For enemies with boss attacks, it seems that SEN/SEN/SEN is just better than any SEN/MED combination... especially since your healers will bite it if they don't have high HP. Just sitting in that paradigm is enough to absorb a lot of the damage.
It was pretty damn fun and hectic :lol , it didn't even feel like all that time had passed. Then at the end I saw target time: 15 mins and some odd secs and my time was 28 mins and I just sorta sighed and laughed :lol
Darkatomz said:
YES!!!!
I actually got a trap an hour ago from farming turtles, and I didn't even kill it that many times! No more than 12 maybe? Got about 4 ingots out of it too. I have just enough money to triple up my traps, but I'll probably do it once I get enough gil to triple up and max out my main party's weapons.
On another note, would it be faster to buy Dark Matter, or farm for it some way?
farming for them would be better, they seem to drop pretty consistently. You just need to max out your crystarium and upgrade your weapons and accessories to a decent amount.
It was pretty damn fun and hectic :lol , it didn't even feel like all that time had passed. Then at the end I saw target time: 15 mins and some odd secs and my time was 28 mins and I just sorta sighed and laughed :lol
farming for them would be better, they seem to drop pretty consistently. You just need to max out your crystarium and upgrade your weapons and accessories to a decent amount.
I kept getting killed before realizing I should use a triple SEN paradigm. I just never thought to use Pheonix Downs, so I had to keep restarting before figuring it out. :lol
And yep, Dark Matters are much easier to farm. You just lose the easy turtles on Pulse and have to fight the evil Long Gui/Shoa Long Gui.
Wow, screw Neochu. Death was just not working out for me so I did it the good ol fashioned way :lol. Took like 12 tries but I managed to cheese him with Fang/Hope/Sahz. 5 star kill, but damn was that annoying.
Guess I'll share my farming tactic for Traps and Turtles without the use of death but the use of summons:
I farm at the entrance to Edenhall where there are soldiers and a big adamantoise.
So you save at the Leviathan Plaza where the adamantoise is. Be sure to equip the Conoisseur's Catalog and Collector's Catalog and also the Growth Egg!
Party: Fang(LEADER)/Lightning/Hope
Paradigms:
SAB/COM/SYN (starting, after Fang has been hasted, let her summon then debuff all the way until staggered, then gestalt mode + finisher, then switch to next paradigm below).
COM/RAV/SYN (buff until everyone gets faith + brave, then switch to next paradigm below).
COM/RAV/RAV (attack until staggered, then switch to the next paradigm below).
COM/COM/COM or COM/COM/RAV (attack till death).
After you kill it, kill a few soldiers until you get 3 TP. Then save/enter-exit the door. Then kill the adamantoise again.
If you do this straight, you can fill up 2 whole non-major Crystariums in a day.
Was skimming through the thread to check for Omega weapon recommendations, but can't find the posts. So... Can someone recommend me what weapons I should upgrade for the characters? So far I'm only upgrading the Lionheart for Lightning. Thanks in advance!
Was skimming through the thread to check for Omega weapon recommendations, but can't find the posts. So... Can someone recommend me what weapons I should upgrade for the characters? So far I'm only upgrading the Lionheart for Lightning. Thanks in advance!
Yep, that's the one, thanks! An additional question: do you have to upgrade the Ultimate weapon of choice all the way to lvl. 100, or can you stop right after using the Trap?
Yep, that's the one, thanks! An additional question: do you have to upgrade the Ultimate weapon of choice all the way to lvl. 100, or can you stop right after using the Trap?
Attacus 5-starred. 22 mins target time, done in 11
If anyone is struggling with this currently, here's a brief rundown how I did it:
Party: Fang/Sazh/Snow
Equipment: 2x Iron Bangles on Fang/Sazh (for Power Surge), all phys. resist gear I had on Snow (about 44% phys. resist), rest doesn't matter
Basically just have a sentinel active at all times.
At the start of the fight, buff yourself and put Slow and Deprot on him. Start building the combo meter with paradigms 1 and 2 until his chain is about 400% OR he changes to his third form. The first 2 forms do neglible damage and you don't even need to heal Snow.
When he uses his special attack (Concentrate/Meditate), switch back to 4 and reapply buffs and debuffs.
After you reach his 3rd form or 400% on chain gauge, just take him down with 3.
This game TRULY is the most frustrating piece of shit I've ever played! EVER! I have NO chance against the fucking orphanus fucker. He's killing me with his constant status shit magic. How can anyone design a fucking game where you can defend endboss1 but not endboss2 right after that? How? Please explain this to me! I HATE THIS GAME.
EDIT:
Fang and Light around 6700HP, snow around...don't know, something between 5 and 6k.
So I too beat the game last night. While much has already been said by myself and others, here are my final thoughts.
Without a doubt, the music and graphics were awesome. Hamauzu really stepped up to the plate and proved that he could handle a mainstream Final Fantasy. Though one thing I would say is that his vocalized tracks, outside of Sarah's Theme, are really weak. They are just in this weird place of not being background music, but not being catchy techno-ish music, either. I mean, on the one side, you have the great techno-pop tracks from Ishimoto in The World Ends with You and the soundtracks to Persona 3 and 4 by Shōji Meguro, and then you have Hamauzu's vocalized tracks standing in the corner, with a dunce hat on, repeatedly running into the wall.
Altogether, however, for a soundtrack to truly make a connection to the player, it must be tied into a great plot; A place where Final Fantasy XIII struggles. While Nojima and Toriyama have created a fascinating world between Gran Pulse and Cocoon, and a clearly intriguing basis for the story, the execution is such a mess that the player comes away dissatisfied. Final Fantasy XIII teases this giant, mystical world with a rich history, but does not disclose anything about the world beyond the very surface. The main plot suffers from the same shallowness, as well. The story does not get nearly as deep as the other Final Fantasy games, instead staying relatively linear in the characters' purpose from start to finish. With the original Final Fantasy XIII concept being by Nojima, and the writing being done by Toriyama, is it safe to attribute the great world and plot basis to Nojima, but the ultimate failure of the story to Toriyama? It sure seems that way.
As a side note: The one aspect of the story I did like, however, was the story of the XIII days. Final Fantasy XIII had a very interesting beginning, (even if I didn't necessarily care for how the game tells the story through flashbacks), the terrible middle, saved by said flashbacks, and then a great conclusion in Chapter 11 and 13. Frankly, Chapter 12 was a return to the boring, linear level design that made the middle chapters so bad, but now with enemies that take way too long to kill!
The one thing I can say I loved about the game was Chapter 11, to the point where I wish the whole entire game was designed in a way similar to Chapter 11. It's not surprising that I enjoyed Chapter 11, however, considering the level design was essentially the same as Final Fantasy X's. The setting in Chapter 11 allowed for a sense of adventure that wasn't present in prior chapters, and whenever I think back upon the game, it's Chapter 11 and the world of Gran Pulse that I remember.
There are two notes that I would like to make about the combat system, the first of which is in regards to the Crystarium system. Rather than revolutionizing JRPG's growth system as Final Fantasy titles have done in the past, Final Fantasy X and XIII team has re-skinned the Sphere Grid in a second iteration. While the Sphere Grid is debatably one of the best growth systems in JRPGs, however, I can't help but feel the Crystarium is step down from what we saw in Final Fantasy X. The most obvious comment to make here is how unbalanced the costs are for the growth spheres in the Crystarium. Unlike in Final Fantasy X, where the only requirement to move a place was the possession of the proper type of sphere received from battle, in Final Fantasy XIII, the player is essentially spending experience points to gain in stats. What's more, these stats fluctuate highly in cost, and throughout the whole entire game, I would fight two or three battles simply to open up the Crystarium and only move 3/4 of the way to a sphere. This results in time consumption and frustration. Additionally, putting the Crystarium in 3D simply made navigating the grid tedious. My final problem with the Crystarium over the Sphere Grid is the manner of how it breaks up the grid for each Job, and how the characters did not share the same large grid. One of the more interesting parts of Final Fantasy X was unlocking a lock on the Sphere Grid for a character, and then dabbling a little bit in some other party member's role. While at a certain point in Final Fantasy XIII, each character gains access to every Job, it still is essentially prohibited by the game due to the non-recommended Role's high experience points requirement.
Final Fantasy XIII's battle system is a mixed bag to me. On the one hand, while the battle system is unique and some amount of fun, for whatever reason, I'm still not crazy about it. I personally felt like I had mastered the battle system early during Chapter 11, and the rest of the game, I was just repeatedly doing the same thing for another 8 or so hours. I could beat just about any enemy; It was instead simply a matter of how much patience I had for the battle. And that really sums it up. Near the end, enemies start to get obnoxious levels of HP and start doing a high amount of damage, and the player is forced to wait these long battles out. The big picture here, however, is by having the player in charge of strategy only on the macro level of management, the game takes a lot of the strategy out of the battles, which, in my opinion, makes the gameplay a lot less fun, and toppling a huge boss that less satisfactory. To summarize my stance: I'm done with AI in these games. I don't want the Gambits from Final Fantasy XII, or the Paradigms from Final Fantasy XIII. I want to input the commands and to be in complete control of my party the entire time.
A friend of mine who was watching me play last night summed it up perfectly, "I don't know how you can stand playing this game. All you do is press X the whole entire time! I mean, it looks cool, and it's fun to watch, though." While "All you do is press X" is of course oversimplification, he's really not too far off, and what I'm scared about in the Final Fantasy XIII compilation is that we're not going to get a single game that is much more than a button masher. Final Fantasy Versus XIII is most likely going to end up an Action RPG, somewhat similar to Kingdom Hearts, given that the Kingdom Hearts team is largely behind it (and this is a fact that isn't exactly inspiring confidence in me, gameplay-wise). Final Fantasy Agito XIII, on the other hand, is using the Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII engine on some level of modification, and is supposed to play like Monster Hunter, so that's not going to bring an overly complex experience. That basically leaves me with Final Fantasy XIV, which is an Online game. It might be an Online game that gives me the most traditional Final Fantasy experience!
One last thing that I would like to say is that I really liked Final Fantasy XIII's ending. Next to Chapter 11 and the XIII Days, the ending was the high point of the game for me. Just the way the game concluded with
Cocoon falling into Gran Pulse, only to be saved by Vanille and Fang, creating the artwork seen in the XIII logo
was fantastic. It really was a beautiful ending.
A random thing that I want to add is that I really think they should have kept Fang as a male character. It would have made Fang and Vanille's relationship so much more interesting if they were a married couple, rather than shallowly "l'cie partners." But I don't know. More wasted potential.
Final Fantasy XIII was a very interesting experience. While it's not anywhere near the best in the series, I still enjoyed a large part of it. The music, graphics, XIII Days cutscenes, Chapter 11 and the ending really don't make up for the game's giant flaws in just about every other aspect, however. Altogether, if I had to rate the game, I would give it an 8/10, though there are many areas of the games that could be considered lower than that if it weren't, once again, for Square-Enix's high production values.
A random thing that I want to add is that I really think they should have kept Fang as a male character. It would have made Fang and Vanille's relationship so much more interesting if they were a married couple, rather than shallowly "l'cie partners." But I don't know. More wasted potential.
Erm, if you don't think they're a couple, you're not reading into it enough. They're nearly as obviously romantically interested in each other as Balthier and Fran were.
Erm, if you don't think they're a couple, you're not reading into it enough. They're nearly as obviously romantically interested in each other as Balthier and Fran were.
While "All you do is press X" is of course oversimplification, he's really not too far off, and what I'm scared about in the Final Fantasy XIII compilation is that we're not going to get a single game that is much more than a button masher.
If you're looking for a skill based game, RPGs are the last place you'd want to look.
Anyway, someone on gamefaqs is the first person in NA to complete a no crystarium usage run. It involved a ton of grinding, but it's possible. Youtube link.
Toriyama and Watanabe are the main writers. I think Nojima just came with the general concepts for the lore, to be used with all three games.
mjemirzian said:
If you're looking for a skill based game, RPGs are the last place you'd want to look.
Anyway, someone on gamefaqs is the first person in NA to complete a no crystarium usage run. It involved a ton of grinding, but it's possible. Youtube link.
the one in eden stays the same, as will one of the roaming adamantoise, and if you redo mission 63, the 3 shao long gui in the north will be turned into an adamantortoise also
While I suppose there are few RPGs that require "skill" (but I'm not going to get into that topic), there are plenty that offer gameplay with combat that's a little more involving, as opposed to a very streamlined experience where much of the planning and work is (or can be) done for you. It doesn't need to be skill-based or challenging to pull that off.
It's going to be interesting to see how Versus' combat turns out. I feel Nomura and company have made progress with the KH-style combat with each entry (the most "major" ones at least), so I'd like to see what it becomes with a few years worth of KH games to get ideas from.
Finally went back and pushed through the rest of the game after taking a couple weeks hiatus when I reached Pulse. My impressions did not improve. Pulse is nice and shows a little bit of what the game could have been but there aren't really any interesting areas and it basically just turns into a grindfest. I can't understand why anyone would bother to go back there and continue grinding, other than achievement whoring.
And that ending -- I still don't understand what the hell happened.
Why was Fang about to attack Vanille? What the hell did Fang turn into? If that was Ragnarok, why was it not able to do jack to Orphan (?? not even sure what the hell the second last boss was supposed to be, I guess Orphan posessed by Dysley's bird?). How did the rest of the group come back from Cieth form? What happened to all the other fal'Cie? And are we seriously supposed to believe the people of Cocoon survived all that?
The dialogue throughout that entire drawn out sequence was just painful.
The game is not horrible. I would say it's a solid 6/10. But it's just so, so disappointing after FFXII and given how much I love the series. There's no way I would ever replay; I had to force myself to finish it.
How did the rest of the group come back from Cieth form? What happened to all the other fal'Cie? And are we seriously supposed to believe the people of Cocoon survived all that?
The dialogue throughout that entire drawn out sequence was just painful.
Just finished Chapter 12, returned to Pulse to do some mission clean-up. 45 hours (and counting) of my life beautifully wasted.
I'm still adoring this game. Some people had issues with the monster difficulty in Chapter 12, I've read before, but with my Light/Sazh/Fang party, starting most battles with MED/SAB/SYN, it was a really nice difficulty curve for me. This game just does it for me. I should be hating it, but yeah, no.
Questions:
- Where's a good place to level up a bit prior to taking Chapter 13/harder missions?
- What missions are doable at the moment? I mean, which should I avoid, as they'll be impossible until the final Crysallium level unlocks? I have already completed Missions 1-12, as well as all the story ones, and some others in Oerba and the Tower so that I can warp to and from those areas.
- Post mission 12 spoiler
how do I mount a chocobo? I'm in the area, there is a feather on the map, and I've taken a chocobo plum from the floating thing, but I can't get onboard one to save my life.
how do I mount a chocobo? I'm in the area, there is a feather on the map, and I've taken a chocobo plum from the floating thing, but I can't get onboard one to save my life.
Just finished Chapter 12, returned to Pulse to do some mission clean-up.
I'm still adoring this game. Some people had issues with the monster difficulty in Chapter 12, I've read before, but with my Light/Sazh/Fang party, starting most battles with MED/SAB/SYN, it was a really nice difficulty curve for me. This game just does it for me. I should be hating it, but yeah, no.
Questions:
- Where's a good place to level up a bit prior to taking Chapter 13/harder missions?
- What missions are doable at the moment? I mean, which should I avoid, as they'll be impossible until the final Crysallium level unlocks? I have already completed Missions 1-12, as well as all the story ones, and some others in Oerba and the Tower so that I can warp to and from those areas.
- Post mission 12 spoiler
how do I mount a chocobo? I'm in the area, there is a feather on the map, and I've taken a chocobo plum from the floating thing, but I can't get onboard one to save my life.
1) Either the Behemoth fighting the other monster that you can preempt near mission 17 or mission 24 (for gil + XP).
2) I would say all of them are doable if you aren't worried about getting 5 stars.
3) You walk up to one and you should get a prompt.
Just finished Chapter 12, returned to Pulse to do some mission clean-up. 45 hours (and counting) of my life beautifully wasted.
I'm still adoring this game. Some people had issues with the monster difficulty in Chapter 12, I've read before, but with my Light/Sazh/Fang party, starting most battles with MED/SAB/SYN, it was a really nice difficulty curve for me. This game just does it for me. I should be hating it, but yeah, no.
Questions:
- Where's a good place to level up a bit prior to taking Chapter 13/harder missions?
- What missions are doable at the moment? I mean, which should I avoid, as they'll be impossible until the final Crysallium level unlocks? I have already completed Missions 1-12, as well as all the story ones, and some others in Oerba and the Tower so that I can warp to and from those areas.
- Post mission 12 spoiler
how do I mount a chocobo? I'm in the area, there is a feather on the map, and I've taken a chocobo plum from the floating thing, but I can't get onboard one to save my life.
Basically what I done to gain exp was get Vanille Death and go to Eden and kill that Adamantotise over and over again. They give great exp and you have the chance to get the oh so elusive Trap or Ignot drop which you will need later on anyway.
That's what I did to save time. The Behemoh King method or the Cryohedron/Hoptile method will be less borning and frustrating but imo is a waste of time since you will long cover your exp requirements before your gil requirements.
Honestly I'm not really seeing how anyone survived, but OK. I'm more curious about the Maker thing....where was that explained? I don't remember any of them mentioning it or even suggesting the Maker was benevolent in any way.
Honestly I'm not really seeing how anyone survived, but OK. I'm more curious about the Maker thing....where was that explained? I don't remember any of them mentioning it or even anything in the game suggesting the Maker was benevolent in any way.
Honestly I'm not really seeing how anyone survived, but OK. I'm more curious about the Maker thing....where was that explained? I don't remember any of them mentioning it or even suggesting the Maker was benevolent in any way.
We know ppl survived because we saw ppl coming down from it XD
The maker thing can be read in datalog. The Gran Pulse verses part or whatever. Someone mentioned it in earlier posts. The maker intervened 600 years ago when Fang turned into Ragnorak, and placed a white seal on her. Hope and friends were also white branded in the ending sequence.
We know ppl survived because we saw ppl coming down from it XD
The maker thing can be read in datalog. The Gran Pulse verses part or whatever. Someone mentioned it in earlier posts. The maker intervened 600 years ago when Fang turned into Ragnorak, and placed a white seal on her. Hope and friends were also white branded in the ending sequence.
watch the ending again. when they came back from cie'th, their brands were white. those only disappeared in the final sequence, after returning from crystal
Were the Pulse fal'Cie in on the "Wipe everyone out to bring back the maker plan or just Dysley/Eden/Orphan. Because from what I gathered, the Pulse fal'Cie did't give a damn about the Maker and just wanted Coccon destroyed and just went about their business.
they went about their business because they have to. just like phoenix and carbuncle of cocoon. they are all trapped with their daily routine of babysitting the human, but secretly wishes them dead
in fact, i believe the origin of all fal'cie are from pulse
cocoon was not created by the maker
the fal'cie lindzei created it, and filled it with human and other fal'cie
because fal'cie can't harm human
cocoon was created to serve as a sacrificial lamb
and they created a fake war, war of transgression, in order to use human to kill human
so fal'cie from pulse was in on it from the beginning
I believe it was Cid1.0 who said it, the fal'Cie collectively want to bring back the maker.
Cocoon and Pulse fal'cie should not even be seen as separate entities.
they went about their business because they have to. just like phoenix and carbuncle of cocoon. they are all trapped with their daily routine of babysitting the human, but secretly wishes them dead
in fact, i believe the origin of all fal'cie are from pulse
cocoon was not created by the maker
the fal'cie lindzei created it, and filled it with human and other fal'cie
because fal'cie can't harm human
cocoon was created to serve as a sacrificial lamb
and they created a fake war, war of transgression, in order to use human to kill human
so fal'cie from pulse was in on it from the beginning
