I think I'm going to give Final Fantasy XIII another try. I have many reasons for disliking the game but I think I need to play it all the way through before I can judge it fairly.

The first time I played a good chunk of the game I could never wrap my brain around one thing. Is it better to stick with certain weapons and upgrade them? Or always aim for new stuff...also the whole upgrade process seems a little convoluted...help?

I guess my real question is if I want the most badass team by the time I get to Pulse (thus hopefully limiting the amount of grinding I need to do) what is the best thing to do?

Thanks!

I would look ahead and see which weapon you want for each character for the end-game, then only upgrade that weapon when you find it. That's what I did and I had no problems with combat.

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIII/Weapons

Unless you're going to be taking on the harder marks on Pulse it won't matter too much which weapon you upgrade. The weapon system is a little different in that you're not buying on finding new weapons that vastly outmatch the one you just spent 5 hours upgrading. They all start around the same stat wise. All of them are somewhat viable, with some giving more strength/magic when upgraded and others focusing on strengthening buffs or debuffs.
If I remember right, max upgraded weapons all have the same name but their stats and effect will be different depending on which weapon you levelled up. For example Lightning's Gladius weapon is found early on in the game, but when fully upgraded grants a higher strength increase than almost all of her others.

whoah it's like you guys read my mind. i've had a save parked at the last area/zone since the game came out, and since we're heading into the twilight year(s) of the 360, i figure it's time to give it one last shot. thanks for the info!

@Petiew: Awesome! That was exactly the info I needed thanks!

Sure wish I had seen this thread before I went and used a ton of my upgrades last night. So the biggest drawback here is that I won't be able to defeat some of the tougher denizens of Pulse? I suppose that is OK, it really isn't the type of game that is going to inspire me to look under every rock and grab every chest. Just trying to get through the story at this point (not much else to the game, heh) and move on to Final Fantasy XIII-2.

On that note tho, anyone know the best way to "farm" upgrade components?

@pureguava said:

Sure wish I had seen this thread before I went and used a ton of my upgrades last night. So the biggest drawback here is that I won't be able to defeat some of the tougher denizens of Pulse? I suppose that is OK, it really isn't the type of game that is going to inspire me to look under every rock and grab every chest. Just trying to get through the story at this point (not much else to the game, heh) and move on to Final Fantasy XIII-2.

On that note tho, anyone know a way the best way to "farm" upgrade components?

Farm Adamantoise for your 6 Trapezohedron youll need and on the way there youll get a bunch of other junk like Platinum Ingots to sell.

If youre not strong enough to fight Adamantoise yet, you can farm levels off the 2 fighting creatures at the top of the Pulse fields near the exit.

It's better to farm money than upgrade components; see the giant ass super elephants that one shot you in the open area? Those are the best things to farm for moolah.

@StarvingGamer: Define "No Problems," did you level to the max before every boss, particularly the second Bart fight? Alternatively did you look up what roles to set up your characters as or experiment for yourself, and how many of the buffing orbs did you use? XIII is much more difficult than every other Final Fantasy so I'm just curious what characterizes "No Problems." It's not the hardest JRPG out there but it could easily crack a top 10 list or so.

@Fredchuckdave: I'm not sure how one would "level to the max", but I did no grinding. I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid fights and would try to explore every area fully, but I never stopped to grind (except for Adamantoises for Trapezohedron or whatever it's called at the very end of the game). I don't remember what level I was for the second Bart fight (that's before you go back to Cocoon right?) but I had spent a good while running around Pulse trying to do all of the side-stuff. I still hadn't leveled any of my weapons though, and I think I died the first time while learning the tempo of the fight.

As far as roles etc go, I never used any FAQ's while playing the game outside of looking up how leveling weapons worked (after reaching Pulse) and the quickest way to farm Trapezohedron. I just went with the roles that felt right for each character and built them out in a way that made sense to my min/max sensibilities. At this point, I'm so far removed from the game mentally that I have no idea what you mean by buffing orbs. If you're talking about the pure stat-boosts in the Crystarium, I'm pretty sure I only invested in the ones that I considered to be primary stats for the given role. I can't check though, that save was lost when my old PS3 got the YLOD.

I suppose that by my book, no problems means no grinding and not having to restart a boss fight more than once, twice on the outside. The reason why FFXIII ranks second among my favorite Final Fantasies is on the strength of its combat system. Unlike most games that "challenge" the player by padding out the numbers, FFXIII is all about thinking and out-thinking the game's rules. Pulse was a lot of fun for me because I could run around fighting monsters that should have been way out of my reach in epic, one-to-two hour-long by-the-teeth battles.

@StarvingGamer: Ah, your sentiments echo mine considering the game more or less. I will say it's a good idea to try to fight Bart without sidequesting first; as doing so makes it the hardest boss in any Final Fantasy; harder than Zeromus on fastest and also harder than Velius. But again if you're talking about being challenged and mentally engaged even if you did as well as you say it would still be in the vein of "Problems" in that you had to think about what you were doing; "No Problems" is Kefka's tower after doing every sidequest or the last area of Final Fantasy 7 above like level 50 or so.

@Icicle7x3 said:

@pureguava said:

On that note tho, anyone know a way the best way to "farm" upgrade components?

Farm Adamantoise for your 6 Trapezohedron youll need and on the way there youll get a bunch of other junk like Platinum Ingots to sell.

If youre not strong enough to fight Adamantoise yet, you can farm levels off the 2 fighting creatures at the top of the Pulse fields near the exit.

I won't be fighting Adamantoise yet. From the wiki: "It is recommended to come back after completing the story to battle them, when the party's HP is around 15,000 and strength over 1,500"

On the "2 fighting creatures at the top of the Pulse fields", which location are we talking about? Archylte Steppe?

But thanks for the tip, seems like a great way to come back and max everything out after the story, although I guess I'd prefer a natural progression up to the final boss.

@pureguava said:

Sure wish I had seen this thread before I went and used a ton of my upgrades last night. So the biggest drawback here is that I won't be able to defeat some of the tougher denizens of Pulse? I suppose that is OK, it really isn't the type of game that is going to inspire me to look under every rock and grab every chest. Just trying to get through the story at this point (not much else to the game, heh) and move on to Final Fantasy XIII-2.

On that note tho, anyone know the best way to "farm" upgrade components?

@pureguava said:

@Icicle7x3 said:

@pureguava said:

On that note tho, anyone know a way the best way to "farm" upgrade components?

Farm Adamantoise for your 6 Trapezohedron youll need and on the way there youll get a bunch of other junk like Platinum Ingots to sell.

If youre not strong enough to fight Adamantoise yet, you can farm levels off the 2 fighting creatures at the top of the Pulse fields near the exit.

I won't be fighting Adamantoise yet. From the wiki: "It is recommended to come back after completing the story to battle them, when the party's HP is around 15,000 and strength over 1,500"

On the "2 fighting creatures at the top of the Pulse fields", which location are we talking about? Archylte Steppe?

But thanks for the tip, seems like a great way to come back and max everything out after the story, although I guess I'd prefer a natural progression up to the final boss.

Right in that link:

The Archylte Steppe has a good grinding spot on the northern expanse near the passage to Mah'habara Subterra. A Behemoth King and Megistotherian are constantly fighting down the path from the Save Station, and all the player needs to do to get the pair to respawn is to backtrack a little and come back.

The pair gives an automatic preemptive strike every time, and rewards the player with 6,600 CP after each battle, 13,200 with the Growth Egg accessory. An easy strategy is to instantly stagger the Behemoth King and then juggle it with a Commando's Launch skill, so it will not be able to replenish its HP.