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Chaltab posted:Question: is the high-level content completable after you finish the story, or do you have to load a save before story completion and level up from there? You can't save past the zone of no return, and even then all the "post-game" content unlocks before beating the game.
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May 22, 2012 17:42
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Right, but I don't I don't want to have to regain all the Affinity and XP from the endgame fights again to tackle the high level content.
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May 22, 2012 18:10
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Chaltab posted:Right, but I don't I don't want to have to regain all the Affinity and XP from the endgame fights again to tackle the high level content. Honestly, it's pretty negligible. You can probably equal that from fighting like, five lvl 80+ monsters.
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May 22, 2012 18:15
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Just picked up one of the only copies from the local Gamestop, looking forward to seeing how well this matches the hype! 
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May 22, 2012 18:40
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I just got seven and while I started to expect it might be him, I gotta say he was handled far better than I would've expected and handles well in combat to boot. Game continues to impress.
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May 22, 2012 18:56
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I'm now partway through Agniratha, or whatever it's called. I cleaned up all the uniques mentioned in the previous areas. A lot of them turned out to have Spike. Shulk's Purge really didn't seem to last all that long, so parts of the fights were annoying. I got the arrival plot dump, and it wasn't terribly surprising, I was kinda expecting something like that. But the reactions of the party really worked. The sight of the deserted, empty city spoke for itself, really. I seem to be at just the right level at 67-68, as everything engages me on sight. I'm running a Seven-Dunban-Melia team right now, but I'm definitely thinking of swapping Sharla or maybe Riki in - except that I DON'T want to build Seven-Riki affinity for gem crafting purposes. I got Riki's fourth tree, and 5 star affinity with Frontier Village. It doesn't look like I can progress with Colony 6 yet, though. Generally speaking, are the fifth skill trees available now, or after the end-game is unlocked?
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May 22, 2012 20:04
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After the endgame is unlocked. You're getting pretty close to that point.
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May 22, 2012 20:25
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So, just clocked up my first couple of hours, got to the point where Rayne accidently activates the Monado in the lab and Shulke has his vision before heading off to that cave, doing some grinding and knocking out some sidequests and a unique monster (the big caterpillar beast near the AA gun). First impressions are pretty positive - the setting's interesting, Shimomura's soundtrack is nice (though nothing outstanding yet, and I don't know whether it's a positive or negative or neutral that I could tell it was her before I even looked it up), battle system is a lot of fun, and fully rendered equipment is a pleasant surprise, though I feel like it's too early to tell whether it'll undermine any unique visual cues between the characters or cop out by not having that many unique equipment types. As for initial negatives, the characters are a little bland right out of the gate (though I'll gladly give them time to establish themselves), the sheer volume of sidequests feels a bit overwhelming, it's hard to tell where you're supposed to go for some of the sidequests (I checked the other two AA guns and got mauled by level 30 monsters before finding the right one for the monster-extermination mission), and the graphics kind of hurt me. I feel like it looks a little worse than Final Fantasy 12 back on PS2, with some facial and incidental animations looking quite a bit worse. I'll grant you that the areas are very big and seamless and that has to eat up a lot of processing power for the framerate we're getting, but I feel like they could get a little bit more out of the Wii than they are. Still, very nice first impression, glad it got stateside. On a related subject - is the Last Story ever coming over the pond?
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May 22, 2012 21:26
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As far as the equipment appearance goes, everyone has their own version of each piece of equipment. So Shulk and Reyne, wearing the same stuff, will still look different.
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May 22, 2012 21:37
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GOONS ARE MEAN
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sighnoceros posted:As far as the equipment appearance goes, everyone has their own version of each piece of equipment. So Shulk and Reyne, wearing the same stuff, will still look different. I see, that's cool. How's the equipment variety? Is there ever a point where it becomes obvious they didn't want to render any more sets of armor, or is the armor selection as diverse as a standard jrpg?
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May 22, 2012 21:42
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Most of the time it's the same vest or shirt except with different colors.
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May 22, 2012 21:51
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Each armor type (light, medium, heavy) has three to five variant looks per character, with each getting reused via color swaps. There is an absolute shitton of armor in this game and it drops very frequently, so having all of it look unique really wouldn't have been viable. Weapons are much the same way. For music, the next area past Tephra Cave is definitely a high point.
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May 22, 2012 21:52
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There are some recolors of course, but there's a great variety and as far as unique-statted items go it's pretty drat diverse and there is a lot I simply never got to try out since I had either got a good drop while grinding (less grinding and more monster hunting simulator) or because I hesitate to use items that don't have slots. Most of what you buy in a store will have no slots, whereas found items generally have one or up to three for a weapon. Also regarding music the only music that isn't good is in the ether mines, but it's sandwiched between lots of good music and is in a part full of foreshadowing and plot/backstory/drama so whatever.
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May 22, 2012 21:53
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Chronojam posted:There are some recolors of course, but there's a great variety and as far as unique-statted items go it's pretty drat diverse and there is a lot I simply never got to try out since I had either got a good drop while grinding (less grinding and more monster hunting simulator) or because I hesitate to use items that don't have slots. Most of what you buy in a store will have no slots, whereas found items generally have one or up to three for a weapon. That sounds about as good as could be expected from a game with fully modeled armor, actually. Glad I was able to get my hands on this.
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May 22, 2012 21:58
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Vil posted:Another general rule of thumb is that there's either a. one solution that's very obvious about working out better, or b. no solution is really "better" at all, so you should just go with your gut. There's a pretty interesting variation of this in Colony 6: one of the Machina you can invite to live there is nearing the end of her lifespan and requires some source of energy to extend it further and you can either get an item from a high-leveled enemy or just head back to Mechon Wreckage at the very beginning of the game and grab a different item there: the item you get from the enemy extends her lifespan by another few hundred years, causing her to outlive everyone in Colony 6 and be left alone while the lazyassed option gives her another few decades which she prefers.
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May 22, 2012 22:16
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Question about the ending on that note... Is there any evidence one way or another about the fate of the towns? I mean the actual structures and such, not the people, whom obviously survived. I wasn't paying too much attention to that during the ending. So I'm kind of left unclear as to if any of your work in Colony 6 actually meant anything. I guess the saving Alcamoth bit would have at least had the side effect of rescuing the one woman. I kind of wish the game had had an Earthbound-like ending where you could wander around and talk to all the NPCs you met along the course of the game, but I imagine that could have taken ages to implement.
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May 22, 2012 22:29
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I'm like sixty hours in and I've just gotten to Ose Tower on Valek Mountain, and I figured that if I'm ever gonna finish this game I'm gonna have to just plug on through without spending too much more time on quests. Are any of the fourth skill trees particularly useful? I've got Shulk and Melia's, but I was wondering about the rest of the crew. Sharla's just about got all the useful skills from her default trees, so I'm mostly concerned about her's right now.
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May 22, 2012 23:08
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Chronojam posted:I just got seven and while I started to expect it might be him
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May 22, 2012 23:41
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TurnipFritter posted:I'm like sixty hours in and I've just gotten to Ose Tower on Valek Mountain, and I figured that if I'm ever gonna finish this game I'm gonna have to just plug on through without spending too much more time on quests. Are any of the fourth skill trees particularly useful? I've got Shulk and Melia's, but I was wondering about the rest of the crew. Sharla's just about got all the useful skills from her default trees, so I'm mostly concerned about her's right now. I found many of the 4th skill trees to be very useful, and you're probably getting to that point in the game when you're close to maxing out the available trees for Shulk, Reyn, Sharla, and maybe even Dunban. I was concerned with 'wasting' skill points, so I actually went and found the 4th trees for all the characters I had at the completion of the area you're currently in. If you're willing to read some light spoilers, here are the areas where you can initiate each 4th tree quest (it should be noted that each one of these has several quests as prereqs): Shulk: Colony 9 Reyn: Colony 6 Sharla: Frontier Village Dunban: Valak Mountain Melia: Eryth Sea Riki: Frontier Village Seven: Fallen Arm Thundarr posted:For music, the next area past Tephra Cave is definitely a high point. Agreeing with this. The day music from that area still gets stuck in my head all the time. But Rocks Hurt Head fucked around with this message at 01:16 on May 23, 2012 |
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May 23, 2012 01:09
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Chaltab posted:Him????? Spoilers. Yes, her.
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May 23, 2012 01:25
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Any advice on where I can do some leveling for level 79 characters? I seem to be in some weird limbo where everything is either 6-10 levels above me (and thus each and every one of my attacks will miss), or insignificant trash that gives no experience points. I imagine I'm pretty much at the rear end-end of the game and want to tackle some more of the high level unique monsters before calling it a day, because as good as this is/was, I'm never going to find time to play it ever again.
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May 23, 2012 01:39
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Almost Smart posted:Any advice on where I can do some leveling for level 79 characters? I seem to be in some weird limbo where everything is either 6-10 levels above me (and thus each and every one of my attacks will miss), or insignificant trash that gives no experience points. I imagine I'm pretty much at the rear end-end of the game and want to tackle some more of the high level unique monsters before calling it a day, because as good as this is/was, I'm never going to find time to play it ever again. Pick off some of the Quadwings or Feris in Satorl or the Gogols on Bionis' Leg. You'll be ready to head into Alcamoth to grind soon.
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May 23, 2012 01:42
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Aren't there monsters near Raguel Bridge who are about that level?
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May 23, 2012 01:42
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Almost Smart posted:Any advice on where I can do some leveling for level 79 characters? I seem to be in some weird limbo where everything is either 6-10 levels above me (and thus each and every one of my attacks will miss), or insignificant trash that gives no experience points. I imagine I'm pretty much at the rear end-end of the game and want to tackle some more of the high level unique monsters before calling it a day, because as good as this is/was, I'm never going to find time to play it ever again. I believe the Quadwings in Satori Marsh are around 82 at night. There's also a nice area in the marsh filled with Gogols around that level too.
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May 23, 2012 01:46
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Late-game stuff, level 64+ enemies, location: Agniratha (Story stuff spoilers) I just want to say that I like the well-done party characterization. When they learned about the history of the Bionis-Mechonis battle, it was clear that the group was upset, and they understood the situation better. They understood the motivation of Egil better. But what was also good was that while they understood why Egil was afraid, they quite rightly said that just because a bad thing happened to the Machina, it doesn't mean that attacking the Homs was justified. And while they are now willing to try and talk peacefully to him, if he wants to fight, they aren't going to hesitate to kill him if they have to.
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May 23, 2012 04:25
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My cable modem died on Sunday, so I wound up spending almost the entire day playing. Endgame, post-Core rambling: I'm running around after Mechnois Core getting and finishing off more quests and getting the last skill trees and finishing Colony 6 and whatnot. I was amazed I was able to take out a +7 Telethia (one of the bipedal ones; 40k XP!) on Seal Island in Eryth Sea, and even managed to take out the +10 L90 flying one nearby after a couple of attempts. I was quite annoyed, though, that I didn't get the achievement for it. Does +50 Agility help that significantly when you're attacking things 10+ levels higher than you? Most of the damage I dealt to the thing was from spike and occasional DoT hits from Riki. Later, I went to Valak Peak and decided to give one of the giants a go. It was +13 to me, and I was using Riki/Reyn/Sharla. I could barely hit the thing, and Riki's Burninate was the only thing that could hit reliably. The real problem was it kept aggroing on Sharla because of her healing, and it eventually wore me down to where I couldn't keep her alive. I re-gemmed, and loaded her up with -aggro and talent stealth, and loaded Riki and Reyn up with Spike, and gave Riki his Angry talent. That actually worked reasonably well. I still couldn't hit worth poo poo, but Sharla wasn't a constant target. When Riki managed to get aggro, and I hit Angry soon enough, it hit pretty hard. The first time, though, the fight went on so long it moved to night which brought with it a L99 spawn of another giant. One more try starting at 6am gametime brought me success by 1pm! Got the achievement, too. The fight was terrible, though. I was constantly dropping to low tension; Riki's Happy talent is useless in that situation, but if you're getting into high tension regularly, you shouldn't be having any trouble filling the chain gauge. 95% of the damage was from spike and DoTs Riki landed with maybe 10% accuracy. I've tried similar things with some mid-90s UMs, but haven't had much luck. Too much damage. Thanks for the Affinity boost trick! I noticed something like that in Prison Island, where the horse-type Clones have a spike-topple/daze when they're toppled, but didn't really think to exploit it. Affinity takes too goddamn long to build. How many hearts is it from yellow to full? 110 hours. Almost finished.
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May 23, 2012 05:13
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But Rocks Hurt Head posted:Agreeing with this. The day music from that area still gets stuck in my head all the time. I have this compulsion to make whoever I'm controlling jump just at the right moment so their little "hup!"-or-equivalent sound effect comes right after those three strong drum beats. The timing's usually on the downbeat after the third. BUM - BUM - BUM <press> "hup!"
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May 23, 2012 06:09
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Pyroclastic posted:My cable modem died on Sunday, so I wound up spending almost the entire day playing. The big secret for getting past high leveled monster evade is night vision gems.
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May 23, 2012 06:37
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Dinky Duck Race posted:The big secret for getting past high leveled monster evade is night vision gems. I thought those only nullified the nighttime -acc penalty, not make up for a big disparity in level.
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May 23, 2012 07:45
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When Tyrea flew off, that was a goof right? Because from what I've picked up in-game, they shouldn't be able to. Or maybe I'm confusing them with Nopon.
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May 23, 2012 13:23
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Pyroclastic posted:I thought those only nullified the nighttime -acc penalty, not make up for a big disparity in level. They're a +acc bonus just like Agility, that only works at night and stacks with the acc bonus from Agility gems. Pretty sure there's no such thing as a night time -acc penalty.
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May 23, 2012 13:25
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Linnear posted:When Tyrea flew off, that was a goof right? Because from what I've picked up in-game, they shouldn't be able to. Or maybe I'm confusing them with Nopon. You're talking about High Entia being able to fly with their head wings? Presumably, some of them can and some of them can't. Half-Homs usually can't because their wings are generally too short. Riki can float/hover with his as well. I don't think they show any other Nopon doing it but I would assume it's the same deal, some can and some can't. Probably requires a lot of upper-arm strength to do.
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May 23, 2012 17:20
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There's a High Entia NPC that mentions that it takes a lot of muscle training just to get the wings to move, let alone fly, so any High Entia that can use their head wings to fly likely spent a rather long time working on it.
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May 23, 2012 18:13
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SKBasis posted:I have this compulsion to make whoever I'm controlling jump just at the right moment so their little "hup!"-or-equivalent sound effect comes right after those three strong drum beats. The timing's usually on the downbeat after the third. I do the exact same thing. That area has the best music in the whole game by far and it's incredibly memorable.
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May 23, 2012 19:44
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Just met Mysterious Face on the way to Colony 6. I have to admit, these things become MUCH less intimidating when you give them silly cockney accents. Oh, 'e'll be REAL safe... in mah belly, bwa hahaha! It is interesting to confirm that the mechon ARE in fact eating their victims, and don't seem to view it any differently than we view eating a burger.
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May 23, 2012 22:11
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Spiritus Nox posted:Just met Mysterious Face on the way to Colony 6. I have to admit, these things become MUCH less intimidating when you give them silly cockney accents. I dunno, I felt plenty of menace in the content of that conversation, and I'm kind of glad it wasn't done with some cliche villainous voice. It was some glorious scenery chewing though, in a way you could only get by taking an insane guy who sounds like a 17th century pirate and giving him a bullhorn.
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May 23, 2012 22:19
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Thundarr posted:I dunno, I felt plenty of menace in the content of that conversation, and I'm kind of glad it wasn't done with some cliche villainous voice. It was some glorious scenery chewing though, in a way you could only get by taking an insane guy who sounds like a 17th century pirate and giving him a bullhorn. He's still SORTA intimidating, between his vaguely Jokerish glee in doing bad and his implication that you're being watched, but it really pales in comparison to how brilliant the scene with Metal Face killing Fiora was. That scene was drat good and scary. He'll probably be fine if he's not a huge recurring villain and the others stay more intimidating.
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May 23, 2012 22:25
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Thundarr posted:I'm kind of glad it wasn't done with some cliche villainous voice. Dude, his voice is pretty much the definition of a cliche villainous voice. Also, yeah, the Faces talking made the Mechon infinitely less threatening.
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May 23, 2012 22:30
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OK, OK. Cliche JRPG villain voice. Not too many Cockney JRPG villains, that I know of at least.
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May 23, 2012 22:38
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I had a hard time feeling the emotional impact of the scenes involving him, considering I was entirely too busy grinning goofily at the cockney.
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May 23, 2012 22:46
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