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!

The Journey Begins

Hours Played: 1:07
Chapter 1: Fates Intertwined

Well the easy part is over, I've started FFXIII. As the FF start screen did its typical sweeping thing I wondered: do all FF start screens start out in the clouds? I'm not an expert or anything, I just know XII's opening, and it sure starts out in the clouds. I'm not bashing either game just because they have a similar first twelve seconds of the start screen cinematic, I just thought it was funny. I tried to find previous star screen cinematics on YouTube but I couldn't necessarily discern whether they were indeed what I was looking for or if it was an opening cinematic. Oh well. Clouds are pretty.

Some quick notes:

• I think it's actually funny that Lightning declares that a tutorial is about to begin. "Watch and learn." Made me laugh
• The game tells you that "enemies stalk the roads that you travel." From what I gather, I'm going to be traveling a lot of roads...
• I hate this camera. Instead of swinging freely, it seems to swing with weight. It moves slowly at first but then seems to retain momentum after I've spun it for a second or so, making it more difficult to stop. I remember XII's camera being more of the free style. I'll have to boot it up to see.

Alright, so the big thing I noticed last night was some serious hand holding. Now, I'm not a big hand holder, ask Meg, but at least with her, she's a pretty lady. XIII wants to hold my hand like a mommy. I kicked that addiction at least a good fortnight ago and frankly I'm insulted. It's like I'm playing a fucking Wii game. Okay, let's not get angry, they're trying to woo a new market with this game, they need to explain some RPG things. Be more forgiving, me.

You know, at first I thought I could actually handle the tutorials: during the first battle, a tutorial taught me how to use the system, and once I was left to my own I did some fighting and things were going pretty good but I eventually hit a point where I was probably going to die, so, like a sane person, I used a potion from the items command. I healed and killed the bat-snake-bird-robot-plane thing. Oh good, I thought, so they teach me the basics but leave me to figure out the fairly obvious concept of using a potion on my own. And this happens in the first battle, so we have a good blend of tutorial and self teaching. I was shocked and impressed, as I had heard that the game treats you like a moron.

Of course thirty minutes later a tutorial pops up to teach me how to use a potion. Wait--what? How was I supposed to beat the first guy if I didn't use a potion? I was using autobattle the whole time and I would have died if I hadn't "figured out on my own" how to use a potion. How was that fight supposed to play out. Also, now I'm afraid I'm going to get a tutorial hours later on everything I've figure out on my own.

Like equipping items. Figured that one out on my own without a tutorial. How is this moron FXIII takes it player for (let's call him Chaz) supposed to know how to equip items? Will he get to an equipping tutorial hours later and discover that he's been carrying a bunch of useful weapons around but hasn't been using them because no one told him how to equip them? Or maybe FFXIII will never teach Chaz how to equip things and he'll go the whole game with shite weapons and equipment. If I was Chaz, I'd be piiiissed.

Then again, since I'm a huge moron, I might not understand that I've just been fucked over and instead slap my knees with joy because I can now use a more advanced powerball on Snow, my favourite and most identifiable character.

Seriously, Snow and all his revolutionary buddies are retarded. What's the plan? Run in guns blazing? Cool! NO, not cool. You are revolutionaries, haven't you ever heard of guerilla tactics? Nope? You're just a bunch of tossers? Never mind then, go get yourself and every one else killed in whatever brilliant plan you jokers have cooked up. I sure hope this day is everything you dreamed it would be when you were jacking off to it on your toilet as a preteen. Oh Snow! you're a reaaaal hero! Fuck off.

Seriously, at one point I stopped to take a note and Snow stood there pounding his fist. I cannot describe to you how mad that made me. If this character persists at this one note bore-fest then a) he'll never be in my party now matter how hard he can punch (read: punch, instead of use a gun like every other sane revolutionary...sigh) and b) I'll think much less of the FFXIII writers.

I never thought Snow would be more annoying than the kids but who knew, surprises abound in FFXIII. But maybe I just haven't had enough time with Hope. I assume I learn soon enough who's the biggest twat in Cocoon.

On the positive!, Sazh is pretty funny, as is his little chocobo. I will make every effort to include him in my party. Though from what I here, this may not be easy.