Reading and Planning

Hours played: 4.21
Played up to Chapter 3: The Only Way is Up

Whoa. So I've been out of town and busy with school so I haven't had the chance to blog about my latest FFXIII play. I actually don't have a lot to say though. I mean, I did a lot of walking around on a frozen crystal lake and then I fought some big thing that died fast enough for me to wonder if I'm super awesome at the game (I'm not). Oh, also there was a bunch of watching these characters flat-out bitching at each other.

Quick notes:

• This is basically what I hear EVERY TIME Snow talks: "Who has two thumbs and is the most annoying character in the game? This guy!"
• There's this bit where Snow tries to chip out his crystalized girlfriend from the crystal ground she connected to. Is his plan carry a human sized crystal figurine around Cocoon-towne? Seriously, what does he plan to do after he succeeds in chipping her out? Does he have a dolly under his toque? Even if he does, or if he can use his power ball of strength to carry her around, don't you think that will be the most conspicuous way to travel possible?

So I think I got a better handle on how the combat system works. Some things Meg told me started to make sense after I read a FFXIIIwiki for a bit. So Ravagers are good at building the stagger bar, and commandos are good at slowing the stagger bar's unstaggering progress. Okay so that's what the fuck that tutorial was talking about.

Reading up on the different classes also gave me a good idea of what sort of game I'm getting into. Normally I'm not a big read-a-wiki-to-learn-how-to-play-a-game-system type guy, but since it seems like the extent of FFXIII game play is building your party and switching paradigms, I wanted to make sure I actually understood what the component parts of this party building system were. I mean, I'm moving through a series of tubes and fighting shit along the way, all I really get to do is choose what role I focus characters on and whom I keep in my party. So I want to know how these parties are made.

I didn't really look up strategies on how to build parties or anything, I'm still going to have to figure out that system on my own, but I understand a little bit about what I'm actually doing in the game now. This is nice.

What I decided, in terms of how I plan to build my party is thus: Fang (Commando, Sentinel), Vanille (Medic, Saboteur, Ravager), and Sazh (Ravager, Synergist). I want to keep Sazh in my party and I used Vanille over Hope because she's less irritating. And Snow can go eat a cock so he's not in the party either, so Fang it is. I'm not under the impression that I'm going to be using only these characters, nor do I think I've got this thing solved before I've even begun, it's just my general starting strategy. We'll see how it pans out. Wheeee!