FFXIII Piggyback Strategy Guide - Opinion?

Rinoalover

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Okay, first I'd like to say I couldn't find a thread about the strategy guide, if there is one... just merge mine to it. Thanks, and sorry if there is one. xP

This is mainly a rant thread, but I do want to know what others thought about it.

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I bought the Piggyback Strategy Guide when I bought Final Fantasy XIII (on the day it came out), and I have to say the only thing I like about it is that they show you how the weapons increase, how much experience every item gives during customization, and the location of the items(and even this is irritating).

The Strategy Guide is VERY biased and opinionated, it says things like "you can decide on what party to use, but we suggest you use Lightning, Hope and Fang and the rest of the Guide will assume you have chosen it." (Or something resembling that.) I mean, a GOOD strategy guide would give you an outline of what to do on every boss with EVERY CHARACTER or, you know, at least give pointers instead of saying "Have Hope Buff the party..." or something like that.

Also, the Guide acts as if the main story is INCREDIBLE hard. Me and my brothers were laughing the whole time at the guide when it would talk about how hard a certain boss is and that it would talk around 40 min. to beat, and we would kill it in Chain Break. Yet, they never really state if Gil is hard to get, or how exactly to make Gil. I mean, in my opinion Gil is easily the hardest thing to collect in the game compared to how much you need to do anything. They never give any tips or points, or really any that are good. _-_ They act as if their weapons just miraculously maxed out during post-game, not even giving at least a small guide on how to go about making the Gil or collecting the items to do it.

They do give you the amount of experience a weapon needs to max, and a small guide on "oretoises", but I would have liked something more concrete.

Not to mention their "maps" are completely distorted and just wrong... I mean, some of the parts look really long in the guide... and just following the guide makes things seem long and can get annoying.

During our second play-through we ignored the guide all together, other than to compare boss strategies and character stats. We found the game much easier to navigate. Granted we had already gone through the game before, but I read through the guide and I still have a bit of trouble following it.

There are A LOT of things in the guide that just... irritated us. Like, for example, their reviews of each character. Hope > Vanille as a Medic. That's what they said. But we couldn't figure out how... Vanille learns healing faster, she has more HP and throughout most of the game she has barely less magic than him. And Sazh... they really don't like Sazh. Sazh's Blitz is AMAZING, but they completely ignored this. And supposedly he's only equal to Hope as a Synergists. Me and my Brother's always found Sazh WAY more useful than Hope. We say Bravery/Faith > Protect/Shell. The Guide is opposite. But, then again, they both learn all four. The main thing that confused us was the fact that Sazh learns Vigilance and Hope learns Veil. If you've played the game you'd know that Vigilance >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Veil in almost every situation. So we didn't get how they were even. oO

There are A LOT more things that got on out nerves (Like saying Sazh and Snow are bad Medics because they don't learn life. :jtc:) but... I think I've rambled on long enough. Sorry, this has been bugging me for a while and I just needed to vent... xD

I know a lot of this is nit-picky, but I spent money on this thing and I was hoping for something that was actually worth the $30+ I spent. I wasn't looking for a book that was trying to push it's own bias on the players.



Anyway. what did you guys think about it? Or, what to you think about my opinion?

And please be honest. If you liked it, tell me, don't let my thoughts make you scared to post your own.

xP
 
It wasn't as bad as when i picked up the guide for FFVIII. I didn't have internet access at the time so I forked out my hard earned cash for the guide (second playthrough, I never use them on my first). Guess what? All throughout the guide it makes you go online to find extra secrets! WTF? That's what I bought the guide for! *rage*

But yes, I actually agree with all your points. The only thing I will say in its defence is that it's pretty.
 
I wish I had spent the extra 10 bucks on the hardcover guide, but I was really glad to have at least bought the Standard Edition. I dunno what to tell you pros at FFXIII, but some people like me actually struggled quite a bit with the game. Yeah, I suck, whatever. The guide really helped me out at quite a few points, so I thought it was worth the investment.

If nothing else, the actual physical quality of the book is to be commended. Gorgeous colours, high gloss finish...

Over-all I can't say I have any real complaints about it *shrugs*
 
It wasn't as bad as when i picked up the guide for FFVIII. I didn't have internet access at the time so I forked out my hard earned cash for the guide (second playthrough, I never use them on my first). Guess what? All throughout the guide it makes you go online to find extra secrets! WTF? That's what I bought the guide for! *rage*

But yes, I actually agree with all your points. The only thing I will say in its defence is that it's pretty.

omg thats how the ffix strategy guide WAS.. anythign interesting or worth knowing they would say check it out online for the ffix guide IT made me so mad.. like wtf did i buy it for, biggest waste of moneny..

I actually didn't mind the strategy guide for ffxiii... It wasnt really helpful for like strategy fights lbecause it was as you said very opninated so if you didnt use the people they wanted you too or do exctly what they said you had to develope your own strategies, but it did show where all the treasures were lol...and let you know when the boss fights and tricky battles were coming up..

another thing i didnt like is that they didnt do a good job showing where the marks were located like they did in ffxii... FFxii guide did a great job explaning how to find and go to marks with maps and everything, this one seemed a little lazy..
 
Thank you all for your thoughts. ^^

I wish I had spent the extra 10 bucks on the hardcover guide, but I was really glad to have at least bought the Standard Edition. I dunno what to tell you pros at FFXIII, but some people like me actually struggled quite a bit with the game. Yeah, I suck, whatever. The guide really helped me out at quite a few points, so I thought it was worth the investment.

If nothing else, the actual physical quality of the book is to be commended. Gorgeous colours, high gloss finish...

Over-all I can't say I have any real complaints about it *shrugs*

I'm glad someone found it useful, and I'm really glad to see that the guide was more helpful than I thought it could be. Thanks. <3

Note: I don't think you sucked at the game, it's just people have different playing styles.


And, yeah. I like the look of the book too. xD
 
SO that's where people got all those biases! I got tired of people sayign Sazh was terrible and to only use Light Hope and Fang. I use Light Hope and Vanille alot or Light Sazh and Hope/Vanille.

The book had a big influence on how others viewed the characters probably :/ I never use tyhe guides until I've beaten the games a couple of times. I use the guide for later on as fun but never during the first playthrough. ^_^
 
SO that's where people got all those biases! I got tired of people sayign Sazh was terrible and to only use Light Hope and Fang. I use Light Hope and Vanille alot or Light Sazh and Hope/Vanille.

The book had a big influence on how others viewed the characters probably :/ I never use tyhe guides until I've beaten the games a couple of times. I use the guide for later on as fun but never during the first playthrough. ^_^
Yeah. That's what I was thinking. I don't agree with any of that. Sazh being terrible... Snow is the worst IMO.

this is the first time I've ever used a strategy guide.


It just... was there. xD

Me and my brothers never had a Strategy Guide before, so we just had to get it. Never again... Dx
 
I found the guide good well bits of it were good

I found the guide to leveling up weapons and what exp components give you were good but some parts of the main guide were crap in one part where you meet up with old characters it told me to just die as soon as the battle started so you can develop the character's I don't want to read that I want it to tell me a strategy that will help me win the battle I got by that part without dying it wasn't even a hard battle.

There was no character explanation the first thing I always look for when I buy a guide it didn't have to be a page for each character just Snow born wherever living in wherever age a bit about him and maybe a picture of him stuff like that for each character something like the FF X strategy guide had.

The spoiler thing they had on the book was good as your going through they don't tell you whats going to happen but they tell you not to waste money on a item you can pick up later stuff like that was good.

The guide should not have just picked three characters and expect you to go through the game as them.

I have to admit the picture's and the layout of the guide were great and the guide was worth the money for the amount of stuff they had in it but I would have payed extra for if they had of had more things in it.

It wasn't the best guide but it did help you get by parts of the game so far I think that the FF X and XII guide's where done the best .
 
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