Okay, spent just over two hours with this tonight, here are my first thoughts, as I have only completed the "tutorial."
At the start of the game, you are required to go to a Guild and collect some missions. These missions give you various items and other various rewards. I haven't done any of these missions yet, as I have been learning the very very complex battle system at the Arena first. As soon as you get the missions, I implore you to go straight to the Arena or else you will have no idea what you are doing! (As the "tutorial" is available here.) It also explains that the whole city is represented by HEXES that you can open up by collecting pieces from enemies. These then open up new paths that were previously blocked. Almost like a jigsaw. I'm not understanding that yet, but I'm sure that comes later.
I use the " " for "tutorial" as it only explains partly what you have to do for each tutorial.
For instance:
The Tri-Attack. It fails to mention that you have to use the "Y" button to initiate this attack after accumulating the Resonance Points.
Bonus Shots. It doesn't mention that you have to do a Hero Action to activate this, and also to keep juggling the enemy to get the cursor to get the bonus shot.
Smackdown. It doesn't mention on this either that you must hit the enemy into the air first and then jump to do the smackdown move.
I spent a good time on these tutorials and they were very frustrating as they didn't explain these things, so hopefully everyone else will be able to breeze through them now!
The levelling up system is very interesting. You don't level up. Your weapons do. Your SMG, Handgun, and Throwing weapons all level up by using them. This represents your total overall level. You can add skills to your weapons (like charge) to get harder hits off. However, the longer you charge, it leaves you open to more attack. You need to equally use each weapon type otherwise you become seriously underbalanced.
Battles:
You have three types of weapons I've seen so far. SMG's, Handguns, and Grenades. The SMG's cause scatter damage, Which is effectively like the stagger meter in FFXIII. Then use Handguns and Grenades to take them down. Every character has access to all three weapon types. You can also equip bullets with different effects to cause elemental damage to enemies. You can also dual wield weapons of the same type.
There are many many moves that make the "tutorial" absolutely essential and would take far too much time here to explain. You can hit enemies into the air and juggle them, or you can jump above them and slam them into the ground to cause more damage. You can even charge Resonance and build attacks where all three characters attack the enemies in turns. This uses Bezels, which acts as your own teams "stagger" bar. Your characters become very weak and slow when the Bezel bar empties. Your team also takes scatter damage.
There are also things called Hero Moves, where you line up the attack, and then run the course of the line. You can jump/shoot/combo until your characters meter runs out for that turn. To activate each one of these, costs one Bezel. To refill Bezel, you take down enemies.
As I said, the battle system is very complex and hard to explain. Taking a good hour repeating some of the "tutorial" missions will really help you.
Also, you can change your characters clothes too.
I'm really enjoying it, and am thinking of leaving FF13 as is and go back to that later and play this. Very very good battle system that makes the battles very fun. Highly recommended.
At the start of the game, you are required to go to a Guild and collect some missions. These missions give you various items and other various rewards. I haven't done any of these missions yet, as I have been learning the very very complex battle system at the Arena first. As soon as you get the missions, I implore you to go straight to the Arena or else you will have no idea what you are doing! (As the "tutorial" is available here.) It also explains that the whole city is represented by HEXES that you can open up by collecting pieces from enemies. These then open up new paths that were previously blocked. Almost like a jigsaw. I'm not understanding that yet, but I'm sure that comes later.
I use the " " for "tutorial" as it only explains partly what you have to do for each tutorial.
For instance:
The Tri-Attack. It fails to mention that you have to use the "Y" button to initiate this attack after accumulating the Resonance Points.
Bonus Shots. It doesn't mention that you have to do a Hero Action to activate this, and also to keep juggling the enemy to get the cursor to get the bonus shot.
Smackdown. It doesn't mention on this either that you must hit the enemy into the air first and then jump to do the smackdown move.
I spent a good time on these tutorials and they were very frustrating as they didn't explain these things, so hopefully everyone else will be able to breeze through them now!
The levelling up system is very interesting. You don't level up. Your weapons do. Your SMG, Handgun, and Throwing weapons all level up by using them. This represents your total overall level. You can add skills to your weapons (like charge) to get harder hits off. However, the longer you charge, it leaves you open to more attack. You need to equally use each weapon type otherwise you become seriously underbalanced.
Battles:
You have three types of weapons I've seen so far. SMG's, Handguns, and Grenades. The SMG's cause scatter damage, Which is effectively like the stagger meter in FFXIII. Then use Handguns and Grenades to take them down. Every character has access to all three weapon types. You can also equip bullets with different effects to cause elemental damage to enemies. You can also dual wield weapons of the same type.
There are many many moves that make the "tutorial" absolutely essential and would take far too much time here to explain. You can hit enemies into the air and juggle them, or you can jump above them and slam them into the ground to cause more damage. You can even charge Resonance and build attacks where all three characters attack the enemies in turns. This uses Bezels, which acts as your own teams "stagger" bar. Your characters become very weak and slow when the Bezel bar empties. Your team also takes scatter damage.
There are also things called Hero Moves, where you line up the attack, and then run the course of the line. You can jump/shoot/combo until your characters meter runs out for that turn. To activate each one of these, costs one Bezel. To refill Bezel, you take down enemies.
As I said, the battle system is very complex and hard to explain. Taking a good hour repeating some of the "tutorial" missions will really help you.
Also, you can change your characters clothes too.
I'm really enjoying it, and am thinking of leaving FF13 as is and go back to that later and play this. Very very good battle system that makes the battles very fun. Highly recommended.
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