Game Progress (No Spoilers)

[Furore]

GRAN PULSE COOL PEOPLES!
Just did a couple quests for Cie'th and admired the open world for a while.
The game's finally challenging now too with a monster that could kill my entire party with a couple footsteps. A CHALLENGE!

Details on my party/weapons/whatever which may contain spoilers:

Spoiler: My weapons and equipment are pretty basic, though I do carry a ton of accessories around for making my characters win against different foes that little bit faster. The only weapon I've transformed so far is Lightning's Gladius into Helter Skelter. Don't seem to have all the rocks for upgrading other equipment... At this point I've taken to having Fang as my party leader as Bahamut is a total beast. Snow's also handy for his sentinal role coupled with large health and ravager for ending most battles quick and then usually either Vanille or Hope for their superior healing abilities. At this point potions seem terrible and I haven't come across anything better, so a healer is a must for most longer battles.

[Sean]

So I just started the chapter in which you rescue some people from an airship (not specifying further for spoiler purposes)

I spent some time messing around with weapons, I've spent every CP I possibly can and have skipped a grand total of MAYBE 10 fights, currently my 3 in my group are all up to their current final tier (which is costing 1K each)

I messed around with a sword I found for Lightning that gives ATB time back for using the attack command, spent A LOT of gil on buying things to upgrade it to level 10 and it still didn't come close to being as good as her 2nd weapon that's upgraded to level 6. I reloaded my save and just upgraded the 2nd weapon with stuff I had sitting around, and sold a bunch of older weapons.

[DragonHeart]

I'm really hoping the boss I'm facing right now is the final one. I'm pretty sure it is but you just never know. Either way, it is tough. Killed me once already. >.< But I think I'm figuring out how to work this battle. As long as it doesn't Doom me I should win this time. If not, well, I know what to do for the next attempt.

~DragonHeart~

ETA: And...The End. Wow. Just...wow.

[Josh_R]

I have just arrived on Gran Pulse. I am a little pissed cause I haven't been able to put in the kind of gameplay that I want to..

[Fate]

Meh, didn't get much playing time done yesterday, but I'm at part in Chapter 10 where you go off against

Mehbee:

Cid Raines, that dude; who would have guessed Cid would fight against you two games in a row?

Anyway, I died like twice, I think, and then I went to sleep. Haven't played today yet. =3

[Unknown Entity]

I've just escaped from Palamecia, at thirty and a half hours in. It took my two tries to defeat Barthandelus... that was difficult and lengthy. I swapped around a few Paradigms after the first try, and those seemed to do the trick. ^^

I did some major grinding in Chapter Nine. I made enough to complete everyone's Roles in the Crystarium (Level 3), and still had enough to complete the new attributes at the start of Chapter Ten (Stage 7).

I accumulated a lot of Gil, so I bought some components from the store, and now have 123,730Gil left over.

My Players Stats are thus so far::

Lightening.
Strength: 356
Magic: 291
HP: 1720

Equipped with:
Gladious Lv. 12

Snow.
Strength: 268
Magic: 126
HP: 1890

Equipped with:
Power Circle Lv. 10

Vanille.
Strength: 206
Magic: 240
HP: 1265

Equipped with:
Binding Rod Lv. 10

Hope
Strength: 192
Magic: 205
HP: 1135

Equipped with:
Airwing Lv. 12

Sazh
Strength: 193
Magic: 167
HP: 1615

Equipped with:
Procyons Lv. 10

Fang
Strength: 256
Magic: 167
HP: 1300

Equipped with:
Bladed Lance Lv. 12

So can't wait to get to Gran Pulse now...

[Andromeda]

With the game beat I have been running around a taking care of missions on Gran Pulse as well as grinding through CP for the Crystarium. I have two roles completed now with a third almost completed, only need another 500,000 CP to finish it out. Which is will leave me with the remaining three extra roles to complete.

I finally decided to upgrade the Gladius that Lightning had until it was maxed out and transformed it and now it is Helter Skelter lv 25 I think with something like 250 str and 100 magic. It is pretty nice, but it still have a long way to go.

I finally managed to defeat the Gigantaur with Bahamut's Megaflame for 400,000 damage. It was most satisfying to see and afterward I spent a long time casting death on Neochu until I finally go the Growth Egg for double CP from battles. Afterward, I grinded a million CP worth of monsters and called it a night.

I think I have something like 50 missions completed now. I've still got to complete the Titan trials though, which hold a lot of missions. I've only beat it twice so far and I need to beat it six times for a seventh run. Only have 9 trophies left to unlock until I get the Platinum. FFXIII may be my first platinum, which I think is a little fitting that is for me.

[Ralz]

In Chapter 8 now. I seem to be moving at a slug's pace compared to everyone else... >_>

Found a nice spot to grind CP and gil in Hope's house. Bascially, the soldiers respawn infinitely if you run in circles around the room. Those Incentive Chips sell for 2500 gil each, and until now, I never really sold anything, just used it to upgrade my sword. With those, I can buy more crap from Lenora's Garage, and now Lightning's Blazefire Saber is max level. I wanted to do more, but by the time I got to that point, I was exhausted. Before finishing up the chapter, I had around 18000+ CP for Lightning, Fang, and Hope. The boss of that chapter was annoying... but I managed.

As for Chapter 8, looks like I've got some more CP grinding to do. The 30000 CP Sazh and Vanille had in reserve only completed the Ravager and half of the Synergist/Sabotuer roles for them. I hope this becomes easier. And, I need to get more gil... SOMEHOW. I'll need to find another place where I can run in circles and spawn more enemies, get items which sell for a lot of gil, use the gil to get stuff from Lenora's, upgrade weapons and such, get CP, and repeat until I'm tired, or satisfied.

The game's going to get worse from here, I can tell. Those annoying rider enemies in Snow's part of Chapter 7 were damn tough with that Gattling Gun. o_O

[DragonHeart]

I have no social life so it gives me plenty of free time for gaming.

I'm at more or less the same stage Andro is right now. Everyone's mastered 2 roles and working on their third. I got my growth egg this morning so I've mostly been grinding CP. I've started Titan's Trials, finished one so far. Think I might start attempting some of the A rank hunts soon, been wimping out and sticking to B and lower heh. Mostly cause I did try one and got wiped in seconds. But, that was when my team was much weaker, so we'll see. Depends on how fast I get bored of grinding. XD

ETA: Now everyone's mastered their third roles and...holy crap that's a lot of CP. x-x It's going to take quite awhile to max this thing out. I've done 52 of the 64 Cei'th hunts but of course, all the easy ones are pretty much behind me now.

ETA2: Genji Glove is mine! I'm farming Adamantortoises right now for Platinum Ingots and the Trapezohedrons for weapon upgrades.

~DragonHeart~

[Yang's bald head]

Just took out Shiva, took 4 attemps because I forgot to press X...

[Rydia Lover]

my progress has been put on hold due to the release of pokemon soulsilver!

[Fate]

I'm going...steadily. x3 Now I'm finally in Gran Pulse, at the part with the tower. But...I can't seem to get to the tower, because there's a stupid bird that likes to chase me and initiate a fight, where it cheaply kills off Hope with its attacks. >.< This is what I get for controlling the character with the lowest HP, but I can't help it. I hate that stupid bird. >.>

For some reason, Fang isn't doing her job as a Sentinel for me very well and fails at provoking the bird away from Hope. <.<

[kupo]

im only in chapter 3 where fang makes her first appearance. i had my first "death" of the game when i had to get shiva (ran out of time). but did it the 2nd time.

[Dodie16]

^ I died soo many times on my first play of the game. I even died during one of the battles when there was a tutorial explanation!

I'm in the Fifth Ark place. There's some bird creatures in there that I'm really trying to avoid, especially if there's two of them, because if I'm not careful, they wipe out my party. Fifth Ark seems like an alright place to get my Chyrstarium levels up, as it should, considering what was said about it.

[Jonathanx221]

I just beat the game last night, I'm about to max out my characters. I found a great CP farming spot, I know of two, if anyone wants to know what they are just ask. Oh, and this game has the best ending ever. Look up my trophies if you wanna compare or anything. PSN - Jonathanx221

[Ralz]

Getting through Chapter Nine, now.

After spending about 3-4 hours training on PSICOM grunts to wind up with 100000 CP for everyone, and massively upgraded weapons... (Helter-skelter LV 26 for Lightning, Bladed Lance * for Fang and some boomerang I forgot the name of LV 22 for Hope)

Well, I'll be set until the Crystarium expands again. As expected, I filled Sazh's and Vanille's grids no problem, they are finished for this chapter, everyone is, actually. Surprisingly, everyone still has 100000+ CP left over... Ohohohoho.

Anyway, getting close to the end, I think, time to take down the Dysley guy. And...

OH MY GOD

I can finally change party members? I'm in shock. Can't change my leader, but finally I can do something with that vegetable, Snow. D8<

I'll see what else happens on my apparently long journey.

[Walter Sobchak]

Like others, I have beaten the game. I have been dominating C and B level marks, stalling for when I have to fight the challenging ones. I figure by then I will have upgraded my equipment and leveled up enough in the Crystarium to have a fighting change.

I must say, though, it seems like this game is short on sidequests, judging by what is in the strategy guide. Although, I am interested to find out what that enormous pink and black guy in the steppe is, though.

[DragonHeart]

Fate - start with Fang as a Commando so she'll run up to the bird at the start of the battle, then change her to Sentinel after she attacks it. She should stay in front of it and not drift back too far toward your other characters. While character positioning is awkward to do, it's not impossible. Hope is one of the characters who doesn't really move around though so you have to move everyone else around him. >_>;

Those birds have a nasty AoE too though which could be part of the problem.

As for my progress, I really don't have much left. I've got 4-5 Cei'th hunts left and after that it's mainly finishing out the Crystarium and upgrading everything. Judging by the crap drop rate for Trapezohedrons I'll have the Crystarium done long before the upgrades.

~DragonHeart~

[Tiffany]

I'm at the end part (I think?) of Chapter 9. Haven't been playing as I got frustrated with the boss fight and needed a break. I might try and do some grinding, I think that's my problem.

[Josh_R]

I was stuck for quite some time at Vanille's Eidolen. But thanks to Che I was able to beat the piss out of him. Now I m stuck at the tower in Gran Pulse. I have to do some missions for a couple talking statues. I am stuck at one where it says I have to kill one of the Boxed Pharnyx, only it is super charged.

[Ralz]

Ugh, finally beat that asshat Barth-whatever in Chapter 9. I finally caved and read an FAQ, and figured out HOW I was getting so raped. I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner.

That extra 100000 CP payed off, and for some reason, the costs went from 1000 to 740... Um... thanks?

Anyway, now things are getting interesting in terms of story. Reminds me of FFX, a bit. Starting Chapter 10 now, so I'll update as soon as I no doubt get to the nigh impossible-to-figure-out boss for this chapter.

EDIT: Oh, sweet buttery jesus! The Crysatrium's insane all of a sudden! 3000 CP for a lame HP + 10!? o_O What happened, anyway? Everyones going along on their nice 500-1000 CP paths, and suddenly ALL paths of the new roles are 3000 CP right from the start. And it keeps increasing... In order to max out every grid for this chapter... I'd need hundreds of thousands of CP... O_o Uh... anyone know a good CP grinding spot for Chapter Ten? Of course, I might just bypass these extra roles for now and come back to them when I have sufficient CP. But, damn...

[Jonathanx221]

Ugh, finally beat that asshat Barth-whatever in Chapter 9. I finally caved and read an FAQ, and figured out HOW I was getting so raped. I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner.

That extra 100000 CP payed off, and for some reason, the costs went from 1000 to 740... Um... thanks?

Anyway, now things are getting interesting in terms of story. Reminds me of FFX, a bit. Starting Chapter 10 now, so I'll update as soon as I no doubt get to the nigh impossible-to-figure-out boss for this chapter.

The cutscene after chapter 11 is the most amazing cutscene, I would save before it, it's right at the beginning of chapter 12, and I would make another save just for it if I were you, I didn't know about it before or I would have. It's awesome, it'll blow you away.

[Arch]

The cutscene after chapter 11 is the most amazing cutscene, I would save before it, it's right at the beginning of chapter 12, and I would make another save just for it if I were you, I didn't know about it before or I would have. It's awesome, it'll blow you away.

I love the cutscene after Chapter 11! After i saw that, it blew my mind, But i agree Batholomew or whatever the hell his name is, was a bitch to beat, it took me 3 tries. Right now im just roaming around gran pulse(with some tough ass monsters roaming around!, but this is finally the part where it calms down a little bit.) trying to level up my Crystarium, which by the way is ridiculously expensive! wtf?! but i suppose they had to make things a little bit more tough.

I love this game so far. I love the story (a little confusing at first but i think i got it now).

The characters for the most part i like them all. Hope was a little annoying at first, and im kinda disappointed that Sazh isn't as funny as i thought he was going to be, Vanille wasnt as annoying as i thought she was going to be which im happy about (i usually hate all the upbeat girls of FF ex yuffie rikku etc., but Vanille is upbeat for her team and dark and regretful inside, i like that she isnt all f*ucking Sunshine and F*cking rainbows)

Eidolons
oooooooooooo how i love how they incorporated them in the story, just got alexander and hes pretty bad ass, him and bahamut and shiva and odin....damn i was going to say they were all my favorites but that all i pretty much have, oh and there is sazh's eidolon , i dont like it and i dont now how to pronounce or spell his/her name.

The missions seem to be a little weird for me but ive been doing them.

[DragonHeart]

Wait until chapter 11 to grind, there are some very nice spots for CP that don't require a lot of preparation.

Getting ever closer to filling out the Crystarium, I'm not actively grinding CP right now though. I've got two goals for the moment, doing the last three Cei'th missions and going back to 5-star the ones I've already done. Which I'm doing at any given time depends on how annoyed I am with those last 3 hunts. XD

After I do all the missions I'll probably do a ton of farming for the Trapezohedrons. I have one, just don't know which weapon I want to use it on yet. XD I suppose I could always do all of them but the sheer amount of time and gil involved...x_x.

I'll definitely do one of Fang's weapons first, can't wait to see what kind of damage she'll do. She regularly does 100k+ now, with only a second tier weapon.

ETA: Another hunt down, two to go! I did the one I dreaded the most first, took some finessing since I didn't have optimal equipment but I managed it. Too bad I'll have to do it again if I want to 5-star. But I won't come back to that one until after I pick up ultimate weapons. Plus now I have a Genji Glove for Lightning as well as Fang. Nice.

~DragonHeart~

[Arch]

Chp 11 im lovin right now.

Just doin some grindin, bustin some monster ass and exploring new places, i cant seem to beat the Behemoth Kings yet because i hate when they are about to die and they heal, usually around there is where i die, i can get pretty close to beating one if i use a Eidolon though. i was also wondering how long i should grind here, i mean im trying to do some missions and trying to find new places , but the monsters are getting kind of tough to find.

[Ralz]

Now in Chapter 11, and Gran Pulse is amazing!

Finally, some decent CP amounts from battles. I also beat Alexander, he was pretty easy as I got him on my first try. Huzzah!

And now there's the Cieth missions to take on. I'll see how hard they are, but first I should do some leveling. Now that the grid is on Stage 8, I've got like 3000 nodes to deal with on my main roles before even bothering with the extra roles. (I might just ignore those until the end of the game, as I can handle myself with what I've got.)

Oh well, back to the ol' grind, as they say.

[Djinn]

Finished the story now, there's some badass cutscenes in chp.11 through to 13. Loved the end aswell, probably one of my favourite FF's so far.

Just started grinding a bit of cash and CP in the tower, got around 350k CP and around the same gil in about 30 minutes with the egg (fun fight to get that thing >.<). I get bored grinding though, so went exploring for a bit on a chocobo, ended up fighting one of those massive elephantrhinoceratops, as you can imagine it didn't turn out well... fun though .

I kinda want to fight that massive titan looking thing thats wandering around =X

Got a few weapon upgrades, decided to upgrade the taming pole since stagger lock on commando's doesn't really matter and it has some nice boosts. Upgraded Lionheart to Ultima Weapon aswell, and set up some accessories on Fang and Lightning to get the First Strike synth ability... pretty nice when you have that and instant stagger on characters, makes for some quick fights against really big things XD

[Tiffany]

Just took on Cid. Was doing really well and had about 3/4 of his health gone when I got too cocky and he wiped me out.

Will go at 'er again tomorrow when the kiddo is napping!

[Yang's bald head]

Fighting that boss at the end of chapter 9... I kill the 4 head things and the main body 1 hit kills my party! FFS! I have not had much problem up until now.

[Tiffany]

I feel your pain. I got through the faces fine but Destrudo totally wiped my party out. Just ask DH, it took me quite a few tries to finally nail it.