Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Yep.


Agreed. That was by far one of the most epic boss fights I've ever had in any game. The scale of it felt awesome (is in creating awe, not 'thrilling').

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I thought it was pretty action packed for a game where the battle consists of you doing button presses every so often. I was getting into it, humming the melodies of the music, hopping around a little in my chair on the edge of my seat and stuff.

I liked it!

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I'm in Siren Park right now, I did the CP grinding dance back in Maw of the Abyss in that area where the Juggernaut was. I had a ridiculous amount of CP saved up after I fought Barthandelus so now it's only a matter of me getting all those little loose spheres that are hanging around on each person's 9th Crystarium stage for the main roles, which I hope won't take too long.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Well this is it. Chapter 13! I'm excited! I'm genuinely excited.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I ran 2 setups. Ravager, Ravager, Commando and Sentinel, Healer, Healer (Whatever that was called).

Found out through quick shifting early in the game that when you shift it resets your ATB gauge to full.

Ran Fang, Lightning and Hope.

Officially broke the game. Never had an issue.

Ravager Ravager commando will basically stagger any enemy in 2 rounds.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I think breaking the game would be the issue. :ohreilly:

Like playing Fallout 3, you can change the difficulty right before lockpicking/hacking to get more XP making it much faster/easier to level up, effectively breaking the game - but that's just no fun for the normal gaming populace. Most people like challenges. ;)

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I didn't really do anything to break the game I just ran a sweet strategy.

But no you're right, paradigm shifting is breaking the game. You shouldn't even be allowed to do it.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Not like they cared since it's obviously back for XIII-2.

Speaking of, who's interested in it? I actually am if I'm honest.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Well, I just finished it. It took me five tries to get past the first form of the final boss. That stupid one shot death move got me so mad, especially when I found out that when he conjures darkness you're supposed to ignore buffing and debuffing so you can stagger it again.

Then of course the final form had to be a joke. It was pitifully easy.

My final (get it?) thoughts (WOT sorry):

It's not the best, but it's not the worst. It tried to be different and it succeeded but I don't know if the changes were all entirely in the right direction. For example, part of the difficulty (and fun) in my case is resource management; making sure I'm well prepared to go through a dungeon but the whole automatic regeneration of health and no true game over (because really, any game that lets you get back up right before you bit the bullet for just ONE more try really isn't a Game Over) it takes away from that. Obviously this had to have been thought out from the beginning, because you can tell the enemies and the damage and things they do were designed around these aspects of the game.

I think that's probably what makes that decision such a frustrating one for me. It's a love/hate thing, though. I usually only complain about the battle system when I'm not playing it, because it is fun for the most part, even if like everyone knows, it's designed to be automated since it is still turn based and trying to pick out all the abilities is definitely not ideal, at least at normal battle speed.

I dunno, maybe my mixed feelings now are because the all too happy ending with all of the optimistic conversations and comments that they were spewing for the last five hours (at least) of my gameplay started getting a little too hard to swallow, and then there were the sudden random and unexplained reappearances of all the characters after they were turned into Cie'th and Fang failing as Ragnarok again or whatnot. I know JRPGs do things like that, but I wish that they could have tried to explain it at least a little bit.

Also it's not fair that Serah had to stay as a crystal for the entire duration of the game and then everyone else turns to crystal right after for "completing their Focus" and they go back to normal immediately afterwards I'm assuming thanks to Fang and Vanille.

Hoofah. That was a lot. Long story short, if it seems like I'm complaining...sure I might be, but my enjoyment of the game was pretty high despite that. I mean, I went through hell and high water again to get the game done after losing 35 hours of my life that I'll never get back again, only to spend another 30 or so to see it through. I will definitely say my dedication to this game comes from my initial idea of just plowing through as much as I could day by day since the first time I tried to play it I mucked around with it for an hour, saved the game, and put it back on the shelf only to sit there for another long while until now.

I will definitely be hard pressed to get everyone maxed out in the Crystarium though. That's total gamer meth stuff and I'm not buying. Good luck to those of you that do it, you have patience greater than I can fathom.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

It's honestly not worth it. Doesn't really add anything to the story, and the characters really weren't designed to play outside their initial roles.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

That's what I figured. That's something you allow people to do before you fight the final boss that makes everyone want to be like HNNNNNNG SUPEROVERPOWERED and all I had to do was weapon customizing and max out everyone on their main roles in the Stage 9 Crystarium. It's like, move along people

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I'm probably not going to get to play until this weekend, but when I do I hope to finish it.

I'm trying to decide if I want to try and upgrade people's equipment and max out their weapons after I beat the game, or just move on to another game.

I'm thinking I probably won't. If I've already beaten the game, what's the point? :ohreilly:

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I maxed out Hope and Fang's weapons that I were using to star level of their second form since you need that ridiculously expensive ore crap to make it move up and I just did not have enough money to do that. I got Lightning's shit up as well. It brought Fang's strength up to like 1960-something, same with Hope's magic stat too. It was ridiculous. I would imagine it helped me finish the last three boss fights wonderfully. I got five stars on Barthandelus and Orphan's first and second forms.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Finally beat it. So glad that is over.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

What were your final thoughts?

Also, that's what she said

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I thought it was okay as viewed as a game separate of the Final Fantasy series. If viewed from the spectrum of FF, it was terrible.

Also, as you said, the final boss battle was a complete joke; and latter half of the story was ridiculous.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

So after getting some more time to spend on Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, I find a lot of similarities in some of the plot stuff.

Have any of you guys had a chance to play the game on WiiWare or in the PSP re-release? I think I might be the only person here that's even attempted to play through them.

Also, getting into the matter of side stories and the like for Final Fantasy games, I noticed that there seems to be quite a lot, even more than we know now, what with the direct sequels and all.

If I'm thinking correctly the games that have addition plot material for them, whether it be other games or different types of media in general, are IV, V, VII, X, XII, and now XIII.

IV has The After Years and now the Interlude chapter they added for the Complete Collection PSP remake (which wasn't anything more than a three hour tacked on distraction to the After Years story. It only added an extra appearance of the Mysterious Girl character from The After Years as well as letting you see the birth of Yang's daughter Ursula, as well as Ceodore, Cecil and Rosa's son.

V has the Legend of the Crystals anime OVA that was released many years ago. It was apparently not only released in Japanese but also English as well, although I've never seen it in English and it's funny because never came out here until Anthology was released back in 2000 I believe the year was.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4PH0YTG5 (Episode 1 - 251 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EE5RDY00 (Episode 2 - 241 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PLR1FVQ2 (Episode 3 - 246 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=25KHZGWL (Episode 4 - 228 MB)

Those are some download links to all of the episodes in case you're interested. The password for the .rar files is luelinks.

VII had all of the Compilation stuff. Dirge of Cerberus, Advent Children, Last Order, Before Crisis, Crisis Core...there might be even more that I'm missing, which is a scary thought. Even with all this extra plot stuff that almost all borders on fan fiction and people still want the game to be remade, which I guarantee fans are going to hate.

X has X-2. We don't talk about such things, although I've heard once the battle system is mastered fighting is actually fun, but from what I've read there isn't very much real fighting to be done, and any game that requires 100% completion for an ending I can just look up on YouTube is fine by me, I mean we all know that technically her getting over him in the end and them not being together is the better ending anyway. They were separated at the end of X, and I guess they figured they shouldn't mess with a good thing by making that the ending for X-2 as well unless you know, you want to kill yourself by getting 100% completion in that nightmare.

XII is a little complicated because technically since the game is set in Ivalice, there's a lot of games than can get thrown into the FFXII universe, like Vagrant Story, and all of the Final Fantasy Tactics games, but I think for continuity's sake I'll just stick to Revenant Wings for the DS, which was an RTS game that they made more difficult for the US because we're "used to this type of genre"? I don't know. I haven't played it, I've heard it's okay.

XIII-2 looks like more of the same but you can tell that they're totally appealing to otaku fanboys because they're exploiting Serra's momo appeal. I mean, she looks so young. The fact that Snow looked much older than she did was something that I never really understood or thought was okay for the most part.

Anyways, your thoughts? I know I put down a lot of stuff to comment on, but bear with me. It was an idea I came up with while playing FFIV: TAY.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Just started watching the Legend of the Crystals OVA. It's pretty cheesy, but it's old enough that I think I'll allow it. The sub group did a pretty decent job though, considering it's age. I wish I could find a clip of the dub so I could hear how horrible of a job they did with it.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Have you guys watched the XIII-2 footage from E3? It looks interesting ... not really sure if I like Serah playing a central role in the game though.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

There was a part in the trailer where I saw Lightning riding Odin and she was running across while some huge boss was tearing shit up. It looked pretty intense. I dunno how I feel about the new character whose name I can't remember either.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Vamp did you finally finish your playthrough?

Also, I find that the more I play FFIV: The After Years, the more it grows on me, and I don't know if it should. It's really not all that great. I know it's an attempt to cash in on an older game that people enjoyed in the past, and present considering how many remakes there were of the game, but I still find myself enjoying the little time I've spent with it so far (I've finished two of the tales and they were about 3-3.5 hours a piece and I'm 1.5 hours into the third one, so that's about 7-8 hours? A decent length to get a feel for it. At least they changed the battle system up some with the Bands and the phases of the moon affecting the different abilities in battle.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I have not. :\ I intended to beat it over the weekend, but I got sucked into League of Legends and Just Cause 2.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

You were in Eden already right? Like Siren Park or some shit like that?

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Yeah I'm in Siren Park, but I need to do a bit of grinding before I can move on.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I think the better grinding area is Leviathan's Plaza actually, but I dunno. I had the crystarium maxed out for the main roles by the time I got there since I had stockpiled so much CP on Pulse.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

You could honestly probably beat the game with where you are in the Crystarium right now. The final boss is a joke.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Well, Orphan's second form is extremely laughable. I had to go at the first form a few times though thanks to that one hit kill move it was always able to pull off.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Well, I want to grind in Leviathan plaza, but I didn't grind at all in Siren Park and the next area was pretty tough for me, so I backtracked.

Maybe I should try upgrading some weapons.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

You could, but I saved that until the very end. How far along are you in the crystarium?

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Beat Chapter 12 last night...one more to go.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Atta boy! If you know how to fight the first form of Orphan, the second will be cake. I guarantee it.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Yeah, and I have to say I've never been more excited to be done with a game. XD I'm just ready to move on at this point, I don't think I'm going to go back and upgrade my weapons. I wish it had been more worth it to upgrade them before the end of the game.

I've found that if I just start with the Protection paradigm I can get an insane amount of buffs, switch to delta attack, and kill anything.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Finished.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

What are your thoughts? And congrats!

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I thought the ending was OK. Story didn't make a whole lot of sense - it felt overly complex and simplistic at the same time.

Overall fun game, but it was linear to a fault. I tried to upgrade one of my weapons before the final battle, and realized the shop to buy most of the components I needed wasn't even available until AFTER you beat the game.

It was like they went out of their way to not let you deviate from the one set path.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

They're apparently fixing that with XIII-2 but I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I don't think I can play that game if Serah is a main character. The little girl thing is a bit too creepy.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I know exactly what you mean. The whole relationship with her and Snow made me cringe. Not just from the physical appearance thing alone either. ugh. The whole momo thing in general terrifies me.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Finally completed Ceodore's chapter (again...sigh).

Also new FFXIII-2 trailer. Explains nothing of course. Doesn't show too much gameplay. Go figure.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Yeah... this plot is going to make no sense.