[PS2] Final Fantasy XII

So am I to assume SE didn't show the english trailer after all? You'd think it'd have surfaced in downloadable form by now if they did.

Originally Posted by SILBER-4

I'm actually still playing VS now. I made an entry some time back, and Q was all over it like white on rice.

You effin' liar. You're playing Vagrant Story about as much as I'm playing Star Ocean 3. As in, not a whole lot as I sold my copy three months ago.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

[02:32:10] <Q-chan|gaming> oh snap
[02:32:17] <Denicalis> What?
[02:32:21] <Q-chan|gaming> I can't believe I'm actually pleased with the FFXII dub
[02:32:37] <Denicalis> What now dub what?
[02:32:38] <Q-chan|gaming> so far only Ashe's VA is doing some serious overacting
[02:32:46] <Q-chan|gaming> the english trailer
[02:32:54] <Denicalis> There's an english trailer?
[02:32:56] <Q-chan|gaming> the dubbed voices sound a lot better than I feared
[02:32:58] <Q-chan|gaming> yeah
[0203] <Denicalis> O SNAP
[0236] <Q-chan|gaming> I can find minor niggles about all the voices, but really, it's still so much better than I feared
[0252] <Q-chan|gaming> I think even Ashe's overacting will be decent since she's royalty
[0259] <Q-chan|gaming> thank god

Really, if I wanted to complain, I could find something wrong with most of the voices, especially when compared to the excellent Japanese cast.

But as it stands, the quality and the way they actually sound like they're talking normally as opposed to reading out lines like American VAs usually, far exceeded anything I was expecting, what a wonderfully pleasant surprise.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Saga

sorry when you say DEMO you mean the Jap one of the english one?

He probably means the playable demo that came with Dragon Quest VIII.
The playable sections had no speech and the trailer had japanese dialogue with that awful american trailer narrator.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Densuke

Hey guys the game is coming up for the European release and I wonder, is the game really not that good?Because I asked many US-guys who played the game and they said that they´re disappointed because the battle system sucked and the gambit system was hilarious. Is that true? Could you gimme some of your opinions?

There does seem to be a few very loud people on the internet who say they didn't like the battle system (and in that I count the combat and gambit system combined).

Whether they actually found something properly wrong about the system or if they're just huffy about random battles being removed, I'll never know. I also I don't understand how anyone couldn't enjoy such a welcoming, robust, flexible and downright excellent battle system. Maybe they didn't know how to use gambits effectively. Maybe they didn't know how to use them at all. Who knows.

It takes a moment to get used to it (both battle system and gambits), just like the license board, but the more you play, the more it opens up to you and the more you love it. It really is a triumph of design and thought. Effortless and fun, yet offering strategic depth and micromanagement trickery for the most hardcore.

I am a (finnish) gamer who has become seriously jaded and tired of console RPGs as of late. I've had extreme difficulty to get interested in 90% of PS2's jRPG output, but FFXII is not only a glorius reinvention of the series (much like RE4 was), but an exquisitely built videogame. I tend to have a terribly short attention span with any game, and start to pine after other titles while playing something else. I'm now 63 hours into FFXII and I'm not even halfway. I've loved every second of it and it's more than deserving of every game of the year award it's been given or nominated for.

The chances of you not enjoying the system are very slim, unless you are an incurable purist (in the worst sense) or hate all videogames out and out.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

You seem to have misunderstood the purpose of gambits. It's not as if you can't control your characters while you have gambits on. You can still pause the action whenever you want and issue commands that override the current gambit, which is brilliant. They're simply there to perform tasks for you if you wish. Instead of pressing X twice to attack an enemy, gambits will do it for you. Instead of keeping constant eye on your team's HP, then pressing X four times to heal one character, the gambits will do that for you, while you can focus on the bigger picture. It's not an auto-pilot, well-planned gambits are more of a tactical tool, making the gameplay close to something like Jagged Alliance.

But as you said, they're not forced on you, which in my mind makes the system even more flexible. But pointless, hardly. That's like saying the save crystals are fucking pointless and for lazy people because I'm a manly man and never turn off my console.

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It does, actually, since Yazmat is a reference to Matsuno, and mutating it into Yazmiat loses said connection :angry: :grrr: :shakefist:

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Originally Posted by Dark Nation

Funny, and here I was thinking 90 hours in going to the Feywood (to find teh giruvegan) was too much

Oh not at all. I just got out of the Great Crystal and I'm 92 hours in. I'd like to say I've been trying to follow just the plot, but that would be lying so I'll say I've tried not to powerlevel for the heck of it. Though I do so yearn to fetch the Excalibur but I've no idea how or when I can open the Scorpio gate

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by davey

saw someone mentioned there is a map of the hennes mines chests in the games faq map, i click where it says FAQ enter in ff12, hennes mines, final fantasy 12 etc and it says cant find this, where exactly is this map in the faq

They probably meant the map at gamefaqs.com, not actually our FAQ section

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/game/459841.html

(scroll down to "Maps and Charts" and click the Henne Mines Secret Areas (PNG) link)

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Dr. Uzuki

So, yeah, fuck you silver liquid. The gun and ammo became not worth it long ago, it's the principle of the goddamned matter now.

So which gun did you end up getting/going for? I recommend going for the Fomalhaut that you get from the same room you defeat the Antlion in.

The fight was tough for me at the time, but the gun proved more than worth it (just defeat the boss, leave the area and come back and there's a chest where the Antlion was. Keep opening it (no armlets or anything needed) till you get the Fomalhaut <3).

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Bukkake Bandit

Do you mean that the character's max MP at that moment gets tripled when you unlock the third quickening, or the base MP? (meaning the amount of MP they have with no quickenings at all)

What Shin said, it's an extra full bar of MP. So if your max MP is say 60, with all quickenings, you'll be able to hold 180 MP.

I myself found the quickenings very useful in a tight spot. You mostly got them for the MP boost and the summon monsters weren't very effective, but I cleared a few bosses with a good quickening chain. The Mist charge is your friend.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

Beating a dead horse here, but I really can't wrap my head around how anyone could hate Quickenings or define them as "useless." A decent Mist Chain means this: You don't have to worry about any sort of setup on certain battles. You don't need to worry about whether or not you have your tank in place, whether or not you're going to have a decent survival ratio with mobs dropping around you and a boss that puts up some fucked up field that penalizes you greatly. You can literally just run in and perform a Mist Chain and clean house. I've killed things I probably wouldn't have won a traditional battle against because of Quickenings, they are the great equalizer and MP booster.

I did this on some of the elementals a few times, gaining a nice EXP boost. They were the kind of foe I wouldn't have been able to touch regularly.

I felt the quickenings were a nice risk/reward for something like boss battles. Timed right, you could clear a good 40% off the boss's lifebar, but you risk not getting a high enough chain and then getting stuck with an alive and angry boss with 0 MP to spare. Quickenings saved my game quite a few times, especially against bosses like King Bomb, with that spell/skill that heals entirely unless you kill him quickly enough.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Mucknuggle

I just re-started this game on the weekend, playing it solo this time. I'm about where I was before (didn't beat the game), rescuing Ashe from the airship (the Leviathan I think). It's really fantastic. I was wondering if I could get some advice for setting up gambits? Specifically for just roaming about while advancing the story. I'm not getting too great results with the stealing gambit I had set up.

Furthermore, should I put heavy armor on my tank now? The official guide recommends that you stick with light armor for the first part of the game.

Last question: what are good weapon/role setups for three member parties? So far it looks like I'm turning Vaan into a dagger/light armor/shield tank, Basch into a sword/heavy armor/shield tank, Fran into a bow/light armor magic girl and Balthier into a gun/light armor magic/support dude. I don't have Ashe or Panelo yet (although I think I'm about to get Ashe).

Thanks.

Not sure what everyone else or the guide will tell you to do, but once I finally noticed the differences between heavy armor and the rest, I had Basch wear heavy armor all the time, while Penelo and Ashe got magician's clothing and the rest got light armor (barring a few rare cases where I improvised and used whatever best armor I had).

Basch was my tank, Ashe will be your best magician, as her magic stats will be much higher than the others (even without equipment).

Second best at magic will be Penelo. She is also your fastest character, so she and Vaan were my thieves, Penelo usually being the active thief, armed with a good dagger and a shield. Everyone eventually had the steal skill, but I had the rest use it only in very tight spots.

It was usually best to arm your mage with a long range weapon and have them as leader. Set a "attack leader's target" for everyone else and keep the leader at a distance the fights usually go well.

The only gambits I really learned to love and cherish were a simple healing gambit that overruled everything else (say, "Cure Ally HP<50%", later moving to stronger healing spells and changing the HP %), followed by "Attack leader's target" for everyone, with you controlling the leader's attacking manually (or with "Attack nearest visible" when strong enough in a relatively familiar area).

At one point I also included an "Attack Enemy HP Critical", which made it so that whenever an enemy's HP went critical, everyone would focus on him before moving on to the next target. This removed the trouble I'd had with a bunch of enemies ganging me up and my teams focusing on a strong foe while several wounded but barely alive (10HP etc) enemies kept attacking us and I'd have to do everything manually to get rid of them.

Everything else was stuff I turned on every now and then.
For instance, I never found an "item > 0" gambit, so my improvised thief gambit was "Steal Enemy HP=100%". It was usually enough. By the time one of my team hit the enemy, my thief had already stolen and could move to the next "untouched" enemy. It did need some guiding, since if left unattended, the thief would try to steal over and over from a full HP enemy while the rest battled with another. To make sure, I usually manually commanded the thief to attack the enemy after a succesful steal.

Other stuff was gambits for curing any status abnormalities ("Esuna Ally:any") and reviving a KOd character automatically, but I don't think you have these spells for a while.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Sepharite

Btw, does anyone know where I can get the Thief Cuffs (or whatever it's called)?

I remember buying a pair and later getting them from chests, but looking at an Accessories FAQ:

=================-------------------------------
Thief's Cuffs - Increases chance of stealing
=================-------------------------------

1. Treasure:
- Paramina Rift/ Silverflow's End
2. Shop:
- Bur Omisace .............. 3000 gil
- Mosphoran Highwaste ...... 3000 gil
- Phon Coast ............... 3000 gil
- Phon Coast Hunt Shop ..... 2700 gil (give 1 Trophy to Stok)
3. Steal:
- Vinuskar ................. Stilshrine of Miriam

Originally Posted by Bukkake Bandit

Also, Q. Why not use a Foe HP >= 70% - Steal for stealing? It might slow down your grinding or farming, but it'll increase your chances to aquire some loot.

Well practically every enemy only had one item to steal usually, so with something like that, my thief was likely to continue stealing from the same enemy over and over unless I constantly watched over them, which beats the purpose of a gambit anyway.

When I had HP 100%, and my thief was my leader, the steal command would make my party members target the enemy. By the time the steal is completed, the enemy would be below 100% so the thief would automatically move to another target, so not so much need to watch over them.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I chained a good 210 moving around the sandsea Ogir-Yensa before getting too tired. The amount of loot and EXP you got was hilarious. Just watch out for Salamand entities.

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Wait, larger degree of choise takes away from customization? Pray tell how the hell that works out in your logic =/

As for Poach, I used it avidly to whore items, but once I learned I don't get LP or EXP with poaching, I just stopped using it. You get enough items from chains as is.

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I loved the system. I earlier thought it's a bit "cheap" since you teach everyone the same really useful skills anyway, and limiting since in the end you'd be insane not to make Ashe your mage, or Basch your tank. Later on you often have characters wear the same stuff and everyone can use everyone's weapons, but then I wondered, why on earth would this be bad?

They've created this wonderful, welcoming, forgiving, flexible system that encourages customization and player personality (Fran just looks great with a katana), and people complain and wish they'd make it more limited and.. you know, crap? Because THEY can't help playing it cheaply and would rather it play like every other RPG?

I'd have it no other way. I see one more RPG with characters who can carry an axe while the other one can't and I will weep (though Grandia 1 is exempt).

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Nothing worked on the final boss, you could only wait it out till he did that lighting attack of his and become vulnerable again.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Maybe it'll let you fiddle with their gambits and equipment when they're in as guests?

I can't see them being permanent characters, since you know, they need to be out of the party on multiple occasions due to the plot.

There's nowhere I can't reach.