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I am currently halfway through Chapter 10 in Final Fantasy XIII and my most recent save file claims that I have already been playing for around 22 hours. I have beaten Cid Raines.

According to the website howlongtobeat.com in order to complete the game you need to spend on average around 50 hours.

Does this really mean that the last 3 and a half chapters will take me another 28 hours to complete? What will take me that long? Is the save file indicator an accurate estimation of how long I've been playing?

kotekzot
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MMM
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about how long it takes to complete a game, which depends on far too many factors for us to authoritatively answer. – kotekzot Mar 30 '14 at 22:15
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    @kotekzot Well the answer I've received is good, so I beg to differ – MMM Mar 30 '14 at 22:20
  • Site policy disagrees. If you wish, you may make your argument there for why completion time questions should be allowed. – kotekzot Mar 30 '14 at 22:27
  • @kotekzot: This question is not asking for a completion time; it mainly asks whether the last three chapters can be as long as it is predicted. I have received a satisfactory answer, therefore the question seems answerable and it is not a question described by the policy. I would therefore kindly ask to open the question. – MMM Mar 31 '14 at 08:40
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    The difference between "how long does it take to beat game X" and "how long does it take to beat the rest of game X given that I spent Y hours playing it" is 1 subtraction operation, that hardly changes any of the problems associated with completion time questions. Also, we don't vote to close or reopen based on answers, but on the question itself. Finally, the answer is hardly good - it is a mixture of "it's impossible to say how long it will take for you" and "here's how long it took me", which is a poll answer, and the reason we don't allow these questions in the first place. – kotekzot Mar 31 '14 at 09:31
  • @kotekzot: No, it answered the questions "What will take me that long?" and "Is the save file indicator an accurate estimation of how long I've been playing?" which help me answer the main question (whether it is possible for it to take this long). This was the answer I was looking and it is funny to be told that it isn't. – MMM Mar 31 '14 at 10:08
  • And if your question was solely about the accuracy of the save file clock, it would not be closed. As it stands, it is mainly about game completion time. – kotekzot Mar 31 '14 at 10:12
  • If we do want to keep this question (and I'm personally of the opinion it's not really worth keeping), we should dupe it to this one: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/23966/how-can-i-tell-how-long-more-or-less-it-will-take-me-to-complete-a-game – Frank Mar 31 '14 at 16:16
  • I've got an answer to my question, you can continue discussing whether it is answerable or not if you really want to. – MMM Mar 31 '14 at 17:13
  • I rewrote my answer to focus more on the why and less on personal experience. – Troyen Mar 31 '14 at 22:09
  • @Frank It's a game-specific question, the author already referenced that site in the OP. Many people playing go through the first ten chapters at a race of roughly a couple hours per chapter, and that doesn't line up with the expected time to complete the game. – Troyen Mar 31 '14 at 22:15
  • @Troyen The point is, completion time is completely subjective. We can give you a rough figure, but that's it. How long it takes can vary wildly between people. That's why we have a single question to dupe all these to. You can go somewhere else to learn this info. That's our compromise to these questions. – Frank Apr 01 '14 at 00:25
  • @Frank The question wasn't "how long?" The question was "why so long?" If it was the former, then I'd agree it'd be a dupe. The title is somewhat misleading. – Troyen Apr 01 '14 at 01:01
  • @Troyen It's still subjective. We can't authoritively answer how long it will take to complete something. That's why we don't allow these types of questions. You're making a bit of a semantic argument, which makes no difference on the question's scope and focus. The long and short of it is that we don't know, and have no way to answer in anything defining capably. As is, our single game completion question we dupe most of these to is here to dupe any others to it. Which we do, sometimes. The rest get closed. – Frank Apr 01 '14 at 01:19

1 Answers1

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Most likely.

Why do the last three chapters take up half the game's playtime? There are a couple of reasons:

The biggest one is that Chapter 11 is completely unlike the previous chapters. Without spoiling too much, it's a very open level complete with optional side-missions and plenty of spaces to explore that aren't strictly necessary for the main plot. The crystarium really opens up quite a bit in this chapter and you have the opportunity to farm experience to gain some substantial character power. Now, you could skip most of this and just rush through the story, but...

The monsters become significantly stronger starting in chapter 11, especially the large monsters and boss fights. If you try and rush through the level, you may find yourself woefully underpowered when you hit some of the bosses, especially in chapter 12 (where it's too late to go back and farm). If you want to try rushing anyway, I recommend keeping a saved game in chapter 11, just in case.

Chapters 12 and 13 are roughly the length of the other chapters in content, but 13 also provides you the ability farm experience or components to upgrade your weapons as you deem necessary. This also adds to your playtime.

Because of all this, most people will spend half the game on these last three chapters. And yes, the save file indicator is a good estimation of your play time as long as you aren't jumping back to previous saves.

Troyen
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