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[Kittonwy]

Finally started playing it after having bought it for a couple of weeks, the thing I noticed is that when the disc icon was highlighted there's no wallpaper whatsoever, like wtf. Maybe it's the fact that I'm older and I just can't afford to spend hours upon hours on a game but I'm finding that I've very little patience for the game so far. Not sure whether it's that I prefer more action in my games but I'm not having this kind of problem with open-world games... I used to be able to spend hundreds of hours on a single RPG.

Game looks pretty good though, but I really haven't been able to connect to any of the characters yet.

 

[ULTROS!]

I think I was never able to connect with the characters at all... Or maybe Persona 4 changed my character-appreciation standards. :lol

 

[Fimbulvetr]

Maybe it's the fact that I'm older and I just can't afford to spend hours upon hours on a game but I'm finding that I've very little patience for the game so far.

Maybe it's the fact that you can only access the paradigm system from third chapter. :/

 

[Papercuts]

Maybe it's the fact that you can only access the paradigm system from third chapter. :/

And it takes even longer to be worth anything.

 

[Alex]

The next 25 hours were really about understanding the game systems,

You say this, but I must ask, what did you really striving to understand? Almost everything you listed was a one way road that you really could've had a complete grasp on ten minutes after receiving it. (that being a big problem with the game, it has a very minor learning curve but insists you take 25 hours before it allows you to actually digest that 10 minutes of information)

Upgrades of all sorts are all about grinding materials and points. And there's not a huge bit to character selection and setup when you only have six characters and they all swing heavily towards certain jobs.

I never really felt challenged by the game in any way whatsoever until the last big gauntlet of missions after the fact. And even then it felt more about endurance, keeping up, etc than it felt like I was really developing anything or learning to break the systems.

Now, I'm not asking for the game to absolutely kick my ass or anything. Most JRPGs are pretty damn easy, not all, but most. However, I want to have some thought process and I certainly want to have some control over the grand scheme of things.

Should FFXIII-2 come, I hope they look more towards X-2 than it's actual namesake. They did a good job before, they can do it again.

 

[dragonballjoseph]

So I finished all the missions up to the Titan trials today, and decided to beat the game. The final boss was pretty free.
I'm still not strong enough to beat the monster for the growth egg though, and guess how surprised I was that one of the final monsters of the Titan trials was the exact same monster sans the little buggers. :lol

Spoiler

 

[leng jai]

Is it just me or are the bosses getting easier and easier toward the end of the game? I haven't died once at a boss since chapter 11 and am now near the end of chapter 13. The chapter 12 boss was an absolute joke.

 

[Replicant]

OMG @ Army of One. Lightning, I <3 <3 <3 you!!

This officially makes her my favorite + the coolest FF hero/ine. SE should spin her off to a new game. She's far too interesting and underutilized in this game.

 

[Ninja Moomin]

Finally started playing it after having bought it for a couple of weeks, the thing I noticed is that when the disc icon was highlighted there's no wallpaper whatsoever, like wtf. Maybe it's the fact that I'm older and I just can't afford to spend hours upon hours on a game but I'm finding that I've very little patience for the game so far. Not sure whether it's that I prefer more action in my games but I'm not having this kind of problem with open-world games... I used to be able to spend hundreds of hours on a single RPG.

Game looks pretty good though, but I really haven't been able to connect to any of the characters yet.

Keep at it kittonwy!

When you gran pulse the game opens up wonderfully... i've spent about 3 hours just doing missions on gran pulse since i first got there.

the downside is that it took me 20hours to get to gran pulse.

 

[ZephyrFate]

The best game story of all time, Silent Hill 2, was written by Japanese people.

Japanese can write a game story just fine.

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Planescape: Torment want several words with you.

 

[Kweh]

I really like the mission maps on twobrothersandasister.com but the site is extremely slow to load for me, is there another site that has equivalent looking maps for each mission?

 

[Eliciel]

What's really sad about all this thing is the following:

NES: Final Fantasy 1 - 3

SNES: Final Fantasy 4 - 6

PSONE: Final Fantasy 7 - 9

PS2: Final Fantasy 10, 12 (11 MMO)

PS3: Final Fantasy 13, V13, 14MMO

it looks like they are trying to generate more money out of 1 product. I mean let's all hope V13 turns out to be better than 13. Even 11 and 12 was already something like "ok let's generate maximum revenue out of 1 single idea"

For me personally MMO will only be an alternative to "normal" FF if the monthly paid fee is cut down to a minimum...let's say 5-8 Euro... and not 10 -15...


It is sad my childhood and teenager games have ended up in the dirt up till now in this generation I thought I could play quality games my whole life.

 

[Adent]

w00t! Finally got a trapzahedron. But damn it still cost almost 2 million to make each ultimate weapon. Oh well, I'm one step closer to getting all the achievements.

 

[Firestorm]

It is sad my childhood and teenager games have ended up in the dirt up till now in this generation I thought I could play quality games my whole life.

My childhood game was Sonic the Hedgehog so it'd be nice if you didn't cry about this.

 

[MurkyZebra2417]

w00t! Finally got a trapzahedron. But damn it still cost almost 2 million to make each ultimate weapon. Oh well, I'm one step closer to getting all the achievements.

I think you just need Level 1 Ultimate Weapon, so it shouldn't cost too much.

 

[leng jai]

What's really sad about all this thing is the following:

NES: Final Fantasy 1 - 3

SNES: Final Fantasy 4 - 6

PSONE: Final Fantasy 7 - 9

PS2: Final Fantasy 10, 12 (11 MMO)

PS3: Final Fantasy 13, V13, 14MMO

it looks like they are trying to generate more money out of 1 product. I mean let's all hope V13 turns out to be better than 13. Even 11 and 12 was already something like "ok let's generate maximum revenue out of 1 single idea"

For me personally MMO will only be an alternative to "normal" FF if the monthly paid fee is cut down to a minimum...let's say 5-8 Euro... and not 10 -15...


It is sad my childhood and teenager games have ended up in the dirt up till now in this generation I thought I could play quality games my whole life.

So true, they are zero quality games this generation...

 

[Styles]

w00t! Finally got a trapzahedron. But damn it still cost almost 2 million to make each ultimate weapon. Oh well, I'm one step closer to getting all the achievements.

If you're planning on upgrading choose Vanille's Belladona Wand and max it out to level 100 then dismantle it to get 3 more traps. Just a suggestion though or you could just keep farming for them!

 

[Zzoram]

What are the bonuses that all the weapons give? They are so unclear about what those bonus traits actually do. What is Warding for Snow?

I'm using Lightning/Hope/Fang in Ch10. What are the best paradigms for them? I'm currently using Rav/Rav/Com, Med/Syn/Sen, Rav/Med/Sen.

 

[Yoshichan]

What are the bonuses that all the weapons give? They are so unclear about what those bonus traits actually do. What is Warding for Snow?

Hit square.

 

[firehawk12]

For paradigms, it's really up to the situation really. For mobs, you can usually deal with them with just straight up Rav/Rav/Med or Com/Rav/Med. It's only with bosses that you should worry about throwing in Sab/Syn paradigms.

And yeah, some of the weapon descriptions are kind of useless. Like, how does Paper Tiger indicate that it will lower HP?

I used this though: http://ff-13.info/
The explanations are still a bit vague, but at least you have an idea of what they do.

 

[BeeDog]

Chapter 11 question: Will you be able to return to Mah'habra (sp?) - Maw of The Abyss later on, or will the area be locked after a certain point? I can't beat the Juggernaut there, and I hate leaving possible loot.

 

[firehawk12]

Chapter 11 question: Will you be able to return to Mah'habra (sp?) - Maw of The Abyss later on, or will the area be locked after a certain point? I can't beat the Juggernaut there, and I hate leaving possible loot.

Yeah. There's a mission stone there as well that only unlocks later on anyway, so you have to go back.

 

[BeeDog]

Yeah. There's a mission stone there as well that only unlocks later on anyway, so you have to go back.

Oh, alright. Thanks!

 

[firehawk12]

Oh, alright. Thanks!

Pro-tip. There are actually two hidden stones in that general area. I didn't know and stumbled on it by accident... otherwise, I would have pulled my hair out wondering what mission I missed. :lol

 

[darkwings]

giant bomb gives it a 3/5

http://www.giantbomb.com/final-fantasy-xiii/61-20664/reviews/

 

[firehawk12]

giant bomb gives it a 3/5

http://www.giantbomb.com/final-fantasy-xiii/61-20664/reviews/

Given his comments on the podcasts, that seems to be right. He had a love hate relationship with the game after all.

 

[Eliciel]

By the way there is one good thing about all of this the musical score.

Finally a piece of quality at least for me. Square Enix delivers on all emotional channels with this orchestral masterpiece. Such a great achievement, if they keep focusing on the gameplay and the story Final Fantasy may rise again.

Now here is what I am talkong about and I don't know if old plus I don't even care..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp4kLRcY7Q4&feature=related


First Square Enix live in Konzert in Cologne and skip the first part up till 2:00.
It is seperated in 15 parts.

ENJOY!

 

[Clear]

I dunno how typical my feelings are, but I felt that the last third of the game worked well enough to overshadow the dullness and incoherence of large parts of the early/mid-game.

I guess "incoherent" is the word I'd choose to best summarize what's really wrong with FFXIII though. For long stretches the game just doesn't hang-together as well as it should do, and I'm not entirely sure why. Certainly (for me anyway) the whole storytelling aspect of the game feels like a huge backward step from FFX.

I can only assume that a lot of what was cut (for time) was "connective tissue" that although not vital to the primary thrust of the plot, helped fill in the blanks and make the characters feel part of an actual world, not just a string of super-pretty backdrops.

Edit: Just read Brad's review on GiantBomb. Probably fairest and best review I've read, I agree 100%.

 

[Pooya]

OMG @ Army of One. Lightning, I <3 <3 <3 you!!

This officially makes her my favorite + the coolest FF hero/ine. SE should spin her off to a new game. She's far too interesting and underutilized in this game.

1-just make a Dissidia game for PS3
2-Cloud vs Lightning
3-Profit

 

[nubbe]

I have struggled with this game for 6 hours now and the only reflection about this game during that time is that the game is booooooring.
Boring environments that are trench runs.
Boring music.
Boring characters.
Boring combat system.
Boring leveling system.
Boring story. I don’t get their culture and society.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

I have struggled with this game for 6 hours now and the only reflection about this game during that time is that the game is booooooring.
Boring environments that are trench runs.
Boring music.
Boring characters.
Boring combat system.
Boring leveling system.
Boring story. I don’t get their culture and society.

My only suggestion is to just keep trudging on until everything opens up more. ON my second experience of the first 8-10 hours, it was a bit dull. After that period I love it.

 

[Ricker]

I really like the mission maps on twobrothersandasister.com but the site is extremely slow to load for me, is there another site that has equivalent looking maps for each mission?

Yeah,it seems to be down for me as well this morning...I decided to warp back to Pulse and I am trying to find mission 16 start but they are down,maybe i`ll check those 6 missions bunch together in a circle for now instead.

 

[shouamabane]

I have struggled with this game for 6 hours now and the only reflection about this game during that time is that the game is booooooring.
Boring environments that are trench runs.
Boring music.
Boring characters.
Boring combat system.
Boring leveling system.
Boring story. I don’t get their culture and society.

I wanted to sell the game after 6 hours. I'm now at 45 hours and I'm having a good time with it. I'm glad I stuck with it.

 

[Kittonwy]

Keep at it kittonwy!

When you gran pulse the game opens up wonderfully... i've spent about 3 hours just doing missions on gran pulse since i first got there.

the downside is that it took me 20hours to get to gran pulse.

I'll keep going.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Gran Pulse is so addicting. O.O

 

[BeeDog]

The second(?) boss in chapter 11 blows chunks, fucking stupid. Anyone have any suggestions? It's the

Spoiler

Vanille Eidolon boss

.

 

[CruxisMana]

The second(?) boss in chapter 11 blows chunks, fucking stupid. Anyone have any suggestions? It's the

Spoiler

Vanille Eidolon boss

.

Spoiler

I ended up having to use a haste shroud to get an edge.

But other than that, use Sent/Med whenever he attacks and then Com/Rav whenever he's charging his attacks.

 

[Lince]

You don't even earn experience points for the first three or so hours, and you can expect to grind through another dozen at least before it lets you start playing with three characters at once with all the roles available. There's such a great combat engine here, I can't understand why the designers don't let you access all of its potential sooner. The same goes for an incredibly arcane system that lets you upgrade your equipment and apply hidden bonus abilities to your characters. You can achieve some incredibly powerful results with these systems, but their specifics are so obscure and poorly explained, you'd have to hit the Internet and find a FAQ to do so efficiently.

.

 

[BeeDog]

Spoiler

I ended up having to use a haste shroud to get an edge.

But other than that, use Sent/Med whenever he attacks and then Com/Rav whenever he's charging his attacks.

Hmm, guess I have to spend a shroud then. Thanks man.

 

[CruxisMana]

Hmm, guess I have to spend a shroud then. Thanks man.

Spoiler

I kept getting the bar really close to full, so the haste really helped.

And Grr! I can't beat the last boss of Chapter 11...

 

[Parley]

I just finished it. I liked the game a lot. Combat was great, a couple of the characters I liked, but mostly this was not one of my favorites.

Everytime Square experiments with FF I usually love the results (FF12 might be one of my favorite games ever) but this time it was a great combat system with little else to offer. The "opening up" of the game was not enough to make up for the rest of the corridor running and it really didin't feel all that open.

However, I can easy recommend it to almost anybody and despite its flaws it is a good game.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Spoiler

I kept getting the bar really close to full, so the haste really helped.

And Grr! I can't beat the last boss of Chapter 11...

Relentless Assault and two medics are possibly your friend in that fight

 

[CruxisMana]

Relentless Assault and two medics are possibly your friend in that fight

I'm doing that and the battle is going fine until he gets to 1/4HP and casts Doom on me EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME.

Any advice/team formation/etc?

 

[Dedication Through Light]

I'm doing that and the battle is going fine until he gets to 1/4HP and casts Doom on me EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME.

Odd is it really taking you +15 minutes to do the battle? He should go down in like 8 minutes, as well, use RENEW to heal instead of the healing paradigms sometimes. I had beat him on the first go around, so idk.

I had Hope/Lightning/Fang, Two ravagers and the commando and I just always went in for the attack. Healed with Renew and or the healing paradigms, and just kept pounding away. I cant remember if I had haste at that point with Hope, but that would have been cast immediately.

 

[CruxisMana]

Odd is it really taking you +15 minutes to do the battle? He should go down in like 8 minutes, as well, use RENEW to heal instead of the healing paradigms sometimes. I had beat him on the first go around, so idk.

I'm using Lightning/Fang/Hope too, but yeah the battle is taking me awhile.

I'm finding that I have to heal often, which just eats away at my time and then it just goes downhill from there.

Should I be attempting to be buffing/debuffing constantly?

While I'm ranting too - STOP USING DAZE...

 

[TheVisualizer]

The second(?) boss in chapter 11 blows chunks, fucking stupid. Anyone have any suggestions? It's the

Spoiler

Vanille Eidolon boss

.

I beat it without any shrouds or grinding by the skin of my teeth after failing like 20 times last night, here was my strategy:

Spoiler

Here were the keys to my success

1-Both party members need to be productive at all times (Fang can't stand as a SEN any longer than you need her to be, as soon as the Eidolon stops attacking she needs to be back on the attack). Same for Vanille, she doesn't need to be healing when both party members have good health, have her as SAB whenever you get the chance

2-Fang wouldn't do any debuffs at all when I switched her to SAB so I had to use her as a COM instead which doesn't move the Gestalt bar as much. Maybe she will properly use SAB abilities for you which would make it a way easier fight

3-You need to switch Paradigms a lot, almost every turn focusing on a few things

-----You can get 2 attack turns in before the Eidoon attacks
-----Fang must be changed to a SEN before or right as the Eidolon attacks or he will kill Vanille
-----While you are healing Fang after the Eidolon stops attacking she needs to be doing something productive (either SAB or COM if she doesn't want to debuff)
-----As soon as Fang is healed into the green you need to switch to SAB and try to get 1 round of debuffs in, as it seems to move the Gestalt bar the most

I needed 5 paradigms

SAB/COM (started off with this for 2 rounds)
SAB/SEN (used this 3rd round while Eidolon attacks for 1st time, Fang won't be in dire need of medical attention after the first wave of attacks)
MED/COM (used this as soon as Eidolon started charging)
SAB/COM (if Fang can be healed quickly, use this once before it attacks again)
MED/SEN (use this pretty much for the rest of the fight while Eidolon attacks to keep Fang alive and keep you safe)

 

[Dedication Through Light]

I'm using Lightning/Fang/Hope too, but yeah the battle is taking me awhile.

I'm finding that I have to heal often, which just eats away at my time and then it just goes downhill from there.

Should I be attempting to be buffing/debuffing constantly?

While I'm ranting too - STOP USING DAZE...

Nope unless he cast something that will cause your characters to not attack, just use like esuna to get rid of that status effect. Otherwise just attack and heal them occasionally. Renew and Dispelga are helpful too.

 

[nubbe]

My only suggestion is to just keep trudging on until everything opens up more. ON my second experience of the first 8-10 hours, it was a bit dull. After that period I love it.

I wanted to sell the game after 6 hours. I'm now at 45 hours and I'm having a good time with it. I'm glad I stuck with it.

Any game that one needs to spend 10-20 hours to get to the good part is a monumental failure.

I shall ditch this garbage and spend my time on more entertaining stuff…

 

[CruxisMana]

Nope unless he cast something that will cause your characters to not attack, just use like esuna to get rid of that status effect. Otherwise just attack and heal them occasionally. Renew and Dispelga are helpful too.

Okay.

I'm having a good at just going for broke with Rav/Com/Rav and Med/Sent/Med.

Got him down to much lower health this time and he just cast doom.

---

21 MINUTES 57 SECONDS. HAHAHA. BEAT HIM. THANK YOU.

 

[Magnus]

giant bomb gives it a 3/5

http://www.giantbomb.com/final-fantasy-xiii/61-20664/reviews/

Solid review, but like so many others out there, gives the automated nature of the battle system too much of a free pass, imo. 2.5/5 with that massive fault properly recognized.