Final Fantasy XIII

[Touring Mars]

So, I got the Ultimate Hero platinum trophy last night - my first (and probably last!) platinum...

I got the infamous Treasure Hunter gold trophy (for owning every weapon and accessory in the game) after several nights of grinding, which was starting to become a bit of a pain before I figured out how to beat the Shao Long Gui without too much trouble... but my last trophy was Adamant Will (for defeating a Long Gui in battle), which required max-ing three ultimate weapons.

I really enjoyed the game, particularly the paradigm shift concept, which kept battles interesting and challenging. I hear that FFXIII-2 is on the way, which is cool because I'm not sure if FFXIV looks like my kind of thing. Anyway, I can now get back to GT5...

 

[gtone339]

I given up on that game ages ago.

 

[stpatty]

So, I got the Ultimate Hero platinum trophy last night - my first (and probably last!) platinum...

I got the infamous Treasure Hunter gold trophy (for owning every weapon and accessory in the game) after several nights of grinding, which was starting to become a bit of a pain before I figured out how to beat the Shao Long Gui without too much trouble... but my last trophy was Adamant Will (for defeating a Long Gui in battle), which required max-ing three ultimate weapons.

I really enjoyed the game, particularly the paradigm shift concept, which kept battles interesting and challenging. I hear that FFXIII-2 is on the way, which is cool because I'm not sure if FFXIV looks like my kind of thing. Anyway, I can now get back to GT5...

How many hours did it take from you to get the platinum? I saw it took 75 hours for the main story, what about everything afterwards?

 

[Touring Mars]

In order to get the missions completed as well, it took me about 150 hours in total. To go the extra mile and get the two last trophies (Adamant Will and Treasure Hunter), I needed to tag on another 12 hours of purely grinding (mainly for Gil, but got enough Traps and Dark Matters in the process), and so the grand total was just over 160 hours.

 

[stpatty]

Hmm... good thing I've bought the strategy guide then.

As I was playing through normally I got to Vanille's Eidolon fight and got so frustrated at trying to beat it I gave up and haven't touched it for months. Buying the strategy guide actually had me quite surprised I'm anywhere in the game at all. I didn't have the faintest idea what anything was, so I just sold everything I picked up anywhere and used the Gil from it to upgrade the weapons the characters had equipped.

Hopefully if I know what I'm doing it wont take as long to Platinum though, which is a good thing

 

[poolhaas]

just watched a trailer for FFXIII 2, i'm curious to find out if it's gonna be a good sequal

 

[Han_the_Dragon]

I'm going to buy XIII-2, but I'm starting to become worried about VS XIII since there have been little to no info on it (or I'm completely missing it...), still I hope that it's a bit better then XIII, and makes sense up to the end, because there were a few shifts in XIII that really came out of no were...

Also I hope they do like NIS does with Disgaea, that is give us a useful and easy to grind spot, if they want us to grind as much as in XIII... the Adamantortoise weren't exactly easy to kill nor to re-spawn...

Still I hope they keep giving us things for trophies (even if it's just more themes, it's something!), more games should do this, at least there's some point in getting the trophies!

 

[Kathleen9woody]

Great game..animation and graphics are awesome...I loved XIII and I think it's great that they're making another.... I think the best part of the game was the story and I'm glad it hasn't ended....

 

[shaka]

I given up on that game ages ago.

Same here, even thought i have the strategy guide too.👍

 

[Stevisiov]

I added the video for those who haven't seen it. Needless to say, I will be getting it.

Also, on the Subject of final fantasy XIII's (yes there at 4 of them ), after initially being disappointed by style and presentation of XIII versus, after watching one of the more recent trailers (albeit in Japanese) it's certainly gone up in my estimations, to the point I'm actually rather excited about it.

So colour me interested for when we get Final Fantasy XIII and the other Final Fantasy XIII, because I loved the previous Final Fantasy XIII. I may even get another Final Fantasy XIII for my PSP, just to complete the set.

This is of course good news, because Final Fantasy XIV doesn't look like my cup of tea. So let's not hope there are four of them too.

 

[shaka]

so you liked FF13, but you have no interest in FF Versus 13 ??? What The...

 

[Stevisiov]

so you liked FF13, but you have no interest in FF Versus 13 ??? What The...

Nope, I liked FF13 and I will be getting FF13-2.

I didn't initially like the look of FF13 versus, but I have recently changed my mind based on new video's, to the point I am excited about versus.

Final Fantasy 14 however, doesn't look like my cup of tea.

 

[shaka]

I liked ff13 too, but I always wanted to play Versus a lot more.
I don't know if I want to play this sequel though. I don't really remember a lot of the story.

 

[Max Powers]

I'm a little late to the party. Just got to Chapter 11.

So I thought my guys were pretty powerful coming into Ch. 11, but despite having 3000-4000 HP for each of my main guys, and all weapons leveled up to at least lvl 15. I can barely beat any of the guys in the open areas except for the wolves and those flying things.

What's the best place to grind out some CP in CH11. Those Wolf things are useless as they only give away about 800CP per battle. So far the best luck I've had is in the caves fighting the bombs and robots, but I feel like I can find something better.

 

[Touring Mars]

I'm a little late to the party. Just got to Chapter 11.

So I thought my guys were pretty powerful coming into Ch. 11, but despite having 3000-4000 HP for each of my main guys, and all weapons leveled up to at least lvl 15. I can barely beat any of the guys in the open areas except for the wolves and those flying things.

What's the best place to grind out some CP in CH11. Those Wolf things are useless as they only give away about 800CP per battle. So far the best luck I've had is in the caves fighting the bombs and robots, but I feel like I can find something better.

My solution to grinding in Chapter 11 was to avoid it like George Michael in a Range Rover. You don't need to grind in Chp. 11... some of the beasts on the Archelyte Steppe are hard to beat even once your party is completely maxed out, so grinding for CP in Chp. 11 is not going to help all that much.

There is, however, a prime grinding spot on the Archelyte Steppe...

Spoiler

In the Northern Highlands (en route to one of the Cieth portals/waystone thingies), a Behemoth King and a Megistotherian are fighting... this means that you will get an automatic 'pre-emptive strike' if you approach them (you can bring them both to their stagger points on your first hit with the pre-emptive strike). Kill the Behemoth King first, as it will recharge at 50% HP unless you kill it very quickly. You need to kill it fast so that you can stagger the other thing on your first hit too. After you complete the game, it should take no more than 7 seconds (yes, 7 seconds!) to kill them both, for a tidy sum of over 6500 CP a go. They respawn when you walk around the corner too, so you can grind like mad here. Also, it helps if you have the Growth Egg equiped (see spoiler below), and it gives you double CP for everything... so something like 13000 CP for a 7 second fight...

About the Growth Egg (for double CP):

Spoiler

You get it from Mission 55, which is pretty tricky with lower level characters. You can do it the easy way, however, and use Vanille as your party leader, and use her special Level 5 Saboteur skill, 'Death', which has a low success rate, but can kill the Mission 55 mark instantly (albeit rarely)... but, of course, you need Vanille to be Level 5, which requires you to have finished the story first, since the top level of the Crystarium only unlocks upon completion of Chapter 13!

 

[Max Powers]

Spoiler

Hm, I got to those two last night, and it seems I have a 50/50 chance of taking them down. When I do, it's really easy and takes me less than a minute, but I don't always manage to take down the behemoth before his stagger is finished, and when I don't he kills me almost instantly.

I found some easy battles in part of the caves right past that where I can usually catch 3 bombs and 2 of the weaker robots from behind and get 5100CP every time, plus even when I don't catch them off guard, I can still take them down easily. Seems like that may still be my best bet.

Right past these guys is a pretty tough mech boss/monster who comes out of a dead end and is guarding some treasure. can't think of his name right now but he seems to be the toughest guy I've encountered in all of ch11. Did you guys fight him in ch11 or come back to him later on in the game?

Also, a combination of my tv sucking and my color blindness are giving me a hell of a time figuring out elemental weaknesses for monsters in the libra screen. anybody know the order that they go in or something? I can't find my instruction manual, and guessing by color is a failure for me and half the time I end up healing the damn enemy lol.

 

[Touring Mars]

That enemy you are talking about:

Spoiler

sounds like a Tyrant link. First play through, they are quite hard to beat unless you can get a pre-emptive strike (which in some cases you can, but in others you can't). They are relatively small fry, however, once your characters are leveled up. The major issue with the Tyrant is that it creates blades that do alot of damage, and then the Tyrant itself has a pretty heavy attack. However, a Sentinel is very helpful for dealing with the blades, so use a paradigm like RAV/SEN/RAV (Mystic Tower) to stagger the blade and then finish it off with an attacking paradigm before doing the same with the Tyrant itself. I remember getting wasted by a Tyrant several times (even after a pre-emptive strike) before finally beating it, hence why I avoided them wherever possible until later in the game.

BTW, I didn't own a strategy guide as I found all the info I needed by Googling...

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

So far the best luck I've had is in the caves fighting the bombs and robots, but I feel like I can find something better.

That's probably where I spent most of my time.

 

[Max Powers]

That enemy you are talking about:




BTW, I didn't own a strategy guide as I found all the info I needed by Googling...

Whoa, thanks for that link. I used a site like that for fallout, and should have already looked for one for this game as well.

On a second look, it doesn't look nearly as fleshed out for this game as The Vault is for fallout games, I can't find much besides a main article for XIII. I made it this far with almost no help from anything online, but now I'm afraid that I'm going to miss key accessories/whatnot if I don't start checking guides online.

 

[shaka]

My solution to grinding in Chapter 11 was to avoid it like George Michael in a Range Rover. You don't need to grind in Chp. 11... some of the beasts on the Archelyte Steppe are hard to beat even once your party is completely maxed out, so grinding for CP in Chp. 11 is not going to help all that much.

There is, however, a prime grinding spot on the Archelyte Steppe...

Spoiler

In the Northern Highlands (en route to one of the Cieth portals/waystone thingies), a Behemoth King and a Megistotherian are fighting... this means that you will get an automatic 'pre-emptive strike' if you approach them (you can bring them both to their stagger points on your first hit with the pre-emptive strike). Kill the Behemoth King first, as it will recharge at 50% HP unless you kill it very quickly. You need to kill it fast so that you can stagger the other thing on your first hit too. After you complete the game, it should take no more than 7 seconds (yes, 7 seconds!) to kill them both, for a tidy sum of over 6500 CP a go. They respawn when you walk around the corner too, so you can grind like mad here. Also, it helps if you have the Growth Egg equiped (see spoiler below), and it gives you double CP for everything... so something like 13000 CP for a 7 second fight...

About the Growth Egg (for double CP):

Spoiler

You get it from Mission 55, which is pretty tricky with lower level characters. You can do it the easy way, however, and use Vanille as your party leader, and use her special Level 5 Saboteur skill, 'Death', which has a low success rate, but can kill the Mission 55 mark instantly (albeit rarely)... but, of course, you need Vanille to be Level 5, which requires you to have finished the story first, since the top level of the Crystarium only unlocks upon completion of Chapter 13!

I tried getting the Growth Egg, but i gave up a long time ago.

 

[Max Powers]

ok so i'm at the crossroads in Ch. 13 right now where I can either warp back to CH.11 and finish some quests, or continue on and finish the game.

My Crystalanium is maxed right now, so I am considering just skipping the warp to Ch.11 for now and going back after the end of the game...is this what you guys did?

 

[RTSolvalou]

oops (delete this please)

 

[Touring Mars]

ok so i'm at the crossroads in Ch. 13 right now where I can either warp back to CH.11 and finish some quests, or continue on and finish the game.

My Crystalanium is maxed right now, so I am considering just skipping the warp to Ch.11 for now and going back after the end of the game...is this what you guys did?

Yep.

 

[Sttrobe]

Well I'm getting Final Fantasy XIII soon.

Just recently got hooked on Final Fantasy this summer.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Trailer for Lightning Returns - Final Fantasy XIII, the third and final chapter in the FFXIII story arc:



Several hundred years after Pulse and Valhalla merged at the end of Final Fantasy XIII-2, Lightning has been wakened from her sleep and has just thirteen days to prevent the world from coming to an end.

 

[Musolini187]

is this series getting worse with each new episode? 13 was bad, 13/2 was even worse, will this one b the worst?

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I think the intention is to create a trilogy of games that tell one complete story.

If you ask me, the problem with Final Fantasy XIII wasn't its linear story and world, but rather the way the game shifted towards being an action RPG. It's very much an arcade game, whereas previous games in the series emphasised strategy. For instance, there's a section of Final Fantasy IX where the characters travel to a place where magic cannot be used. You had to figure out which were the best characters to use, and learn which abilities were best-suited to the situation. Doing so also opened up a whole host of strategies that you could use later in the game. But Final Fantasy XIII didn't have anything like that, since all characters could not only take on every role, but they could do so at the press of a button.

I think Square really should be concentrating on Final Fantasy XV at this point. Final Fantasy XIII was disappointing, and Final Fantasy XIV was a disaster. It's time for the series to get back on its feet rather than concentrating on making up for previous disappointments with new installments of the game (there is no reason why Lightning Returns could not be a stand-alone game). And that's what they appear to be doing with the Agni's Philosophy tech demo, preparing themselves for the next generation of console, but in the meantime, they're still working on unnecessary projects like Lightning Returns and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. But I suspect that Square is using these games to experiment with early versions of various gameplay mechanics that they are looking to use in the future.

 

[Imari]

This whole three games thing is a pretty blatant money making scheme. Not that companies aren't designed to make money and all, but the quality of the games has just dropped through the floor.

I've spent most of the last week replaying my way through FFX, and my word it's fantastic by comparison. Simple yet deep combat system that actually responds well to good strategy. Great story. Good sense of always knowing where to go without feeling too much like it's on rails. Graphically it's still acceptable, which is the one failing of FF7 these days.

Pull it together Squeenix. The role switching mechanics from FFX2 and FF13 are tactical failure. Go back to the solid single role mechanics you had and work on improving them more. Tell the story guys to go out and get drunk or whatever they were doing when they came up with FF7 and FFX, because those worked.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The reason why they keep introducing new gameplay mechanics is to keep each game fresh. The series probably wouldn't have lasted as long as it has if it didn't change things about, even when some of the mechanics - like gambits or junctioning or the Spheregrid - worked quite well. Paradigm Shift was no doubt introduced for the sake of keeping the gameplay flowing.

The downside is that constantly changing for the sake of keeping things fresh means they have to some up with something new every time, and it doesn't always work. I didn't like XII's Licence Board system because it undid a lot of the subtleties of the gambit system, whereas I thought that the need to Draw magic from enemies in FFVIII put way too much focus on micro-mangement of your characters because it essentially wasted a turn. And FFX's Conditional Turn Battle made things a little too easy to manipulate characters by swapping them in, defending for a turn, and then swapping them back out, thereby allowing characters to gain experience and sphere levels without actually doing anything.

I've read up a little bit on Lightning Returns, and the mechanic this time around is tailored to suit a single player (Lightning is the only playable character; there are no parties). You can now hot-wire up to four commands to individual buttons, which allows you to keep the battle flowing by easily dropping commands into place when you need them. But to my mind, it's far too action-oriented; Square has turned the series into an action-RPG.

 

[Musolini187]

the gambit system worked pretty well imo, cept for the problem of getting the good gambits very late.

xiii has actually been bad at pretty much everything cept the graphics.