourself. They went back to transitions because it makes the levels easier to design.cosmicblizzard said:
cosmicblizzard said:
I very much agree.
The Tales series abuses the shit out of this (To my pleasure), and even in-battle sometimes start with the camera still on the face of the villain as he continues to pound/lecture you.
I think it very much depends on the game, and let us not forget that sectioning off the battles like they usually do gives them a lot more freedom and resources.
Despite all that, I still prefer not having transitions.
So on lunch today I tried using the summon/death trick on adamantortoise. It worked Got myself a platinum ingot first try. Is the ingot common or was that just luck. Im only using the Connisuers (sp?) Catalog. 80k CP is nice as well with Growth Egg.
I have a question though. What is the best way to recharge TP after you win?
Got myself a platinum ingot first try. Is the ingot common or was that just luck. Im only using the Connisuers (sp?) Catalog. 80k CP is nice as well with Growth Egg.I have a question though. What is the best way to recharge TP after you win?
marathonfool
Member
charsace said:
I think the game designers mentioned in an interview, they tried to make the battles seamless, but they felt it was easily exploited because of auto-HP refill between battles.
pix said:So on lunch today I tried using the summon/death trick on adamantortoise. It worked
I have a question though. What is the best way to recharge TP after you win?
I think there's an accessory that recharges TP after killing an enemy and one that increases TP after every battle.
RoodyPooUS
Member
Been doing the Adamantiose in Eden and the Fang strat goes really fast and I never fail, unlike the Sazh one which it seems to cut too close for me sometimes and I have to switch paradigms a lot more often for.
Once you have a pretty established party and get the Genji Gloves, I would switch from the Vanille Death strat to this because it is guaranteed.
I have tried a few different setups but this is easy, guaranteed and fast. (I might do mission 63 strat later once I have 6 Traps just because it is more consistent but the great thing about this one is this is something I can multitask a bit on the computer and do.)
I will explain it step by step:
Fang
Kain's Lance made from Taming Pole
Energy Sash
Genji Glove
Power Glove
Power Glove
Lightning
Ultima Weapon
Energy Sash
Power Glove
Survivalist Catalog
Champion's Badge
Sazh
Hyades Magnums
Energy Sash
Growth Egg
Collector Catalog
Connoisseur Catalog
The Str accessories or fully upgraded Fang weapon may not be absolutely necessary, it just makes it faster. Of course you can further upgrade the other weapons or Str accessories to speed it up.
Paradigms in order of Fang as party leader, Lightning and Sazh
Com Rav Rav
Com Rav Rav
Com Com Com (Default)
Com Com Com
Sab Com Syn
Sab Com Syn
(Enables quick switching to pretty much instant refill of action gauge. Look it up if you don't know how to do this. I really don't need to use this anymore.)
I do this at the Eden save spot outside.
Make sure you have 3 TP for a summon.
Once the fight starts, switch to Sab Com Syn immediately. (The reason i make the COM COM COM one for default is for the two fights you need later.)
Once Sazh casts haste on all 3 chars, have Fang summon.
Put on Deprotect, Deshell, Slow, Curse, etc. You can either do this manually or just cancel after 2-3 tries, it should stick by then. Be careful to not cast too much though because you don't want to stagger the boss until your summon leaves. Really, I spend about 20-30 seconds just waiting for the summon to almost leave. Once you have those debuffs (especially Deprotect, switch to COM RAV RAV near the end and start attacking. Once the summon leaves, you should be at 400-499%. When you get a feel for how much you can debuff/attack, this becomes easy.
Keep on COM RAV RAV until it hits 950-999% and switch to COM COM COM. Attack until the mob is about 20-25% life or the Stagger is close to ending to the letter R or E in "Target" above the health bar (depending on Fang's Str) and then use Highwind.
No matter what, do not miss using Highwind if you are weaker. Even if it has a bit of life left, you should be able to finish it off quickly. It should take 2 mins or a little less of which a large portion is just waiting for the Eidolon to go away. If you are sufficiently upgraded, you may not even need Highwind to finish the mob.
Collect your rewards and you will see you have 2 TP! This is due to the Energy Sash on everyone and Gestalt TP boost Sythesized Ability from having Hyades Magnums, Survivalist Catalog, Energy Sash, Champion's Badge on the same person.
Now all you need to do is walk towards the building, kill the two sets of two soldiers here with COM COM COM default. You will have exactly a bit over 3 TP again. Go to the save spot, save and reload.
Rinse and repeat!
Once you have a pretty established party and get the Genji Gloves, I would switch from the Vanille Death strat to this because it is guaranteed.
I have tried a few different setups but this is easy, guaranteed and fast. (I might do mission 63 strat later once I have 6 Traps just because it is more consistent but the great thing about this one is this is something I can multitask a bit on the computer and do.)
I will explain it step by step:
Fang
Kain's Lance made from Taming Pole
Energy Sash
Genji Glove
Power Glove
Power Glove
Lightning
Ultima Weapon
Energy Sash
Power Glove
Survivalist Catalog
Champion's Badge
Sazh
Hyades Magnums
Energy Sash
Growth Egg
Collector Catalog
Connoisseur Catalog
The Str accessories or fully upgraded Fang weapon may not be absolutely necessary, it just makes it faster. Of course you can further upgrade the other weapons or Str accessories to speed it up.
Paradigms in order of Fang as party leader, Lightning and Sazh
Com Rav Rav
Com Rav Rav
Com Com Com (Default)
Com Com Com
Sab Com Syn
Sab Com Syn
(Enables quick switching to pretty much instant refill of action gauge. Look it up if you don't know how to do this. I really don't need to use this anymore.)
I do this at the Eden save spot outside.
Make sure you have 3 TP for a summon.
Once the fight starts, switch to Sab Com Syn immediately. (The reason i make the COM COM COM one for default is for the two fights you need later.)
Once Sazh casts haste on all 3 chars, have Fang summon.
Put on Deprotect, Deshell, Slow, Curse, etc. You can either do this manually or just cancel after 2-3 tries, it should stick by then. Be careful to not cast too much though because you don't want to stagger the boss until your summon leaves. Really, I spend about 20-30 seconds just waiting for the summon to almost leave. Once you have those debuffs (especially Deprotect, switch to COM RAV RAV near the end and start attacking. Once the summon leaves, you should be at 400-499%. When you get a feel for how much you can debuff/attack, this becomes easy.
Keep on COM RAV RAV until it hits 950-999% and switch to COM COM COM. Attack until the mob is about 20-25% life or the Stagger is close to ending to the letter R or E in "Target" above the health bar (depending on Fang's Str) and then use Highwind.
No matter what, do not miss using Highwind if you are weaker. Even if it has a bit of life left, you should be able to finish it off quickly. It should take 2 mins or a little less of which a large portion is just waiting for the Eidolon to go away. If you are sufficiently upgraded, you may not even need Highwind to finish the mob.
Collect your rewards and you will see you have 2 TP! This is due to the Energy Sash on everyone and Gestalt TP boost Sythesized Ability from having Hyades Magnums, Survivalist Catalog, Energy Sash, Champion's Badge on the same person.
Now all you need to do is walk towards the building, kill the two sets of two soldiers here with COM COM COM default. You will have exactly a bit over 3 TP again. Go to the save spot, save and reload.
Rinse and repeat!
darkjedi187
Member
Is the drop rate really awful? I played mark 8 with the collectors catalog about 25 times and never got a single drop. I thought the catalogs were supposed to help get drops both normal and rare.
darkjedi187
Member
DarkMehm said:
Wow. Are the catalogs stackable?
Boss Man
Member
So I'm in Chapter 5 and was wondering if I could get a few tips and a bit of info. The battle system is nice so far but still a little complicated (I'm getting five stars on most fights, but don't really know what's going on across the board).
First off: I'm currently with Lightning and Hope and each of them have 2/3 of their roles at level 2. Lightning, for instance, is a level 2 commando and level 2 ravager. I don't want to mess with her medic class. How do I get to the next step of her commando and ravager classes though? Do I have to get her medic to 2 before I can get further into commando and ravager, or does something else allow me to continue with those roles. Basically, should I be saving this CP for the two "maxed" classes or do I have to use it on her medic before I can use it on those two.
I'm a little overwhelmed by the weapon upgrading. It seems like I get a weapon once every blue moon, but upgrades can happen as often as I can afford them. What's the end-game here? Right now Lightning has a Gladius at level 11...am I going to switch that weapon out for something completely different later on or does it upgrade into her best weapon eventually? I don't want to upgrade something too much if it will be discarded later. If certain weapons are the "choice" for end-game upgrading, what are they so that I can look for them and know how to handle them?
Same goes for accessories. I have a level 5 power bracelet(sp?). Should I keep upgrading that or will it become useless at some point?
My battles are going relatively well but I'm not completely sure that I'm optimizing the performance of my party. Right now, with Hope and Lightning, I go in as COM(Lightning) and RAV(Hope). I stay that way unless I need to switch Hope to MED. I use COM/RAV to build the chain and I also use it to maintain the chain. Should I be doing something different? Would RAV/RAV be better to build the chain? Are Synergists that important for basic battles?
In a three-person party, should I really worry about support roles? Right now I just pretty much go in for damage, with RAV/RAV/RAV or COM/RAV/RAV depending on the characters involved. If things look like they're getting messy, I switch the most capable character over to medic for a round or two to clean everyone up and then switch back. Will RAV/RAV/RAV build the chain more effectively than COM/RAV/RAV? It seems like COM/RAV/RAV is definitely the ideal situation for an enemy that is staggered, since COM holds the chain up and knocks the enemy into the air.
What role do SYN and SAB's play? They don't seem very important to me so far. I used Vanille as SAB when
So I would start with RAV/SAB and switch to RAV/RAV when the situation (protect and shell were eliminated) was more in our favor.
There's just a lot going on with this game's battle system and development and I want to make sure that I'm doing it right lol. What I'm most confused about really is the role of COM and RAV with a building chain and with each other. Is there really any timing involved?
e. I also do not understand Eidolons at all.
First off: I'm currently with Lightning and Hope and each of them have 2/3 of their roles at level 2. Lightning, for instance, is a level 2 commando and level 2 ravager. I don't want to mess with her medic class. How do I get to the next step of her commando and ravager classes though? Do I have to get her medic to 2 before I can get further into commando and ravager, or does something else allow me to continue with those roles. Basically, should I be saving this CP for the two "maxed" classes or do I have to use it on her medic before I can use it on those two.
I'm a little overwhelmed by the weapon upgrading. It seems like I get a weapon once every blue moon, but upgrades can happen as often as I can afford them. What's the end-game here? Right now Lightning has a Gladius at level 11...am I going to switch that weapon out for something completely different later on or does it upgrade into her best weapon eventually? I don't want to upgrade something too much if it will be discarded later. If certain weapons are the "choice" for end-game upgrading, what are they so that I can look for them and know how to handle them?
Same goes for accessories. I have a level 5 power bracelet(sp?). Should I keep upgrading that or will it become useless at some point?
My battles are going relatively well but I'm not completely sure that I'm optimizing the performance of my party. Right now, with Hope and Lightning, I go in as COM(Lightning) and RAV(Hope). I stay that way unless I need to switch Hope to MED. I use COM/RAV to build the chain and I also use it to maintain the chain. Should I be doing something different? Would RAV/RAV be better to build the chain? Are Synergists that important for basic battles?
In a three-person party, should I really worry about support roles? Right now I just pretty much go in for damage, with RAV/RAV/RAV or COM/RAV/RAV depending on the characters involved. If things look like they're getting messy, I switch the most capable character over to medic for a round or two to clean everyone up and then switch back. Will RAV/RAV/RAV build the chain more effectively than COM/RAV/RAV? It seems like COM/RAV/RAV is definitely the ideal situation for an enemy that is staggered, since COM holds the chain up and knocks the enemy into the air.
What role do SYN and SAB's play? They don't seem very important to me so far. I used Vanille as SAB when
she and Sazh were moving through that industrial level with the switches. There were lots of bombs, but I used Vanille's SAB role for the robots who have high defense.
There's just a lot going on with this game's battle system and development and I want to make sure that I'm doing it right lol. What I'm most confused about really is the role of COM and RAV with a building chain and with each other. Is there really any timing involved?
e. I also do not understand Eidolons at all.
rayner said:
I know how it is, it is so fucking easy, I can kill it in less than 2 minutes if it doesn't do bay. I have my five dark matters now so I just need to farm a few more ingots to have enough money for all the upgrading I need to do(treasure hunter trophy) and be done with this. I need 2,163,000 Gil to buy the gilgamesh shop weapons and adamantites, and that's not counting the other catalysts + materials to upgrade. I'm sitting at 2.4MIL atm so I'm thinking I need at least 3.5M to have enough.
edit.
I think I'll try and see how close I get to getting all the items and weapons now and create a separate save.
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