Final Fantasy XIII: The Complete Official Guide

This is the first and apparently complete guide on Final Fantasy XIII. For your money, you get over 270 glossy, 8.5x11", full color, beautifully illustrated pages that, as far as I can tell cover EVERYTHING that you'd ever want to know about the game except for most of spoilers - the assumption is that you do NOT want to see spoilers.

The book is divided into six main section and an Index:

- QUICKSTART - things you need to know as you start the game and for the first few hours of play.

- WALKTHROUGH - the bulk of the book (over 120 pages). It has all the maps, all the scripted encounters - and much of FFXIII is tightly scripted. It's a good thing to have whenever you get stuck and discouraged. The authors promise that spoilers were kept to a minimum.

- STRATEGY AND ANALYSIS - here you get hints on tactics and strategy, hidden games mechanics are covered, everything there is to know about the Crystarium and Paradigm features. It's...Read more

I've seen a lot of different guides for games and this company Piggyback is the best I've seen so far. Nothing is missing from this guide. It's got everything you need, like an encyclopedia for FFXIII. The words are intelligent and descriptive and they think of anything you may need to know at any given point in the game. They even have spoiler warnings and an index, as well as an intermission mid-story to get you prepped for the rest of the game. It has an excellent strategy and analysis section that teaches you everything about the way the game functions, as well as tables for every weapon, accessory, component, dismantles, EVERYTHING.

A+ best I've seen in about 18 years of hardcore gaming.

The Piggyback Complete Official Guide for Final Fantasy XIII covers all the bases the Brady guides for Final Fantasy XII did and goes one step further. If you're familiar with these guides, you'll be happy to know that Piggyback seems to have looked at all the complaints of the Brady guide and addressed them well. Spoilers are avoided as much as possible. Instructions are clear to follow, with the occasional sidebar to underscore the point. I haven't beaten Final Fantasy XIII yet, but so far the advice appears to be very useful. Better still, a concept isn't dumped on you all at once, interrupting the flow of reading: instead, you're given the information you need to know at the point in which you need to know it, with a promise that more will be given to you at the appropriate time. There are a lot of passages in the walkthrough like, "You don't need to worry about the rest of that for now - we'll come back to it later when the time comes that you need it", or "We'll go into...Read more