Time up = Game over?

[Ailes]

I just started the game and I bet it's been asked before but I won't look at any other threads here because spoilers.

Am I "allowed" to relax in this game and explore stuff at my own pace or will it mean that I ♥♥♥♥ everything up and get some sudden game overs or "bad"/"untrue" endings?

[CrackeR]

if you dont ave enough sols everyday to sprout branches on the tree you will run out of time. BUT you start a +game next time around

[Plux]

Chronostasis is your friend. Yes, you have a time limit, and it can get in the way of exploring a bit due to certain quests/events having a strict time table. But certain enemies give a pretty decent amount of EP or whatever it's called, allowing you to at times spam Chronostasis, thereby "freezing" time. As long as you have enough of it by the end of the day (6:00 AM) you won't lose a day. Also, it seems the game is meant to be replayed. I've heard that if you do end up running out of time, you'll get a game over but you will be able to restart with all your stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Ailes]

I'm not much for starting over. I didn't really get into "Ephemeral Fantasia" because that game was a lot about time-reversal and stuff, and people seemed divided about Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter because it was about starting over on and on again too.

It's kinda interesting to see how they come up with ideas for new game mechanics but they seem a little drastic with this in the XIII-trilogy. In my books there is nothing necessarily wrong with an old-fashioned JRPG. I'm already happy that Lightning Returns is apparently not reusing as many copy & paste prequel maps as XIII-2 did.

Have you played Type 0 HD? Is it a more classic JRPG in terms of combat and general gameplay? I have been considering to play this whole Fabula Chrysalis series but I'm not sure how well I will do with Lightning Returns.

I'm curious why they changed things up in XIII-2 the ways they did, and in LR too. Was it because those that didn't like the for most parts on-rails gameplay of XIII cried loud enough? It's sad that people don't see the benefits of such a system: A more fluent storytelling. I play these games for stories and characters mainly. I wasn't particularily hyped about the backtracking and mini-games in XIII-2.

I know replaying is kind of a great deal in Japanese games, but this just hinders the flow of story and breaks immersion and stuff. Same goes for grinding. If it weren't for Sin in X, which apparently required grinding to beat, I would have had finished that one years back. I recently rebought it on the PS4 with X-2, I guess I'll need to load that one up once in a while if I want a more classic and laid-back JRPG experience.

[Dagný]

I like to explore a lot. A LOT, I waste a lot of time doing nothing but explore the world. right now I'm 53 hours in and didn't finish the game yet and I did a lot of side quest. Later on the game it's really easy to farm EP for chronostasis.

about the changes, to me this is the most enjoyable to play in the FF13 trilogy by far, it's really fun to play, I didn't expect it to be so fun

but if you wish to face the toughest enemies you'll need to replay the game

[Ailes]

How many times did you restart with your 53 hours in? Or not at all?

[Jakolentu]

XIII-2 and LR are last-ditch money grabs, more or less. That and experimental platforms for future content. Time travel in game development is usually just an excuse to reuse elements because they didn't have the resources to make new ones. Considering you go from being able to play among six characters in XIII, to two in XIII-2, to one in LR...yeah; money injections to fuel bigger projects such as XIV or XV, even. I'd even wager they shifted a good chunk of staff to XIV just because it is finally bringing in a decent amount of money. What grinds me are the lack of new enemies in both XIII-2 and LR; yes, you can explain it by claiming it maintains consistency but you have to be kidding me with the amount of re-skinning going on. Really Chocolina and Mog (and maybe Lightning) are truly the better highlights of the trilogy. LR made me hate Hope beyond saving; excuse me while I go punch him in the face for interrupting me for the hundreth time.

[Ailes]

XIII-2 didn't exactly feel like a full-fleshed installment. What I had hoped for was to see some bigger efforts in the changes the environments would go through with the passing of the centuries, but after I went through pretty much the exactly same-looking Oerba with exactly the same structures standing firm as ever for the third time I kinda dropped that hope.

Even so there were some elements that saved it for me. The Historia Crux despite some underwhelming executions wasn't a bad idea per-se. Combat was still fun, monster infusions sounded like a good idea and I did scratch some of it's surfaces and had fun with that. The reduction of playable characters alone is nothing that says much - I bet some people thought there were too many in XIII. I think I played with Lightning, Fang and Vanille most of the time and never bothered with any of the others even if the game tried "motivating" me because some roles like sentinel were native to others.

Serah was a surprisingly nice character, and I became rather fond of her voice actress, to my surprise it was Laura Bailey who I came to appreciate earlier in Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones. She was a nice protagonist and I liked Noel pretty good too and his whole coming-from-a-dieing-future-background.

Also, I think the whole time-travel thing was done rather well from technical/logic points. I'm not much into that genre, I bet you can always find some logic flaws if you seek hard enough, but it certainly felt like the devs tried to make it as believable as they could.

(Some stuff admittely felt very off though. Like the sudden appearance of Sazh and Dajh. I know there is that mini-story DLC with them, I watched it on YouTube (because I really don't wanna play Poker and stuff in FF just to get a little story chunk) but I don't really "buy" it. He pretty much appeared only because of fanservice or something. He shouldn't even be bringing his kid to this pretty dangerous job of his.)

Then there is always a good bunch of info that extends the already relatively impressing lore of this Fabula Nova Crystallis subseries which gives me enough incentives to try my best with LR and eventually get Type-0 HD.

If you ask me XIII and LR could work just like XIII did in gameplay terms. Maybe them experimenting as much there hurts the story and character development. Storywise there didn't really happen >that< much in XIII-2, it was just convoluted and stretched longer than it probably had to be. XIII was not always easy to digest too, but to me it felt like there was more to it, it was more pompous and epic. It was rather straightforward and I appreciated that. Many others apparently didn't but I didn't mind the on-rails gameplay. If I want open-world and stuff I can always load up Skyrim or Fallout 3 or whatever.

I hope I won't get annoyed by Hope as much. I think I know what you're talking about, he sure likes to talk to "Light" a lot. But then I do like his voice actor a good deal too, so here is hope that compensates for it. I just hope Lightning's VA is getting chances to drop out of her monotonous gloomy lonewulf sin-plagued mood (I don't understand what sin she is referring to she seeks atonement for but I think it doesn't really matter).

[Xenn]

You shouldn't have to restart at all even on your first playthrough, try going through most of the threads that has a similar question to yours and you'll see that most people tend to finish all their main/side quests on their first playthrough with ample time left going around killing everything.

[chrcoluk]

put victors rush on "everything" :p

[Erinyes]

It depends a lot on what difficulty level you are playing on.

On "easy" you'll get double the amount of EP - necessary for Chronostasis for example - from battles so it's easier to stop time very often thus you can more easily take your time with exploring / questing.

On "normal" you'll receive a standard amount of EP which in turn means that you'll be able to stop time less often of course..

As a piece of experience here: I started my first run on "normal" and it felt awful because I constantly watched the time, battles took too long because I limited myself to non-DLC gear. I played for about 2 hours before I put the run aside because it felt too "grindy" and the enemies had too much HP for my taste. So I restarted my run on "easy" because I did not want to pressure myself with time limits and also wore some of the DLC gear ( for example the "Soldier 1st Class" uniform that gave me the skill "Slayer" - which in my opinion was essential for the game not to feel like it's a grindfest. "Easy" also reduced enemy health by 20% too, just keep that in mind. It worked out really well and I am glad that I did. It took me around 50ish hours to complete the game while the last couple of days were not filled with a lot of excitement though because there was barely any quest left to do.

To summarize I would personally advice two things. Find / Use an item with "Slayer" on it because I feel that skill is essential to enjoy the game at all - at least for me. Start your first run on "easy" if you feel time is something you don't want to deal with and thus rather enjoy your first time through without the need to look at the clock.

The only that changes in this game depends on how well you do in the quests. I won't spoil what you have to do so you have a little bit a surprise left but you will know when something unpredictable happens because of your actions.

[Yorien]

Originally posted by Sharisad:

I just started the game and I bet it's been asked before but I won't look at any other threads here because spoilers.

Am I "allowed" to relax in this game and explore stuff at my own pace or will it mean that I ♥♥♥♥ everything up and get some sudden game overs or "bad"/"untrue" endings?

Quick answer: You can relax all you want. You wil not have a single issue with BAD/UNTRUE endings. It simply will take you longer.

Extended answer (contains some game mechanics spoilers, not story spoilers)

LR moves around a NEW GAME+ mechanic.

Consider a LR playthrough as an iteration of the Groundhog Day. NG+ will become available no matter if you "win" or "lose", so you essentially end with all the time you want. In fact, game requires you to iterate at least once since several things are not enabled until you play it on NG+

Iterating usually makes the next playthrough easier and faster. NG+ after NG+ you'll be able to clear many more things in much less time than your previous iteriation, and in the end thay will leave you more than enough time to run around. Even if you miss or forgot something, you will always be able to re-iterate and do it on another playthrough.

[chrcoluk]

Not fully true.

The proper NG+ requires you to beat the final boss first.
But you will get a poor mans NG+ if you fail to beat him.


(note you only have to beat him once, then all playthrus after are proper NG+ even if you dont beat the story in them).