official Final Fantasy XIII

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

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Grind ?

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Is the story going to pick up any time soon? It still feels like a constant grind

[PL_ Veteran]

lol i know that's the funny thing... i was just like **** it, that doesn't make sense lets just blast the girls with magic...

Those battles are meant to test a specific skill, so for Odin it was healing Hope.

[sundayx Veteran]

How can you guys upgrade your weapons so much? I just got to control that black hair girl and I haven't upgraded anything at all.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

got alot of spoils in the begining

How can you guys upgrade your weapons so much? I just got to control that black hair girl and I haven't upgraded anything at all.

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

To answer some of the above questions:

Yes, the story is still very in depth even on Chapter 11. I don't know how far along the story you are on Chapter 5/6, but it does get a lot more interesting and the videos are amazing.

As for repetitive, welcome to Final Fantasy.. if you don't like the battling so far, you aren't in for a whole lot of change in the next few chapters. Once you learn how to upgrade weapons, get summons, and learn new abilities and tactics for battles, it gets better and harder.

As for grinding? You can't really grind until Chapter 11 (I won't spoil it for you) nor do you really need to grind. You can however grind, which makes boss battles so much easier.

- Just save the game, or run back during a chapter for a little while to re-spawn enemies.

[MrChainsaw]

As for repetitive, welcome to Final Fantasy..

Older Final fantasy games I did not find repetitive, they were epic.

[Elessar]

Older Final fantasy games I did not find repetitive, they were epic.

Older Final Fantasy's were grind-fests. Don't delude yourself just because they took a change of pace for XIII.

[MrChainsaw]

Older Final Fantasy's were grind-fests. Don't delude yourself just because they took a change of pace for XIII.

I'm not talking about FF4 for SNES...

Although that had an epic story, made it more enjoyable.

[SaLiVa]

In terms of graphics... look how stupid Sephiroth looked.

I still love the game, and with the PC version you can mod the game to have in-battle models with *still blocky* low res background. You can also increase the running resolution of the game.

Either way I think it adds nostalgia to the game. Something that I believe is lost in the newer generation games.

I just bought FFXIII from eBay for ?36.99 brand new. Will see how good it is when it arrives! =D

[Corris Veteran]

I'm currently at around 34 hours on chapter 11, and now the game won't play anymore.

It froze while running around and since then my PS3 freaks out with the disk, can't eject it properly, can't read it, can't turn off.

I even got an error message with the disk that apparently means the disk drive has died, but other games work fine.

From what I assume, the streaming of data constantly over about the 3 days it took to get there has worn out the drive and is having problems Reading the dual layer.

Though I'm not the only one, a good number of people seem to be havig a problem with the game and not Reading/ejecting and giving up on cutscenes.

Dunno what to do really, I want to finish the game, but can't get any further wihout freezing and buying a whole new PS3 for one game seems a bit excessive.

[Coldgunner]

If its out of warranty you may as well change the drive yourself, its not a far cry from changing a PC drive.

[Corris Veteran]

If its out of warranty you may as well change the drive yourself, its not a far cry from changing a PC drive.

We got the GAME extended warrenty, I don't know when that runs out which I will check first, but otherwise I'm definately looking into changing it myself.

[Massiveterra]

Well I've been playing FF games for 20 years now and the first 7 hours I've played so far has been the most "grinding" in a sense where it's getting monotonous and boring without much revelation to the story. I did however just gotten to Odin and it's the first time in the game I felt somewhat of a challenge so that's a good thing. It's actually getting me to customize the paradigm system a little bit more strategically. It's just a little disappointing that I'm this far into the game and I still don't feel any time connection to the story or characters, but that's how I've felt with FF X and FF XII as well.

But I've read the game really picks up after 20 or so hours (sigh) so I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

[MrChainsaw]

Someone made a sword! Looks sick! I want!!!

[Kerm]

Any recent FF's on the pc?

[Lingwo]

I could have smashed my PS3 today

I got to Cid Raines and picked the wrong setup completely (also forgot to switch to gestalt mode), still i managed to get him down to his last 10k this took about 20 minutes because i couldn't get enough attacks in to stagger him. School boy error i forgot to get rid of deprotect and he owned my party leader with a combo. Going to have to look online to see the best setup to beat him. I guess Fang because she can slow him.

[Matrix XII]

Wow I'm loving this game!

The graphics especially in the cinematics are unbelievable! Some of them take your breath away :p

I ended up getting the PS3 version.. 1 disc is so much better in this case lol

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

I could have smashed my PS3 today

I got to Cid Raines and picked the wrong setup completely (also forgot to switch to gestalt mode), still i managed to get him down to his last 10k this took about 20 minutes because i couldn't get enough attacks in to stagger him. School boy error i forgot to get rid of deprotect and he owned my party leader with a combo. Going to have to look online to see the best setup to beat him. I guess Fang because she can slow him.

You really need to cast stuff on him, and your own party to beat that guy. That battle took me roughly 20-25 mins..

Best solution for Lightnings summon, wait till the boss is in the final seconds of his stagger, than bust out your summon, and he'll stay that way. If you go into Gestalt mode, you'll lose all the stagger built up on your enemy.. just a helpful tip.

I used attack/ravanger/healer as my party, Lightning, Fang and Hope i believe it was to take him down. It was a slow, very slow battle... You might want to go upgrade your weapons and ability slots to take that boss down.

[MrArifPatel]

wow i just can't get past the chapter 9 boss! any tips guys?

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

wow i just can't get past the chapter 9 boss! any tips guys?

attack the heads on the side of him first, than go for the middle one. Make sure to have one Com/Rav/Med, and you should be able to beat him. You may also want to set up some Optima's for Com/Rav/Rav and (Com/Rav)/Med/Med, just in case you need to heal your team. You may also want to set an Optima to cast buffs on your team

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Okay, now i'm confused / stuck.

May Contain Spoilers... Read at your own discretion!

I spent almost 2 days leveling up in Gran Pulse, and I decided to make my way to this "village" i keep hearing about (not from the game, but from friends) I just followed the big yellow arrow, and came up to a cave. After entering the cave, I literally destroyed every enemy within 20-30 seconds, so I thought my characters were all high enough to take on anything.

I followed another path, which leads me to this

big machine you use in the game, that knocks down the gates (back in Chapter 4 or 5?)

, which kicked my butt. I used everything I had, and one power move destroyed my main character. So I turned around and followed the right path. This lead me to the

Vanille Summon battle, where I only have Vanille and Fang

This battle doesn't last long, or

I run out of "Doom" time, and he's not even half way dead.

Is there any trick to beating this level? and am I near this village?

[Lingwo]

You really need to cast stuff on him, and your own party to beat that guy. That battle took me roughly 20-25 mins..

Best solution for Lightnings summon, wait till the boss is in the final seconds of his stagger, than bust out your summon, and he'll stay that way. If you go into Gestalt mode, you'll lose all the stagger built up on your enemy.. just a helpful tip.

I used attack/ravanger/healer as my party, Lightning, Fang and Hope i believe it was to take him down. It was a slow, very slow battle... You might want to go upgrade your weapons and ability slots to take that boss down.

Thanks, didn't think to use Odin as i've found him useless so far. I think i just need to slow him down because when he uses that second form because i had to heal pretty much all the time while he was in guard. When i attack him though, i'm more than powerful enough to take him down. I'll try later on today, I think i am going to have a play with some accessories too, perhaps put some poison and deprotect resistance accessories on.

Quite glad i managed to last that long even after the poor setup, so hopefully with the right setup i should have no problems.

[3rdDin8]

The French apparently love Final Fantasy. This Tuesday, there where hundreds of people waiting in line at an electronics store at the famous Champs Elyssee, hoping to be one of the few to walk away with a signed copy of part XIII. A few hours before the game went on sale, I spoke to producer Kitase and director Toriyama about battle systems, western RPGs and the possibility of a Final Fantasy XIII-2.

After some slight confusion (?We thought you worked for Dutch TV?? ?Nope, I write about games.?) and a very long wait, it is my turn to talk to Kitase and Toriyama. The two Japanese men seem relaxed and smile, but I?m sure they are at least a bit anxious about the fate of their latest creation. Reviews from Western outlets are trickling in, and I ask Kitase what he thinks about the sometimes unfavorable comparisons to more freeform RPGs like Dragon Age Origins.

[...]

Kitase wants to do FFXIII-2 and responds to Western critics

[Got3n]

I was a moron and sold all my spoils just before i got to upgrade :-( now the highest lvl weapon I have is like 5, and all the others are 4 :-(

[Massiveterra]

What do you guys do with your upgraded elemental gear after you've completed an elemental-heavy boss battle?

I almost always feel like I've wasted components