Notes on Previous Posts

• I have heard the story about the traded Chrono Trigger many a time. Believe me, he's still bitter about it. He will probably take that resentment with him to his grave. A redhead never forgets.

Oops

Hours played: 6.41
Played up to Chapter 4: Eden or Bust

So, remember last time when I thought I'd figured out the combat roles system thinger? Specifically I said something along the lines that Commando stops the stagger bar from decreasing while Ravager is effective at building it up. Now, my false assumption is luckily enough not contained in the way I phrased my understanding, but unluckily enough, I am now going to explain that false assumption.

You see, I was under the impression that Ravagers were good at building the stagger bar. This is correct. I also believed that after staggering an enemy, Commandos were good at stopping that bar from decreasing. This may or not be correct, I'm not sure. But what I damn well know is that Commandos are good at stopping the stagger bar from decreasing BEFORE an enemy is staggered. This I did not know, and so last night I was spamming the ravaging and wondering why the stagger bar drained like water down a drain.

Compounding this problem is the fact that I'm currently in a part of the game that puts me in a position where I don't even have a Commando. This exacerbated the problem. I didn't even have a Commando available to show me why I couldn't stagger enemies. Grr. But whatever, I've caught on now, but I do think the tutorial could have done a much better job explaining this whole thing to me. I dunno, maybe I'm just dense.

I've also learned that a Saboteur's spell (a debuff) will work similarly to stop the stagger bar from depleting almost immediately. Handy, unfortunately, as my Saboteur only has two spells, so she pretty much stands there (or well bobs there) after she has cast each spell on an enemy, meaning that stagger bar quickly begins to evaporate again. Funny stuff FFXIII. Funny stuff. But whatever, that's change soon.

Okay then, my quick notes:

• Snow stayed behind last play because he didn't want to leave crystal Sarah alone or something; he thought he could chip her out before the Fuzz arrived. No such luck. The bad guys show up and are all like it's time to die commie, and he's like it's morphin time. And you know what? I had to play the fight. This isn't fair. He is the guy who made the stupid decision to stay behind, even after I asked him not to, YET I still have to play him when he gets in a bind because of said stupid decision. You're beginning (HA!) to try my patience young man.
  
• K, well I beat those baddies for Snow, but then two motorcycle chicks show up. And by that I don't mean a pair of manish women role up on their hogs, I mean giant, blue, women that are also part motorcycle appear out of the sky. Um, what?
• About those motorcycle women? I know you're telling me its an Ediolon (looked that up), and that I have to prove myself to it, but you have not told me why they are motorcycle women. Or even why I have to prove myself to them to begin with--why do I get the feeling that everyone in this game knows what's going on except for the most important person to the game, ME!
• Also: after you prove yourself to the motorbitches, you have to press a button to win. I'm not sure why you don't just win automatically, I'm left to assume the game designers wanted to punish me for not reading the tutorial carefully enough. Got me guys! Good one. I loved playing that battle twelve times without any clue as to why, despite my prove-yourself-meter being topped up, I still couldn't "win".
• I say "win" because I'm not sure proving myself to a pair of giant blue motorcycle women that like to beat people up is a straight win.

Wow. These quick notes are getting, well, long. It's really because I realized I'm dumb and I was making jokes for people that had just seen what I had, or had a really good memory of the part of the game I'd just completed. This is stupid because I imagine some people reading this blog (lie: I imagine no one reading this blog) may not have that sort of memory, or even worse for these quick notes, may not have even played the game. Big drr on my part and sorries.

Positives: Sazh is still pretty cool, I like how he dances in combat. Other than that it was a bit of a slog. I even have more to bitch about but I'll save it for next time. Yay for you.

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!

A Brand New Day

Hours played: 3.02
Played up to Chapter 3: A Vision Shared

I got paradigms bitches! That's right. While I enjoyed hitting auto-battle so the "game" could continue, I'm pretty excited about this whole, playing a combat system thing. Well sort of, if I understood it. But let me get back to that.

First some quick notes:

• Where did Hope get that boomerang? The game made a point of showing us where Vanille got her weird antler fishing pole thing, but then Hope just pulls a fairly sizable boomerang out of his ass. Seriously, I don't know where else it could have come from.
• What's up with Vanille's antler fishing pole thing. I know she's a caster but this thing's weird.
• While on the topic of Vanille, this bitch runs like a damned fool.
• Does Snow have a rock soundtrack? Is this because he is indeed a douche-nozzle?
• Did Lightning hurt that door's feelings? Why does she have to apologize to it?
• When trying to destroy a potentially giant metal machine thing, try C4, NOT A SWORD!

So, before I talk about finally getting my first little taste of game system, I'd like to talk about how much I hated the part of the game where all the characters come together in the Pulse Vestiage (yes I had to look that up). This had to be the most annoying part of a game I've played recently (possibly an untrue statement, see resource mining in Mass Effect 2). I mean I love the full five minutes I spent with each group as I guide them through an obligatory level containing only boring enemies and filler narrative. That hour of my life felt like humouring FFXIII. Game, you could have just showed a cutscene of everyone running into each other and saved me a lot of useless busywork. And don't tell me you had to teach me pre-emptive strikes and shrouds, because we could have done that in the previous section while I was walking endless miles of sky highway.

What's even more annoying is that there's no experience yet. Actually, Meg told me as I began to grind in a certain level that their was indeed no XP to be gained at the moment. So, I asked her, you're telling me I've been fighting all this time in the game for nothing? I could have just ran by everyone up until this point (aside from the baddies guarding chests) and lost nothing? Guh. So the next section flew by, as I likewise, flew by every enemy possible. No XP, no fighty.

And after some showy plot stuff, (those zombie things are actually pretty unsettling), I fought the robot lobster and fell down to Hoth. And SHABAM! now I get to play a game. Sweet. I've been waiting for this. Oh this is going to be soooo much fun.

Then I begin fighting the fights and I get a nagging feeling that I'm not really sure about what I'm doing. Yes, I understand paradigms and how some are more defensive and others more offensive, but I'm not really clear on this whole chaining thing. The game seems to indicate to me that certain moves/abilities in certain orders are better at building the stagger bar than others, but I don't think it really laid out the particular reasons why. So, you're going to hold my hand, but when it comes to the most IMPORTANT PART of the combat system, you're just going to reference that it exists? Jeezus. I'm pretty confused. Luckily Meg can explain (and has) and I can hit up a wiki, but I'm pretty irked that FFXIII just forgot to tell me how to properly chain things. Bah.

Anyways, hopefully once I can get a handle on this chaining thing, then I'll feel more comfortable in battles, and in, you know, the game.

Oh, and that robolobster is the first time I died. It wasn't too hard of a battle, I just fucked up and got nuked before I could take a potion. I wasn't paying enough attention and boom. It was nice of the game though to offer to play the entire cinematic buildup to the fight for me again. So thrilled to check that out a second time.