FFXIII-2: Post Release Discussion

[Sephiroth]

I just hoped for the best with the clocks and started planning moves when I was down to the last 5 or so. If it was unsolvable from then I'd hit restart.

I use Amodar as my COM because he's currently stronger than my Chichu due to me being too lazy to farm power materials. Plus he has a tonne of HP. I might do some farming this weekend but it's so slow only getting 1-2 per battle.

[Appie]

Simple trial and error will get you through the fixed puzzles, while the random ones usually don't go past 9 numbers.
I suppose that the difficult part about them is that they're unlike any puzzles I've seen before in a videogame so it takes a while to get accustomed to the right criteria to solve them.
Besides, I don't think that there is just one way to solve them.

Remember plenty of puzzles with 11 (think with 12 too?) numbers that were on the timer.

These clocks with 11 numbers were usually the ones where, if I didn't get it in like 4 tries (so yea, 4 new random clocks), I would just pause the game and work it out on paper in a few mins. Some clocks I would just mess around until the path became clear like Sephiroth did. Didn't want to use the site to solve it, since I actually liked these puzzles, though I did Oerba AF300 and 400 right after each other, so I was close to a clock overload after that. The one with 13 numbers at least didn't have a timer, but I think I cleared it on the first go or second.

[Spira]

I liked untimed clock puzzles most honestly. After that the crystal lines one.

[Ansems]

Clock puzzles isn't all that bad cept the ones the timer and they change after every loss. its all math
edit
I don't know what it is but I never had a problem with any of the bosses.. and most of them I did under leveled. I beat that Cieth with the flooding tail of darkness so under leveled I don't even know how I beat that sucker and as for Yomi & Raspatil I beat them in one try.. Aggression+rav sab syn is your friend.

[ArchDizzle]

Haven't finished the game yet taking my time and just finished ep.5, regarding the new dlc 2 new costumes were suppose to be available this week and Sazh episode next week but the costumes arent on PSN. Are those release dates for Europe and Japan only? If so when is NA getting them, can't find anything regarding specifically NA releases.

[shukudai]

I think they only come out on NA PSN next week, with Sazh. They're both up on the HK PSN store.

[ArchDizzle]

Ok cool thank you!

[Necronus]

I don't know what it is but I never had a problem with any of the bosses.. and most of them I did under leveled. I beat that Cieth with the flooding tail of darkness so under leveled I don't even know how I beat that sucker and as for Yomi & Raspatil I beat them in one try.. Aggression+rav sab syn is your friend.

The open endedness of this vs the original XIII has had profound effects on the gaming experiences between me and several of my friends. As far as I know, none of us actively did any kind of intentional levelling, but due to the Chapter 3 story fork and all of the optional fragments, my gameplay path allowed me to kill that Cie'th as I progressed through the story without me realizing it was hard ... this is in contrast to my one friend had to actually stay in the spotlights to avoid Behemoths.

In my case, I actually ended up in Sunleth directly after Bresha as opposed to Massif. Then due to actually using my Wild Artefacts ASAP (something I'd regret later on the Graviton Core quest) my game progression was actually Bresha 005 --> Sunleth 300 --> Archlyte (died sooo many times here) -> Bresha 300 -> Massif 110 (yes I was in 110 before 010) -> Vile Peaks 200 -> Massif 010.

Due to my, overly hard beginning and the actual backwards progression of mob difficulty, by the time me and my friend were both on the Graviton quest at the same time our stats looked like: Him: 19 hours, 37 Fragments, 1500-1700HP .... Me: 36 Hours, 71 Fragments, 3200-3500HP

Edit: I'll add that the developer decision to make Wild Artefacts .. something I originally thought purely optional ... be part of the story caused me to run around for I think 7 hours before I finally gave up and had to look up a Wild Artefact location list in the guide ... by the time I was on the Graviton Core quest, I had used SEVEN Wild Artefacts, and 3 of the cores were in the 3 locations I had not unlocked ... acutally I used 6 ... when I got a 7th I got excited I'd finally get a 5th Core and used it on the Augusus Wild gate .. which took me to .. dun dun dun ... not a Core ... seriously .. so many hours wasted, but so much unecessary power gained.

[Katlan]

I don't intentionally power level, but trying to catch some mobs has made me super OP. in ch3 i alrdy have max atm guage and max accessories and full atb weapon skills lol

[Tyrath]

I did the 100 pre-emptives in a row trophy really early (Oerba) and I seem to be overpowered since then. I was trying to catch the armadillo thing there but no luck

[Katlan]

ugh.. 100 in a row? thats gonna suck >.> can you do pre-emptive > retry?

[Appie]

Dunno, if retry helps, but can just save every 10 pre-emps and reload if you fail? I did it when I already had 20 pre-emps in a row to my name while farming pet materials in the Steppe zone, figured I might as well do the rest too. Getting pre-emps on mobs around the lake was stupid easy and I got to max some pets.

[Raldo]

The open endedness of this vs the original XIII has had profound effects on the gaming experiences between me and several of my friends.

Wow, different gaming experiences indeed. I took a route similar to yours (Sunleth + Archlyte before Massif) with some different usage of Wild Artefacts, but by the time they asked for Graviton Cores, I was like "Ohhhhh so THAT's what they're for! Shit, Hope, I already got 4 of these damn things!" (I wasn't using a guide). Walked up to the desk to find out where more were... turns out I missed the one in the starter zone. Zippity zip boom bam bop and I was done with that with no difficulty at all.

[Tyrath]

ugh.. 100 in a row? thats gonna suck >.> can you do pre-emptive > retry?

I'm not sure but I think saving and resetting my work because i got my trophy before my count hit 100. I think it was because I had had some from my previous playing time.

I'd recommend doing it in a place with passive enemies like oerba 200 though. I was able to do it without a single mistake there because enemies never attacked me.

[Ratatapa]

What i did is wait for the 160 frags and got the clock Fragment skills to speed the game up

Went to Oerba 200 and did them

Each 25 cons strike i saved in case i failed

[Bregor]

Just beat Raspatil for the first time today, really annoying that you need a SYN since Noel/Serah can't learn Faith. Also no Haste, or Slow for SAB is pretty awful.

[Ansems]

While I searched every corner before continuing the main story; my bf just kept with the story line and by the time we both were at the graviton quest I had all of mine and he had 0 lol so yeah different gaming experience.

as for the 100 pre-emptive trophy I turned on the stronger monster frag skill and I headed to bresha ruins and farmed don tonberry for gil and the trophy also purple choco. Light and Chichu had gil collector II, I would get 9000 gil a pop plus w.e he dropped was 40k gil, I was rolling in doe.
edit
I luckily didnt fail when I started but lol saving would have been a great idea...

[Katlan]

yeah i really dont like that both noel and serah are terrible syn/sab's.. its really stupid

[Rokku]

I'd recommend doing it in a place with passive enemies like oerba 200 though. I was able to do it without a single mistake there because enemies never attacked me.

Seconding this. The marshes in the Steppe during rainy weather are good too, everything that spawns there is passive, although it can spawn a little far out from you sometimes.

[Ansems]

yeah i really dont like that both noel and serah are terrible syn/sab's.. its really stupid

meh I think it was a smart move to make haste hard to obtain.