[PS2] Final Fantasy XII

I got the game and really like it so far. I completely agree that it's like FFXI-2: Offline. There are cool characters and a story. Now I just have to see if any of the grinding stuff annoys me like in FFXI. It seems way toned down as far as the amount of patience you need to make progress with getting armor and learning abilities, which is very good. Gil seems to be short on supply, but things don't seem ridiculously expensive like in FFXI. Not having to deal with other real people makes battles much more enjoyable for me. This game is addictive. That's about all I have to say so far.

And the Whatever Den thing is adorable, but I have nothing in it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Spatula

Also, is it just me or are there A LOT of handsome men (Vaan excluded) in this game? Even the side characters like Vayne and even the Judge Gabranth himself seem to be very nice and "manly". I sound so gay.

Nope. They're all hot. Even the random villagers are pretty easy on the eyes. This works for me. I can't decide whether Balthier (I expected his name to be pronounced "Bal-tee-ay", but whatever....) or Basch should be Vaan's new boyfriend. Penelo? Yeah, she's a friend, but it's not like that. Or maybe it is. But until it's proven to be like that, I'm imagining that she's my fag hag. And you thought you sounded gay.

I'm still really enjoying this game. At Luhsu Mines (spelling?), I still feel like the world is huge. I don't even talk to most of the "friendly" people I see. Instead I've just been moving on to the next major story point. At some point I'll check everything out, obsessive-compulsive style, but right now I just want to see what happens next. So far, I don't understand the complaints about the story.

Oh, and "Mar-kwiss" annoys me over and over.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by JazzFlight

Marquis = "Markwiss". British pronunciation. Since their accents are British and not French.

Cool, thanks. Now I can convince my brain not to be annoyed by that anymore. Probably. Brain better listen to logic, damn it.

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

That's what I thought a while ago: that part of what always made RPG battles cool was the emphasis on each individual attack, so while FFXII has more realism, we lost the theatrics. I like the Mist stuff in FFXII, though. I think those are pretty much sufficient, but people like ME would have liked at least an option to kind of zoom in and masturbate over each move in battle.

I'm constantly pausing to keep track of what's going on and zooming the camera around to keep my eye on all the characters.

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I know I'll be replaying this game over and over. It has the same potential as FFVIII for luring me back when I get ideas for weird character set-ups. I'll want to try a solo game, a game with no magic, with no weapons, etcetera....

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Dr. Uzuki

What reason could there possibly be not to show me all of the stat changes a new piece of armor is going to afford to me?

This will force the more obsessive-compulsive player to buy at least one of every piece of equipment in order to assure themselves that they have the most uber character setup possible before leaving to fight the giant whatever dragon and heading to the next town for more equipment shopping. It increases play time. Luckily, this game has decently fun battles.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Oh yeah, and it probably also increases strategy guide sales, no?

FELIPE NO

Wow. I think everyone's further than me. The... Stillshrine? Of... something: I'm confused. I guess I need to

Spoiler:

point statues in certain direction(s)

or something like that. I'm kind of tired of the place, though. I haven't played for 3 or 4 days.

HOWEVER, I usually want to play again whenever I'm stoned. So it must be a pretty fun game, still. And if the story gets good again only toward the end of the game, as long as it does get really good again, then I'll be satisfied.

I pretty much have it like this:

VAAN: 2nd Thief/Pirate (Steal, Poach, Traveler), with basic healing spells (Cure, status curatives, Life), with daggers, swords, crossbows, and explosives.
BLONDE GIRL: White/Time mage (all curative & time spells), and 3rd Thief/Pirate, with crossbows, daggers, poles, and explosives. (Maybe ninja swords because HELLO -- The Bride.)
BALTHIER: Thief/Pirate, with guns, daggers, swords, and ninja swords.
FRAN: Red Mage (Cure, Cura, status curatives, Life, elemental, elementala), with bows and bare claws.
BASCHE: Dark Knight (defensive/protective abilities), with swords, bows, guns, javelins, axes, and bare.
ASHE: Mage Knight (defensive/protective abilities/spells, and arcane magic), with swords, crossbows, bows, and daggers. (And measures? Might as well.)

I may play after Survivor ends.

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

I wasn't so much frustrated by the option of having everyone use every spell/ability/weapon/armor/etc. since there is the option of not doing that -- for the most part, anyway. I've noticed that I can't get to the better shield licenses without getting some of the heavy armor licenses, for example. It makes sense in that knowing how to use daggers would lead to using ninja swords, or whatever, but I don't necessarily want to make sense. I want god-like control. I know I could just get those licenses and then just not use the armor or abilities I don't want to, but I'm being picky here, okay? I want to decide which characters have certain battle roles and not have to gain licenses for anything they won't be using. It doesn't really bother me all that much, though. It's just that maybe there should be an option for "forgetting" licenses.

I haven't played in a week or so. Am I bored with it? Just burnt out? We'll see. I've switched over to Shadow Hearts: FTNW for a while.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

Something I've been thinking of. Did anyone else ever feel bad about killing the cute, innocent creatures, like the Mandragora or Happy Bunny? I was walking along the Phon Coast, and I came upon a group of adorably cute little plant-men. They had green life bars, so I left them alone. They followed me for a long time, dancing around all the while. They weren't in my beastiary yet, so I had no choice but to kill them. They were helpless to resist as I snuffed out their little lives.

...Heh.

I can't bring myself to kill the non-aggro monsters. It just seems like unnecessary (virtual) cruelty. I have accidentally slaughtered some bunny thing once, but that's it. And of course I'll probably get over these "emotions" if I find that I need some innocent critter loot for some reason later on in the game. Is there some kind of bonus for unlocking the entire bestiary, by the way?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by ZealPath

have you met Elza yet?

........

<3 <3

Seriously, Ivalicians[?] are some sexy bitches. See avatar.

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

So the Giant Crystal and the area before that have been annoying me. I think I'm done wandering through rooms and killing the same four monsters already.

I also completed a few more hunts and am now a Riskbreaker. That's so cool. I don't even need to do any more hunts, but I probably will.

My party, at about level 45-ish, has become:
Basch with that Disable hammer, Auto-Libra, and Auto-Protect. Curagas at 30% HP.
Ashe with, I think, a Crystal Sword and Auto-Shell. Curajas at 30% HP.
Vaan with some Immobilize crossbow bolts and Auto-Haste. Curagas at 40% HP.
They've all got Raise and Esuna, and I spread out the rest of the status recoveries amongst them.

Every battle is like this:
Basch Exposes while Vaan Immobilizes.
Then Basch Disables while Vaan Steals.
Ash and everyone Attacks until edges of monster are golden brown.

I should have stuck with my plan of giving everyone a specific job.

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

Originally Posted by Drex

Not really, I just hate using consumables on status effects in general. It took me 30 hours of gameplay having Cleanse to realize that that's the way to rid myself of Disease, but I'm kinda peeved that I haven't found a spell to get rid of Stop, especially. You'd think that if Esuna didn't work that Haste would, but 'tisn't true. Oh well.

I think Dispel removes Stop. Not certain, though.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I just finished the game and was slightly underwhelmed. I guess I expected the final battles to be more grand. The story wrapped itself up pretty uneventfully, too. There were far greater story moments during the game than at the end, and I think the real climax of the game is around the Pharos segment of the story. That part got me pretty excited. Anyway, there isn't really any satisfaction to be gained from beating the game, in my opinion. It's still super fun to just play it, though. Now I just need to complete the nine-bajillion side quests and hunts and everything everyone's been discussing.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Tomahawk

I took the Altar of Wealth (items).
Currently at the save point at Pharaos 2nd Ascent: Reach of the Damned (64F).
That altar in the middle is the "Dais of Ascendence", but can't get on it because Nothing Happens. This chamber appears to be affecting the Dais.

The next level up is Pharos 2nd Ascent: The Bounds of Truth (65F). This is where I defeated Fenrir, the white tiger-humanoid (after beating Pandaemonium, the solid rock tortoise and Slyt, the scaled fish on the previous levels).

So I'm not exactly sure what my next action has to be to ascend past floor 65.

This confused me, too. Basically, you need to return the crystal you chose before (Wealth, in your case) back to its pedestal thing. The elevator -- I mean, the Dais of Ascendence will operate once all four of those crystals are on their pedestals and there are no restrictions on your party. It's one of those so-obvious-it's-impossible things.

FELIPE NO

My guess is that nethicite comes from the word "nether", as in "nether regions" or "netherworld". The idea would be that nethicite is... damned, I guess.

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

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

I don't know. The word "nether" means down, below, or under. It doesn't make sense to me.

Right, that's what it literally means, but the connotation is of being from the underworld, or hell. The opposite would be the word "ether", which means above, but has a connotation of being from the heavens. Aren't the magic abilities in the Xenosaga games called Ether?

Anyway, I've started a new game, and I'm restricting myself quite a bit. My intention was to have each party member perform a specific role, so that only one person would have healing magicks and so forth. However, that's insane, so I've instead given them different levels of "skill" in different areas. Fran will have all the white magicks, Ashe and Penelo will have about half of them, and the guys will have only the basic Cure spell. Everyone will have licenses for 2-3 different weapons that only they can use.

I'm also setting up their gambits so that they function in certain ways during battle. I intend to have Ashe learn all Black magicks and set up her gambits so that she always hits enemies with their elemental weaknesses. Basch will be my strongest melee fighter, which so far only means that he's got "Enemy: Status = HP Critical > Attack" because he likes to smashy-shmashy, I guess.

I'd appreciate any suggestions as to how certain character roles can be set up this way. I've tried to do the same with FFVIII, and I usually hit a wall at some point. The main problem with FFXII seems to be that in order to unlock all of a certain magick group's licenses, you need to also unlock a few from other groups. I can live with that, I guess, but I wish it weren't so.

There's a cool class system FAQ at GameFAQs, but I've opted against following it completely since I want to have every license unlocked eventually. The classes in that FAQ are so specialized that I don't think I'd be able to cover all bases. Maybe I'll end up modifying those somehow.

http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/f..._challenge.txt

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

But it didn't come from hell. It was originally creates by the gods themselves.

Gods, yes. But were they necessarily benevolent? To me, the gods and the nethicite are presented as neutral at best, in terms of being good or evil. One of the main themes of the game is the corruption that comes with power, with the nethicite as the symbol of that power. I think it would have been a more interesting concept had the writers taken even less of a stance as to whether or not the nethicite is good or evil -- but anyway, the story communicates the message that it's best to avoid the risk altogether by resisting the power of the nethicite. So symbolically, the nethicite does have an infernal, hellish, evil, or whatever, quality. It should make sense, if I'm explaining it well enough.

I guess we'll just have to wait for the Super Final Fantasy XII: Champion Edition deluxe set with directors' commentary, or something.

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Originally Posted by Andrew Evenstar

Hey guys just a question...

I played throught the Japanese game and have yet to play through the English version.

How are you guys / girls liking the game and how does it rank against other FF's? What are your opinions, likes, dislikes?

Isn't it pretty much the same in English or Japanese? The licenses are an improvement on FFX's sphere grid. The Gambits allow a depth of character customization that reminds me FFVIII's junction system. I think the main story is pretty basic compared to all the Playstation 1/2 FF games, but the backstory of the world it takes place in is even more expansive than Spira from FFX. The amount and quality of sidequests is greater than FFVI, though there is less relation to the main playable characters. The music is on par with FFIX, since it's not bad at all, but not very exceptional either. What else is there? The character designs and graphics are sexier than FFX-2. The battle system is an improvement on FFXI's. The moogles gain +10 Adorability. Am I done?

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