Just a video going over the restored Seventh Ark, along with Final boss:

Long Video... So Chapters are provided...

Video is not exhaustive, since multiple trials have multiple paths and chance at unique enemies spawning.

And it’s running amazingly well. Thanks Claude and REA, all from a Steam purchase !
I’ve also got it running on macOS with cross saves !
Can’t share it for obvious reasons but I’m so happy I finally get to play it.

The only other thing I remember is it features ff13 characters

Title says it all. I always play with this party since Strike Team to start out pretty much demolished everything in its path. But it’d be fun to find a nice balanced party for this chapter, especially if it includes Hope.

I played around a bit and managed to get both XIII-2's Coliseum & Void Beyond as well as a slice of LR's Ultima Layer working in XIII:
https://youtu.be/eRMDqzTkjJY

Fun side project, i have going on, wanted to share

Apologies if I wrote the organization’s name wrong because I haven’t played the game in a long time, but I was wondering what exactly caused the organization to be hostile to the main characters.

It’s something I always had a hard time understanding since I noticed how the rangers in the game always approach the main group with a high sense of hostility that again I was wondering what made said rangers so hostile towards them.

Sooo that was an experience. I have so many thoughts abt this game that I have to write a post... again!
When I started playing it I became pissed off in like 3 hours. It very quickly became obvious that all the "they fixed it" discourse is poisoned by ppl repeating an ancient meme. 13-2 is a kneejerk reaction by sqenix in terms of design philosophy. Whereas in 13 everything was sacrificed to the artistic vision (linearity while a chased fugitive, non-linear after you finally escaped), every decision in the gameplay supported the core themes and was cool and felt organic, 13-2 in the beginning felt more like a checklist of all the things people complained about. You want an open adventure where you can go around and collect stuff? Okay, here's 160 stuff units to collect, and also collect the monsters and the maps (and don't get me started on Brain Blast!!!!). While of course the story is still linear. Yet I found myself calmed by those exact repetitive fetch quests for some reason. A lot of the locations are basically asset flip clones of each other and yet I liked wandering there. My first 10 hours of playing 13-2 were basically filled with grief over a game I already finished. I disliked the monster thing, I disliked that they retired the upgrade system, which was, while convoluted, very motivating to do stuff, I disliked the blank ff-protag look of Noel, and of course the retcon time travel plot.
Then I started easing into the game. Somewhere in the middle I started genuinely enjoying the experience. I still felt and still feel now that the game is indeed a checklist of "corrections" but well great gamedevs worked for many months on it, of course it has goodness to it! Another thing that felt like "correction" is how many complained abt certain obtuseness of 13 and here in 13-2 they made sure everything is explained as clearly as possible. Like there's some puzzle stuff that I figure out instantly but the game will still go "start from doing this to this". Like okay mom, can I do it meself? Same is true for writing. In particular the scenes in AF-700 and around that pont which are all abt "yes we can do this" and finding the desire to fight. The plot itself is ok here, but they repeat that we can do it thing so many times. This is connected to the fact that the plot is also reactionary - something was kicked out of order and now the players have to restore something that was. And this leads to my thoughts abt the emotional core of the game.

The emotional core of the game is resentment. The game IS, to me, abt the 13 and its reception and the audience. "Here's everything you wanted" but also with quite snappy writing that goes "this never happened but it did" and then the twist at the end. To me it feels like the game is angry about the fact that it exists. And then you have what Caius tries to do and the narrative of the story and it, too, seems connected to the original's game fate. Like "should I even exist?" sorta thing where we as players are trying to persuade this reality that it does exist by fixing all the stuff that went wrong while the developers were correcting the perceived wrongs and that in itself ... was a bummer for everyone involved. That's how I felt. Now to the good stuff.

The game is genuinely fun to play a lot of the time. It's also whimsical which I liked a lot. The serendipity stuff, the chocobo song, it had a lot of fun to it. It sorta feels like a beach episode at times, sorta like a filler arc but a canon one, if that analogy even works xD Gameplay-wise and narratively it gives you a lot of time to just be with the characters, go over the locations most of which you saw in 13 and just sorta breathe.

But at the same time everything above applies. So in conclusion playing the game felt like playing on a console while parents are fighting behind the wall, like I'm privy to a fight that is going over my head, this sorta feel. The console part, as in playing the game felt very nice. But you cant help but overhear the words of the parents arguing, when you watch the plot during the cutscenes and constantly find parallels to the history of the franchise. A mixed bag. A great mixed bag xD
And I was very touched by the ending before the THING...

Oh wait! The Thing!
Well, when the Serah thing happened I went "oh, neat. All this convoluted stuff happened but it came with a price, theres something good abt it. Tragic but good. But then the second part of the Thing hit and I was "oh no. Events this large can only be reverted fully. This feels bad for everything that happened and will happen". But still it didnt piss me off much, to my surprise, because I already like the ff13 series A LOT and I had my finger on the "install LR" button at ready, but it was probably quite a thing to experience at the time of release.

All in all the THING at the end is a good thing to me because regardless of how they play it, its at least very bold, and the beginning of 13-2 is the opposite of bold (introducing reversible actions and starting by reverting 13s final) so I feel like it found its footing but the unification of everything for the plot from 13 is sorely missing here, a more.. branching and chaotic exerience (which is sorta fitting buuuut)

P.S: one thing that I dont get after I entered the postgame is that I cant play cards in normal serendipity, it says "will be added in later content" but I CAN play them in the Sazh episode. I am playing a slightly (dlcs) modded steam version on PC, maybe due to that. I wish I could play cards in the normal game too (I am a bit of Squall at heart)
P.P.S: abt the characters. Noel was cool at times but still a bit too much of a template, Serah was ... inducing boredom somehow. I wanted to play as her, it felt unique, but she's a bit bland. I liked all the teacher characterizations though! And the flan thing. But the one character that stood above all the rest in 13-2 is Hope. The guy WAS a gigachad by the end of his arc but by now he became a galactic chad or I dont know. The guy ACTS in the plot (forward timetravel on his own), organizes and prepares everything and then grabs his boumerang and goes to fight over the city. And launches the Arc. He's just... I think I'm in love xD Definitely should paint him.

yes, btw i have tried unplugging my keyboard and disconnecting my controller.

So I am playing FF13 for I guess technically the second time. The first time was when it first came out, I think like 15 years ago. I had just finished FF12 (loved it) and when I played 13...I hated it. I loved the semi open world of 12 among other things, and 13 was not what I was looking for back then so I dropped it. The thing is, I have two very vivid memories of some scenes/fights but I can't tell if I am imagining them or not.

For context, I just completed chapter 7 for my current run and haven't seen the scenes/battles I am referring to so please no spoilers outside of maybe chapter confirmation if these are valid memories.

The two things I remember before I dropped it was some kind of like water boss fight with Sazh (dual pistol guy) and struggling a lot with that fight and then some kind of like forested area where there was like a circle you could run around in and fight enemies. I remember getting frustrated as the enemies were a huge pain and barely gave any points lol

Idk why I remember them (if they even are things in 13) but the further I get into the game, the less certain I feel these are real things so here I am asking. Any ideas? Are these things from the sequal games (although I never owned them so not sure how) or some other game entirely? Anyone know?

Years ago i never knew about guildbook but I found this bad boy just a few months after I got final fantasy 13, it was at a charity shop and I saw it at the corner in my eye thinking it was bigger version of the game. When I got close I was stunned cause I was stuck on a boss and for some reason i didn't know how RPG worked so I was terrible at them. So I got it and followed it and felt really dumb 🙃 😅 but yeah this was one of the first merch towards me loving more of final fantasy 13 and the final fantasy in general ! Also that fact it the collector's edition was so lucky.

I have had it with this boss. Seraphic Ray is a bullshit attack and I hope whomever came up with it gets scabies.

I've lost to this boss 7 times now, and each loss has been because he has used Seraphic Ray and then immediately combo'd my party leader to death before I can recover. I've tried Lightning Fang Hope, and I've tried Sazh Snow Vanille. I've tried being super aggressive, I've tried being super defensive. Nothing has changed that outcome

Each strategy I've seen here has either treated Cid like a nothing boss, "can't believe I killed him in two minutes", or has said "just launch him and kill him while he's launched", which is the most asinine, unhelpful garbage ever

Every time I've staggered Cid, he immediately uses Seraphic Ray and I can barely take any advantage of his stagger before it wears off. If I go super aggressive, I can get him launched, but I can't keep him that way. Even with com/com/rav the timing somehow works that he drops between attack chains. If I try and recover before the stagger wears off, I can't get nearly enough damage in, even if I summon

Maybe I'm absolute dogshit at this game, but I think it's more likely that it's a combination of me missing something or this boss just being shitty. I'm just hot right now.

So people who have no issue with Cid, and think the answer is "launch him and kill him", could you actually explain what that means? What am I missing?

Link to Survey 2026:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdsoFW7vQirJTHdXFexEUdSRPM-yvH7uKC12kRfDosPtyyzRQ/viewform?usp=header

Original Post: XIII Trilogy Fan Survey 2026 : r/finalfantasyxiii

___

The survey link will be posted on the sub every 13th of the month until December 2026 to reach out to subscribers who may have missed the original posting. Just a heads up to not be too surprised if it feels like it's being spammed.

Realistically though, if more voices are to be gathered, the survey would need to be posted on social media platforms outside of Reddit. So if anyone feels inclined to share it to other fans, it would be highly appreciated!

Source: https://bskyx.app/profile/nanpou0406.bsky.social/post/3ljbojyqfnc27

I listened to it for the first time on Apple Music after listening to some FFXV music (crystalline chill) and Memories for the Future is so unique and I haven’t heard anything like it.

Does anyone have a current guide for viewing and extracting the models from the game or a spot where I could download the Mog model?

I think it would be so fun to play the battle system with friends 😁

Cosplayer: Hecata

Photographer:

Quelle: Final Fantasy Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/DeR40DbATgz/?vrfl=ajEwOGkycnA3cWNj