Uh, oops.

Looks like I'm going to hit another REALLY PAINFUL wall soon. The next part after The Catacombs. Numor Mine. It's the Emma and Rush only part, which is going to suck oh-so-badly because those two haven't seen much battle. Emma's stuff also hasn't been upgraded all that much, so she's fallen behind a bit as well. Rush's equipment is fine since I'm the one creating them, but it's his HP that I'm concerned with. It was hard enough to fight Namul Sin and Niram Sin at BR3. If they get hit with Spark V, they're dead. I may have to sacrifice a few BR ranks to train them up, but not too much though. OK, really only training Rush at the moment. Need to make sure that the soldiers are also keeping up. As long as he's the leader, it's easy to manipulate his art usage. Good thing he has Poison Gas V now. It can wipe out most enemy groups at the moment. May need to dedicate some time to farming some materials for them as well.

Planned out the rest of the game, so hopefully it'll go a little smoother. Kicked out a few soldiers to make room for the more important ones later on. After Numor Mine, I'll have access to 12 active battle units and 4 unions. I'll still be spreading out my units since stacking them right now isn't such a bright idea. After the Nest of Eagles, I should have 15 on the field, so I guess I can start training up using Wisdom's Echo. Unfortunately, some of the units I want to use aren't available until after Wyrmskeep or a certain BR. They also haven't gotten any of their accessories, so their HP and AP/Speed aren't inflated. It's actually kinda annoying. I actually don't get why people think that stacking unions is a good idea... You can only deadlock one union at a time, so if you're surrounded, you could very well end up screwing yourself over. Not exactly a pleasant thought in LasuRemu. Especially in the beginning when you have no way of reviving for a long time.

Also, that little vertical bar beside the union's HP/AP bars? Apparently that's known as the Union TENSION Gauge, not the Union Morale Gauge. If it's high, they're tense/"hyped up" as Rush would say. If it's low, then they're sleeping/daydreaming on the job? Would probably explain why those soldiers are pretty bad at hitting stuff when the Union Tension is low. Actually, they just suck in general. Except for that qsiti, Mithidia. He's pretty cool, what with smacking his enemies with Spark III so early in the game. But you know, I need Hex users. BADLY. Good thing I'll have access to a few soon.


Still going fairly slowly in FFXIII. Just got to Chapter 9, and realized that it's a farming spot. Farming for Premium Chips and Credit Chips to sell for Gil. Farming CP to level up the Crystarium System. The nice thing about it is that it features leaked experience, so Vanille and Sazh are gaining CP even through they're not in the party. Snow is with the party, but he's currently not usable. Justified, since he's still injured from a (should have been fatal) fall. At the rate I'm going, I'll be finished just in time for the start of school again. I normally can finish an RPG in about a week, so I'm already running behind. Not at 100% completion, but just the main story.

A little something I noticed... It seems to feel less like FF and more like SaGa in terms of difficulty and progression. There's a lot of micro-management involved, including trying to sync up attacks. In SaGa, it would turn into some sort of combination attack. Here, it's used to ensure that the Chain Break gauge doesn't fall too quickly. You also have to think a little faster with the Optima Change system in place. Like LasuRemu's targeting and random variables, but in real-time. LasuRemu is essentially a renamed SaGa. FFXIII could very well be a SaGa-FF hybrid. Maybe that's why I'm starting to warm up to it a lot more lately.

Also, it's more of a NTS, but try not to fiddle around with the GPU's settings too much. I liked getting 400+ fps on certain scenes, ~170fps while moving on the field with no stuttering and 25~80fps in battle. The game purposely slows down during Critical Offense/Defense segments. But hey, at least I managed to record some rather hilarious clips of my GPU acting like it's bugged! Actually, why am I so amused by that anyways? It could have been an indicator that there's something wrong with my computer. It's not like dad can help since he doesn't deal with the crazier/high-end/gaming video cards. I also feel really tempted to boot up the "main" computer to check its specs.