FFXIII thread of what not to do with your life

[Dracorion]

Originally Posted by MFD

I didn't do any hunts, and didn't unlock the Quickenings, which whoops, are pretty much how people beat bosses in this game.

Quickenings were kind of cheap and lame.

Think I stopped somewhere around fighting the two Judges on board one of the airships.

Nah, not really. Eventually it becomes about buffing yourself up as much as you can and staying that way, and keeping the reserve party with full MP for when you fuck up.

[bluestarultor]

I just want to apologize for derailing the thread over FF12. Most of it wasn't even pertinent, since 13 is clearly very different in basic design. Nonsie, you raised some pretty good points, especially with the battle structure, that I wasn't thinking about last night because I was stuck on my own methods of doing things.

Anywho, I posted the scan on the talk page for XIII over at the FF wiki. Hopefully, someone will be able to get a translation of it and update the page accordingly.

[Regulus Tera]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Anywho, I posted the scan on the talk page for XIII over at the FF wiki. Hopefully, someone will be able to get a translation of it and update the page accordingly.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/200...he_real_pulse/

Originally Posted by Anoop

Final Fantasy XIII: The Real Pulse
Cocoon's counterpart has some massive beasts, and a mission system!
Posted Nov 19, 2009 at 11:17, by Anoop Gantayat

Chocobos aren't all that's big in Pulse.
The big Final Fantasy reveal in this week's Weekly Shounen Jump is the true face of Pulse, the wild counterpart to the floating "paradise" of Cocoon. In addition to the world's real name, the magazine offers details on some of the locations you'll traverse, and some of the activities you can undertake.

Pulse's proper name is Grand Pulse. Grand is the right word, judging by the screenshots shown in the magazine. Past trailers have shown massive beasts roaming the fields, but you haven't seen anything yet! Some of the creatures tower like mountains above Lighting and party.

It's unclear if the heroes will have to face off in battle against the larger beasts. This would, honestly, be a bit difficult to imagine (unless Hope were on hand with Alexander!). Screens do so Lightning in combat with a mid-sized wild behemoth that's said to be many times more powerful than the type of creatures you'll find in Cocoon.

You'll also find some familiar FFXIII enemies in the Pulse world. Jump offers a look at the cactus-like Sabotender, known in the West as Cactuar. While having the same design as past Sabotenders, the Pulse Sabotender is huge -- many times larger than a standard-sized Sabotender. It appears that the smaller kind also appears in the game, and possibly in the same battle!

While down in Pulse, you'll end up visiting Yashias Mountain. Once home to a great civilization, all you'll find here now are a city in ruins and home to Shigai dens. The Shigai, you'll recall, are the ghostly creatures into which the l'Cie transform when they fail to fulfill their objective.

Pulse is home to a mission system. Scattered around the land, you'll find special obelisks. Speak to these, and you'll be able to take on missions. The missions give you rewards for taking out particular enemies. There appears to be a full gameplay system surrounding this, as screens show a mission briefing screen and graded rankings.

The obelisks fit into the story. The l'Cie, after becoming a Shigai, eventually are crystalized into the obelisks.

That's presumably unless you kill them in battle.

As always, Jump reveals tend to gloss over the details. It just so happens that Famitsu is promising a huge 19 spread in its next issue. Expect more details on Pulse and the mission system then.

[bluestarultor]

Well, I'll add that, too.

Really, it's surprising I'm getting the news here first. I never imagined I'd be able to contribute info. Of course, you could also make an account. I have a button you could steal that links back to NPF.

[NonCon]

Originally Posted by MFD

I didn't do any hunts, and didn't unlock the Quickenings, which whoops, are pretty much how people beat bosses in this game.

Quickenings were kind of cheap and lame.

Quickenings were actually my least favorite thing about FFXII, next to the Zodiac Spear, of course. They start off overpowered, and by the end of the game they are completely fucking useless. How much of a role luck seems to play in it didn't earn any points from me either.

EDIT: I am totally with RT on the missions and massive monsters in Pulse sparking my interest.

[01d55]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Quickenings were actually my least favorite thing about FFXII, next to the Zodiac Spear, of course. They start off overpowered, and by the end of the game they are completely fucking useless. How much of a role luck seems to play in it didn't earn any points from me either.

I felt that quickenings were terrible until I realized that your second quickening doubled your MP bar, and then I got got them on more than one person and found out you could use them to re-fill mp bars. After that the damage is just gravy. Quickening spam was a mainstay of my end-game strategy: more often than not when quickenings end someone has an unused charge that can start quickening again, and you can always take a shot at refilling your healers' (read: everyone) MP bars by starting a quickening.

[NonCon]

Originally Posted by 01d55

I felt that quickenings were terrible until I realized that your second quickening doubled your MP bar, and then I got got them on more than one person and found out you could use them to re-fill mp bars. After that the damage is just gravy. Quickening spam was a mainstay of my end-game strategy: more often than not when quickenings end someone has an unused charge that can start quickening again, and you can always take a shot at refilling your healers' (read: everyone) MP bars by starting a quickening.

Yeah, I believe I actually used them that way for fighting Yiazmat. It's been a while, so I forget things like that.

[bluestarultor]

You know, I just had an odd thought. Is everything in the world really that big, or are the characters actually really small? If they're an entire race of 3-foot-nothings, how would anyone tell the difference? All you have to compare them to is each other and all the other plants and creatures, but if all the plants and creatures are huge in comparison, what's to say they're not actually small?

That said, reading about the structure of the missions puts me a bit more at ease. They seem more like sidequests than a mechanic, and that's probably because of how battles are initiated this time around. Which is to say I'm thinking the main problem I had with hunts in FF12 really so much isn't a problem with the hunts as it is with how battle is handled in relation to them, where the combat system didn't really bother me on its own since I'd previously played Grandia 2 and was used to having enemies on the field and running around killing them all, so just not disappearing into an arena didn't seem like as much of a jump as I guess it really was for me. If I can put my focus on killing a single big beastie, I don't have to be worried about being taken out in the meantime by a swarm of annoying fleas that see fit to just jump in. Or worse yet, if I want to stomp a rabbit, I don't have to worry about Garuda descending on my level-negative-fifty self while I'm doing it.

Which has literally just led be to another realization. The way battle is handled and executed as a whole in this game is a Hell of a lot like it's handled in Grandia, especially Grandia 3, or maybe Tales of the Abyss. Or maybe a cross. I can't say I can really find anything wrong with that.

[Regulus Tera]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Well, I'll add that, too.

Really, it's surprising I'm getting the news here first. I never imagined I'd be able to contribute info. Of course, you could also make an account. I have a button you could steal that links back to NPF.

I'd link you to the site I get all my scans from if it weren't NSFW.