official Final Fantasy XIII

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Every single dialog in the game:

"l'Cie, l'Cie, Fal'Cie, l'Cie, Pulse, Cacoon, l'Cie, Focus, l'Cie, l'Cie, Crystal, Fal'Cie, Snow, Vanille, l'Cie, l'Cie, Fal'Cie, Pulse, Gran Pulse, Lightning, l'Cie, l'Cie, Pulse, Fal'Cie"

:laugh:

So true.... I don't think I've ever hated a FF story this much. I think it's heavily the characters so far but, my god I hate them.

I'll prevail to the end for an honest opinion of everything, but this game has to pull a strip club out of the bag in what I have left to even be mentioned with the other FF titles.

[furyshinobi]

Managed to finish the game quite awhile ago and enjoyed it for what its worth, mostly the graphics and characters (Fang, Hope and Lightning are the characters I like the most). Did not like the story at all but maybe because I did not read the datalog at all :p I'm going to do some more sidequests later with the Chocobo reins I got before.

[George P Global Moderator]

I've done up to mission 8, or maybe 9? I forgot already. Now i'm CP farming at the well known spot. That mission vs the Kaiser Bahemeth took way too long to finish, ran to the CP farming spot right after that. :p

[LingeringSoul]

I just made it to Chapter 13 this afternoon. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the linearity is what really hurts the game for me. Most of the FF games were pretty linear (in the sense that there were no branching paths in the story), but at least they gave you the illusion of freedom by giving you a world map and letting you backtrack to towns and dungeons (eventually giving you an airship so that you could travel around at your leisure). The world map in past FF games (and in many, many other JRPGs) was great because it really made you feel like you were inside of a larger world. It's funny, after putting about 50 hours into this game, I don't feel any sort of connection to Cocoon like I did for the worlds in FF6, 7, and 8. It doesn't feel like a fully fleshed out "world" to me. It just feels like I was strung along a path that just happened to go through a couple of towns. I think the lack of a world map definitely contributed to that feeling.

The storytelling wasn't great by any means (not giving you any background information outside of the datalog was a mistake), but that didn't bother me too much. Once you get near the end, the story starts to reach a focal point and it becomes much more engrossing. I also didn't mind the characters at all. They're pretty much standard JRPG characters, in that they start off being very emo and become gradually more likable as the game goes on. I think that games like Mass Effect have given a lot of us higher expectations for characters in a RPG by giving us characters that are very human with understandable flaws that we can relate to. After playing a game like that, it's hard to re-adjust to a game like FF13, where every character is a gross exaggeration of a standard RPG archetype (overly cheerful character, overly serious character, overly sullen character, etc..).

I'm at the start of Chapter 13, so I'm guessing that I still have a few hours left, but my previous opinion still holds: it's good but not great. As an RPG taken independently of its franchise, it's enjoyable and I certainly don't regret buying it. However, as a Final Fantasy game, I had certain expectations that were not met, and I won't even start with the complete lack of sidequests (the Cie'th stones don't count, and they don't hold a candle to the sidequests from FF6, 7, and 8).

[DPyro]

I'm at barthandelus boss in chp 11 and need help. Everyone says to use Lightning, Fang, Hope but quite frankly Fang sucks as sab. so I switched her for Vanille. I got him down to 1,000,000 HP and then he cast doom on me. I upgraded all weapons to tier two and upgrade HP bangles as much as I could (everyone around 4000 HP). I'm thinking I need something like this: Snow, Sazh, Vanille - Sen, Syn, Sab (block attacks, haste/protect, deshell/imperial) / Com, Com, Rav / Com, Rav, Rav. Only thing about that setup is I'll only have one med.

[DPyro]

OK, nvm...I beat him pretty easily within 20 minutes following IGNs guide.

I'm now at the Proudclad boss battle.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Ahh, those are fun. Battles tend to get rather simple at that point - just wait til you get to the next area. What a pain! Haha. I'm having to grind quite a bit.

[DPyro]

Ya I just looked ahead to see what I have left.

Three boss battles in a row plus a timer! WTF!

[LingeringSoul]

Finally finished the game this afternoon. End spoilers ahead!

Managed to beat Orphan on my first try, but it was definitely a challenging battle (the first Orphan fight, that is). I actually had one moment during the fight where Fang and Hope were both KO'd and Lightning's health was in the red. I think I just survived that by sheer luck. From what I hear, Orphan is actually capable of inflicting instant death on any of your party members, but thankfully that never happened to me. I must say, that was an awesome final battle. Intense as hell, and I had chills down my spine every time that Orphan used that move that lowers everybody to critical health. Finishing him off was so satisfying, and it made trudging through all of the slow parts of the game worth it for me (although perhaps I'm just on a high after finishing the game :)).

Second fight with Orphan was pretty easy. You have the timer, but there's way more time than you need. Finished him off in two staggers, although I'm sure it can be done with just one. Didn't get the Lightning PS3 theme, unfortunately.

Game definitely got better near the end, as the story reached a focal point and things actually started to have a purpose. Funny though, I still had more trouble with Cid Raines than any other boss. I beat the second and third Barthandelus fights on my first try, but Cid took me over ten tries.

[DPyro]

Really? I beat Cid first try...

[Pablo2008jedi]

Really? I beat Cid first try...

Same here, but the wife took 5 attempts :p

[DPyro]

Ok this is ridiculous. I know I'm suppose to grind around now, but

could they possibly put any more behemoths directly in my way. I ended up sneaking passed them and now in the Eden hall. Where is the best spot to grind....It's really sad that each node is worth 20,000 CP and I only get 3000 per fight.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Ok this is ridiculous. I know I'm suppose to grind around now, but

could they possibly put any more behemoths directly in my way. I ended up sneaking passed them and now in the Eden hall. Where is the best spot to grind....It's really sad that each node is worth 20,000 CP and I only get 3000 per fight.

There's two turtles or something people grind, but I have no idea where they are...

[slyph]

the turtle people grind for money in the end game is the one right past that highway with the behemoths. it is on the left hand side as you come up to the save point in Eden.

when your party gets stronger and don't need the death/summon tricks to kill them and can drop them in about 1:45 then you farm them, if an ingot drops then you save and hit start - select and reset the game and load up and kill again. (great tip for surviving their stomps is to have a fulling upgraded Gaian ring on each member 40% earth damage reduction)

if it doesn't drop then just reset it right after the battle without saving (this is assuming you no longer need CP)

these are also awesome for farming CP as they are worth 40,000 CP per kill. 80,000 if you have the growth egg acc on one of your active party members (reward for mission 55).

as I mentioned before, I make almost 2 million gil here an hour if you have good drop rates on ingots. I got 8 in a row once. they are worth 150,000 gil.

[LingeringSoul]

Really? I beat Cid first try...

Yeah, I don't know why I had so much trouble with him. I didn't have problems with any of the other bosses (apart from the Eidolons), but he kept killing me with his ridiculous strings of attacks and that Seraphic Ray (or whatever it's called). When I did beat him, I ended up mostly using COM/SEN/MED and just slowly building up his stagger bar before finishing him with Odin. I have a friend who didn't even use a Sentinel for that fight, and I don't even know how he pulled that off.

Ok this is ridiculous. I know I'm suppose to grind around now, but

could they possibly put any more behemoths directly in my way. I ended up sneaking passed them and now in the Eden hall. Where is the best spot to grind....It's really sad that each node is worth 20,000 CP and I only get 3000 per fight.

If you're at a point where each node is 20,000 CP, then I don't think it's really necessary to grind anymore. My Crystarium was developed at about the same level (each remaining node about 12,000 - 20,000 CP), and I just went through the areas normally.

[DPyro]

I'm at the beginning of level 4 crystarium and just about to get Hopes last resort ability, Vanilles death ability etc. Think my HP is 4600 - 5000 with HP bangles. Lightning, Snow and Hope are my party. Level 2 weapons for most characters.

Just past the big guy that falls through the glass. I'm hearing I can get good gill items from these sacrificial monsters.

[KoL Veteran]

Man I wan to keep playing but work is keeping me busy. :( I need to finish like 6 missions.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Yeah, the Falcie drop Perfume, which are worth 12,500G each. They tend to spam Death though. It barely hits, but it's an instant KO if it hits your party leader!

[slyph]

sacrifices are good money, in chapter 13 before you beat the game there is a room that you can respawn them and just run back and forth, can get about 900,000gil an hour farming them if you can kill them in about 30 seconds (takes a pretty strong group to do that or preemptives)

the farming of turtles pretty much require your party to be very strong, almost full crystarium completed helps a lot. I use Fang(leader), Vanille, Hope to do my farming. Fang has 23000 HP, Vanille at I believe 19800, and Hope at 18500. (my crystarium has long since been finished but I was farming them without the summoning tactic/death trick just after finishing off the 3 main roles per character, not all 6.

[LingeringSoul]

Level 2 weapons for most characters.

Just past the big guy that falls through the glass. I'm hearing I can get good gill items from these sacrificial monsters.

Yup, I believe they drop the Perfume item (if I recall correctly, might be a different monster in that general vicinity), which you can sell for a lot of gil, 12,500 or so. (EDIT: jamesyfx beat me to it :)).

[DPyro]

Woot! Finally got Vanilles death ability and killed three giant turtles for 120,000 CP (two in succession after 3-4 deaths, third got up twice but I got a trap. for my efforts). :woot: I can't seem to get any TP from the odd enemies though so I have to use a ethersol.

[HardSide]

I'm at the beginning of level 4 crystarium and just about to get Hopes last resort ability, Vanilles death ability etc. Think my HP is 4600 - 5000 with HP bangles. Lightning, Snow and Hope are my party. Level 2 weapons for most characters.

Just past the big guy that falls through the glass. I'm hearing I can get good gill items from these sacrificial monsters.

If you didnt open up any of the two loots on the glass, the guy does not fall and later on in the game you can get these 2 items, which are vitale if you wanna get the achievement for getting all items.

[DPyro]

Ya, I already got one of the items I think. Glass is broken, can't remember which one I picked up....think it was the one on the right.

[slyph]

One on the right is an item, left one had money. and even if you chose the wrong one you can get the item again by buying it later in a shop. there are no missables in this game even if you didn't open up any chest in the entire game except the ones in gran pulse later with all elementals. but you can also go back to pulse unlike the older areas.

[DPyro]

Ya, one item I know for sure I missed is Champion's badge (EDIT: I'm hearing this is a rare item?) and I don't feel like going back to get it with all the Behomeths roaming around. I'm not sure if I got the collectors catalog but I'm pretty sure I should have it, maybe I should equip it if I do as I haven't got any platinum ingot from big turtles.