Maxx plays FFXIII - based on a true story [SPOILERS!]

[Cyril]

Ha, I always forget where to place the h in Sazh.  I think it's because when I see "zh" I think of a different sound than just a straight "z."  But then putting the h before the z changes the pronunciation of the a.  And it's clearly not after the s but before the a.

[Yggdrasil]

To be quite fair, proper shifting becomes quite an art when you get to post game content.  It's really something of beauty when you can do it right.  We've discussed it on this site before, but the battle system is more about acting on a larger scale rather than smaller, individual scale.

This.

[Maxximum]

I tried doing the manual input thing, and it was a disaster. I'll probably stick to it for the sake of science but my battle efficiency will be taking a dive until I memorize where all the skills are.
Updates ware sparse over the last few days because I had a lot less time for gaming. Hopefully I'll squeeze in some FFXIII today.
Progress wise, I'm more or less where I was when I abandoned my previous playthrough.
Lightning just got her manhorsenordicgod digimon while Danny Glover and Vanille are making their way through junk heap city where they just showed up without much explanation (assumption being that they just happened upon it while making their way through the area).

[Tomara]

It won't hurt to try it out, but don't force yourself to use it all the time. The difficulty is fine just using autobattle and as the game progresses you'll be swifting paradigms more and more often. If you want more control over battles, it's better to focus on perfecting your understanding of that mechanic.

[The Legendary Zoltan]

Dude, Sazh doesn't look like Danny Glover! Ahahaha!

I usually used the auto attack just after switching paradigms because they usually have full ATB gauges then and I don't want to waste time. But otherwise I input everything manually. Good battle system and graphics in that game.

[Maxximum]

Dude, Sazh doesn't look like Danny Glover! Ahahaha!

No, but he's getting too old for this shit.
Its a line that Glover was famous for from the Lethal weapon series.

[Rucks]

Dude, Sazh doesn't look like Danny Glover! Ahahaha!

No, but he's getting too old for this shit.
Its a line that Glover was famous for from the Lethal weapon series.

LAUL!

anyhow, I don't get the point if using manual battle against anyone other than bosses/hunts/eidolons.  Seems like a waste of time when you're just going to wipe the floor with your average rank and file baddie.

[Holykael1]

Dude, Sazh doesn't look like Danny Glover! Ahahaha!

No, but he's getting too old for this shit.
Its a line that Glover was famous for from the Lethal weapon series.

LAUL!

anyhow, I don't get the point if using manual battle against anyone other than bosses/hunts/eidolons.  Seems like a waste of time when you're just going to wipe the floor with your average rank and file baddie.

During the later chapters, regular enemies have tons of health. You definitely want to maximize dat damage for your own sanity.

[Maxximum]

I have now made my way to chapter seven. Hope is on his way from emo to psychotic knife wielding maniac while Lighting is making her way from psychotic knife wielding maniac to emo. Balance folks, there has to be balance.
Meanwhile, after hopping and skipping their way through the Disco Forest and battling mutated tomatoes and dancing frogs, Perky Aussie and Danny Glover get ready to board a boat for Vegas. At this point Vanilles happy go lucky exterior is starting to show some cracks, while Danny is  having thoughts ranging from "I'm getting too old for this shit" through "she's too young for me" all the way south to "maybe I should blow my brains out and take my pals with me" territory.

At this point the game is foreshadowing my predicted plot twist in a way that's about as subtle as a hungry dog eyeing a juicy steak. I only have two out of potential six transformers, so I would assume I'm about a third of the way through the game. The story is picking up, the visuals are fantastic and the battle system is getting a little less annoying as more options open up. I still think it's a weak entry in the Final Fantasy franchise due to the amount of content that was stripped for the sake of storytelling. As its own thing though, its not half bad.

Speaking of the battle system, I finally decided on a fine blend of autobattle and carefully hand picked commands. This does seem to be working out fairly well so far. At one point the game told me that there are some enemy types that I probably should avoid. Naturally, the first thing I did when I saw one was to run head first into it's ass, attack and proceeded to lay a five star smack down on said ass. In the end, I decided that while I can beat it, the time required was simply not worth the rewards.

I now face the terrifying prospect of a frustrating stealth section, though I may simply opt to just go the balls to the wall guns blazing path and beat the snot out of everyone that gets in my way, especially since lightning is now sporting a level 20 forgotitsname sword that I probably shouldn't have upgraded so much in the first place.

[Holykael1]

Btw a tip on how upgrading works:

-Organic materials raise the experience x
-Mechanic materials give you tons of experience but don't raise the x as muc

So basically you do organic materials until you get 3x(or is the max 2x I don't remember) and then you dump a bunch of high hitter mechanic materials at once to get a huge amount of exp x3 or whatever the maximum of x is.

Also, it's highly recommended that you don't upgrade too much or at all until the later chapters of the game because you want to save those materials up for your ideal equip setting and it will make your life a whole lot easier for those harder later chapters.

[Maxximum]

Btw a tip on how upgrading works:

-Organic materials raise the experience x
-Mechanic materials give you tons of experience but don't raise the x as muc

So basically you do organic materials until you get 3x(or is the max 2x I don't remember) and then you dump a bunch of high hitter mechanic materials at once to get a huge amount of exp x3 or whatever the maximum of x is.

Also, it's highly recommended that you don't upgrade too much or at all until the later chapters of the game because you want to save those materials up for your ideal equip setting and it will make your life a whole lot easier for those harder later chapters.

Yeah, the mechanic materials actually decrease your multiplier so the idea is to raise it with organics and then use a big stack of the best suited mech resource to maximise the bonus.
Its probably best to keep the rest for late game though, so I'll just be hoarding it all until I hit a point where vanilla equipment just doesn't cut it any more.

[Aeolus]

I have now made my way to chapter seven. Hope is on his way from emo to psychotic knife wielding maniac while Lighting is making her way from psychotic knife wielding maniac to emo. Balance folks, there has to be balance.
Meanwhile, after hopping and skipping their way through the Disco Forest and battling mutated tomatoes and dancing frogs, Perky Aussie and Danny Glover get ready to board a boat for Vegas. At this point Vanilles happy go lucky exterior is starting to show some cracks, while Danny is  having thoughts ranging from "I'm getting too old for this shit" through "she's too young for me" all the way south to "maybe I should blow my brains out and take my pals with me" territory.

At this point the game is foreshadowing my predicted plot twist in a way that's about as subtle as a hungry dog eyeing a juicy steak. I only have two out of potential six transformers, so I would assume I'm about a third of the way through the game. The story is picking up, the visuals are fantastic and the battle system is getting a little less annoying as more options open up. I still think it's a weak entry in the Final Fantasy franchise due to the amount of content that was stripped for the sake of storytelling. As its own thing though, its not half bad.

Speaking of the battle system, I finally decided on a fine blend of autobattle and carefully hand picked commands. This does seem to be working out fairly well so far. At one point the game told me that there are some enemy types that I probably should avoid. Naturally, the first thing I did when I saw one was to run head first into it's ass, attack and proceeded to lay a five star smack down on said ass. In the end, I decided that while I can beat it, the time required was simply not worth the rewards.

I now face the terrifying prospect of a frustrating stealth section, though I may simply opt to just go the balls to the wall guns blazing path and beat the snot out of everyone that gets in my way, especially since lightning is now sporting a level 20 forgotitsname sword that I probably shouldn't have upgraded so much in the first place.

♪Step into the rainbow!♪

You're actually roughly at the halfway point of the game. Unfortunately, most of your future Autobot companions are kinda dumped on you near the end. Also enjoy the plot while you still can because its about to go completely off the rails in the "Didn't we just do something that completely contradicts what's going on right now? Da fuck!?".

And I see that you've settled on the same method of gameplay that the majority did when playing this game. Especially now that you have commands that are worth getting out before the AI will want to get to them.

Also, the only times you'll want to practice stealthing about is when you really don't want to fight yet another one of those massive sacks of HP enemies (and chances are that you'll have to anyways), or when you're bandying about during the game's Calm Lands section (as most of it is built for postgame shenanigans which will be quite a few levels away from where you'll be when you first arrive, so enjoy the massive fields of hot, fuckoff, death). You aren't really losing anything from fighting anyways (except for the precious hours of your life that you let tick away while slogging through another one of those "WE GET IT! The gimmick fights used to be entertaining the first five times but now its just annoying.").

[Dice]

THe game had a stealth section..?

God I still get frustrated that the game is largely corridors, I'd have loved a next-gen FF title that really lets you explore.

[Cyril]

Eh, Dice, LR was pretty open-ended in its exploration.  Easily one of the most non-linear games from Japan I've played in modern years.  That's part of the reason why I enjoyed it so much.

This thread reminded me that I absolutely hated that upgrading was pretty much useless until post-game.  They have this complex system in place that is barely useful at all until you start taking on stronger things than the final boss and you suddenly need it. Badly.

Edit: Also, I'm never killing an Adamantoise again.  Grinding them for hours was the worst part of XIII's post-game.  For fun, try fighting one with the fast-forward command in XIII-2 and see how horribly you do even using the "right" strategy.

[Dice]

Eh, Dice, LR was pretty open-ended in its exploration.  Easily one of the most non-linear games from Japan I've played in modern years.  That's part of the reason why I enjoyed it so much.

Did not play LR, so you gotta excuse me on that part of the comment (I probably won't get around to it or bother till it's really cheap....so Steam sale???).

I'm becoming a much bigger fan of less linear games as I get older though.