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Final Fantasy XIII PC |OT| Lightning must not be forgotten

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
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  • Developer - Square Enix
  • Release Date - 10/09/14 World Wide
  • Platform - PC (Steam)
  • Price - 12,99€ / $15,99
  • Collector's Edition - There are none
  • Genre - Role-Playing > Console-style RPG
  • System Requirements -
    Code:
    [B][U]Minimum[/U][/B]
    OS: Windows XP SP2 or later
    Processor: 2GHz Dual Core
    Memory: 1GB RAM
    Graphics: NVIDIA Geforce 8 Series / ATI Radeon HD 2000 series VRAM 256 or later
    Hard Drive: 30GB available space
    
    [B][U]Recommended[/U][/B]
    OS: Windows Vista/7/8
    Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad (2.66 GHz) / AMD Phenom II X4 (2.8 GHz) processor 
    Memory: 1GB RAM 
    Graphics: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 460 / ATI Radeon HD 5870 
    Hard Drive: 30GB available space
Story
Cocoon – a utopia in the sky.

Its inhabitants believed their world a paradise. Under the Sanctum's rule, Cocoon had long known peace and prosperity. Nurtured by their benevolent protectors, the fal’Cie, humankind came to believe that these tranquil days would continue forever.

But the discovery of a single hostile fal’Cie changed everything.

The moment that fal'Cie from Pulse – the feared and detested lowerworld – awoke from its slumber, peace on Cocoon came to an end. Fal'Cie brand humans, transforming them into magic-wielding servants. They become l'Cie – the fal’Cie’s chosen. Those branded with the mark of the l'Cie must either do their master’s bidding or face a fate far worse than death.

A prayer for redemption...
A wish to protect the world...
A promise to challenge destiny...

After thirteen days, the intertwining fates of a chosen few will lead them to battle. A battle for the future.

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There's a paradigm system in Final Fantasy XIII that can only be used when your characters have turned l'Cie. These are combinations of roles for your characters, and each have different strategies behind them. You should become very familiar with the paradigms available to your party, as it's difficult to make it past some of the harder battles with no strategy. (Click the names below for more in-depth information about the different paradigm)
Commando (COM) / Attacker (ATK)
Description: Build attack chains more easily with enhanced strength.
Occasion: Weakening the enemy, maintaining the stagger bar.
Color:
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Ravager (RAV) / Blaster (BLA)
Description: Charge enemy chain gauges with concentrated attacks.
Occasion: Getting the stagger bar up.
Color:
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Sentinel (SEN) / Defender (DEF)
Description: Shield allies from enemy attacks with enhanced defense.
Occasion: Good for making another target while attacking the enemy.
Color:
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Saboteur (SAB) / Jammer (JAM)
Description: Enfeeble enemies while charging their chain gauges.
Occasion: Weaken the enemy with status effects.
Color:
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Synergist (SYN) / Enhancer (ENH)
Description: Support allies with an array of magical enhancements.
Occasion: Give your party an offensive, defensive or status boost.
Color:
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Medic (MED) / Healer (HLR)
Description: Focus on restoring HP and removing status ailments.
Occasion: Low health, life-threatening upcoming attack or removal of status effects.
Color:
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ATB-refresh (or ATB-cancel) is a highly valuable trick that you should start practicing as soon as you get the chance. After performing a successful refresh, your ATB-meter will charge up instantly. This means that you don't have to wait for the ATB gauge to refill every time you shift paradigms. Mastering this technique is essential for those who are interested in completing the harder challenges of the game. You can obtain refreshes if you fulfill at one of two conditions:


  • You've previously fully recharged the ATB Gauge
  • 12 seconds have passed since the last ATB Refresh
So how exactly do you perform a successful ATB-cancel? If you're lazy, you can just click here in order to see how this works in action! Or you can just keep reading...
- Turn 1: use your normally-loaded ATB gauge
- Turn 2: paradigm shift as soon as your last attack from Turn 1 ends; you'll start Turn 2 with ATB gauge fully reloaded
- Turn 3: let the ATB gauge segments recharge normally, and use them to attack
- Turn 4: paradigm shift as soon as your last attack from Turn 3 ends; you'll start Turn 5 with ATB gauge fully reloaded
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When you attack an enemy, the chain bonus gauge (CBG) in the upper-right corner of the screen will fill up. Every enemy has his own CBG, and every gauge has a threshold (or stagger point) that, once reached, will temporarily send the enemy into a extremely vulnerable status condition. Increasing the chain bonus will proportionally increase the damage dealt to an enemy, and it will also affect his resistance to status ailments. For example, if an attack deals 700 HP of damage to an enemy with a 100% chain bonus gauge, the same attack will deal 1,400 HP of damage to an enemy with a 200% chain bonus gauge. The resistance to status ailments will drop only after surpassing the stagger point.

Stabilizing and filling up the gauges
Staggering an enemy (filling up the chain bonus gauge) is always faster if you use the Ravagers (RAV -
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) attacks, but there's also a rule that you have to keep in mind: the faster you fill the CBG, the faster it will tend to deplete. Because of this, it's important to balance the roles that you use with your attacks to stabilize (that is to say, slow down the inevitable chain bonus emptying process) and fill the chain bonus gauge.

The Commando (COM -
1sMZcgc.gif
) role is particularly good to stabilize the CBG, and just a few attacks of a COM will typically be enough to stabilize the gauge for good. On the other hand, the COM role will fill up the CBG very slowly. Vice-versa, the RAV role is particularly good to fill up the CBG quickly, as we already said, but if you were to use only RAV to fill the CBG, the gauge would probably empty and go back to 100% in less than a second.

When you want to fill the gauge of an enemy therefore it's important that you use a balanced paradigm: COM/RAV/RAV is one of the best Paradigms to fill Chain Bonus gauges, because it provides both a "stabilizing" character (the COM) and two characters that will fill up the Chain Bonus gauge (the two RAV). Also keep in mind that different enemies have different "Chain Resistance" values: some Chain Gauges fill up fast, others don't.

Staggering your foe
Once you reach the threshold of the chain bonus gauge, the enemy will be staggered. Upon staggering, the CBG receives a +100% instant bonus, the chain resistance is set temporarily to zero, and most of the enemies' resistances are weakened (which means that the enemy will take more damage and often become vulnerable to status ailments).

Staggering is a fundamental process to kill most of the enemies of the game. Keep in mind that stagger time is limited though: after a set amount of seconds (which varies depending on the enemy), the stagger time will end, and the chain bonus will be set back to 100%.

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Despite its linearity, Final Fantasy XIII has a lot of content. Below, you'll find a few extremely essential tips and tricks that you'll be able to use to your advantage throughout the adventure. Newcomers of the game should read this part while players that are already familiar with it should just skim through it.

Scanning your enemies
Scanning enemies to collect their data (weaknesses and strengths) is an important part of the gameplay, especially for the "automated" part of it. Your allies and your own Auto-Battle commands base their actions on what they know about the enemy. Therefore it's always a good idea to scan enemies with Libra or a Librascope. The Librascope is a rare item which works better than Libra, and for this reason it's better if you save it for boss fights. Libra, on the contrary, is just a Technique that you can use in battle. You'll often need to use Libra twice before gathering all the info on an enemy; one Librascope will always be enough though.
Early game CP farm spot
Starving for some CP (crystarium points/experience points) early on? You'll be able to easily farm tons of CP as soon as you reach Chapter 8. Right at the clocktower in the park, you'll find a chest with five of those little robots running around it. You can beat them up for 640 cp and loop back to the prior chest area (with one of the monsters) and the group of five will respawn.

Click here for a video that demonstrates how this works!
Late game CP farm spot
Having trouble beating some of those insanely difficult optional bosses? Time to grind it up then! The best pure CP farming location is against the King Behemoth and Megisothorian that fight in the Northern Highplains of the Archylte Steppe. At lower levels, you can defeat these guys in about 1-2 minutes, and they'll yield 6,600 CP. In the end-game when you're properly levelled, you can kill them in as little as 6 seconds, and with a Growth Egg equipped, you'll be earning 13,200 CP per battle.

Click this link for a video!
Shrouds conservation
Since shrouds are very rare and valuable, it's important to save them only for special occasions (tougher boss battles and Eidolon battles). As far as Fortisol and Aegisol is concerned, there's just one way to conserve them: don't use them.

Ethersol conservation is not very important: you can always get your TP back by fighting enemies, so all in all feel free to use Ethersol whenever you need a quick refill of TP and you just don't feel like fighting the local enemies. An example can be in Mah'habara and Sulyya Springs, in Chapter 11, where several enemies are best dealt-with by using Summons.

Tizoc added plenty of tips regarding gil, material and much more! Check it out here!

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Masashi Hamauzu, one of the composers of Final Fantasy X and the composer of the Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII made the music for Final Fantasy XIII. You can click on the small images below to start hearing some of the beautiful tracks that's been tailored into the game. From left to right, you've got:


  • Prelude (2:55)
  • The Hanging Edge (3:26)
  • Lake Bresha (4:11)
  • The Sunleth Waterscape (3:46)
  • Serah's Theme (1:30)
  • The Archylte Steppe (4:25)
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This is my second "serious" take on an Official Thread, my previous one being my latest Diablo 3 thread - be gentle and feel free to criticize what you see!

See you all next time in the Final Fantasy XIII-2 PC OT!
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
EDIT: CONTEST IS OVER! CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT WHO WON!http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=132743657&postcount=526http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=132743657&postcount=526

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This is a simple contest that I felt that I needed to do. During the events of the FFXIII PC unveil, I was so god damn hyped that my initial hyperbole reaction was "I'M GOING TO DONATE THIS TO FIVE GAFERS". Of course, I knew that money is on the low side this month - but that's none of your business! Today, the only business you'll be making is (hopefully) getting a copy of FFXIII on Steam! So let's get on with it, shall we?

This contest ends exactly 24 hours after this post has been made.
3rd October
- 12 at noon EST
- 9 AM pst
- 5 PM GMT
What do you have to do in order to win a copy? If you've played FFXIII previously, jump to the second quote below. If FFXIII will be a brand new experience, just read the first quote below this sentence.
If this is your first time playing FFXIII
Send me a PM and explain 1: why you want to play this game and 2: why you didn't play this on the PS3/360.
If you have played FFXIII before
Send me a PM why you want to re-experience the game again.
And that's it folks! Remember, it does not matter how fast you send your PM. As long as you send the PM before the contest closes, you'll have just as high chance of winning as anyone else.

Good luck!

EDIT: CONTEST IS OVER! CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT WHO WON!http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=132743657&postcount=526http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=132743657&postcount=526

==============================

edit: suppadoopa has already donated this game (on 360) to another GAFer. Goddess bless him!

edit 2: Major props to Raitningz for the fanart (check out more of his brilliant art: http://kaiho-sha.tumblr.com/graphics)!

Edit 3: for those who wants to pre-order this at a cheaper price, use the code below!
GMG october 25% off Voucher: OCTOBE-R25OFF-GMGXXX

get your preorder on. Down to $10.80, price will rise after release due to the pre-order discount leaving!

edit 4: Tizoc added plenty of tips regarding gil, material and much more! Check it out here!
 
A part of me wants to say that this OT is way too nice for the game, but then that other part of me is weirdly excited to play it again.
 

Danlord

Member
I had it on PS3 but only played a couple of hours, I really hope I can get into it. Here's also hoping to a competent port with graphical options and tweaks, such as 16xAF, MSAA and the regular type of graphical sliders now I have a competent computer to play it with. I'll also want to be using a PS4 joypad so I hope it is extra convenient and has joypad support built in.

EDIT: Also great OT, Yoshichan.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?

Azuardo

Member
I'm interested to see how this ends up looking on PC.

It's a pretty game, so could look quite stunning on max settings.
 

thematic

Member
I was planning to play this on PS3 after Tales of Graces F, pre ordered for Steam instead. can't wait for October 9th!!
 

Arcadius

Banned
Fantastic thread Yoshichan, also very nice of you to gift the game.

Personally can't wait to play the game, may not be the best of the FF series, but by itself (exclude sequels) I found 13 to be very decent, played it on the PS3 and will do so again.

Let's go October 9t!
 

RyoonZ

Banned
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Amazing OT

FFXIII is the first game I played on PS3. I remember it vividly, it's the last day of final test and after it ended, we immediately went to gameshop to buy a PS3 and actually the game was borrowed from a friend. When we came back home, I don't even change the school clothes and rushing to set up the newly bought PS3, oh and we didn't have a HDTV at the time but man when everything was set up and the CG intro played, that's the feel of next-gen (I know it's CG but still). Definitely one of the game I'll remember fondly.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Praise be!

I'm a photoshop amateur, this took 20+ hours to finish. But the responses makes it 100% worth doing! Thank you all!
 

iosefe

Member
Wonderful OT, Yoshi.

y'know, i never actually knew about the ATB refresh. that will make my upcoming playthrough that much easier, i'm sure
 
Holy shit at the review quotes, good job on the OT, OP, plus I'll be getting my copy next Wednesday, looking forward to it just hoping the port is decent at least.
 

Haunted

Member
The system requirements are pretty low, which ought to mean it'll run well...
Well, it's a port of a decent-looking last gen game. Even if it's a Japanese developer, anything that didn't run perfectly fine on midrange rigs would be a botched port job.
 
I played the 360 version for several hours, wasn't all that impressed.

For some reason, I'll be giving this another shot!!

I need something to keep me busy until Beyond Earth
 

Corpekata

Banned
Will pick this up if the port is half decent. Really wanting more to play LR and -2 though, didn't play them much but enjoyed them more or less.
 
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