FINAL FANTASY XIII

[Eusis]

Being fast IS pretty important to me, but the real issue is that battles aren't dragged out more than necessary. Essentially what I want is the equivalent of well edited, concise writing, whereas FFXIII's approach was more like a tweet.

[Sagacious-T]

Whats funny is that the further you get in FF13, the more it slows down. You go from doing 1-2 attacks to waiting for all  the sections to fill up, lol.

I still have NO IDEA why S-E didn't let us change party leader controls in mid-battle.

And I don't think you can call the battles fast when they last 3-5 minutes, and bosses last 20 minutes

[Eusis]

True, that probably isn't as accurate for FFXIII; if anything that's Star Ocean's approach with most bosses being beatable under 1-5 minutes. Still, MegaTen and the DS DQs are pretty good examples of what I mean with concise battles.

[Lard]

So just a general question.

I have just fought Cid (which was a pain in the ass) and now I'm running around the ship.

I've gone from consistently getting four or five stars in battle to getting one or zero stars, and I don't know why.

I've tried different characters and different paradigms and it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Should I be upgrading different weapons? It doesn't seem like they make much of a difference in the game, I've just been pouring items into the ones I originally got.

Those fucking robots are kicking my ass and I'm getting really tired of having drawn out battles for no experience.

[Dice]

So just a general question.

I have just fought Cid (which was a pain in the ass) and now I'm running around the ship.

I've gone from consistently getting four or five stars in battle to getting one or zero stars, and I don't know why.

I've tried different characters and different paradigms and it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Should I be upgrading different weapons? It doesn't seem like they make much of a difference in the game, I've just been pouring items into the ones I originally got.

Those fucking robots are kicking my ass and I'm getting really tired of having drawn out battles for no experience.

I never had a problem til Pulse and the dungeon area before that. If you fight every single foe on your *path* (har har), the game is a breeze.
Weapon upgrading isn't too useful and makes only a light dent until you get the massive upgrade items (there's a few items ...some sort of ooze material, thats cheap and easy to boost those level up multipliers).

I had the problem too; my stars were way off around then.  Dont' forget to debuff - it actually works quite well in this game.

[CDFN]

So just a general question.

I have just fought Cid (which was a pain in the ass) and now I'm running around the ship.

I've gone from consistently getting four or five stars in battle to getting one or zero stars, and I don't know why.

I've tried different characters and different paradigms and it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Should I be upgrading different weapons? It doesn't seem like they make much of a difference in the game, I've just been pouring items into the ones I originally got.

Those fucking robots are kicking my ass and I'm getting really tired of having drawn out battles for no experience.

The only thing that affects the rating is the time it takes to finish the fight so to finish it as fast as possible you have to attack the enemy's weakness (use libra). Also, the higher the level of your weapons the harder it will be to get 5 stars because the time limit goes down as the level of your weapons increases.
Also, when you have more ATB bars and just want to use a comand that doesn't require all of them press triangle as soon as the necessary bars are full and you will execute that comand without having to wait for the whole thing to be full. You'll usually want to squeeze as much as you can into a single turn though. I recomend having herme's sandals (upgrade to sprint shoes) equipped at all times, they give you haste and increase the pace of battles enourmosly, by the end of the game I couldn't live without them. Even a complete ATB bar will fill up faster than you can input the comands.

[Sagacious-T]

debuffing is the most useful thing you can do. Later in the game just buffing and debuffing can make you do enough damage to not need to even stagger enemies anymore.

[Yggdrasil]

Random question time: Have you read the novel of Final Fantasy XIII?

[Starmongoose]

No. and I don't have any desire to either, even if it was in English. (I now see there are translations)

It's going to be pre-action anyway considering it's set before the actual events of the story - meaning it's just more walls of text explaining what should have been conveyed better in the actual game.

EDIT: I now read these were indented to be read before the game was released. Not sure how I feel about it anymore. It would have maybe been better to be more acquainted with the characters before hand, or maybe not. I just know I don't really plan on taking the time to read it.

[CDFN]

Random question time: Have you read the novel of Final Fantasy XIII?

I read it before playing the game and it made a huge difference for me. I knew exactly what was going on at the start of the game and where the characters were coming from. It's a shame they didn't include it with the game. People were complaining that they didn't know anything about fal'cie or Serah and what happened to her and it's explained with huge detail here. Not giving this to the people that bought the game was a huge mistake.
I did post a link to the complete translation here about 2 months before the game's release but nobody made any comments about it so I guess everyone ignored it.

[Alisha]

i had been avoiding the game until a friend asked why i hadnt played an rpg with lesbians in it yet. its funny how some people vehement deny them as a couple when Fang has a rainbow necklace...also heard the novel adds to that as well.

[Uru]

How do you guys like Elisha Cuthbert as Lightning?

[ShadowLaguna]

Random question time: Have you read the novel of Final Fantasy XIII?

I didn't know it existed.

[Chronix112]

When you have to read a novel to understand the game's world, and characters' motivations, then it has serious issues.

[CDFN]

When you have to read a novel to understand the game's world, and characters' motivations, then it has serious issues.

You still learn everything you need to know by just playing the game. The most important parts are shown in flashbacks throughout the game, but since the game hits the ground running it's useful to know some things right from the start, otherwise it's confusing. You also care more for the characters. You already know everything about Lightning when she's wrecking havoc inside that train, same goes for the other characters.