How Do You Know You've Finished?

[davfra]

I've never played on before after beating orphan two. This time I did. Before leaving, I went back and all the Bosses were still there (Barthandus and orphan x 2).
The only indication that I had finished was the fact that the crystarium had expanded.
I got the big exit scene and title rolls, but the bosses were still there.
Is this lazy progaming or did I do something wrong?

[Andromeda]

No, that's pretty standard for RPGs. When you beat a RPG you typically don't get a save after you win and even if you do the final boss will usually still be there for you to fight. This is just way RPGs are. It also gives you the chance to watch the ending scenes whenever you want. But more importantly there is a trophy that is linked with the final form of the final boss and it'd be a little rude for them to make it a one shot chance requiring you to replay the game or go back to an old save to attempt it again.

Also there is a mountain of post-game content for you. With the crystarium's last stage unlocked you can max out your characters and go around doing the missions and fighting all of the monsters that were far to powerful before. So now you just need to go back to Gran Pulse and do the post-game content.

[davfra]

Thanks for that. It just seemed a bit of an anti climax!
I have had a wander round after the finish, but I think I'd prefer to go around again from the start.

[che]

Thanks for that. It just seemed a bit of an anti climax!
I have had a wander round after the finish, but I think I'd prefer to go around again from the start.

Basically if you'd rather not sit and spam Death with Vanille for 50 hours to unlock the final weapons that you don't even need to complete all the content, then just replay it instead of doing the extra stuff.

[Andromeda]

That's not exactly how things always are and it is only if you choose to take that strategy over other ones. Death is certainly a viable answer to dealing with the powerful monsters and one that I used a couple of times to beat the Ochu types. But there comes a point in the game that even without the ultimate weapons and not being fully maxed out in the Crystarium that you can take down any of the enemies without having to use Death or Summons to win the fight.

I know that I've beaten every monster in the game without a single Ultimate Weapon because I was waiting to collect my Traps to know if I was going to need to break a weapon or just make six on my own. So it is entirely possible to win.

But in the end it is up to the individual if they want to do the post-game content. The only enjoyment you'll get out of it is knowing that you've 100% the game.

[Merlin]

Heh, I have the opposite problem. I almost have the crystarium maxed out on each character and 7 traps. I don't even have enough money to make the stupid weapons... but I got the traps. /sigh. I blame that on leveling in the final dungeon before I beat the story. I capped my CP so I could make a huge dent in the final level.

I tried to death technique a couple of times, but I find it rather boring. Right now I am farming Adamantortises or whatever in Eden with Sazh, Vanille, and Lightning. One of Sazh's weapons is freaking insane. Cold Blood + Blitz destroys those giants pretty nicely. I'm going to work on getting Fang's ultimate weapon so I can do Highwind for obscene damage on them. ^_^

[che]

That's not exactly how things always are and it is only if you choose to take that strategy over other ones. Death is certainly a viable answer to dealing with the powerful monsters and one that I used a couple of times to beat the Ochu types. But there comes a point in the game that even without the ultimate weapons and not being fully maxed out in the Crystarium that you can take down any of the enemies without having to use Death or Summons to win the fight.

Actually, it's the best way. If you want to get traps/money you have to kill Adamantoise. Sure, you can eventually beat them without Death by maxing out the crystarium but you'd have to grind countless dungeons that you've already played over and over again, and you wouldn't be getting Traps along the way. Spamming Death method insures that you have a chance at getting Traps along with CP. So the most viable method is the most boring.

But in the end it is up to the individual if they want to do the post-game content. The only enjoyment you'll get out of it is knowing that you've 100% the game.

Quite true. I was just giving a rather blunt reality to davfra on what he would be missing out.

@ Merlin: I went the Highwind method. Highwind takes out the legs to make it fall and Fang does insane damage as COM as it is. However, after I had stopped playing FFXIII I had heard of the Sazh method and it sounded cool.

[Andromeda]

True, if you want to immediately start killing Adamantoise right after the final boss. Though if you start that early there's the chance that you can end up dead before death succeeds since death can be highly unreliable. That was why after fighting Neochu that I decided I wasn't going to do the death strategy. Like you said it's very boring casting death and hoping it dies.

I probably did waste some time leveling up the Crystarium, but in the end it was less boring. ^^

And Merlin, I was definitely in the same boat as you. I realized after a while that I was not going to get enough money before I got the traps. The annoyingly ironic thing is that I got like 4 traps in 8 kills. After spending hours trying for only a few.

[Merlin]

It really depends on how much you leveled before you beat the game. If you capped the Crystarium, it's hardly necessary to use Death. Plus for some reason I had over 2 million in gil from just doing the storyline and nothing else. That was enough to upgrade Sazh, Vanille, and Lightning's weapons to max second level and a number of accessories. The Sazh + Summon technique takes me about 2:25 on average to kill a Adamantoise. I have no idea if that is good or bad, but that's how long it takes me. I saw several videos from people who made these strats doing it with no summon for around 2:30 so I figure I am not doing too bad.

Death is only fast if it works. If it doesn't then you have to try again. Seems like that would eat up more time than just outright killing them. Dunno. I know one thing for certain, when I play through the game again I'm going to go ahead and start upgrading weapons earlier. I didn't even touch that stuff until after I beat the storyline. I soon realized I could have had 3 weapons at level 2 and capped. It would've made my Jabberwocky/Bandersnatch farming even faster. Those were fun to kill.

[Andromeda]

Definitely the 2:30 minute mark is about the time you want to shoot for when you're fighting the Adamantoise. I can't recall what my times were when I had 3 Ultimate Weapons and was farming for my last million to get the final upgrades I needed for the weapon and accessory trophy, but I'd say that 2 minutes is probably about where I was.

The summoning method is definitely a lot more reliable early post-game than death, at least from my experience. Summoning will knock out those legs and then you just get to focus on the main body. It also ends up depending on which Adamantoise you fight since there are two types with the only difference being how much HP they have.

It was annoying having 10 traps and not enough money. For costing 2 million in the shop you'd think they'd be worth more than 10k a piece for selling.

[Merlin]

I know right? That really is dirty. I took off the rare drop boost so I'll have a better chance of getting regular drops. I'd rather get nothing then get a trap and miss out on a platinum ingot, imho. Now if you could get a rare AND a regular drop on a kill I'd leave it on. I still want to get some shoes and gaia rings before I mess with dropping the summon. At least Sazh's summon is a lot less annoying than Vanille's. I swear it sounds like she's having an orgasm at the end. You'd think that would be awesome, but in her case it totally isn't.

[Andromeda]

Yeah I think a lot of the internet says that about Vanille, even when she's casting magic it sounds like she's moaning for no explainable good reason. I actually haven't seen her summon until I watched it on youtube, because someone had said that. And I had understand what they were talking about because that seemed almost too unlikely to be happening, but they were right. >.>

I have a thing for Bahamut so I like to summon him, though I do also like to summon Odin as well, but I just like Lightning. There are certain advantages to using Lightning or Fang. Lightning has Army of One, which is good for boosting and Fang has Highwind good for taking out the legs really quick. The fun thing to do with Lightning's Army of One though is to start out with Army of One (on ravager, because you have to) then make the switch over to all Commandos and you get the boost properties of Ravager and Army of One with the damage properties of Commando with it being like 8 or 9 attacks. It is a fun two for one deal with Lightning, it's not as potent as a 999,999 Highwind, but it'll kill legs just as easily since you only need about 400,000 damage.

But I know what you mean about Plats versus Traps. I was at like 4 traps when I changed from the increase Rare drops to increase common drops because I knew that I was going to need more money and I would have gotten my traps before I had the money to make use of them. But how annoying it is have common drops increased and still getting 4 traps in 8 kills. I mean really? What sort of cheap randomized is that? I knew at that point the game was mocking me since it knew I only needed like a million gil to go before I could start upgrading.