That reminds me of Bad Breath from the Great Malboro in FFX.

At any rate, let's just say I'm not READY to take on any level 5 marks yet. Holy shit, I was like..oh the trickster hunt, what can that stupid little chocobo do.

1600 dmg per hit, OH SHI~. That so far is how can we say, something you should run away from, very fast.

Would anyone happen to know if there is a way to get the Barheim Key if I sold the Great Serpentskin? I just found out that I need one to be able to do a bunch of hunts and get an Esper there, but I had already finished that mark far earlier in the game, at which point I promptly sold the loot...including the Great Serpentskin.

Looking through the strategy guide was useless, as it seems no other monster gives that item through stealing/poaching/dropping. Of course the strategy guide also didn't show that the Great Serpentskin was a necessary item on its loot chart, so I figured I'd be able to get more later. So now I have a conundrum...do I restart my game fresh, or do I continue on without access to a lot of stuff (being unable to even get into Barheim). Keep in mind, I am almost level 50 with all of my guys (and at around 90 or so hours), so restarting will definately suck...

Great Serpentskin quest only gets you a Gold Amulet, which you can just buy anyhow.

You're not screwed.

You don't need it as part of the quest for the chick to give you the key? That's good to know. So then I'll only be missing a quest or two at the end of the game and the extra Zodiac Spear. Of course...that's all that I know of yet, heh.

Maybe I am just overpowered but he doesn't seem to have that much health. If your lucky that clan guy takes all the damage. He did for me anyway, sure he died but it gave me enough time to keep spamming Bio. It does around 1600 a hit, and as I recall he didn't have that much health, maybe 30k?

Now this Antlion...he you SHOULD stay away for a while from. He's in Lhusu mines. It could be because he like canabalized 5 of those mantis enemies that made it hard for me, but he was just annoying the hell out of me.

He kept using a AOE attack that did 1200 every 3 seconds, so I ran out of mana extremely fast simply because of the Cura spammage. I did kill him eventually, but it was because of a extremely lucky quickening at the end. Now I really dislike using quickenings, because they are stupid and take all the challenge out of it, but my guys were out of mana and I just couldn't keep up with the AOEs, I mean seriously I was using Cura only for like 3 minutes, and he was stuck at 10% health for over 5 minutes, so it wasn't going anywhere. That and I hadn't saved for over 2 hours.

That reminds me...are espers useful in any way? they seem EXTREMELY useless to me. I mean for starters the other party members don't seem to get any experience, and perhaps LP, but not sure about that, and they don't seem great in any way. Seems to me that they didn't think much about espers and quickenings.

Another thing...you know Barheim passage right? well, when I got there the first time, I didn't really check the bestiary much, and needless to say, I am missing 3 "Specter" type enemies for the completeness feeling. I got the key after 60 hours, but the mimics don't seem to drain the power anymore, hell there don't seem to be any mimics at all, so basically how do I get the specters to show up again? because they only showed up if the power levels went to low and the lights turned off. =/

No one says it these days obviously, because the game doesn't take place in these days :D

Never gave him the chance to cannibalize a damn thing, as I threw my reserve team in first with a chain to kill off all his little buddies. It's madness to try and fight him with that mob there. Once they were gone it simply became a long, drawn out battle.

From what I've noticed, enemies in HP Critical status seem to double their defense. What you're describing happens with every monster that I fail to OHKO. Only thing I've seen so far that bypasses this is Berserk, as I've seen Balthier and Penelo's damage cut approximately in half against said enemy while Vaan's berserk self is still inflicting tons of damage.

They seem pretty useless, that's for sure. Often times they don't attack your target and enemies seem to attack your character more when they're out. Oh, they redeem themselves if they do their special technick before leaving, though.

If you have the key, go back into Barheim. At the split, take the left path and follow it all the way. I described it earlier in the thread, but Specters, Bombs and DeadBones abound in there. Great leveling place, especially the second half with its ridiculospawn. Oh, and if you're interested in a new esper and a timed battle, go all the way to the end of the passage. Be sure to save though.

For that side quest of the patient in the desert, I remember she distinctly gave me the key (or maybe it was the patient herself) after all the items were collected. What's interesting though is that I did get the serpent skin, but it seems the game didn't recognize this in my loot, and I got stuck with the lesser goods. At any rate, all 6 of my guys and gals have them golden amulets, so whatever. And don't restart your game of 90 hours, holy crap. Even learning about the Zodiak Spear at 10 hours into the game didn't stop me from continuing on.

Sweet. I was worried there for a sec.

I am also looking for the rank 5 mark called Bloodwing, is he around there as well? I couldn't really explore much yesterday.

Yeah, in the West Annex, on a slightly elevated path. It's past the row of traps and the bridge. It's narrow and there's literally no way you'll miss him if you keep going forward. I'm gonna go exploring the Tchita Uplands as the areas seem to go southeast for a bit. I'm strong enough to do so without fear of getting owned, right now.

Oh and when you get the mark "Man of Ancient Mystery", you're going to love the in-your-face references to FFs past. You'll see what I mean when it comes around.

Decoy on the Espers helps immensely with that btw. They're situational, that's for sure. They mainly look really really cool and change the music to awesomesauce when they come out :D

I should say, playing through now with a guide and checking out all the side-quests along the way is a quite enjoyable experience. You catch some really subtle details in the cutscenes that you didn't before, too, once you have the knowledge of the full storyline under your belt. It's like reading a great book for the second time, with the addition of being able to flesh things out with more side stories and such.

Btw, this book: http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4...652881-0165554 just came out yesterday in Japan. Called Final Fantasy XII Ultimania Omega. From what I gathered through a rough babelfish translation of the review on the site, it seems to be a sort of world companion slash artbook which contains lots of area sketches, details about the lives of all the minor characters, etc. For ~17 bucks at 671 pages, it sounds like something to get (for me anyways.) It just sucks that the shipping price for 2-5 days is almost twice the price of the actual book... I may look for it in my local Kinokuniya, or ask them if they can order it.

Damn, how could so simple a solution fly over my head like that? Thanks for the heads up. When do I get dark absorbing/dark reducing armor? All I've seen so far is Bone Mail and I don't exactly want to go into the Zeromus fight with old armor like that.

Black Mask, sometime near the penultimate dungeon (either before or after, I can't remember), available in Balfonheim. It's a mystic armor hat that absorbs Dark element.

Damn, no way I'm waiting that long. I guess I'll just have to chain his ass and rely on all those X-Potions I bought (99).

I finally took time from my hunting schedual to beat the final boss. So i could say I clocked the game at 60 hours. *goes back to hunting marks*

Heh I'm already at 60 hours and I'm not even to Archades yet. I'm in the Sochen Cave Palace. That boss at the end is giving me fits.

Gotta say that the first boss fight in there was one of the best in the game yet. I love that battle theme as well.

Shit son, when can you get these X potions in the game story line? I thought Hi potions were nice ^__^ (for the time being).

In this FF, can we buy Megalixirs - heals your party to 100% HP and MP (in before the LOL FAT jokes come in)? Or does this item just remain as one of those reward type items or treasure chest items?

Shoeless, by the looks of it, you're probably a bit further than me, but don't worry about it. I'm just low on cash and just running around Osmose Plain getting various loots and stuff.

FUCK YES!. I'm not too sure why, but I want that book, along with the Scenario Ultimania and Battle Ultimania, despite my lack of any real game catered Japanese langauge skills.

I went ahead and defeated the last few Rank III Marks today: Feral Retriever, Atomos and Vorpal Bunny. Since I now have UBER ARMOUR, these guys were very easy for me. Only the Vorpal Bunny gave me a headache. It took me three times before Berserk actually worked on the dumb thing.

Next time I play, I'm gonna go advance the storyline.

Although I'd love to obtain copies of those Ulti guides, I see no reason to if I can't read them. I only got the FFVII AC

HEY! Have you been to the Japanese website?? They put up some wallpaper, one of which is pretty cute! I uploaded it here. Here's a preview of what it looks like:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b8...aper/ffxii.jpg

There's also another one that just has moogles if you like that. I hate moogles. Get it here.

Preview:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b8...FXII_xmas2.jpg

That viera looks very cute, and I'd hit her, amd that trippy Bangaa looks like a cool dude.

I like how that Bangaa's tongue is sticking out.

Oh, this is kinda off-topic, but on-topic at the same time, but does anyone have, or know of, any FFXII skins for The Sims 2? Say what you want about it, but I love the Sims series and I have custom skins for lots of FF characters. Try as I might, however, I can't find any for the latest game, and I'd love to have some.

Wait.
Just in case you don't aware, Ultimania Omega is just an extension of game guide books and indeed very redundant for me. I enjoyed earlier Ultimania a lot, but recently SQUARE ENIX has published them in installments to exploit our money. So, most of contents are just overstated, redundant and boring (unless you are an über Ivalice fan).

Nonetheless it has an awesome artwork gallery for 43 pages (I can't scan it here, tho) and long interviews with each voice actor and especially my fav composer, for which I bought this book for 17 US dollars. I don't know if non-Japanese can enjoy this book, but I prefer this to both Senario and Battle Ultimanias. Far from satisfactory anyway, though.

I can only find an Ashe:

http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=181431

I love those wallpapers! *get*

Sigh, I haven't played this for awhile. Too engulfed in Wii. I plan to set aside some time for this game tomorrow. Left off on my way through Golmore after getting Mjrn so got a ways to go.

Yay! Ashe! I'd have liked to have more than 1 character, but it's better than nothing. I got some other FF skins from that same person as well! The only thing I make for the game are dogs :3

Thanks, kupomog! I tried searching at the website before and never got anything. No idea how I missed this one.

<3 Moogle wallpaper. Thanks :D

Which gambit strategies do you think are the best and which are the best techniques? Since they're expensive I don’t wanna waste money on unuseful ones. Oh and how do quickenings work again? It's seems like random luck where I sometimes get an 8 chain (the maximum?) and sometimes only a 5 chain eventhough I hit all the right buttons in time? It's just way to confusing since neither the manual nor strategy guide give a proper explanation on that.
Whats the best place to quicklz level up lvl35 characters? All my active members have an golden armband so LP wont be a proble for me.
I cant seem to find the spoiler button so SPOILER ALERT(mark text to read)




Why does the Empire attack Mt. Bur-Omisace again and why did Lord Larsa disappear? I somehow didn't give any attention to that part. Can't wait until I'm at Darklor Laboratory to finally see what's really behind that "shadow" but right now I need to level up and make some hunting.

thanks!