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Sounds like someone's in love~ <<b

FFXIII beat @ 41h30m (42:26 after Final Boss, Ending, Credit Roll, and letting it sit there for like 20 minutes before I saved). Still need to 100% it though but that time was with pretty much no stopping to grind/farm outside of maybe two hours total (half of which was probably figuring out respawn tricks). Biggest waste of time (like, 2-3 hours) was probably unlocking fucking Chocobos in Chapter 11 to save myself like 80,000 Gil for an Accessory Upgrade. When I had ~700k >>.

Final Boss wasn't so bad but ... I missed the 5-star time because he invulned with _5_ HP left. 5. Seriously? >>

[spoiler]Moral of the story: Yay togetherness. Yay hope. Yay "why did Vanille and Fang get some screen time at the end oh ... that's why." Yay "I thought ... killing Orphan ... was what we weren't supposed to do?"

Also, at My Hands starting at the ending.

Also, Fang x Vanille. So hard. So, so, so fucking hard.

Hope grew to be a far better "kid" character than expected. I liked Vanille start to finish but I'll say that Fang was a little bland-tough-girl at times (and I guess Lightning too) but the voice work was quite good and they had their interesting/awesome moments. Probably doesn't help Fang's case that she comes like halfway through the game and I didn't use her until near the end when Army of One made Lightning fucking awesome as a Ravager and I needed a new Commando.

Sazh, unfortunately, got benched; Fang/Lightning are a better COM/RAV set-up and Vanille is an amazing SAB and good MED/RAV. Hope is probably better overall but I preferred Vanille. Sazh was nice for Haste but others get it too so ... sorry, the afro is awesome but not awesome enough I'm afraid.

"Linearity" didn't feel too bad if only for the fact ... it's not really any more linear than most traditional RPGs anyway. Except no world map to hide the linearity from you I suppose.

No towns ... well, I find them non-essential anyway since I don't stand around talking to NPCs and bullshitting around so them not being around was minor at best; really, it makes more sense to not have them for the sake of the plot (Pulse l'Cie chilling in a Cocoon town makes like no sense) than anything.

Crystarium Grid is stupid easy to follow after the initial "oh, shit, that's big" goes by. Only main gripe is more with the game itself than the grid but the game should let me disable skills I NEVER WANT TO SEE IN COMBAT. I'm tired of having to sit in a bullshit buff/debuff Paradigm waiting forever to get Haste/Bravery/Faith up since they'd rather go through Shell, Protect, Veil, Vigilance, and sometimes the fucking Resists/Weapon Enchants. God.

Weapon Upgrade system is hardly tedious, annoying, or anything of the sort from some reviews I remember. Dump X Creature Items to build EXP Multiplier, Dump Y Mechanical Items for massive EXP. Profit. I have yet to find any Weapon that goes from Basic/Stage 1 -> Stage 2 and loses a significant amount of stats and, really, if you're affording that upgrade (~60,000 Gil possibly, maybe less maybe more) then who cares about the like 10-20 STR/MAG lost for the additional 40 levels of growth and/or Improved Passive Ability.

Though, I will admit there's very few weapons (8 basic, 8 stage 2, 1 or 8 Ultimates depending on how you look at it) and there's little reason to upgrade anything until like Chapter 11 if only for the sake of lack of Gil/lack of good items to buy to fuel into items. Yes, 17-24 Weapons per character is relatively a lot but ... 8 of them are the Basic ones you can find and half of which suck; the Stage 2 ones are just better Stat versions of those and the Ultimate is a better stat version of that with +ATB Bar and different Item "tier"* than the rest. So, really, it's 8 Weapons and than 16 that are improves versions of those 8 and you'll probably only even consider 3-4 of those base 8 anyway (high ATK, high MAG, high both, awesome Passive).

*By this I refer to, say, equipping Weapon X and Accessory Y gives you a Passive Bonus Z that neither of them have (like, Random Chain); that's based off the Weapon type and the Ultimate is in a different category than the base/stage 2 one.[/spoiler]

so without spoilers was it good

I glanced into it and only saw "FANG X VANILLE" to which I applaud

I'll just be as blunt as possible VANILLE is SOMEwhat adorable emphasis on "SOME" but this is my opinion and since her voice in English is awful my general opinion of her having a love interest drops astoundingly <.< aside from that the game is a "meh" expierence for me not that i don't like it but it seems rather easy although to be fair i,ve only made it 2 hours in so... play it for yourself before letting my text sway your opinion, not that it will XD

The first two hours is before you even have Paradigm Shifts ... or for that matter, even seen the entire cast together. I'd have to say XIII is easily the hardest of the numbered FFs (which isn't saying much, mind you).

I liked Vanille's English VA though I find it sad that was her attempt at _not_ speaking with an accent. Really? Damn. She grows on you, I'd say, though I went in expecting the worst and she's far from god awful.

[spoiler]Georgia Van Cuylenberg is also rather hot herself, which is weird for VAs.[/spoiler]

Edit: Oh, and noodles, I quite liked FFXIII as a whole. The story isn't terrible but I've learned I'm easy to interest so ... yeah. Combat system is fun and unless you grind/upgrade early, the fights have you think and pay attention due to the pacing of them; personally, I don't mind that the later fights/post-game fights have multiple millions of HP but some might.

Character development is overall good, though the villains side is a bit lacking.

[spoiler]Seriously uh ... Rosch is probably given the most screen time (since Jihl dies like two cutscenes after her introduction) and he only meets with the party like three times. One of which is to die.

The only other recurring villain is Barthandalus and I don't really think he counts since you never learn much about him except that he's a bastard. Then again, he's a fal'Cie so I wager he doesn't really have a social life or anything going for him; he just kind of plots the rebirth of the world.

On the character side of things, Hope imo has the weakest "backstory" if only for the fact that the majority of stuff surrounding him is Nora's death ... which takes place during the game. He gets a lot of attention and has some of the most character growth in the entire game but just not much backstory. Then again, it's hard to have compelling backstory as a 15 year old kid I wager.

Fang is also rather weak as far as backstory if only for the fact that hers is the same as Vanille up to their separation; after that, Fang was with Cavalry and ... well, that's all you know. Just a little "weak" that her backstory is pretty much "See Vanille."[/spoiler]

Personally, the game looks (and sounds) amazing and the combat is fun and entertaining; the story and characters are interesting enough and I fail to see the "omg wtf is going on" reaction to the story. They don't keep you in the dark on things; you either missed something (in which case the datalog will fill you in) or you're not supposed to know yet (in which case you'll know by the end of the chapter at the latest).

Edit: Oh and My Hands isn't played until the Ending so at least I don't have to listen to it whenever I start the game up. I also can't believe they put lyrics to the Chocobo track. No spoilers, just size.

[spoiler]It's not a _bad_ sounding song but ... what the fuck does this have to do with XIII? It's a fucking breakup song. The driving force of the game is Snow x Serah ... how is the theme for the game a fucking _break up_ song?

At least the one for the Japanese version was about, I dunno, Snow x Serah (or even any of the cast for some parts). I'm pretty sure it sounds just as bad to listen to but at least it's more game plot relevant.

Though, in defense of the Leona Lewis song, you can overlook/reinterpret some of the lines and make it out as a "I miss you" kind of song which fits Snow x Serah a lot better.

As for the Chocobo track ... it just sort of had a "wait, what the fuck just happened?" reaction.

Really, the only vocal track I <3'd was Serah's Theme.

My Hands:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDdioLxKnjQ[/youtube]

Cocoon de Chocobo:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brEgqsq9o0k[/youtube]

Serah's Theme:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlFb-rsw3EI&[/youtube]
[/spoiler]

Last night I stayed up until 5:10 (@_@) playing Atelier Annie (DS) for the second time.
It's fun to gather items and synthesize things and help people with quests and so on, but everything action you take costs several days of game time. And because there is limited time (3 years), it's very hard to do everything you want. Fortunately, there's a New Game + option.
The first game took me a few days, the second only slightly more than one day because of this boost. I haven't completed the enemy and item lists though, and got the same ending as the first time despite doing much better at building up the resorts Maybe the ending is determined more by the character events you have seen, but I haven't really figured out how to trigger those.

I didn't feel like playing a third game in a row, so I switched to Phantasy Star Portable (PSP).
Creating my character was fun. There's so much to tweak I wish I could show a picture of her.
The first mission was very easy to help you become familiar with the controls. I feel a little overwhelmed by all the stats of the weapons though. And of course there is the matter of controlling both my character and the camera. I constantly need to switch from the analog stick to the D-pad and back so I can both see where I'm going and attack. And that's with just the sword-type weapon. I haven't even figured out yet how to aim the gun-type weapons.
I'm tempted to set the camera to first-person so I don't have to do that, but then wouldn't be able to see the nice character I created anymore Good thing I had two other characters assist me in the first mission or I might've died already. Ah well, it's late now (considering how short last night was), so maybe I'll do better tomorrow.

A part of me just died inside.

If this is some kind of elaborate joke (April 1st, haha) I'm going to be really pissed.


NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!


T-T

:C

what about PRIVATE SERVERS

Ouch. That's never fun.