Just finished 13 and I am going directly into 13-2. I've seen a lot of guides/discussion about the crystarium in this game, and my question is, will I be able to complete the game/ (most) side quests by just throwing points in willy-nilly, or will I severely cripple my characters? I don't need the perfect team, but I don't want to get 50 hours in and find out I boned myself by putting too many points into commando or something.

Wow, this is surreal. I've literally just started XIII-2 like 4 days ago or so, and am already at....probably about 70 hours (I'm off work for awhile, and this game is actually pretty neat). It doesn't seem to be as bad as it looks when it comes to the Crystarium and how it behaves. I just used smaller nodes to level combat roles i didn't care as much about between skills, and saved big nodes for what I really cared about. The major concerns I had were Commando and Ravager, for Physical and Magic damage, and Sentinel for HP. However, I am noticing that it looks like Noel will always be ahead of Serah in the HP department, just like Snow naturally had the highest HP in XIII, followed by.... Sazh, I believe.

What I have come to understand, as far as what you really control, is the set of monsters you roll with. I'd remembered hearing someone on one of the major podcasts talking about using a white behemoth for the rest of the game after she got it, while maybe Garnett Lee said he was just using a chocobo. I've fought 3 types of behemoths before, but I loved the attack speed on a wolf-type monster I got, so I used him as a Commando. He was able to level up to 40, and had around 430 STR.

Just today, though, I dicked around with this hovering jet-robot I got in the Tower (looks kinda like Tron in there, year 200 AF); It has fucking laser machine guns, a Feral move that hits all enemies for about 3500-5500, and kill things very quickly by itself. I got him to about 500+ STR by his max level (20, i think). As a bonus, it comes out to 608 if I fuse that old wolf into it, and give it the wolf's STR+ 20% trait.

If you're interested, keep an eye out for a big yellow floating robot with a beetle-like head. It's called a "Dragoon." Keep posting what you find! I really wish I'd given this game a chance sooner, and especially when I was unemployed last year :\

@elwoodan: The game isn't thatchallenging, but following a guide for the crystarium can make your life much easier, especially if you're gonna tackle some of the optional baddies (and 5-star them). Then again, you can always try to compensate for the lack of str/magic/hp with high levels of strategy.

Happy Trails!

Use this one. I had no trouble beating the game using this guide.

for perfections sake yes