Final Fantasy XIII-2

[The Twilight Mexican]

Did you read the rest of my post? I was being facetious, why wouldn't play a game you already spent hard money on?

I like it so far, it's fun. But I liked 13 and Tres really seems to have problems with it so I was also trying to be conservative.

Well, I have problems with the sequel as well, though they're the opposite problems. Story and characterization were strong the first time, gameplay fairly weak. Now we have fantastic gameplay and a weaker story (Noel is cool, though, and what there is of Hope is fine).

Still, I recommend giving XIII-2 a whirl and think your earlier post made a strong case for it.

Hell, I even talked Mako into playing it. That's an accomplishment I could hang on a wall.

Really, Mog, if you read this, play the game. Just know what to expect and what not to expect, and you should be pleasantly surprised.

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah I meant you had [plot] issues with 13-2, sorry.

And good on ya for getting Mako to play. He didn't play the first at all though, right?

 

[Splintered]

Hell, I even talked Mako into playing it.

This only proves my suspicion that you have magical internet super powers.

 

[Aqua]

3 hours?!? I'd have given up after 20-30 minutes, tops. How frustrating!

I'm very stubborn lol.

Tried AGAIN like a fool but with a different tactic: without staggering and wounding him during his stagger phase. Yeah...no.

Turns out he'll give himself the ability to use Vendetta outside of staggering once he's down 10% of the max HP he has so Wound is pretty important. Dealing with him using Cross Slash and Vendetta all the time when he's down only 1 million HP is not fun.

I can only assume that means he'd go into Enhance Power mode when he's at 50% of his max HP.

I didn't get to that part because I fell asleep playing it haha. I didn't sleep much and melting my brain fighting this twice is too much.

 

[Arianna]

With all this frustration, Gilgamesh is good for what exactly... ?

I haven't purchased him yet, haven't even tried playing Ultros/Typhon.

Speaking of Typhon: Is he from VI or VII? He looks like Typhon in VII.

 

[Strangelove]

Seeing as he comes with Ultros, I guess he'll be from FFVI. Ultros' intro for him is pretty much what was in FFVI.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Speaking of Typhon: Is he from VI or VII? He looks like Typhon in VII.

 

[Arianna]

That should be 'daughter'.

But I never played VI. Though, I did recently download it.

... And when did I never disappoint you?! (Or anyone, for that matter.)

 

[Blade]

3 hours?!? I'd have given up after 20-30 minutes, tops. How frustrating!

You think THAT'S long...you should've seen me wrestling with Yiazmat...took me 3 days to beat him after several flees and returns.

 

[Splintered]

I never even attempted Yiazmat. Even the sidequest to get to him was too long.

The longest I've ever attempted to kill a monster was when I took an entire day just trying to defeat the Giant Cactaur in XIII. The next day, I finally found out about instastagger.

 

[AvecAloes]

I think the longest amount of time I've spent in one sitting for a battle was maybe 25-30 minutes, and that was probably for the first time you fight Barthandelus in XIII. Generally, I'm kind of impatient, so if I see that I'm struggling and barely making a dent and trying way too hard to keep my party alive I just quit the battle and either retry with a different strategy or go off and level for a bit before attempting the battle again. But just as impatient as I am, I'm extremely stubborn, so I pretty much refuse to move on in the story (even if the monster I'm trying to defeat is a sidequest) until I've had my victory.

 

[Aqua]

I never even attempted Yiazmat. Even the sidequest to get to him was too long.

The longest I've ever attempted to kill a monster was when I took an entire day just trying to defeat the Giant Cactaur in XIII. The next day, I finally found out about instastagger.

IDK I loved the Giant Cactuar personally but I had no idea it could take that long to kill him... o_o

Gilgamesh is probably easily the longest fight I've had to deal with in XIII and XIII-2. None of the other fights even compare, especially in XIII-2 where the longest fight I've had was about 23 minutes (hey there final boss fight when underleveled~!)

Long fight in general for me was Persona 3's final boss...even on easy mode the first time I took him down took me about 3 hours.

 

[Blade]

My battle strategy usually consists of me powering up till I'm Godlike and can kill most things in one hit or two...then I take on a boss, regardless of strategy...

This used to work with previous FFs...but it's been getting a lot harder to do lately.

FFXII Gilgamesh fights are still my personal fave.

 

[Splintered]

IDK I loved the Giant Cactuar personally but I had no idea it could take that long to kill him... o_o

In the original game? Oh man I hate that guy. If I don't have instant stagger, even full crystarium I have issues with him. I tried everything before I knew about the combo accessories thing, I tried keeping a SEN at all times, throwing on fog/pain accessories, and daze spamming. NOPE STILL KILLED ME. I don't know how people do it without launching the bastard. But after instant staggering him, the fight took like, thirty seconds. Hurrr duurrr

Emerald Weapon might have taken my awhile too. Just because I forgot about the Airetam attack and I restarted a couple of times. I am forever thankful that FFXIII started the "you can just retry a battle after you die" thing because having to search for Emerald Weapon again was annoying.

The only other battles I can remember taking large chunks of my youth away were the sidemissions that required me to fight a whole bunch of enemies without leaving. The one to get W-summon/Ominslash and trying to get the toonberry king in VIII had me wasting entire weekends.

 

[Dawnbreaker]

Okay, I've been won over. After Skyrim I'm so getting into this game. It's bound to be a bit cheaper now too.

 

[Aqua]

In the original game? Oh man I hate that guy. If I don't have instant stagger, even full crystarium I have issues with him. I tried everything before I knew about the combo accessories thing, I tried keeping a SEN at all times, throwing on fog/pain accessories, and daze spamming. NOPE STILL KILLED ME. I don't know how people do it without launching the bastard. But after instant staggering him, the fight took like, thirty seconds. Hurrr duurrr

Emerald Weapon might have taken my awhile too. Just because I forgot about the Airetam attack and I restarted a couple of times. I am forever thankful that FFXIII started the "you can just retry a battle after you die" thing because having to search for Emerald Weapon again was annoying.

The only other battles I can remember taking large chunks of my youth away were the sidemissions that required me to fight a whole bunch of enemies without leaving. The one to get W-summon/Ominslash and trying to get the toonberry king in VIII had me wasting entire weekends.

I don't think I had Instant Stagger on him but I took him at rather low levels on the crystarium (still after beating the game first though) with no real trouble.

I know I cast enfire and haste and maybe some daze spam and that was it. It was a really easy fight.

I might have actually had instant stagger, before I got serious about the fights I never really did pay much attention to what abilities the accessories gave me.

In other insane news...gonna try to take on Gilgamesh one last time for the day since I won't be able to tomorrow.

Wish my sanity luck.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I think the longest, continuous battle I was ever in without restarting or winning was the first time I fought Ultimecia at the end of FFVIII.

I was hilariously underleveled (I was stuck on Adel for a weekend before I figured out that I had the necessary materials to refine Squall's Lionheart) and only went into the fight to get an idea of how tough it may be. Ended up lasting about three hours, but I won.

Yeah I meant you had [plot] issues with 13-2, sorry.

And good on ya for getting Mako to play. He didn't play the first at all though, right?

He didn't, no. I tried getting him to after he said he liked Lightning in Dissidia 012, but he must have checked his totem before the inception could take hold.

This only proves my suspicion that you have magical internet super powers.

If I did, we'd get a lot more naked pics of the chicks on this forum.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

So I started this game a little while ago. Initial first impressions;

The intro was weird. I don't know if it was typical SE new age weirdness or if it had any substance. I'm not being cynical either, I really don't know. It was exciting to watch (especially with the Active button press stuff), but I do miss the intros of the past; the solemn retrospection of VI's intro, and the grand scale of VII's intro, for example.

The gameplay improvements are already glorious. I literally have no reason to ever play XIII (the original) ever again for any reason. I also don't understand why they couldn't do what they did here with XIII, but whatever. Anyway, the gameplay improvements is a real boon, not just for the game, but for the series. I can dig the new possibilities that this opens up for the genre and new ideas for SE, and its pretty engaging. As an aside I'm also pissed off because I'm reminded of the Chrono series and the fact that SE ain't doing anything with it.

 

[Arianna]

Instant Stagger? Please, someone inform me!

 

[ForceStealer]

I, too, required Instant Stagger for Gigantaur. As I've said before, the best strategy I found was to have Sazh, Fang, and Snow. Fang and Snow are both Sentinels, Sazh is Commando. Since Sazh's full attack chain backs him up, after a few rounds of attacks, he his well out of range of 10,000 Needles. Then you just hope Instant Stagger takes hold before Fang and Snow get overpowered.

@Arianna, Instant Stagger is a special ability you get when you combine certain accessories on the same person. It gives you some small % chance of instantly staggering an enemy, but since it's a small chance applied to every hit, you actually have a pretty decent chance of getting it overall.

Glad you approve Mog, and I hope Mako does too.

I'm pretty sure my longest battle not counting a KotR-chain against Emerald was Angra Mainyu in FFX-2. I fought that asshole for 45 minutes and still lost, I was pissed.
(Speaking of pissed, apparently I missed the Gate Seal to Academia 400. So I can't close it and farm the ghouls to level my Yakshini. Awesome :/)

 

[Splintered]

So yeah, Gilgamesh.

Spoiler: I understand your pain now

Holy shit. I definitely see this guy topping my longest battles I've fought in ff and the real superboss of the XIII. He's got an insane amount of hp, and heals around the same amount you can hurt him during his stagger. Managed to get him down to half until he powered up and completely wasn't expecting the Divider attack and he killed Serah and Noel off really quickly.

I'm gonna have to rethink my strat and paradigms but on the plus side, a delicate white cape and a white cape is more than enough to nearly completely nullify fog from landing on Noel or Serah so there's that.

I was thinking about that too, but I just bought a whole bunch of mallets/painkillers/unicorn horns- and I used phys up, grimore (faster than healing), and rav boosting abilities. Although pain and fog are consistently an annoyance.

As far as weapons goes I've been trying to experiment with Chainbonus weapons and my ATB +50% but the battle goes on so long I can't even tell the difference.

Turns out he'll give himself the ability to use Vendetta outside of staggering once he's down 10% of the max HP he has so Wound is pretty important. Dealing with him using Cross Slash and Vendetta all the time when he's down only 1 million HP is not fun.

My first playthrough I actually stopped wounding him and just went for stagger>Debuff and buff>999%>COMCOMCOM and actually got his hp down that way. But it's a gamble because of Vendetta, a bad stagger can set you back. I'm going to try 3 sabs for wounding next and see what's faster.

Honestly his fight before he boosts his strength isn't hard, just extremely tedious. Crosslash doesn't really do much and I was never in danger. It's just cruise control and trying to find efficient ways to chip at his HP.

I honestly don't have a way to deal with his powered up stage. Maybe get a sen?

 

[Alex Strife]

I still don't have Gilgamesh. I may actually not get it, since I already got stuck with the Typhoon + Ultros. If Gilgamesh is harder, then I give up.

I'll get Lightning's episode, though

 

[Splintered]

Hahahaha, fuck you Gilgamesh you beautiful bastard

I spent three days and poured hours in fights and I finally got you and your crystal, sorry if i sound incoherent my brain has leaked from my ears and im pretty sure i hate myself right now.

battle took 25 minutes but the rec time was 22 minutes fuck you game. Most people average hours. Douchebag game.

Spoiler

I tried wounding him tod eath and actually it's a much longer strategy, but it's really safe because he won't activate his asshole level until much later. But I am stupid and got overconfident with the wounding and wasn't paying attention and died after like an hour of wounding.

So eventually I went the "fast way" It relies on monsters as the chief part of the strategy

I built Goblin Chieftan (SEN) and Cloudburst (RAV) from the ground up. I didn't do any fancy infusing but I did make sure to put Phy resistance +16 on him, just any will do. I'd also rec it for Cloudburst because Gilgamesh can fuck him up- and if you find decent HP+

RAV+RAV+SEN Gilgamesh and right before he is staggered, use Goblin Chieftan's feral link and it will buff your members. (bravery and strength buffs)

Then SAB RAV RAV- manually select Deshell-deprotect-imperil-imperil-imperil- and use Cloudburst's feral link- and it will en-magic plus buffs and complete the buffs you need.

Relentless assault to boost his chain gauge- them comcomcom with your best damage dealer (oh pichuu i love you)

Keep a com+med+sen on you when Gilgamesh enhances his power and switch to rav-rav-sen whenever you can, if you can. You cannot survive without a SEN

Divider is actually easy to predict, just watch for the calm when he isn't shoving swords up your ass and then switch to SENSENSEN

For weapons and accessories I have Serah's ATB boost Indrait, white cape, and that one accessory that boosts rav roles. For Noel I have his chain boosting (Gandiva?), pain dampener, and a brawler's wristband.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

I love Mog.

 

[Splintered]

:<

It's a Snow coliseum battle? I wanted an actual story with him traveling around, dropping cores, fighting with Shiva, and figuring out what all the crystal thingamabob- I actually wanted to see what happened since the likelihood we are getting the novels is slim to none. I guess they need a Sen.