I have a website for that.

...Your own?

.....Movin' along.

I'm slowly inching closer to the platinum. 90% of my accessories are obtained an upgraded. Weapons are gonna take longer. My characters have mastered 4 classes with the 5th partway done. Still a lot of grinding ahead. After that all I'll need is getting all the Missions and 5 starring them, I think. And a couple of the kill trophies (Fell lowerworld heavyweight/Green menace).
Still trying to decide which weapons I'll **Congradulations! You found the Random Word of the Day** for actual use.

Do you need to fully upgrade all items (including weapons) to get the plat?

Well, yes and no.
Everyone has several base weapons that all require upgrading twice to reach their maximum effectiveness. However, the third form for every weapon is always the same.
Example,
Blazefire Saber->Flamberge->Omega Weapon
Gladius->Helter-skelter->Omega Weapon
You'll only need to pick one to upgrade a second time to satisfy the needs of the trophy. But you'll still need to get to the second form of each weapon, but just get to it, not max it thankfully.
For accessories, upgrading them is easy for the most part. Many have a max **Congradulations! You found the Random Word of the Day** between 2 and 6. You can generally get what you need by using cheap materials to get a x3 multiplier, then just using the trash components that you won't be using for weapons to bring it up to where it needs to be.

The annoying part comes in when you need catalysts to actually get the items/weapons to their second form. These things are really expensive. Particularly the Adamantite and Dark Matter ones. Dark Matters cost 840,000 apiece, but can be dropped by a certain enemy. Adamantites cost only 200,000 (HAH, "only") and have to be bought from the store.
I did the legwork and there are five items that require Dark Matter, and another five that need Adamantite.
I spent a small fortune on Perovskites (around 300,000), but won't have to buy any more.

I've got a list of everything needed. I'll type it up in the future if anyone wants it.

Good shit Monkey- Ill be lookin forward to it.

What is this game about?

40 hours.
*ba dum tish*

My full review is on this page:
http://sixthnation.forumotion.net/sony-f39/final-fantasy-xiii-t881-100.htm
However, if you mean in terms of story, then there's no better way to learn than to play it. I'm sure you could find a plot synopsis online somewhere, but I personally wouldn't read it as it would ruin it for you.

Here's a short preview though.
Basically, you're out to save your world, Cocoon, but something happens and you're suddenly hated by everyone. There are lots of plots and manipulations. Twists and turns here and there. The game is very story intensive, to the point of excluding all else for most of the game. No real sidequests or minigames to be found.
If this is your first Final Fantasy, I'd honestly suggest starting with an earlier game. FFVII and VIII are both available on the PSN store for $10. I'd recommend VII, personally. That is, if you don't care about graphics. FF X for PS2 is also excellent start to finish, and with the best graphics a PS2 can produce. Great stories and fun gameplay on all those.

This is my first look into a Final Fantasy. Is there a demo on the Playstation Store?

No sure. You'll have to check next chance you get.

What other kind of RPGs have you played? I might be able to draw you a parallel.

Actually none really,. This game just looked kinda interesting to me.

Still haven't gotten a chance to pick this up. After being spoiled by some of the other FF titles, do you guys miss the sidequests and minigames? How much side-ish stuff is there to do?

I very much miss the sidequests. There is a lot of extra stuff you can do after the end of the game, but it's basically just hunting down one creature after another and grinding for hours on end to get parts for weapon upgrades to fight other creatures. And only two or so have trigger conditions like in XII's Guild Hunts/Rare Game Hunts. It's go from marker A to Monster B and kill. The story was alright, but didn't truly grab me like an FF should, though it did have its moments.
After reading the wiki I do have higher hopes for FF Versus XIII. Supposedly due out this year too.

CobaltMonkey wrote:

40 hours.
*ba dum tish*

My full review is on this page:
http://sixthnation.forumotion.net/sony-f39/final-fantasy-xiii-t881-100.htm
However, if you mean in terms of story, then there's no better way to learn than to play it. I'm sure you could find a plot synopsis online somewhere, but I personally wouldn't read it as it would ruin it for you.

Here's a short preview though.
Basically, you're out to save your world, Cocoon, but something happens and you're suddenly hated by everyone. There are lots of plots and manipulations. Twists and turns here and there. The game is very story intensive, to the point of excluding all else for most of the game. No real sidequests or minigames to be found.
If this is your first Final Fantasy, I'd honestly suggest starting with an earlier game. FFVII and VIII are both available on the PSN store for $10. I'd recommend VII, personally. That is, if you don't care about graphics. FF X for PS2 is also excellent start to finish, and with the best graphics a PS2 can produce. Great stories and fun gameplay on all those.

Awesome review Monkey!!!

Just picked my copy up today. Aqua told me the other night to read all of the story and background info that gets updated to your memory drive or whatever its called and I think SE did a great job of really summarizing whats going on. HAving info on the history of everything puts the first bit of action really into perspective. It doesn't force you to try and put some of the plots together on your own (in some cases you couldn't until you learn more much later in the game I guess) so that definitely helps people get emotionally involved. I'm about an hour in and so far so good. I was worried about the battle system turning me off as a few FF's have been fubarred for me based on the battle system (See FF V and FF X-2) and so far, its not TOO bad. Hopefully I'll get more used to it as I go by. I know I can cancel waiting for my ATB to fill all the way up if I don't have to wait. It still seems like a HUGE amount of numbers are showing up on the screen at once and that really makes it crowded to see which is MY damage, which is my teammates damage etc etc. Anyhow, so far it has done a good job of getting me into it MUCH quicker than FF XII did. So thats a good thing.

Back to cocoon we go

Don't worry too much about the numbers, Raistlin. The only thing you really need to watch is the chain gauge in the top right. When you fill that and the enemy 'breaks', the damage you do increases exponentially. In one case, I went from dealing around 6,000+ (unbroken) to 66,000+ per hit in a multihit attack by raising the gauge up to 999%.

HAXOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nope. It's a crucial strat for fighting the Adamantoise.

Havent gotten that far, still on Chapter 9
I NEED HAXOR ABILITIES NAO!

You're gonna need to beat the game first, or at least get close.

One day, when I tire of MW and BFBC
This just in- Fang=The Hawtness!

JUst started chapter 4. So far so good.

2 main things that annoy me though.....

Camera is not responsive as it should be. Coming from Uncharted which also has a character in a 3rd person, the fact that FF XIII's camera sometime lags a bit when I look around is annoying. I also dislike that I have to stop running to be able to look to the side because if you're running the camera will not allow you to look anywhere else but the direction you're going.

I like how the characters will talk while you're running about but I find that their dialgoe volume sometimes is very very low. Sometimes even when they're close. The same goes for NPC's. I like how you don't have to press a button all the time to get them to talk (feels more natural) but the game music is much more louder than the voice acting in these cases and there's absolutely NO audio options in the menu at all.

Aside from these complaints, I like how its progressing. I'm getting more used to the battle system, the visuals are excellent. I'm still waiting for some standout music tracks though. So hopefully those will show up soon

I find the music in this one very good.
Ye have a lot to look forward too and a lotta challenges ahead. They shall be worth it.

Can't wait to get back into this game.

I'm happy to say its starting to pull me in Boss fight this morning was annoying. Got beat twice before taking him down. I'm liking the way the story is going. So many personal conflictions. Its also different in that not everyone is all buddy buddy or banding together in the face of adversity right off the bat. In fact people are outright bailing on the others. Its refreshing. Its human and believable. Some new stuff also has just been learned with Sazh as well as Vanille. Interesting indeed.

I have to say if Vanille didn't make random grunts and noises with every. single. action. she does, she wouldn't be that bad. But that kind of makes me roll my eyes. I get a sense there's A LOT more to her than meets the eye. Especially after what I saw through my last session. We shall see