[Lynette Wilson]

Spoiler

I just beat him few days ago, i used Lightning, Hope and Fang with nowhere near maxed Crystarium, no instant death protectors and only lower second tier weapons (Ultima Weapon, Urubutsin and Venus Gospel respectively). At start of the battle i focused buffing and debuffing (MED/SYN/SAB), after he had a nice array of debuffs i swithced to RAV/RAV/COM to fill his stagger gauge, Lightning was my leader, auto-chain to fill the gauge, Army of One to raise it further after he's staggered, then COM/RAV/COM to hurt him real bad, Fang was doing 99.999 damage at the end. Of course switching to MED/MED/SEN for a quick heal was required every now and then, when he's staggered it's better to use RAV/MED/COM though. After stagger ends, heal up, re-buff and re-debuff and do it again. Killed him in three Staggers, battle rating was three stars. I didn't notice him using the instant death skill once, guess i got lucky :shrug:

Liked it. If you play with people using the gameboys as controllers, it really shines. Single player is alright but it loses some of the appeal since it's just not as deep.

So it's not completely worthless as a single player game? Maybe i should find a cheap copy after all.

[Manuela Ribeiro Pereira]

I took a long break from FFXIII....

Spoiler

Because I couldn't beat Orphan, and still can't beat Orphan, I'm starting to get really pissed. No matter what I do, I have three maxed out instant death protector thingies, only one elixir, all the items I need, I have over 10,000 health, two third tier weapons (though not fully upgraded but somewhere in the lv 70-78 range), maxed out Crysterium and I still can't beat him!

Even with the instant death protection he still manages to kill me with, you guessed it, an instant death attack. This is the most frustrating boss in video game history I am sure (and has the most health of any Final Fantasy boss ever).

I've followed all the strategies on the internet, I've made up my own strategies, I've tried simple strategies and complex ones. Nothing works!!!!

This is so frustrating!!! :banghead:

Yep, having instant death attacks and never being able to get 100% immunity on a game where the death of the leader means game over is just cheap. I lost all faith in the game at that point too.

Luck is the only way to win that fight. By the time I got lucky a game which had so far been shaping up to be in the top 3 for my favorite final fantasy games had dropped right into the bottom 3

[Penny Flame]

My favorites will always be VI, VII, IX, and X. I even like X-2...No, I'm not high. I have a few issues with VI, mainly getting skills for Gau and Kefka being a boring villain. Yeah, poisoning hundreds of innocent people is horrible, but then that laugh of his just...svcks out all the evil from everything he does. :laugh:

The translation is amazingly funny, though, I'll admit. "Son a submariner", indeed.

Take away IX and add IV and I and you got my favorite FF games. I'm playing XIII and it's pretty good, not great but pretty good :shrug:. My least favorite FF game is II (and I don't mean the SNES FF II) , VIII and IX---I never played III.

[Darren Chandler]

Spoiler

Because I couldn't beat Orphan, and still can't beat Orphan, I'm starting to get really pissed. No matter what I do, I have three maxed out instant death protector thingies, only one elixir, all the items I need, I have over 10,000 health, two third tier weapons (though not fully upgraded but somewhere in the lv 70-78 range), maxed out Crysterium and I still can't beat him!

Even with the instant death protection he still manages to kill me with, you guessed it, an instant death attack. This is the most frustrating boss in video game history I am sure (and has the most health of any Final Fantasy boss ever).

I've followed all the strategies on the internet, I've made up my own strategies, I've tried simple strategies and complex ones. Nothing works!!!!

This is so frustrating!!! :banghead:

Really? I thought he was way too easy. I just kept everyone buffed with Hope, kept Orphan debuffed with Fang, and aside from the occasional heavy healing with both Lightning and Hope, all I did was build the chain gauges and destroy him when they broke. I killed him in a little under three minutes. And this was without having fully maxed Crystarium or ultimate weapons and whatnot. I was a bit disappointed in him, in fact.

Now, Cie'th Stone mission sixty-two on the other hand, THAT should have been the final boss. I get demolished in that fight, near every time. It's the only one I haven't completed or gotten five stars on.

[kristy dunn]

Really? I thought he was way too easy. I just kept everyone buffed with Hope, kept Orphan debuffed with Fang, and aside from the occasional heavy healing with both Lightning and Hope, all I did was build the chain gauges and destroy him when they broke. I killed him in a little under three minutes. And this was without having fully maxed Crystarium or ultimate weapons and whatnot. I was a bit disappointed in him, in fact.

Now, Cie'th Stone mission sixty-two on the other hand, THAT should have been the final boss. I get demolished in that fight, near every time. It's the only one I haven't completed or gotten five stars on.

Did you 5-star mission 55? That is insanely hard (if you don't use death). And I agree about Orphan.... entirely to easy, only took one try and I never got close to dying.

[Inol Wakhid]

Did you 5-star mission 55? That is insanely hard (if you don't use death). And I agree about Orphan.... entirely to easy, only took one try and I never got close to dying.

That's the Neochu, right? Yeah, that fight was ridiculous, so if I remember right, I did use Vanille's death spell. I have, however, gone back and killed the thing normally though. And yeah, I got five stars. Have you completed sixty-two? That is the most annoying fight in the ENTIRE game!

[yermom]

I haven't actually done any missions yet, and since i forgot to save after the ending i'll have to kill the final bosses again if i want to :banghead: Sounds like they'll be just as interesting as in XII, anything as big and "healthy" as the Hell Wyrm?

[Kelly Tomlinson]

I haven't actually done any missions yet, and since i forgot to save after the ending i'll have to kill the final bosses again if i want to :banghead: Sounds like they'll be just as interesting as in XII, anything as big and "healthy" as the Hell Wyrm?

Never played XII, so I can't really say. Most of XIII's side missions are normal creatures though, albeit put together in horrible and often annoying combinations. The hard part about most of them is finishing them before the time limit so you can get five stars. There's only a few, like sixty-two, that I've found the actual fight to be the hard part.

[Kelly John]

That's pretty much what they were in XII, with some unique creatures thrown in the mix to keep things interesting. Hell Wyrm had 8.500.000 hitpoints, and i think was even bigger than the pulsian turtle creatures. The fight was so long that it was smart to actually leave the battle to save every once in a while :lmao:

That star system i hate in XIII though, if i survive the battle that's good enough. And don't get me started on bosses that cast doom if i take too long :swear:

[OJY]

That star system i hate in XIII though, if i survive the battle that's good enough. And don't get me started on bosses that cast doom if i take too long :swear:

I'm not particularly fond of the star system either. It practically eliminates party builds that lean towards the slow and steady defensive side of things, and instead forces you to go for the quickest way possible.

[Patrick Gordon]

I'm not particularly fond of the star system either. It practically eliminates party builds that lean towards the slow and steady defensive side of things, and instead forces you to go for the quickest way possible.

The target times are pretty generous though, so even if you're not decked out in haste or ATB gear, you shouldn't really have any problems, excluding bosses perhaps. You'll still have to take on some enemies in a certain way, using their weaknesses and so on, but that's really no different than other Final Fantasy games. I probably had a 4 star average for the whole game, and even then that's probably thanks to me being stubborn with my party choices, going for which characters I liked best rather than who'd be good in any given situation.

[Gen Daley]

The target times are pretty generous though, so even if you're not decked out in haste or ATB gear, you shouldn't really have any problems, excluding bosses perhaps. You'll still have to take on some enemies in a certain way, using their weaknesses and so on, but that's really no different than other Final Fantasy games. I probably had a 4 star average for the whole game, and even then that's probably thanks to me being stubborn with my party choices, going for which characters I liked best rather than who'd be good in any given situation.

Sure, most of them seem pretty generous, but the more you level up the lower to time limits get. I remember one Cie'th Stone mission that's target was a Juggernaut, and it gave you somthing like three to four minutes for it. I came back after the end of the game and it expected you to be able to do it in a tiny bit over one minute. It was pretty much impossible without using a deceptisol.

[Vivien]

Brought over from the closed thread, because I typed it all up and I'd hate to see my terrible points go to waste--

Edit: And please, don't counter with something like "All Final Fantasy games are like that", because that isn't true in the slightest. Past FF games had side quests, bonus content, minigames, customization, exploration, and plenty of dialogue. In comes FFXIII and nearly all of that is stripped. Gone. XIII isn't even in the same league as X, let alone the SNES/PSX ones.

Now, now, I didn't say all FF games were like that. It's true that X is by and large a much better game, but X's content is more akin to XIII's than any other IMO. The main difference being that XIII's side quests were rather boring Cie'th Stone hunt missions. I'm not saying they're the same, not at all, just that X was hardly a shining example of freedom and non-linear gameplay and no one really made a fuss over it.

Edit- I do get your point though, and I'm not really trying to argue. XIII is linear, no doubt. Just seems to be blown out of proportion IMO. To each their own though.

And therein lies another reason I think XIII was so successful: The graphics. I'm quite convinced that the graphics alone kept people interested enough to not only go through the game in its entirety, but also tricked them into thinking they like the game itself. I'm not saying you're one of those, but I hear a lot about how good the game looks.

Partly true in my case. Where I found the ending to be on the disappointing side, the cutscene that tried to tell that mess of a story made up for it. The visual representation gave decent closure, where as the crap coming out of their mouths only left me wondering how some of this game's storytelling was given the go ahead.

And yeah, Star Ocean: TLH was awful. The combat was a chore and the voice acting was dreadful. I wouldn't even of made it as far as I did (only about 5 hours in) if not for the Japanese voice track on the PS3 version. Ultimately, it was the games graphics that kept me from finishing it. It doesn't happen very often, but combining anime-like character models with realistic graphics and a color palette that makes your eyes bleed was terribly offsetting. Had the game looked more like Tales of Vesperia, I probably would've been able to force my way through the entire thing.

Speaking of ToV.. US PS3 version, when? :meh:

[Liii BLATES]

What would really interest me is if Japanese RPG developers copied some western ideas and made some action RPGs in a sandbox environment but still looking like a JP game, like FF. And when I say "action" I mean like Oblivion, FO3 or any shooter, not turn based or using some ATB gauge.

They do seem to be avoiding it though, they must know these games are really popular and I'm sure JP gamers would love it. Are they just being stubborn or are they worried about losing their identity?

[scorpion972]

What would really interest me is if Japanese RPG developers copied some western ideas and made some action RPGs in a sandbox environment but still looking like a JP game, like FF. And when I say "action" I mean like Oblivion, FO3 or any shooter, not turn based or using some ATB gauge.

They do seem to be avoiding it though, they must know these games are really popular and I'm sure JP gamers would love it. Are they just being stubborn or are they worried about losing their identity?

I think your best bet is to turn away from the 800-pound gorilla that is Square-Enix (which has churned out the same formula for all their games for decades, both before and after the two companies merged) and go to Atlus and the various smaller companies under its banner, which are oftentimes much more creative. Steambot Chronicles is something akin to a GTA game without any of the violence and sociopathy, and gives you a few opportunities to affect how the plot proceeds. And Demon's Souls is a dungeon-crawling RPG with a battle system more akin to an action game.

[J.P loves]

Speaking of ToV.. US PS3 version, when? :meh:

God, this. That's literally the only thing keeping me from getting a PS3 immediately. If they ported that svcker, I'd be the happiest person alive. I loved ToV on the 360 and hearing that the PS3 version has nearly twice the content turns me on. :hubbahubba:

go to Atlus and the various smaller companies under its banner

And this. I've played nothing but quality from Atlus, and in this day and age, that's saying something. I've never seen a company recycle so much between its games while maintaining high quality throughout. I mean hell, Nocturne and DDS share the exact same combat with nearly the exact same enemies, but they feel like two completely different beasts. And the Persona series is just brilliant, though a little harder to get into for people who normally dislike anime and/or dating sims.

[Klaire]

God, this. That's literally the only thing keeping me from getting a PS3 immediately. If they ported that svcker, I'd be the happiest person alive. I loved ToV on the 360 and hearing that the PS3 version has nearly twice the content turns me on. :hubbahubba:



And this. I've played nothing but quality from Atlus, and in this day and age, that's saying something. I've never seen a company recycle so much between its games while maintaining high quality throughout. I mean hell, Nocturne and DDS share the exact same combat with nearly the exact same enemies, but they feel like two completely different beasts. And the Persona series is just brilliant, though a little harder to get into for people who normally dislike anime and/or dating sims.

That is why there is Persona and Persona 2

[Sheeva]

That is why there is Persona and Persona 2

I actually got my hands on Persona 2. Both Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. I don't even want to begin to tell you how annoying it was getting that fan translation patch onto the former. I still haven't even beaten the first part, but I really, really like it so far (Well, except for having to go through menus for several minutes even during small fight sequences). I'm just really busy with DDS right now to put much time into it.

[Alkira rose Nankivell]

This pattern just continues, so far for over 26hrs of game play. Unfortunately I have lost my interest in the game.

Personally I think square Enix has lost the plot over the past couple of years, with what I consider to be poor efforts i.e. Infinate Undiscovery, The Last Remnant and Nier. I can't comment on on Star Ocean (which I've heard is good) as I haven't played it and I'm hesitant to waste my money on another square Enix title.

I know someone will say I'm just bashing Square Enix, which I am because they deserve it but it's just my opinion you don't have to agree. I mean I was one of those that actually liked FF8 and that got a real bashing.

26 hours? I didn't get past 10.

Infinite Undiscovery was not created by SE. They only published it. Same with Star Ocean 4(and 3). SO4 is pretty good in its own right. I.U. though just plane svcked.

[Travis]

I mean hell, Nocturne and DDS share the exact same combat with nearly the exact same enemies, but they feel like two completely different beasts.

Especially since they went and changed up all the enemies' elemental strengths and resistances. Bastards.

[Izzy Coleman]

Ugh... Well I'm done finally. After taking a very long break at chapter 10, I went back this last week and finished the game up. Got Platinum :trophy: finally. I will not replay this FF though... not a chance. And that is unusual for me as I have replayed nearly every other one many multiple times. Speaking of which... going to play some FFIV I think. :dance:

[chloe hampson]

Huge fan here, I just wanted to give you all a shout out.

Keep this thread alive!

[Britta Gronkowski]

Been a while since this thread's seen some action.

I've done just about everything there is to do in FFVI and I'm about to spend some time in the dinosaur forest before moving on to Kefka's Tower, but I'm curious what level I should shoot for. From what I've searched so far some folks say 30, some say 50+ and so on. Celes is 65, with Locke, Terra and Edgar all around 50, and the rest are 35-45.

[Lifee Mccaslin]

Been a while since this thread's seen some action.

I've done just about everything there is to do in FFVI and I'm about to spend some time in the dinosaur forest before moving on to Kefka's Tower, but I'm curious what level I should shoot for. From what I've searched so far some folks say 30, some say 50+ and so on. Celes is 65, with Locke, Terra and Edgar all around 50, and the rest are 35-45.

Have you tried beating the game with just the bare minimum of characters? What I mean is, you get off the island and head straight to the town with Edgar and get him then head straight to the town with Setzer and get him and the airship, then you head straight to Kefka's tower. I did this once a long time ago but I think I might have been using a game genie. But a few scenes in the ending get changed up because of it. Like Edgar having to deal with the scaffolding on his own and Setzer rescuing Celes instead of Locke. I think Terra shows up out of the blue at some point but it's been a decade since I beat it like that so I don't remember.

[Quick draw II]

Still haven't gotten around to finishing FFX. I'm inside sin right now, at the tower or whatever. Yuna is freaking incredible.