REUNITED
Final Fantasy XIII - https://youtu.be/7OClv3MQouU
We continue the trend of short even-numbered chapters and long odd ones.
Final Fantasy XIII has a Golden Saucer, except instead of half a dozen minigames, you get a very short chocobo hunt. It was fun, though, and I didn't really care for the Golden Saucer minigames, so I'll forgive it for the lack of content.
I've been watching someone else play the PS3 version of the game. Did you know that every enemy (common, boss, and eidolon) is supposed to have text describing it at the bottom of the screen? There's not even a mod to add it back in! I looked! It's a good thing the auto-battle picks up on what is supposed to be there (for use of Barfire, etc.), but it sure would be nice to have that info instead of needing to look it up on my phone every time I fight an eidolon. I can only hope that's fixed on the sequels, though from the sound of things (people recommending stability mods), that's probably not going to be the case.
Story statement: I didn't expect that people would be following Snow's advice on how to proceed. He's profoundly overconfident and everyone knows it. Sure, his gambit with PSICOM actually somewhat worked, but "let's charge in when they're inviting the attempt" is not the sort of thing I would expect Lightning to just go along with. Snow has all the strategic mind of Barret, and that is not a compliment.
Finally, we get to the point that I can freely choose my party. The breakdown as far as I can tell:
- Snow is a tank. I would put him in front if not for the fact that I hate using SEN on my player character.
- Lightning hits hard. There's not a lot to her, but she does get Revive as a MED so I'll take it. Her Launch as COM makes the class better to use than RAV much of the time, since it takes one foe completely out of the combat, so long as it's not a flying foe.
- Vanille is the ultimate debuffer. I think I'll swap out her weapon, because there's a better one for that, and I was just hoping she could hit harder when I started to raise up her weapon. With Snow and Lightning, I don't need that anymore. Besides, her debuffs make it so that the enemy takes more damage.
- Fang makes sure the party doesn't die through SEN and debuffs. Her debuff pool is rather limited, however; mostly, that SAB class is for raising her stats. She also gets Launch as COM but she doesn't hit very hard while doing it.
- Hope makes the party take less damage. Combine that with his MED and you don't really have to worry about dying. However, Steelguard is still better, if the foe isn't wiping out the whole party at once. I might periodically swap him out with Snow.
- Sazh makes the party hit harder. I don't think he's great as a COM, but when it was just him and Vanille, that let the pair build up chains. If I was going to swap out anyone with Lightning, this would be it.
