Topic: Final Fantasy XIII/Fabula Novus Chrystallis Discussion Thread

Versus looks maybe too over the top for me, but I'm definitely intrigued. I just wish they'd tell us more about it already. Some CGI and a few stray words from the developer isn't much to go by.

@Adam: Ah...well, that comes down to personal taste. I have no problem with the bickering, because I feel it fits within the context of the emotional story. Quite different from a sitcom with too much pointless bickering, as those are supposed to be funny (but usually aren't), and this has an entirely different goal.

I know basically nothing about Versus save that I THINK a number of people who did Kingdom Hearts are involved, which automatically peaks my interest. The fact that it's (thus far) STAYING PS3 exclusive and can therefore really tap the console's power is a plus, too.

Versus is being directed by the same guy behind Kingdom Hearts, and there are supposed to be similarities in how it's played. Never played Kingdom Hearts except for a demo at Innoventions in Disney World when I was a kid, before the game came out. All I remember is thinking, seriously, Disney characters in an RPG? And also: Playstation is stupid. Because I was cool like that.

Riiiiight..."cool." You got some catching up to do, man. Kingdom Hearts is AWESOME!

I'll be fine. It actually still looks terrible. Doesn't appeal to me at all.

Your loss.

Whatever.

Story time: When I got to the ship / base / thing in Chapter 9, I really started getting fatigued. The battles take a long time, and there are a ton of them. Not only this, but the game still felt like it was on autopilot. At this point, as long as I had a good healer, I could just attack attack attack attack, switch to healer when someone's life bar gets to red, then get right back to mashing X to attack. Certainly this is not the quickest way to victory, but it highlights how unnecessary strategy is for what must be at least half of the game, which really discouraged me.

It was at this point that I looked through my inventory that I almost never used except for the rare phoenix down, and remember the Deceptisol. I had never used these battle-start items before, so I figured it was a good time to try, and I skipped almost every enemy, what may have ended up being two hours of battles, hahaha. When Sazh and Vanille Ice rejoined us, I was about ready to put the game aside, perhaps for a long while, when I got to a battle that absolutely decimated me multiple times. At first I was just annoyed because it seemed impossible, but then I remember that thinking might help, so I tried that and got past. Suddenly I was enjoying the game again... except, as mentioned, I'd skipped a buttload of battles -- and I saved.

Whoops.

So hopefully Chapter 10 is a little more open with lots of optional battles for me to correct this because I feel I jipped myself out of a lot of experience that could have come in handy.

Finally, in the tradition of Aesop, I'll spell out the moral of this story for you young ones: If you start to get bored, don't use Deceptisol and skip a bazillion battles. Goodnight.

Yes, thinking is goooood. I'm guessing you weren't getting very good rankings in a lot of the battles you fought on autopilot. Also, you're playing this game a LOT more than I am. I haven't played more since I said I was saved at the start of Chapter 4.

I was getting decent rankings most of the time, actually, until chapter 9. It could be that I am pure genius when it comes to out-of-combat planning, always making the perfect use of the weapon/accessory upgrade system and making the best possible choices in leveling characters. It could also be that the game takes a long time to get challenging. Probably the genius thing.

I don't see that the rankings matter anyway, do they? Seems like it's just a matter of personal satisfaction. Or maybe it influences item drop? If so, no big deal. I haven't changed equipment since chapter 3 probably (excluding extra accessory slots that opened up, which I of course filled immediately). Once I started upgrading stuff, it never seemed worth it to switch to new stuff.

About how much time I spent playing... I barely played it over the week. Maybe an hour a day. But I played all last night and all today, hence the 24 hours clocked. Not having to work weekends is a wonderful thing. Not having a life, less so, but it pays off on occasions such as this.

I do know your TP refills a LOT faster when you get good ranks. There are also Trophies connected to it, not that I expect you care about that.

I haven't even gotten to the equipment upgrading, so I wouldn't know anything about that. I've had time to play the game, but I've been distracted with other things. I do that a lot.

Oh that's right, TP. So far I haven't found summons particularly helpful or necessary, and on the rare occasion I need Libra (usually just for Eidolin), it only costs one TP anyway, so the recharge rate is something I give no attention to.

Anyone at Chapter 10 or further want to share some strategies? Right now these are my paradigms, using (1) Lightning, (2) Snow, and (3) Vanille Ice:
1. Relentless Assaults (Commando, Ravager, Ravager)
2. Ruthless (Commando, Ravager, Saboteur) Active Paradigm
3. Delta Attack (Commando, Sentinel, Ravager)
4. Diversity (Commando, Ravager, Medic)
5. Solidarity (Commando, Sentinel, Medic)
6. Combat Clinic (Medic, Sentinel, Medic)

I start with Ruthless so I can get the Saboteur abilities out of the way (my only paradigm that uses them) before either switching to all out offense if I can, or downgrading to a defensive position if I am doing poorly. I've organized them from most offensive to most defensive, so if I start doing poorly, rather than look through all of them to select one, I can just quickly intuit which to go to based on the severity of my condition.

When I was at Chapter 9 boss I used Hope instead of Vanille since Saboteur didn't seem to work on him. Now that everyone can use all roles, I'll probably teach one of these guys the Synergist role, just not sure who, or how I'll fit it in so I can keep Saboteur, which I also like. Up to this point, I usually didn't even use all six paradigm slots. I thought it was unnecessarily confusing to have all those names (why oh why can't I rename them something I can actually remember and recognize?), but now I wish I had two more slots!

I suppose I'll end up fitting Synergist into either Ruthless or Delta Attack. Probably Delta, replacing Vanille as Ravager, leaving her to only attack on the Relentless Assault. A compromise certainly, as that leaves half of my paradigms with only one attacker, but I have always preferred defensive strategies in games anyway, even if this game does not reward me with pretty stars for winning long fought battles.

And that is where we differe, Mr.Adam. Personally, I never play an RPG to continue whatever plot it has, or just to go from event to event. I play them to get immersed in a fantasy world, to learn about it, and to explore every inch available to me. With the promise of new story elements, side-quests, gifts, hints about what could be coming next or what's going on in the backround, and classic lines, every new town I visit in a video game is an adventure to me. Really, I honestly look forward to going to a town and talking to everybody, and if I know that there's one guy I have to talk to to continue the plot, I'll make sure he's the very last person I ever speak to(unless nobody will talk to me until I speak to him ). In fact, the only time when I don't like talking to everybody is when all they do is tell me where I'm supposed to go next, or just tell me stuff I already read in the manual.

Again, I'm really, really going to miss them when I play FFXIII, and I could honestly see it being one of my least favorites because of it(I'm guessing #4, because I could never see the bottom 3 being outdone in terms of crappiness).

Last I checked, apathy is never a problem with the game. Remember, mac, if you choose to play a game in a way that makes it less fun for yourself, go ahead, but don't fault the game for giving you the option to play it your way.

Oh, and I love it when games give you ranks/scores at the end of battles/stages! More RPGs really need to include them. Not that I really need the incentive to do well - I always try to complete a battle as quickly and efficiently and as flashily as possible. It just gives me a sense of accomplishment, man, and there's no better feeling in the world.

In my favorite RPGs, I talk to anyone and everyone until they have nothing new to say. But for most RPGs the writing is terribly uninteresting. If it is a choice between bad writing and no writing, I'll opt for the latter. I enjoyed the random town talk in the earlier Final Fantasies, 1-6, but after that they just didn't seem to fit the tone.

As for the battle score, I like it, too, in concept. It's just too bad that it seems to value only offensive tactics. There are other ways to enjoy a battle than seeing how fast you can complete it. In fact, that is the least enjoyable way for me.

And the way I play has nothing to do with choice. I don't choose for the first six or eight chapters of the game to be mind numbingly easy. In a sport, if a player has a break away with the ball, would you expect him to wait around on the other side of the field / court for the opposing team just so the game could be more challenging?

But the most important part is I was using past tense. Up until Chapter 9, the game is more about eye candy than combat. The illusion of strategy carries it a long way, and the sound and cinematics are top notch. Halfway through Chapter 9, it really becomes much more interesting though as a game. I'm in Chapter 10 now and enjoying quite a lot.

I'm not really a fan of battle rankings. They're too good at making me feel like I did worse in a fight than I did, as many games have seemingly impossible requirements for the best ranks. I haven't found it too discouraging in FFXIII yet, but I'm still early on, before the battles you need to 5-star for Trophies even come up. I wouldn't be surprised if I come to hate that system in this game by the end.

I'm planning to actually play the game some more in a little bit, provided I don't fall asleep first (stupid losing an hour on the one day I always have to get up earlier than the rest of the week as it is).

Wow, how did I not notice my computer was an hour ahead of my bedside clock? Thanks for reminding me, Stuffleupagus.

I think I finally hit a brick wall in the game. I got to what I think was the first boss in chapter 10, and he can chain attack Lightning for over half her health, which means I can't really do anything to stop him. I always get him down to half health, which takes a long time, and then he just decimates her. Sigh.

I could go backwards and grind, but I don't have it in me. I switched back to Grandia after giving up on that boss, and I think this is more my kind of game anyway (even has that similar feel with characters running around a battle map butnot letting you move them yourself). I am too easily excited by anything new. I thought I'd purged that fault of mine by now, but I guess not, haha. Was super enthusiastic about it for a week, and now the enthusiasm has suddenly drained from me.

I don't want to name the boss for fear of spoilerizing someone here, but if anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them. I'll give it a rest and try again later this week.

Edit: By the way, Stuffy, been meaning to say this, but nice avatar.

I'm about 30 hours in now, and it is my favourite of the Final Fantasy games.

30 hours isn't far in, exactly, I've been taking my time enjoying the world, but it's far enough - I've got a good grasp of the combat system, I've customised my chracters as much as possible, and really gotten into the plot. Vanille's still my favourite, but I don't have a least favourite, as such.

The only disappointment is that the game is easy. The only time I've run into anything that could kill me was enemies the game specifically told me to avoid - other than that, provided you take the time to explore the moments where the paths branch and battle everything in between, you'll never struggle with the combat.

I understand WHY it's so easy - the developers clearly didn't want anything stopping people in the middle of the story, and difficult enemies and a requirement to grind would halt the story's momentum, but is nonetheless disappointing for the Final Fantasy veterans.

And now I'm at work, otherwise I'd be still playing the game

The only time I was told specifically to avoid enemies was when I was Sazh and Vanille in that foresty place. And I didn't avoid them, anyway. They weren't that tough. Where are you chapter-wise, Waltz? I'm curious if you've passed me up. You have definitely played it a few hours more than I have, but it recently stopped being easy for me.

Nah, I'm behind you. Like I said, I've been taking a very, very leisurely pace to the game - reading everything, doing everything, maxing out character stats. Unless there's a real difficulty spike in the chapters between us, it's certainly an easier game than XII or X

Also, speaking of sales figures:

I expect to see a FFXV

I find this game much harder than X and XII, actually. Just when I start to feel like I'm getting the hang of the battle system, it throws really hard enemies at me without giving me good opportunity to grind. I keep struggling to beat Bombs 'cause they self-destruct so damn fast and kill both Sazh and Vanille.

@Adam: Thanks! As my sig says, credit goes to zezhyrule, who animated the sprites I gave him. I wish I could say the same to you, but I don't a freaking clue what it's supposed to be, and I miss Flint.