Final Fantasy XIII Spoiler Thread (SPOILERS)

[Splintered]

I love Caius because he's so narmy. He even surpassed Kuja as my favorite villain in FF because he's just that much fun. Even his voice is awesomely over the top, ha.

So Lightning was drafted by Etro to be her knight or something? I find this jarring since Lightning is like "screw the gods" last game and will rather die than put Serah in danger

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with the trilogy, how they handled Lightning. I think they damn near ruined her, but the fact she barely shows up alleviates a lot of the frustration.

So okay there are a lot of Yeuls... every Yeul they meet happen to be a girl in her teens? What a coincidence

Yeah, a part of me wonders how much budget went into this game simply because there's so much reuused models. The worst is Alyssa, who you meet at around 19, and then in her late 20s and she looks exactly the same hurr.

I had a ton of fun XIII-2, I think overall it was the most enjoyable to play. LR had the best battle system, XIII had the best story and characterization.

 

[Kuja9001]

So Lightning was drafted by Etro to be her knight or something? I find this jarring since Lightning is like "screw the gods" last game and will rather die than put Serah in danger.

It's explained in the XIII-2 novel. Which can be read here

I just captured a giant cactaur with Synergist abilities and it's great. I want a green chocobo badly but even if I defeat it I never captured one.

Tips on getting monsters, use the feral link as a finisher.

I love Caius because he's so narmy. He even surpassed Kuja as my favorite villain in FF because he's just that much fun. Even his voice is awesomely over the top, ha.

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with the trilogy, how they handled Lightning. I think they damn near ruined her, but the fact she barely shows up alleviates a lot of the frustration.

I had a ton of fun XIII-2, I think overall it was the most enjoyable to play. LR had the best battle system, XIII had the best story and characterization.

To me Caius' motivation makes up for his lack of personality.

I only like XIII's Lightning.

I think so as well however to me over the course of the sequels the only person that truly develops is Snow.

 

[Strangelove]

i enjoyed xiii-2 and lr, but i wouldn't mind if the story had just ended with xiii because i don't think it ended in a way that needed expanding on. for ffvii at least there was the question of 'what happened to humanity after meteor/holy/the lifestream?'

who finished xiii and asked themselves 'does lightning get suddenly sucked into a hole in the ground?'

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

No, no, hito, the question was "Is Lightning happy?"

 

[Strangelove]

No, no, hito, the question was "Is Lightning happy?"

nah

(seriously, that was one of the dumbest quotes. is lightning truly happy now that she's got her sister back? no, let's make her the knight of a goddess after a whole game of rebelling against gods)

 

[Blade]

What I want to know is...

Is Caius happy?

 

[Danseru-kun]

It's explained in the XIII-2 novel. Which can be read here

Thanks for the giving me the link but I'm honestly not motivated to read it, but maybe if 13-2 bring more stuff that pique my interest I might read that in the future.

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with the trilogy, how they handled Lightning. I think they damn near ruined her, but the fact she barely shows up alleviates a lot of the frustration.

Makes me a lot more angry on how Lightning took up half of the CGI in 13-2 and Dissidia 012 disproportionate high compared to her relevance. We already have so much Hi Res model of her but SE loves her so much they spent CGI budget on her when they could have used it with other stuff.

I liked Lightning in FFXIII but the way SE errr pimped her so much makes me go ughhhhhhhhh

i enjoyed xiii-2 and lr, but i wouldn't mind if the story had just ended with xiii because i don't think it ended in a way that needed expanding on. for ffvii at least there was the question of 'what happened to humanity after meteor/holy/the lifestream?'

who finished xiii and asked themselves 'does lightning get suddenly sucked into a hole in the ground?'

I think FFXIII's ending is already THE ending. The worse offense of the trilogy is the timeline messing or something. It's as if everything the gang worked for in FFXIII is flushed down due to a time anomalies.

I think FFXIII sequel is going again into "OMG the gods are evil we worship them now let's fight them" route which is CLICHE to me already. Final Fantasy Tactics *SPOILER* did this "Church is evil" thing and it ruined the whole Game of Thrones-ish political mess which is infinitely more interesting. I suppose FFX also did this but I haven't played it yet and I might.

FFXIII actually averted this trope by stressing the independence of humans and importance of choosing your destiny rather than making the big bad gods plain evil without dimensions. BUT from the way I read 13-2 LR spoilers I'm afraid it's going to that route.

 

[Clement Rage]

nah

(seriously, that was one of the dumbest quotes. is lightning truly happy now that she's got her sister back? no, let's make her the knight of a goddess after a whole game of rebelling against gods)

LR ENDING Spoilers:

Spoiler

Especially as she's in exactly the same place at the end of LR as she was at the end of 13, except everyone has suffered a lot more.

I think FFXIII sequel is going again into "OMG the gods are evil we worship them now let's fight them" route which is CLICHE to me already.

Especially considering 10 and 12 did it as well. Come on, guys, new ideas!

I'm not, in principle opposed to a sequel for FFXIII, but, 'suddenly, time travel' was odd to me. They could easily have come up with plots related to the Cocoon inhabitants scratching out a living on Pulse, some new threat that doesn't like the invaders, whatever, but most of the existing cosmology (Fal'Cie, L'Cie, etc.) just got thrown out the window.

 

[Danseru-kun]

Ughh I'm getting sick of hunting for artifacts. I'm not enjoying it. I'm thinking of going through the story in Academia 400 AF but the other two mystery locations bug me.

I guess I'll just get through and finish the game ASAP.

One thing I dislike so far apart from the story:

- leveling up your monster is expensive. I miss FFXIII where you all share points

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Got FFXIII on Steam, so expect posts from me... once I get the humongo thing downloaded that is...

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Woop! Finished download it!

 

[Obsidian Fire]

All right... so I finished it for the first time and now it's time for the epic post-game grind-fest...

Spoiler: Stuff I liked

Character Interaction
Watching the character's personalities bounce off each other was fun as was watching them grow from a bunch of people forced together by happenstance to a group of friends with a common purpose. It seems like SE was trying to put a new spin on some of their character archetypes, and I think they did a good job of it.

General World/Environment Design
Okay, so I'm kinda a sucker for the art styles of games in general... Really liked the environment design in this game and how much a part it plays in highlighting the difference between Cocoon and Gran Pulse. Cocoon is all these graceful curves (and occasionally right angles) of synthetic materials, while Gran Pulse is mostly angles of naturally occurring stuff. This even goes for most of the enemies you fight as well, which further reinforces the difference between Cocoon and Gran Pulse.

The Linear Nature of the Game/Online Shopping/Datalog
While I can see how the linear nature of the game bugs a lot of people, I found it did a good job of giving the feeling that the party was being driven towards/away from something. It also prevented the fridge logic of "if the party can explore everywhere, why hasn't the military found them yet" that would arise if it was open-world right from the get go. While shops are a traditional part of the FF franchise, I'm okay with them not existing for the same reason. It makes no sense for a group of fugitives to go into town for supplies when it risks them getting found out. Given the high-tech setting of most of the game, I can except them getting stuff with minimal head-canon additions. This also goes for the datalog. Given that there's no good reason in-universe for the characters to explain basic stuff about the world, it makes more sense for their to be "wikipedia" of sorts to reference. That said, it also goes to show why the "main PC has/fakes amnesia" angle is often used; it forces the characters to talk about basic world-building stuff and not be OOC about it.

Spoiler: Combat Mechanic Caveat

In most FF games I tend to ignore the idea of character classes (unless character classes are specified for each character) and tend to go for a "blitz"-like strategy. That is, I tend to max out whatever stat is the speed stat, then the strength/magic ones, then whichever stat is the speed stat (MP usually too). HP and the defensive stats tend to get ignored as the majority of fights usually don't last long enough for them to be an issue. Or to make a long story short, I have a lot fun figuring out how the game expects you to use characters, and then promptly ignoring that in favor of how I like to use them...

For weapons, I'll usually go with the strongest weapons, and for armor/accessories, Auto-Haste is always first, followed by offense. As far as abilities go, I'll tend to split all the abilities up so that everyone can cast some (but not all) spells, summons, debuffs, buffs, etc. It's very rare that I have a designated warrior/mage/healer, etc. Instead I'll have everyone using attacks/magic/summons most of the time, and since I'm usually going faster then what I'm fighting, I usually never have to worry about defenses all that much. Not that I can't do defense if I need to...

And you can probably figure out where this is going...

Spoiler: Combat/Class Mechanic

I really, really wanted to like this. The problem was that it felt like there was only one way the game wanted you to play it (drops that depend on battle ratings did not help with this feeling) and that experimenting with different paradigms felt like a huge waste of time as the fastest way to end any fight (that wasn't a boss fight) was to start out as Rav/Rav/Rav and then once the chain gauge was built up, switch to Com/Com/Com (or if there was multiple enemies, Com/Rav/Rav or I might not even switch). The fact that switching paradigms takes up time on the battle clock didn't help either as did the fact that there's only space for six paradigms in the deck. That's just enough room for the main offensive parameters and a few defensive ones as well. What it doesn't leave any room for is experimenting, which is what I have the most fun doing.

What I did as soon as I got to Chapter 11 was make my main party Fang/Light/Snow. All of them are the best offensive characters in the game (and Sentinels block damage better then Medics can heal it). Then I off-classed them into Rav for Fang, Syn for Light, and Med for Snow. For equipment, Fang got the Pulsian Spear, Light got the Axis Blade, and Snow got Umbra. Accessories were Sprint Shoes and Aurora Scarf for everyone, Nimbletoe Boots for Fang and Snow and a Wistlewind Scarf for Light (ATB is filling 15% faster for Fang and Snow and 20% faster for Light with this set-up). This was also around the time I stopped manually inputting attacks (except when Fang was a Sabatour (the AI is terrible at that role)). The above set-up worked pretty well for every fight except the second Proudclad fight and the first Orphan fight. For those I swapped Light for Hope.

For comparisons' sake, I like this combat/class mechanic better then FFVIX's, but I loved the Materia and Junction systems the best.

Spoiler: Stuff I didn't like

Story Pacing
I'd argue that it's not the fact that the game had linear parts that's the problem, but that most of the parts that are linear could be summed up with a few "x days/hours later" cut-scenes. It's not like Cocoon is that big or that it takes that long to get around it. Especially when Gran Pulse is more interesting then it... but more on that later...

Reliance on Deus Ex Machina
When both the events that start the story (Fang and Vanille waking up) and end the story (Cocoon not getting destroyed) depend on this trope it feels like lazy writing. Especially when the games got an in-game version of wikipedia sitting in your inventory (datalog). It shouldn't take a whole 'nother (unintended) game just to figure out how the conflict in this game got started and finished. TBH, I'd have put more hints about who was meddling down on Pulse (because with the Pulse fal'cie were in on the whole "destroy Cocoon" thing to there should be something there) and make the time spent on Pulse longer so it's not just "let's check out where Fang and Vinille grew up". Make one of the earlier chapters one cut-scene (Lake Bresha would probably be the easiest) to compensation and that would help with the pacing as well.

Only Being Able to Max Characters Out After Beating the Game
This feels like a huge slap on the wrist to people who like grinding/curb-stomping bosses the first time though. And maybe it is. While I can understand not opening all the techniques right from the get go, not letting players max out the characters before the final boss feels like a fake difficulty imposed by the devs. Given how much CP you need to level up certain roles... I don't think did any major grinding sessions for the entire game, as it felt like a waste to grind while I could't max out roles. I still ended up getting 4-stars on Orphan though...

Trying to be like The Elder Scrolls
This was what it felt like FFXIII was trying to look like/be, emphasis on trying. The enemies wandering around, the multiple factions, the lore that's getting hinted at, the fast battles, etc. The Elder Scrolls was the game series this game reminded me of the most. The problem being that TES had had 4+ games worth of lore and story-telling style developed for it by the time FFXIII had come out, so TES can afford to not be obvious with it's lore as well as had figured out how to make a linear story non-linear (yes, it cause awkward fridge logic at times, it was also obvious this was a game-play mechanic, not a story-telling one). FFXIII feels like SE was going for the impact the TES games have on most players without understanding how Bethsda approaches TES games.

All that said, FFXIII is a good enough game; it's a lot better then I'd thought it would be given all the negative stuff people go on about it. It's just not one that I'll be replaying anytime soon after I finish getting all the Steam achievements.

 

[Kuja9001]

I wish they gave us a reason as to what causes the various Cie'th forms.

I mean there's no way just one human transforms into the huge ass Geiseric.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

So... the place I hit a wall figuratively speaking isn't on the final bosses... Instead it's during Titan's missions and is the first "E" tier mission. The worst part is it's when I'm half-way into the boss' HP when it summons a bunch of smaller monsters and all I want are 2 sentinels...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Obsidian, that may be the best review I've ever read of this game.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Obsidian, that may be the best review I've ever read of this game.

Thank you for the ego stroking!

Okay... the Neochu... I don't get how to defeat this one... which is a problem as this is the one you have to beat to get the Growth Egg. Although I might try this when/if I finish all the other missions as I'll have 2 Genji Gloves by then...

 

[Blade]

I said it before, I'll say it as many times as is necessary.

I HAD WAYYYY MORE FUN PLAYING FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 than the other 2 games in the trilogy.

Main reason: Non-linear.
Second reason: Experimentation.
Third reason: Lots of places to explore/hang out/play around.

Honestly FFXIII reminded me of the ONE thing I hate about most Final Fantasy games... the battles.

You might not think about it, but most FF games are lead from one fight to the next. You are fed maybe a little plot in between fights, but this game.... ugh this game...

It felt like there was a huge gap between plot and fighting. Unless you were in a hurry to beat the game, that's just how it felt.

At least with Lightning Returns you could return to civilization and talk with people... and even when you were in the Wildlands there were humans hunting monsters WITH YOU so you didn't feel as isolated.

I think the main problem was that FFXIII was too battle-centric. They wanted to go for fighting game mechanics or something out of an action game but they forgot that it's an RPG with a story and PEOPLE. They really dropped the ball on the first game.

Second game was a little better but it was a bit of a salvage job.

Third game, they closed the book on this mess, and fixed a lot of the other problems... but it still has moments where you feel like asking "What am I even saving the world from or doing this for?"

 

[Obsidian Fire]

So my "meathod" of defeating the Neochu was "have Vanille throw Death at it until it sticks" with Snow and Hope as backup. On the bright side, I finished all the fights with it with 5 stars, so I'll never have to do those missions again...

One thing I realized with that team was that there was no way for me to do physical elemental attacks and defend at the same time. I had gotten used to how Fang/Light/Snow has 2 RAVs who can use all the physical elemental attacks in the game so the physical/magical resistances enemies have isn't something I consider often. The other thing is that I'm used to having 3 COMs available, so some fights got really annoying...

And why is it good to have 3 Genjii Gloves? It's main purpose is to uncap the damage of the "limit break" move, but since only one character can do that... are the other characters ever hitting the damage cap when you get their stats maxed out?

 

[Kuja9001]

So my "meathod" of defeating the Neochu was "have Vanille throw Death at it until it sticks" with Snow and Hope as backup. On the bright side, I finished all the fights with it with 5 stars, so I'll never have to do those missions again...

One thing I realized with that team was that there was no way for me to do physical elemental attacks and defend at the same time. I had gotten used to how Fang/Light/Snow has 2 RAVs who can use all the physical elemental attacks in the game so the physical/magical resistances enemies have isn't something I consider often. The other thing is that I'm used to having 3 COMs available, so some fights got really annoying...

And why is it good to have 3 Genjii Gloves? It's main purpose is to uncap the damage of the "limit break" move, but since only one character can do that... are the other characters ever hitting the damage cap when you get their stats maxed out?

I'll test it in a few days.

 

[Blade]

I don't remember how I beat Titan's Trials, it was so long ago... I think my team consisted of Lightning, Hope, and Snow and I just chucked spells at everything I came across till they staggered, then just juggled them with air combos.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Welp! Finished all the Cei'th stone missions except the last one (I need more roles filled out regardless of who's in the party), so it's time to go level everyone up and get all the items... which means a huge grind-fest in general...

 

[Kuja9001]

This specific vid has given me an idea for a XIII clear up type thing as well.

 

[Blade]

Welp! Finished all the Cei'th stone missions except the last one (I need more roles filled out regardless of who's in the party), so it's time to go level everyone up and get all the items... which means a huge grind-fest in general...

More like it means hanging out and grinding the same Wolf+Behemoth pair over and over.

Seriously, outside of the Cieth in the Cradle, that's the best place in the game to farm CP.

You'd think Squeenix could get more creative with spots where the best Exp drops and item drops would be but nooooooo~~~....

 

[Splintered]

This specific vid has given me an idea for a XIII clear up type thing as well.

Oh man I've wanted to do something like this for awhile, but my knowledge isn't comprehensive, I don't know how to make these videos, and I'm lazy. If you ever start a project on tumblr for it, hit me up.

Anyway there's an interesting post about lightning returns the concept of the heart/soul, and how the translation just made me things even more confusing

http://hikamitz.tumblr.com/post/111425210884/correcting-the-biggest-translation-error-in-the

Some of it is theory crafting but it's an interesting discussion.

 

[Kuja9001]

Oh man I've wanted to do something like this for awhile, but my knowledge isn't comprehensive, I don't know how to make these videos, and I'm lazy. If you ever start a project on tumblr for it, hit me up.

Anyway there's an interesting post about lightning returns the concept of the heart/soul, and how the translation just made me things even more confusing

http://hikamitz.tumblr.com/post/111425210884/correcting-the-biggest-translation-error-in-the

Some of it is theory crafting but it's an interesting discussion.

I have the ability to make vids(in HD) but lack editing software.