Final Fantasy 13

[ila]

I'm nearing the end of chapter 12. The battles are even more ridiculous now. I can only imagine 13 will be hell. Almost maxed out the main roles for Lightning, Hope, and Fang. I'm stocking up CP for Sazh, Snow, and Vanille so they can be specialists when I start on the rest of the hunts.

[Serephim]

Just got to Chapter 10.

Jesus christ. That 17 minute battle was tedious as fuck. It's not even that hard. I just got pissed when I had a few percent left to stagger and he'd use that fucking charge move.

Now I'm even more upset because my indecisiveness means I have trouble picking party members AND character growth. Then the damn game gave me all 6 roles for every character at once!

This game will be the death of me.

that boss decimated my party with that charge move. It took me the longest to figure out that you had to just pelt him with attacks and make him say "UARGHH" while hes charging if you want to have any chance of surviving that move. Everytime he charged, i'd just switch to healing/buffing paradigms to survive it. Then he killed me.

How did i get even? Well, i stumbled across a fun little fact -- if you stagger your opponent, and THEN summon your Eidolon, its doubtful the bastard will live past its finishing move. Odin does like 900 billion damage on a staggered opponent.

I staggered the Head, then odin'd his ass. I think he died, cant remember. If he didnt, he was like 10 ATB gauges away from death.

[Pheonix Gamma]

I just wailed on him until he started charging. Then when he did, I stopped, healed up, then switched to whatever paradigm was COM+SEN+MED. Always survived with half health.

[Serephim]

meh he always would end up killing my main character. and if i lived, it would be like with like 100 or 50 hitpoints (luck). When i found out you can make the attack survivable for your whole team, i just healed then went com/rav/rav on his ass.

[ila]

Story cleared. Time for post game content.

Not going to discuss the ending, but damn, what a pleasent wrap up to what was probably one of the most difficult Final Fantasy games to complete. The final boss series was insane, although the game was kind enough to let you restart at the battle you lost on. Final crystarium level is unlocked now, and I can't wait to buff up everyone up to even more ridiculous proportions. I'll be going for the platinum trophy over the next couple months. Still have 2 more RPGs this month that aren't even out yet.

[shadowgoten]

man, the chapter 11 boss can chug like 90 dicks for all I care, fuck him.

[ila]

I do wonder what things would have been like had the Crystarium not been locked by progress. Sure it works to keep the difficulty going, but man, now that I have the final level unlocked, everyone is a beast.

[shadowgoten]

2nd try on that boss, the fact that it is impossible to cleanse doom in this game is just a giant load of horse shit...ugh.

[Pheonix Gamma]

Wait. which boss? Vanille's summon? Or is there another boss that casts Doom in the chapter? Cause I'm on that chapter right now.

[ila]

You're not being aggressive enough SG. The doom counter is to prevent you from turtling the bad out. Screw the sentinel and just go all out with relentless assault and combat clinic. Maybe some protection if you have a really bad debuff to clear. Save your TP. If you get doom cast on you use Renew and Dispelga to heal yourself. Also, if you want to test it you can try summoning your Eidolon before the doom counter expires. Eidolon's will revive you and leave if you get KOed, so maybe it might revive you from doom. Highly doubting that though.

[shadowgoten]

I beat him just now on my 3rd attempt, you were right aggressiveness is the key to that boss. 15 minutes and 20 seconds, 2 starred, felt like a badass at the end of that. I just went for the fang, hope, lightning combo. Had a buff/debuff paradigm set, as well as combat clinic, you can only debuff him with slow, so once I did that I just switched to a com/rav/syn paradigm and went at it until hope had everyone buffed, by that time the boss was staggered so I went for a com/com/rav paradigm which proved to hurt pretty effin bad.

I actually attempted the summon on my 2nd go through to see if it cleansed the doom, not only did he decimate bahumut, but the timer stops for the summon and reapplies at the same exact time it stopped at once the summon is over.

[ila]

Hmm, I never actually thought about going Com/Rav/Syn to get my buffs up. Usually I go with a medic and sentinel or Saboteur. I'll experiment more while I'm working on hunts.

[shadowgoten]

You have any good places to grind out CP yet?

[ila]

Not in particular. Just working on one hunt at a time, pushing a crystal when I can afford it. Behemoth kings work well, and once I'm strong enough I'm going to take on some of the bigger things in Eden.

[Serephim]

I do wonder what things would have been like had the Crystarium not been locked by progress. Sure it works to keep the difficulty going, but man, now that I have the final level unlocked, everyone is a beast.

Not much different. By the time you get up to the 4th level the CP requirements to progress are just ridiculous.

Wait. which boss? Vanille's summon? Or is there another boss that casts Doom in the chapter? Cause I'm on that chapter right now.

Im on Vanille's Eidolon now. It feels impossible, really. I got extremely close to beating him, but 1) he has to not attack vanille, which means 2) Fang needs to stay on Sentinel. Ive skimmed every single Eidolon since Odin with like SECONDS left on the timer, but it feels like if i only had 10 seconds more i could have beaten this guy already.

The more i fight him, i progressively get more aggressive, but if he ends up killing Fang i pretty much lose the fight, and same goes for Vanille for obvious reasons. Its dangerous to go all-out offensive because if he Targets Vanille then its a good chance i die and lose the fight anyway. The key is balancing offense and defense, but Fang's lack of the Ravenger class makes this battle way harder than it should be. (not to mention my other teammates are just staring at us struggle)

And Eidolons always cast Arise on you should you get KO'd while its active, im sure Doom isnt an exception. Of course, the first time my Eidolon revived me and left i had the greatest shout of joy as i woke up and finished chipping off the bastard.

[shadowgoten]

I'm pretty sure the key is to debuff until there's nothing left to debuff, switch to healer/sent to heal you both up and then sent/rav (i THINK that's the paradigm in that battle). I had to do that fight twice, eidolons are no joke in this game. Chapter 12 starts with a god damn bang, I loved every second of the opening cinematic for the chapter. I'll be working my way through chapter 12 today and possibly beat the game, who knows

[Pheonix Gamma]

whoever designed that last ch 11 boss should have their scrotum torn off and stapled to their eyeballs.

Don't make me waste 15 fucking minutes then say "haha fuck you". That's shit game design.

EDIT: Fuck you, Square. Just killed your fucking lame boss in 10 minutes. Suck my dick.

[shadowgoten]

whoever designed that last ch 11 boss should have their scrotum torn off and stapled to their eyeballs.

Don't make me waste 15 fucking minutes then say "haha fuck you". That's shit game design.

EDIT: Fuck you, Square. Just killed your fucking lame boss in 10 minutes. Suck my dick.

lol yea, I was ready to call square and tell them to suck a dick after that fight.

[shadowgoten]

I FINALLY beat the game today, haven't had much time to plug into the game over the past 2 weeks, so it was refreshing to play through the last 2 chapters in 1 day.

Final boss was quite a fucking asshole, if I had known it casts instant death I would've thrown on my death accessories the first time. Oh well, 3rd times a charm. Overall the difficulty of this game far exceeds any of the other FF's I've played, which is a good thing, aside from that cheap instadeath bullshit they pull every once in a while.

The ending put a huge stupid grin on my face, that says something about the character development in this game. Holy crap, every character was fleshed out so well, you really connect with everyone (even hope eventually, cunt).

I'm still watching the credits roll, Ila and I have talked about the post game content, I can't wait to get cracking on it, he says it can get preeetty annoying due to the difficulty of the fights they throw at you.

[DimensionWarped]

I got the game on Friday. Just got to the part where I can finally choose who I want in my team. I've got mixed feelings on the game overall. No question that it's solid... but the frenetic pace of the game takes as much away from the experience as it add to it.

One of my issues is that winning or losing is less about careful planning and more about whether you switch paradigms with proper timing. Once you get the hang of it that isn't so bad, but I haven't run into anything yet that couldn't be solved by using an aerosol before the battle and then doing my usual thing.

I can't really recall many of the game's bosses at this point. The three eidolons I've fought, sure, are pretty memorable. But aside from that the only thing I can really think of is the enormous gunship of doom at the end of chapter seven. It's partly because of the sheer speed of the game not allowing you to really take much of the bosses in, but it's also partly because most of the bosses just don't leave much of an impression. It's sort of the problem that started occurring in Final Fantasy X where you can generally tell the strength of an enemy by how many random hoops of metal it has overing around it. I do like the aesthetics in general, but memorability is definitely a problem.

Also, the data is a bit confusing. The enemies have levels. Some of the enemies in the beginning of the game have levels numbering around 65. Others from the beginning of the game have levels around 20. And then there's also between 8 and 10. It seems like humanoid soldiers levels go down as they get stronger. At the same time, monster levels go up as they get stronger. Bosses are just all over the place, it's impossible to make any sense of it. What with all the chaos and all, it's a little difficult to tell you are actually getting any stronger throughout the course of the whole thing. There's no real reason for that though, since the statistics are perfectly visible and whatnot. It just seems that way for some reason. I'm sure part of it is because you aren't ever really pestered by low level enemies from earlier in the game that you can just obliterate by blinking at it.

It has sort of an oppressive feel like a main series Shin Megami Tensei game to it. Not a bad thing, but it demands a different mindset from most RPGs.

The core mechanics remind me a lot of Xenosaga Epsiode 2, only not shit.

Overall, it's one of the best games I've played this console generation and probably the most fun I've had with Final Fantasy since either 7 or 8.

[shadowgoten]

dw i know exactly what you mean when you talk about the franticness and the likening to SMT.

You're actually about to to hit the point where the game difficulty shoots upwards.

As for the style of game, I love this game, it's fun, the battle system suits the speed at which this game moves. Ila and I were actually talking about how they could easily employ a system like this for an FF7 remake (I know it won't happen, but picturing cloud launching bitches into the air and kicking ass in high speed, it's definitely a fanboys dream)

Edit: also I have no clue how they decide what level enemies are, the level system is all over the fucking place.

[Kirs]

I just beaten that gunship of doom of chapter 7. Now I'm in the little chocobo search minigame. After the first hours, the game changes radically and turns into an awesome one. Its better that I have expected.

PD BTW the ff7 remake now is closer than ever. It seems that square is considering seriously the idea...

[DimensionWarped]

I want my Final Fantasy 5 and 6 remakes first :M

[tentril]

They should just remake all of the games already. Everyone will (and already has) buy them multiple times just because its Final Fantasy. I want IX damnit!

[Serephim]

I stopped playing the game for like 3 days straight thanks to trying not to finish it so quick. Im on Ch.11 and im going back to the steppe to have some more fun now that im stronger.

This game doesn't really have too many memorable bosses, mainly because there are normal fights in this game as you progress that seriously outclass the bosses you might have faced near the end of the previous chapter.

But this is the only Final Fantasy game ive played where im getting into just random battles and having a blast with it.

My biggest gripe with this game? I absolutely hate the little camera switch that happens in battle when you first switch paradigms. It wastes upwards of 4 seconds that would have been immensely helpful if it would just change everyone instantly like it does the second time onward. Theres no option to turn it off, either. It just makes quickly readying to kill certain difficult enemies really annoying. (You know, the ones that can just get really unfair if you allow them to do what they want to)

If they remade FFVII or VIII with this battle engine they'd be like the best games on earth. Just imagine how much fun Lightning would be if she could renzokuken and Blasting Zone people. Srsly.