FFXII reviews are starting to pop up.

[Winnow]

Only complaint I have is the quickening system. I don't like it. I fall back on it like a crutch and I feel cheap when I use it to kill a mob. I killed the Trickster with them and I would have had no possible way to off him without them at the level I was at (27ish). Problem is, I don't know how much of the game has been designed with the idea you'd be doing these obscene chains of quickenings. I preferred the old style of limit breaks they used in previous ones (7's were still the best system I think).

I haven't used a quickening yet but will tonight. It does seem a little too "all or nothing". I'd rather have a "break" system that's maybe a little less powerful but less do or die.

That's a minor complaint though. I'm really enjoying the story and that's what matters as I'd get bored with any game just leveling up. The story/cut scenes make the game so entertaining.

[*~*stragi*~*]

i can't even look at this game in widescreen i had to change it to 4:3

[Winnow]

Man, I'm 40 hours in and have only just gotten past Fran's home city Eruyt...although I'd be happy if the game spent a few more hours there with all of those Viera running around. I'm pokey!

I offed the Elder Dragon on my way to Bur-Omisace but still haven't used Quickening/Mist Knacks yet. I suppose that's an accomplishment! I haven't used any of Penelo's 1,600+ LPs yet and Balthier is still level 8 with ~750 LP unused. Basch is sitting with ~500 LP. I'm trying to see how I can do without Mist Knacks and only three characters.

I hope to god the Golden Amulet shows up soon. My next destination is the Stillshrine Of Miriam. My main characters are level 24 now but I'd like to do a little farming for LP after the Golden Amulet becomes available and get some Quickenings.

This game rocks.

Vaan to Fran: How old are you?

Balthier has the best lines overall in the cut scenes. It's nice to see him, Penelo and Basch in those scenes even though I don't use them in gameplay.

[Winnow]

Just for the curious. RL pictures of the voice actors in FFXII

Hidden in case you don't want to spoil the image in your head!

[hide]
Penelo:



Fran:



Ashe:



Balthier:



Vaan: (on right!)

[/hide]

ya know...I can almost picture all of those people in their roles. Uncanny.

...OMG, just noticed that Ashe is also the voice of Haruko in the best animated mini series ever: FLCL (fooly Cooly)

Props to her for wearing an FLCL shirt in her pic which made me go look it up. That made my white and nerdy day!

[Kaldaur]

Vaan: (on right!)

Hahahaha.
That's further proof that all of the past Final Fantasy main characters have been emo and gay. You have to point out which one is Vaan so we don't think it's the chicklet.
In further news, FF12 does, indeed, rock my world.

[Kaldaur]

Winnow, can you or someone else explain quickenings to me? I haven't trained any yet, but I have a few available on my LP board. I see a bunch of slots all over, but I heard that if you train one quickening on someone, that is the person who can use it. What quickenings should i train for each person? If I train a quickening in one spot, will just that quickening be gone, or is the spot completely empty for other players as well? As you can tell, I'm really confused and wanted some input before I make a mistake in training.

[Arborealus]

Winnow, can you or someone else explain quickenings to me? I haven't trained any yet, but I have a few available on my LP board. I see a bunch of slots all over, but I heard that if you train one quickening on someone, that is the person who can use it. What quickenings should i train for each person? If I train a quickening in one spot, will just that quickening be gone, or is the spot completely empty for other players as well? As you can tell, I'm really confused and wanted some input before I make a mistake in training.

There are 18 quickening spots on everyone's board at the beginning. Each character can get 3. As you train a quickening skill that spot completely dissappears from everyone else's board (so if you head everyone for the same quickening spot it is pointless).

Oh and each character gets their own 3 quickenings regardless of slot used to get it. So you can't make a bad decision on them.

[Kaldaur]

Ahh, so no matter which spot I go to, one character only has three quickenings total? Excellent, I was afraid I'd train one for one character and then regret putting that quickening with that character. Thanks Arb.

[Niffoni]

Sadly, the only thing keeping me going in this game at this point is spite. I know there's a great RPG in here somewhere, but I think in the 25 hours I've played so far, I've had fun for maybe 60 minutes of it.

I've never felt so aimless or clueless as to what my goals are actually supposed to be in any RPG I've ever played. I'm not a fan of the battle system, at least when fighting bosses (though it is nice to not have to load a battle screen for every piddling battle i come across).

Anyway, right now I'm after a sword, or maybe a piece of asperthasticite or whatever the fuck it is, so that I can use it to, I don't know, make a fucking waffle with it or something. Hell if I know. Meanwhile the Consul of Tatooine is making people in silly hats stab each other so that he can steal their Pokemon cards, or conquer the world, or whatever it is he's supposed to be doing. Am I the only one who misses the days when the evil guy needed the ancient crystal to rule the universe? What's this "I will control the senate of the northern territories through bribery and croneyism to subvert international copyright law! Ha ha!" bullshit?

I will say this: No matter what happens, it's still way more fun than FF8.

I want to like this game, I really do. I'm a die-hard, Square-enix-penix-sucking fanboy. I wouldn't be so pissed if I didn't want to love it. Tell me the story eventually starts to make sense. Tell me not everyone in the whole fucking game has dirty blonde hair and a vacant expression. Tell me not every boss fight is a 30-minute nap-inducing esuna-tossing status-fest. Tell me not every dungeoun is a uniform shade of dirt-brown. Tell me there's one song on that 4-disk soundtrack that isn't "Generic Desert Wandering Music"; "Wandering in a Desert"; "Oh, Another Desert"; or "I Hope You've Enjoyed Staring At This Cactus For 50 Hours, Fucker".

My fanboi hurts.

[Winnow]

Sounds like you shouldn't be buying Final Fantasy games anymore! There's a wide variety of games out there. Final Fantasy games are always going to be like this. No apologies. How'd you ever play EQ if you don't like brownish walls in dungeons or drawn out 30 minute boss fights? Did you have a fetish for chain healing that kept you awake in the EQ end game? The music's just as I'd expect for a FF game.

Hopefully you can sell your game to EB games or something and put the money toward a new game.

I'll take the same format again for the next FF on the PS3, upgraded to 720p, and be very happy.

Anyways, good luck with your next game! Viva Pinata has super bright colors and no silly hats, just funny masks.

[Markulas]

Niffoni, which FF games did you enjoy? I just started playing and it seems amusing so far, but I haven't completely grasped the battle system as of yet. I look forward to see what happens next.

Also, I think the music is an improvement from 10, but FF 8 still takes the cake by far.

[Kaldaur]

I love the game so far. I think the storyline is excellent; I'm always a fan of books and stories with intrigue and deceit, and this has plenty of it. I think it's more realistic instead of just "Evil Empire" where everyone has the exact same goal. In this, you have Judges scheming their own schemes, two princes with different ideas, one Emperor trying to balance the power of Senate and his people, a group of party members, each with their own ambitions and pursuits. I'm loving every minute of it, although I can see where someone may not like this storyline.

[*~*stragi*~*]

Niffoni, which FF games did you enjoy? I just started playing and it seems amusing so far, but I haven't completely grasped the battle system as of yet. I look forward to see what happens next.

Also, I think the music is an improvement from 10, but FF 8 still takes the cake by far.

ff8 sucks
ff 5 6 7 and 10 are the most superior titles.

[Niffoni]

Sounds like you shouldn't be buying Final Fantasy games anymore! There's a wide variety of games out there. Final Fantasy games are always going to be like this. No apologies. How'd you ever play EQ if you don't like brownish walls in dungeons or drawn out 30 minute boss fights? Did you have a fetish for chain healing that kept you awake in the EQ end game? The music's just as I'd expect for a FF game.

I'm a heal-bot-holic

And the good thing about FF is that it's never been "always like this", they change stuff every game.

Anyways, good luck with your next game! Viva Pinata has super bright colors and no silly hats, just funny masks.

I do like pretty colors!!

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I dig the Gambit system, I just prefered micromanaging every turn of every character during boss fights. You can still do that, but, as mentioned, it takes 30 minutes.

And again, I'm glad it's gotten more in-depth story-wise. I think this time, though, it may have come at the cost of solid goals for your characters. Every mission seems to boil down to "Find this wise man/woman, and ask advice". Sorta makes you feel like your characters are really clueless.

Well, thanks guys, I'll plod through, I'm told now things come together nicely soon. Here's hopin'!

[Dregor Thule]

I don't see how you can be knocking the story like that when it's probably the most "mature" story a FF game has ever had. Political intrigue rates higher in my book than some megalomaniac who was born of some magical energy source from the planet which is crying little tears of pain. Combine it with some top-notch voice acting and I actually look forward to the non-playing cut scenes.

Your Tatooine reference has merit tho! There's so many parallels to the original Star Wars it's not funny. The senate building is even shaped like a star destroyer.

Vaan = Luke
Balthier = Han
Fran = Chewy (but you know.. without the fur, and like.. with tits and 200" stiletto heels)
Ashe = Leia
Basch = Obi Wan

Penelo is the only one that doesn't really fit. She can be, I dunno.. C3-PO or Biggs Darklighter or something. Maybe Aunt Beru!

[Animalor]

Niffoni - I had the same problem with FFX that you have with FFXII. the story wasn't appealing to me, I downright loathed the characters and the orb system they had back then too.

Everything I hated in FFX they seem to have fixed in FFXII. I still havta tweak my gambits so that they are as efficient as possible. I'm also having a hard time on the mana conservation for characters that I'm trying to focus on the Black Magic side of things.

My one gripe with the gambit system is that I wish it would allow us to specify an action with 2 conditions as opposed to one. Try to make some more complicated conditional actions.

[Kaldaur]

I agree with you Dregor about the mature storyling and the Star Wars references. The opening cinematic is a scene straight out of Episode 2. It's almost like George Martin met George Lucas and decided to create a videogame. We have Martin's intrigue along with Lucas' storyline and character ideas.

[Arborealus]

My one gripe with the gambit system is that I wish it would allow us to specify an action with 2 conditions as opposed to one. Try to make some more complicated conditional actions.

Amen I am so wanting more conditionals.

I do find the Boss Fights especially the Esper fights tedious they rely a bit too much on the hit you with every status effect at once tact. But I like the enemy AI generally, the enemies are a bit more of a challenge, even though, as usual, my characters are over-leveled from spending time checking all the steal/poach/drop/treasures in an area.

I think the environments are way richer than in past...Raithwalls was, I thought gorgeous. I also like the variability in treasure chest loots and rare spawns. I have spent a good bit of time going back through places trying to see if I missed rare spawns.

All in all I am finding the game predictable but not overly so. And it is always good to see Biggs and Wedge...

[Winnow]

hmm, Fran as Chewy. Star Wars would have made even more money especially if you take Lucas' original plan to have Episode IX take place on the Wookie planet instead of teddybear planet. Imagine a bunch of Viera running around in Revenge of the Jedi.

[Ryuda_69]

So far i'm LOVING this game, as i'm also a HUGE final fantasy fanatic ( i own them all). I can't believe the 4ish years of waiting was all worth it for me. The story/cutscenes/voice acting is all fucking superb... and the gambit/license system is awesome. I love how i could set up my characters virtually any way i want... only problem that drives me nuts is the fact that i'm still deciding how i want my characters to turn out in the long run hehe. And i agree with winnow... it's too pretty of a game to be on such low res, but gotta live with it.

However i'm having a lil problem. I've just finished getting out of the cave with the electric spiders and got to rabanastre where i regrouped with basch/fran/and rico suave... and am getting ready to set out to save penelo. In my party i have basch(tank), vaan(fighter/thief), and fran(healer,range), and i'm trying to set up a steal gambit for vaan. I set up vaans gambit like ..Foe> Party leader's target> steal, but the lil fucker just stands there while basch kills the mob. I'm wondering if this is because the mobs are low lvl now and i'm killing them off too quick or did i do something wrong with the gambit. Even when we engage the mobs vaan's attack meter doesn't even move.

Basically i'm doing a lil running around exploring the rest of the desserts/surrounding, and doing a few more hunts before i set out to get penelo, and i'd live vaan to steal shit to start help building cash.

Any help is useful =)

I love this game... it's just hard to enjoy it the way i want to when i have work/school fulltime =/.

Peace and Chicken Grease.


Ryuda Shiro
70 Skourge Knight Of Kratos
(retired)

[Arborealus]

You should see steal by his meter as soon as you target the mob.

I set my non lead characters to steal from nearest foe then attack when I target with the leader and attack the mobs who no longer have loot to steal for most situations.

For boss fights I set them to steal from the foe with greatest max hp then attack when I target...

I just heal/debuff/buff with my lead and don't target with them til i want shit to start dying

[Truant]

Ryuda, when you setup the gambit, did you remember to turn it on? I only ask because I made that mistake once when Ashe first joined the party.

You didn't really say, but I assume you are using Basch as your party leader? If he's killing it in one blow, Vaan will never get a chance to steal. It's kind of hard to figure out what could be wrong without more information.

One gambit that worked well for stealing was the foe health > 70%, but personally I prefer to steal manually. I use Vaan as leader, and manually open a battle with steal, at which point other members begin attacking after the steal lands, when one mob dies, i'll switch to steal from another. Everyone's attack gambit is set for party leader, so I always get first shot.

[Winnow]

I use Vaan to steal but not as the leader and with the condition: Foe Health = 100% so I usually let Vaan start his steal and then attack the same mob with Ashe, Vaan then moves onto the next mob while the rest of the group finishes off the first mob, usually Vaan only has time for one steal attempt on the next mob before I've hit it with Ashe so Vaan moves onto the next mob (if there is one). I also have Vaan set to attack a mob if it's HPs are critical before stealing so if we haven't quite finished off the first mob, Vaan will come over and help before moving on for another 100% steal attempt.

This has been working great.

[Arborealus]

I use Vaan to steal but not as the leader and with the condition: Foe Health = 100% so I usually let Vaan start his steal and then attack the same mob with Ashe, Vaan then moves onto the next mob while the rest of the group finishes off the first mob, usually Vaan only has time for one steal attempt on the next mob before I've hit it with Ashe so Vaan moves onto the next mob (if there is one). I also have Vaan set to attack a mob if it's HPs are critical before stealing so if we haven't quite finished off the first mob, Vaan will come over and help before moving on for another 100% steal attempt.

This has been working great.

For regular mobs you should set an on critical hp poach... Poach loot table is different from steal and drop by a little...sometimes better sometimes worse occasionally the same but worth exploring...Be sure and turn poach off for bosses though...they are all immune as far as I can tell...

[Dregor Thule]

Thing with that is don't you not get any xp/lp when you poach?

[Arborealus]

Thing with that is don't you not get any xp/lp when you poach?

Hrmmmm didn't notice that......

Course my nephew and I play all the FFs together the first time through, and we agree not to progress the story without the other present. So we end up with tons of XP LP Gil and Gear...I finished off the LB about level 35...So I wouldn't necessarily notice the lack....:/...

[Niffoni]

Well, the story seems to have FINALLY kicked in 30 hours into my gameplay (I did dawdle, admittedly), so I'm finally enjoying myself a little more.

I agree that the gambit system needs more conditionals. Aside from the status-fest bosses, that's my only quibble with the battle system. I loved the ATB/CTB, but I don't miss every battle having to load up.

Now if only the damn gold farmers would get in on this so I could pay them to level up the 3 characters that haven't seen the light of day since the Leviathan.

I still don't think that the world feels quite "alive" to me yet, but with some clear goals and motivations, this game went from a solid thumbs-down to something I'm liking a little more all the time. I guess I'm a story whore.

The hunts are making the game a bit more fun. I need to figure out how to make a real decent "steal" gambit, because I'm always scrounging for cash. Is there any gambit along the lines of "Steal til there's nothing to steal"? Because as it stands, my stealer either gives up immediately and joins in the beatings, or else he stands there stealing til I manually shut the stupid gambit off, and force him to do something useful, which seems terribly counter-productive to a system that was ostensibly made to take care of exactly that sort of thing FOR me.

[Drinsic Darkwood]

Finished it last night...

First of all, the story was wonderful. If you couldn't enjoy this game's plot, I honestly don't know what you're doing still playing Final Fantasy games (I'm not referring to anyone in particular - I remember some thread on fohguild.org saying the story was too convoluted and they didn't know what the hell they were doing by the end of the game). I suppose it would be possible to easily miss a few lines of dialogue and suddenly have no idea what's happening, but by simply paying attention to cutscenes and dialogue I thought it was very easy to follow.

My only complaint in terms of the story is some of the characters. I hated Vaan. This, moreso than Squall or Tidus or any other self-loathing or childish protagonist, was one protagonist I could not get behind. I remember seeing screenshots long before this game's release thinking the protagonist was just an ugly girl.

This was rectified by the option to simply not use Vaan, which is awesome. Yes, he would still piss me off in cutscenes and city-areas but luckily Vaan is fairly irrelevant to the story. Ashe, of course, is the real protagonist of this game. Ashe, Basch, and especially Balthier (I completely agree Winnow, his lines were the best), were excellent characters. Fran I didn't care for, mostly because of the fucking ears and the accent, but whatever, the Japanese will be Japanese I guess. Maybe a bunch of lesbian furries works for some people, but not me. Penelo... well, Penelo was just kind of there. Didn't use her or Fran a single time during the game, and Penelo was almost non-existant in the story as well.

Gameplay... the combat system is great. I hope they keep something along the same lines for future FF games. And Truant... it feels turn-based because it *is* still turn based. It is no more real-time than FF7 was. Try casting Sleepga or something with all three characters (or any other spell that has a long cast / action time) and see what happens. I didn't really care much at all for the Mist system though. Quickenings were just cheap and seemed like a lame ass crutch to fall on so I refused to use them. Summons were interesting but I would much rather them just be a set amount of MP than use a fucking Mist charge. When Asch has 800 mp, it shouldn't take 270 to fucking summon Belias. Furthermore, summoning Chaos was not worth 800 mp.

Hunts were cool at first, but I was getting pretty tired of them by the end. And fighting Yazmat was just flat out gay if you ask me.

A minor complaint is the remaining lack of an interactive world map. I always enjoyed these. I miss the awesome feeling you get when you finally acquired an airship and got to explore the world map, finding a bunch of hidden areas along the way.

My biggest problem with the gameplay is the astrocious fucking random/rare bullshit they've added. It's incredibly fucking lame. If a chest is supposed to have a goddamn Zodiac Shield it better have the shield and not a 10% chance to have the shield. This is just stupid. If it doesn't have the item, I have to sit there a keep reloading my goddamn game until it does. I don't feel any more "accomplishment" by getting the "rare" chest item, I just feel pissed off because I wasted 10 game-reloads worth of my time.

Even better is the rare monsters. The idea for rare/triggered monsters was cool, don't get me wrong. The idea of giving said creatures random/rare drop tables was fucking stupid. "Oh hey, it's that rare spawn in Nabudis that drops Grand Armor! Kickass!.... A Dark Crystal x1... awesome." Completely fucking lame. When the only sane way to get such items is to get a really high trash mob chain and then use the Petrify exploit something is inherently wrong with your system.

I'm normally a "completionist" type gamer, especially for RPGs and such, but when I looked at the ingredients for items like the Tournesol I just said "Fuck it, this isn't worth the time," and beat the game.

All in all, it was another great addition to the Final Fantasy series. It was really fun, engaging, and had a great story. If not for Vaan and the sickening "random" shit, this would probably be my favorite FF to date (excluding FFTactics, but that's really an entirely different type of game).

[Ryuda_69]

Ryuda, when you setup the gambit, did you remember to turn it on? I only ask because I made that mistake once when Ashe first joined the party.

You didn't really say, but I assume you are using Basch as your party leader? If he's killing it in one blow, Vaan will never get a chance to steal. It's kind of hard to figure out what could be wrong without more information.

One gambit that worked well for stealing was the foe health > 70%, but personally I prefer to steal manually. I use Vaan as leader, and manually open a battle with steal, at which point other members begin attacking after the steal lands, when one mob dies, i'll switch to steal from another. Everyone's attack gambit is set for party leader, so I always get first shot.

Thanks truant... after reading your post i went back and realized that vaan's gambit was off hehe /bonk myself. Other than that the steal gambit worked like a charm (except for the fact that he keeps spamming steal even after the mob has nothing else). I stole the entire game and NEVER ever ever ever had a problem with money... i ended off with having close to a million gil by the end of the game even after i bought everything i needed. Thief's cuffs + steal gambit + grimoire's = MO Money Mo Money Mo Money~

Caution * possible SPOILER~

So i finally finished FF12 this afternoon after finishing up some reports (finals week sucks ass). All i gotta say is Wow. The story was awesome, and definitely refreshing... but i kinda wish there would have been a lil more character involvement in the story. I'm not saying that i was hoping for the typical "cry me river tidus" story where each character is an emo fag, but it would have been nice to see a lil more into the basch/gabranth aka(noah) story, and maybe even dig into the part of the story where vayne had other brothers who he killed??? I know gabranth wrapped it all up in the end, but it would have been nice to see some of that story scattered along the earlier plot. But im no writer /shrug... so i dunno =). Oh yeah, penelo was damn near non existent in the whole story.

Overall the game was fucking awesome. It had a few flaws here and there (fuck you random item box bullshit)....but overall it was all worth it. The ending song was purdy too. It was fun coming home and playing after the long days of school and work.

Now i'm going to go back and replay the old FF games and actually FINISH FF8(which i've had since 98 and still never finished), but it will be painful to have to endure random battles again =(.



Ryuda Shiro
70 Skourge Knight of Kratos
(retired)

[Ryuda_69]

Ryuda, when you setup the gambit, did you remember to turn it on? I only ask because I made that mistake once when Ashe first joined the party.

You didn't really say, but I assume you are using Basch as your party leader? If he's killing it in one blow, Vaan will never get a chance to steal. It's kind of hard to figure out what could be wrong without more information.

One gambit that worked well for stealing was the foe health > 70%, but personally I prefer to steal manually. I use Vaan as leader, and manually open a battle with steal, at which point other members begin attacking after the steal lands, when one mob dies, i'll switch to steal from another. Everyone's attack gambit is set for party leader, so I always get first shot.

Thanks truant... after reading your post i went back and realized that vaan's gambit was off hehe /bonk myself. Other than that the steal gambit worked like a charm (except for the fact that he keeps spamming steal even after the mob has nothing else). I stole the entire game and NEVER ever ever ever had a problem with money... i ended off with having close to a million gil by the end of the game even after i bought everything i needed. Thief's cuffs + steal gambit + grimoire's = MO Money Mo Money Mo Money~

Caution * possible SPOILER~

So i finally finished FF12 this afternoon after finishing up some reports (finals week sucks ass). All i gotta say is Wow. The story was awesome, and definitely refreshing... but i kinda wish there would have been a lil more character involvement in the story. I'm not saying that i was hoping for the typical "cry me river tidus" story where each character is an emo fag, but it would have been nice to see a lil more into the basch/gabranth aka(noah) story, and maybe even dig into the part of the story where vayne had other brothers who he killed??? I know gabranth wrapped it all up in the end, but it would have been nice to see some of that story scattered along the earlier plot. But im no writer /shrug... so i dunno =). Oh yeah, penelo was damn near non existent in the whole story.

Overall the game was fucking awesome. It had a few flaws here and there (fuck you random item box bullshit)....but overall it was all worth it. The ending song was purdy too. It was fun coming home and playing after the long days of school and work.

Now i'm going to go back and replay the old FF games and actually FINISH FF8(which i've had since 98 and still never finished), but it will be painful to have to endure random battles again =(.



Ryuda Shiro
70 Skourge Knight of Kratos
(retired)

[Niffoni]

I feel like it's been long enough since i beat this that I can give some final thoughts. Largely, the last 2/3rds of the game were infinitely more interesting than the beginning. It took forever for the characters to find a direction, but when they finally did, it was probably one of the best FF stories in the entire series.

I'm still annoyed that the characters all looked alike, and they could have used a lot more development (I guess having to voice all the major scenes can cause trouble with that sort of thing), but the arc of the game itself was great once it got started.

I think the combat system needs refinement, but i am absolutely 100% fine with them keeping the general model of it for as long as they like. I love my ATB, but in spite of the lack of customizability of conditionals, the gambit system is a great jumping off point.

This game had more than its share of lazy, cheap-as-hell boss fights (thx unresistable hit-everyone-with every-negative-status skills), but a lot of very inventive encounters as well.

Graphics were stunning, a nice last hurrah in terms of big name franchises for PS2. What a solid system that turned out to be, it's lasted me through 4 years of heavy use, and I see no reason to "trade up" any time in the immediate future.

Did they ever clear up exactly how

[Show]

Reks died?

This game has set the bar for voice acting in a video game. Period. Nothing out there, or seemingly even on the horizon, even comes close. No longer is video gaming the special olympics for voice acting. Studios take note.

There needs to be more incentive in all RPGs of this nature to get you involved in side-quests earlier in the game rather than leaving it all for right before you go to the last dungeoun. I only found a lot of the quests because i borrowed a strategy guide, which seems to be almost a neccessity if you want to find half this shit. I guess they have to make their money somewhere. And the rewards really are rarely worth the effort, by the time you're powerful enough to complete the quests. I did really enjoy the hunt system though.

So that may sound like a mixed review, but if I didn't really like the game, I wouldn't have written so much. So thumbs up.

[Winnow]

This game has set the bar for voice acting in a video game. Period. Nothing out there, or seemingly even on the horizon, even comes close. No longer is video gaming the special olympics for voice acting. Studios take note.

I agree with most of what you said but Gears of War has excellent voice acting. FFXII has a ton more lines though.

[Sionistic]

Just beat the game now. I had about 98 hours into it before I went to the last area. I must say at that point the last fights were waaaaay too easy. Ive had harder hunts. However, visualy they were the best looking boss fights ive ever seen in a FF.

This game has an amazing amount of side material. Hunts, small quests, rare mobs. The LP system needed a bit of work. Near the end of the game I only used Ashe, Penelo, and Basch. So for my other 3, I gave them Golden Amulets and left them alone. I maxxed out their LP grids and had thousands to spare. Even my mains who I had given embroided tippets were almost maxing out their grids, and the spots that were missing didnt matter to them anyway. It really sucked that those hoarded up LPs had no use.

[Ryuda_69]

Niffoni: To answer your question about reks. If you remember at the end of the game when you fight Gabranth(noah) he admits to killing King Raminas and Reks... which made Basch look like the traitor in the interim.

Sionistic: I agree on the boss fight being pretty easy. When i got up to the final boss i was around Lvl 65 with Basch (tank), Ashe (caster, fighter), and Fran (range dmg, caster), and i had just broken 100 hours into the game. The final boss fight was awesome, but i basically attacked and healed since even his huge attacks didnt do over 2k dmg to anyone of my characters, and most of the time my characters blocked the attacks which i thought was pretty funny. Overall Vayne was all flash and no smash... but his attacks still looked awesome as hell.

Now i have a question for those of you who finished the game and might be going back to finish side quests etc. Can i still go back and finish all the side quests in the game... or are there some side quests that dissappear after a certain point in the game. The reason i ask is because i dont know whether to pick up from my last save point in Balfonheim Port, or to just start the game over and just do the side quests as they come along. At some points in the game shit was dragging soo much that i would skip certain things just to keep the story going. And being that i'm a completionist type gamer when it comes to FF i want to get every sidequest etc done.

Normally i would just assume that i could still go back and do everything, but i remember when i got to the Nam Yensa Sandseas i killed some turtle that was killing off the Yurutan(spelling), at which point some moogle told me that a yurutan was running around with a reward for me. I never went back to look for it til later in the game and had no luck finding it.

Any advice is helpful, as i'm in the process of starting the whole game over again hehe.


Ryuda Shiro
70 Skourge Knight of Kratos
(retired)

[Ryuda_69]

Niffoni: To answer your question about reks. If you remember at the end of the game when you fight Gabranth(noah) he admits to killing King Raminas and Reks... which made Basch look like the traitor in the interim.

Sionistic: I agree on the boss fight being pretty easy. When i got up to the final boss i was around Lvl 65 with Basch (tank), Ashe (caster, fighter), and Fran (range dmg, caster), and i had just broken 100 hours into the game. The final boss fight was awesome, but i basically attacked and healed since even his huge attacks didnt do over 2k dmg to anyone of my characters, and most of the time my characters blocked the attacks which i thought was pretty funny. Overall Vayne was all flash and no smash... but his attacks still looked awesome as hell.

Now i have a question for those of you who finished the game and might be going back to finish side quests etc. Can i still go back and finish all the side quests in the game... or are there some side quests that dissappear after a certain point in the game. The reason i ask is because i dont know whether to pick up from my last save point in Balfonheim Port, or to just start the game over and just do the side quests as they come along. At some points in the game shit was dragging soo much that i would skip certain things just to keep the story going. And being that i'm a completionist type gamer when it comes to FF i want to get every sidequest etc done.

Normally i would just assume that i could still go back and do everything, but i remember when i got to the Nam Yensa Sandseas i killed some turtle that was killing off the Yurutan(spelling), at which point some moogle told me that a yurutan was running around with a reward for me. I never went back to look for it til later in the game and had no luck finding it.

Any advice is helpful, as i'm in the process of starting the whole game over again hehe.


Ryuda Shiro
70 Skourge Knight of Kratos
(retired)

[Jice Virago]

Just beat the game now. I had about 98 hours into it before I went to the last area. I must say at that point the last fights were waaaaay too easy. Ive had harder hunts. However, visualy they were the best looking boss fights ive ever seen in a FF.

This game has an amazing amount of side material. Hunts, small quests, rare mobs. The LP system needed a bit of work. Near the end of the game I only used Ashe, Penelo, and Basch. So for my other 3, I gave them Golden Amulets and left them alone. I maxxed out their LP grids and had thousands to spare. Even my mains who I had given embroided tippets were almost maxing out their grids, and the spots that were missing didnt matter to them anyway. It really sucked that those hoarded up LPs had no use.

I didn't care for the fact that maxing the grid was easier than getting the stuff on it, but the only really unbalancing facters about the liscense system were the fact that all characters had equal access to it and that the stat booster grid was immediately available. You could pretty much ignore everything in favor of that part of the board. I am not done with the game yet, but I have been doing a balanced approach, finnishing all hunts as I go (got 33 done, and I am doing Felwood atm in the story) and leveling all characters equally. I have enjoyed the game a lot and it has not felt boring or tedious at all, since the fisrt time I had access to all six characters.

As for story fights being easier than side quests, thats just how it is in FF games. People who are not hardcore into it can just do the story and be happy. People who want to do the hard shit can sidequest. If you do all the available side quests (as I have at this point) before advancing story, you are always going to find the story mode fights trivial, but there is no shortage of challenge in this game if you want it. Once you hit the larger fights, the quickening chains don't really dominate. If anything, it pisses me off how every single hunt seems to end in the monster going into total immunity assrape mode and you have to use a quickening to polish off the last cunt hair of HP on it.

[Sionistic]

The only two bosses ive ever used quickenings on was
[hide]that wierd plant thing in feywood, and exodus in the mosphoren highwastes, I was completely unprepared for the fucker but barely won using all 6 of my guys.[/hide]

I kept my characters pretty much even to about lvl42, then I got tired of it and just leveled the 3. The first thing I did for my grid was getting the 3 quickenings for each character. Tripleling my character's MPs is nothing to fuck with. After that I worked on the potencies and speeds for the corresponding characters. You get items and abilities so fucking slowly in this game that its not worth maxxing anything but augments first, and just waiting untill you actually get specific things to get the lps to aquire them. Although I did make a beeline for golden amulet and embroidered tippets pretty early on. Those two items are beyond helpful.

As for dificulty, I can easily see someone beating the game at mid 40's. However for all the side things, You need to be at least high 70's.
[hide]Theres lots of rare mobs and hunts that were just a straight up ass fuck and I can barely believe I won some of them. Giglamesh was so easy that first fight, and then suddenly he decides im going into prison love mode. I am about to take on the hunts, secret mob, and rare mobs in the pharos. Which looks like loads of fun.[/hide]

In any case this game is definatly my favorite FF to date. Easily better than 7 or 10 on any level.

[Arborealus]

Yiazmat was a long freakin fight...3 hours+...so don't start it not expecting that...Apparently you can run out and save but I did it straight through.

[Arborealus]

Voila...all rares done, bestiary completed, sky pirates den complete, clan rank maxed...and the bad guys lost...whew lot of content...some of it worth the time invested some of it just frustrating grinds...All in all a good game...

[Animalor]

Finished it last night. It was a rental so I'm not going to hold on to it to do all the Hunts etc (although at this point I'm wishing that I had bought the thing to actually finish those hunts).

I did all the hunts up to Rank 5 and 2-3 rank 6 fights, was missing about 4-5 espers and did as many sidequests as I ran into without a strategy guide to help me out.

What an amazing game. Easily on par with 7 and 9 in my books. (I disliked 8 and 10 and haven't even popped in X-2 in my PS2 yet, I own all of those except for XII.) I loved the characters, the story and the general flow of the game as well. I wasn't overly in love with some of the longer ass dungeons(ie. The trip to and running through Giruvegan) but that was very forgivable.

Now on to the other games I pickedu p recently that have been getting neglected (FFIII - DS, Metroid Prime Hunters, Viva Pinata, Rainbow 6 Vegas)

[Sionistic]

I love the first 2 indoor sections of Giruvegan. The ramps with the behemoths. Great place to get experience and decent loot too. I ran that place untill I could head in Daedulus comfortably. Then I switched to the last area of Lhusu mines which was still kinda tough.

[Animalor]

I agree with the ramped sections of Giruvegan. Those were fun once you had stocked the stuff to take off status effects. The section leading up Giruvegan wasn't my favorite.

The trek from Mt. Bur Omiace(?) to Archadies was also quite a bit too long for my taste.