One thing I loved, the difficulty

I just finally finished xiii, and while it is probably my least favorite of the series (aside from II), there was one thing that I love, and that is the difficulty. I know a lot of people found this to be one of the easier games in the series, but I found it to be one of the more difficult. I thought it was right there behind the original NES version of the original FF. Never since that game in the series have I died so many times at a boss. I think not being able to overpower your characters too much in this one really turned up the difficulty, and in the end I enjoyed the challenge. In most of the previous games I would do everything I could before finishing the game, resulting in defeating the final boss in only a few hits, so this was a nice change of pace. Did anyone else find this one more difficult than the others?

Exactly which difficulty are you talking about?

What FFXIII in stepping up the battle difficulty relative to other recent FF games, it evens out with the lack of exploration. You don't even have to think about where to go next because there's a big arrow guiding you down a path without diversion.

I don't think boss fights were any harder than they've been in the past, really, but it was a nice change of pace to see that even regular monsters can give you a bit of grief. Once you've worked out the right role setup for every combination of enemy in a particular area though, it's much easier.

Here's something I wrote in my LiveJournal:

*WARNING: Possible spoilers for FFI, FFIV and FFXIII!*

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Originally Posted by Sephiroth1999AD

Some people say FFXIII is the hardest FF, especially by the time you reach Pulse. While some of the battles were quite hard, I didn't really think FFXIII was the hardest game in the series. Your party is fully restored after every battle, and even if you lose a battle, you can always retry the battle without having to load the game. I thought FFI and FFIV were a lot harder with their long, grueling dungeons, where any battle could lead to your party dying and forcing you to start the whole dungeon all over again (*cough* FFI's Ice Cave, FFIV's Sealed Cavern and Lunar Subterrane *cough*).

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So while FFXIII probably had the highest number of Game Overs I've had in the series, it doesn't really matter since you can always retry the battles.

FFI is really the hardest and the most annoying on the battle section.

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Originally Posted by Sephiroth1999AD

Here's something I wrote in my LiveJournal:

*WARNING: Possible spoilers for FFI, FFIV and FFXIII!*

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Originally Posted by Sephiroth1999AD

Some people say FFXIII is the hardest FF, especially by the time you reach Pulse. While some of the battles were quite hard, I didn't really think FFXIII was the hardest game in the series. Your party is fully restored after every battle, and even if you lose a battle, you can always retry the battle without having to load the game. I thought FFI and FFIV were a lot harder with their long, grueling dungeons, where any battle could lead to your party dying and forcing you to start the whole dungeon all over again (*cough* FFI's Ice Cave, FFIV's Sealed Cavern and Lunar Subterrane *cough*).

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So while FFXIII probably had the highest number of Game Overs I've had in the series, it doesn't really matter since you can always retry the battles.

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There's a difference between being difficult and being tedious.

>>> The game is easy, but you get a "hard mode" after you beat it right??..:luca:

I thought it had just the right amount of challenge. Some bosses were actually hard, and FFXIII hands down has the most difficult final boss fight, mainly because the game won't allow you to get so powered up that you kill him in three turns.

I dunno, I really love the battle system in this game. I just wish I could control my entire party, or at the very least have some sort of gambit type system where I can tell my characters what to do.

I found FF13 boss fights to be incredibly poorly balanced. When fighting bosses I clearly had no idea how to fight I never came close to a game over, the fight just drew on forever. It's like they wanted you to fight, die and then go back in with a properly tweaked paradigm deck. Giving you the ability to change paradigms in battle would have gone a long way to balancing. Or at least make it so you get a game over if you are ste up wrong, not a painfully long battle.(Make it a 1AP technique so it isn't exploited).

I found FF13 to be a very easy title. Most of my adversity came from me trying to go to fast and over extending myself.

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Originally Posted by Rad Bromance

mainly because the game won't allow you to get so powered up that you kill him in three turns.

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Well, I killed (SPOILER)Orphan's final form in 1,5 minutes during the first stagger and got the 5-star rating on the first attempt, so it is possible (with tier2 weapons, of course, but you can get them after chapter 12, cause at that time you should have enough gil from the drops).

i'm finding XIII to be far more difficult than previous enteries because you're limited to how high you can advance your characters at any given time, meaning i can no longer power level then steamroll over everything in my path, never in the past of FF have i ever seen the Game Over Screen more than once, with XIII i see it at least 3 times a day, even with proficient use of the paradigm system...

Did most people really find over leveling to be a problem in other games? I know you could always be really overpowered if you wanted to spend the time grinding, but I wasn't aware people tended to go through chronically over leveled. If anything I found FF13 easier because you are never under leveled unless you go out of your way to avoid fights.

I think after playing enough RPGs you develop the mentality that you NEED TO GRIND LIKE CRAZY.

yup, normaly i just grind an area untill i can kill everything there in one hit then move on, can't do that on FFXIII... i don't consider it being chronicaly over leveled, i see it as being prepared for the worst...

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i don't consider it being chronicaly over leveled, i see it as being prepared for the worst...

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Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards the solution :p

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I think after playing enough RPGs you develop the mentality that you NEED TO GRIND LIKE CRAZY.

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I always wanted to blaze through games to see what was coming up next. Most people I knew were the same way. I knew some people plowed through the games overpowered, but I thought that was a slim majority.

Personally I think criticizing a game for being too easy because you can over level is a bit like saying a FPS game is too easy because they included an easy mode. Just because it gives you the option to make it easier doesn't make it an easy game.

Of course XIII is easy if you grinded... it's a whole different story if you don't grind, which is worth it IMO.

of course grinding is impossible in FFXIII, as you're Crystarium is capped off untill meeting certain requirements (like beating mini-bosses) leaving you with a bunch of CP you can't even use... despite this one minor flaw, i still love the game and consider it one of my favorites in the series, it truly feels like a spiritual sucessor to VII & X, only with an artificial limit to make it more difficult...

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Originally Posted by Elly

of course grinding is impossible in FFXIII, as you're Crystarium is capped off untill meeting certain requirements (like beating mini-bosses) leaving you with a bunch of CP you can't even use... despite this one minor flaw, i still love the game and consider it one of my favorites in the series, it truly feels like a spiritual sucessor to VII & X, only with an artificial limit to make it more difficult...

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Grinding is possible... If you don't grind, you don't easily max your Crystarium at every certain point. When your Crystarium is maxed before each point, the monsters become a lot easier...

They tried to make it harder from what i can tell, but it didn't give me any problems.

My problem with the intention of making it harder was the way they did it. Capping the Crystarium to prevent people from over-levelling is very cruel to less skilled gamers or new people to the series who are going to struggle. I thought the idea of a levelling system was to provide everyone with the chance to experience the full game. By taking that away they may essentially be shooting themselves in the foot if their are people who can't physically overcome the challenge.

Secondly is party leader dies = game over. It's a cheap way to increase difficulty. The primary problem here is attacks which cause instant death. If an enemy readies such an attack and targets your party leader, you may as well just reset.

Thirdly is the focus on single battles. Every encounter feels like a boss battle. There is one single reason why battles were designed to be harder... because dungeons are easier. They have compensated lengthy dungeons with tricky puzzles and hoards of enemies by giving us straight lines with pre-set boss battles. Personally i prefer the challenge of overcoming a dungeon but that's just me.

Lastly, let's face it, the most difficult thing in FFXIII is trying not to die of boredom.

The main character=Instant Game Over wouldn't be so bad if they handled it like the MegaTen games do it, by making your party leader overly more competent than the rest of the characters and giving them access to abilites that cut down on cheap deaths with good pre-planning.

As soon as I got Snow back and could make him my party leader, I noticed I died very rarely in the title afterwards; mostly from Barthandelus and the Power Clod boss fights.

I feel the game is harder only because the game gives itself some rather easy means of killing your party. I think I died the most in Chapter 5 when my party was composed of Hope and Lightning and mostly when Hope was designated as my leader. Later it was the Barthandelus fight and even then it was only because of Doom. If he didn't have that move I could have beaten him the first time we fought. Both instances are because of cheap tactics like instant death of which the game offers no absolute immunity or by placing physically weak party members as the leader.

Despite all that, I still don't think XIII is the hardest, I would really give that mantle to the original version of FFIV. Most people don't catch how the enemy A.I. works and the fact the game really does require grinding to stay alive.

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Originally Posted by Serapy

Grinding is possible... If you don't grind, you don't easily max your Crystarium at every certain point. When your Crystarium is maxed before each point, the monsters become a lot easier...

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I just killed every monster in my way and I was always maxed or very close to it by the end of every chapter.

Instant game overs do suck, but I didn't find it that bad. Seeing as you can just restart right beside the monster that just killed you I didn't find it a big deal. I guess after insta party deaths in FFI it just seemed so tame.

it's not grinding if you have an artificial limit that keeps you from becoming stronger than those enemies/wildlife that can instakill because your characters don't have the HP to withstand the attack... spending 15 minutes to max the crystarium (at it's currently blocked point) does not even come close to grinding for say 2 hours in order to lvl well beyond anything in the imediate area or the next... it's not grinding if there is no real work, time investment, or payoff (survival of the areas strongest enemies), i hate having to sneak past certain enemies simply because they can one hit kill since it's impossible to have any higher HP because it's capped off... i guess it would seem easier if i didn't keep trying to beat those instakillers and just sneak past instead but sneaking around just isn't my style...

Just because the Crystarium was capped off doesn't mean you can't level up your weapons and accessories.

The main character dying = game over thing wouldn't have been as bad if it wasn't in the smurfing game.

Agreed. FFXIII has its issues but it was balanced perfectly. A good RPG doesn't require you to grind (granted you dont run from every battle) but always gives you a steady challenge. FFXIII nailed that.