[PS2] Final Fantasy XII

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then. Getting weapons in FFXII was incredibly boring and tedious for me. And not only that, but unneccesarily time-consuming. (Well, at least for the Tournesol. I was VERY lucky to get weapons like the Excalibur on the first try. Which leads me to another point: relying purely on the luck of the draw to get some of the most powerful items is stupid and a waste of time; there should have been awesome mini-games for them...). To me, it was much more fun (and challenging) in FFX. Furthermore, there were no random battles after I got a Peaceful Shield from Geosgaeno just after beating Yunalesca.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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APPARENTLY, THEY RAN TO GET THE LOOT THAT THE WYRM DROPPED, and sure enough, they STOLE it! I couldn't believe it, afterall, it could have been a piece of RING WYRM LIVER anyway!

Haha! Well, the beastiary says they're involved in criminal activity!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Who cares what they look like? Honestly, that's dumb, because the Zodiac Spear's attack is substantially higher than the Dragon Whisker's. You're only handicapping yourself.

FELIPE NO

I utterly owned Adrammelech with Blizzaga. The attack also took out all of the zombies in the area as well.

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

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You already had Ga spells by then? I went up to Adrammelech with only Blizzara, and managed to do only like 1000 some damage.

Or rather, I didn't bother fighting him until I had bought the Ga spells.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

If you're afraid of the Antlion, don't go to the Nabreus Deadlands. Also, use Warp Motes on the mini-mantises. You can get to the Deadlands by going through the Salikawood, but stay out of the Necrohol. You will get killed.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Heh, try defeating the Gate Crystal. Even when my party was in the late 60's, several of them got knocked out while fighting it.

Most amazing jew boots

I could not have survived much of the game without Gambits, and I can't even imagine inputting all of the commands for all of my characters manually.

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

My biggest problem with Gambits is that they're not complicated enough. I wish you could add modifiers such as IF, WHEN, ONLY, etc. For example. Foe: Any: Steal ONLY IF Foe: Stolenfrom = false. If "Stolenfrom" is true, then the next gambit down would be used. That way, I wouldn't have to switch the Steal gambit on and off. If I steal and the enemy has no more loot to steal, it will automatically go to Foe: Any: Attack, or whatever happens to be next.

I was speaking idiomatically.

What I'm wondering is

Spoiler:

If the Occuria are so powerful, why did they need Nethicite to control the world? We can see by the way that Venat manhandled Gabranth and powered up Vayne that they're certainly no weaklings, plus, they're immortal, so why not just move in and take over? Are they afraid? Or do they have some kind of hidden weakness? Perhaps they're really not that strong at all? For all we know, they may not even be gods at all, but posers.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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If you want, try using the multi-cast trick posted on the page before.

I wish I had known about that before I went and beat him the hard way.

FELIPE NO

Wow, this reflect trick makes black magic actually useful. I triple-Scathed a Ring Wyrm for 30,000 HP! If I ever play through the game again, I'll be sure to use this on all of the bosses.

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

Yes, 9999, 9999, 9999. I just had Basch use Scathe on himself and it hit three times all at once.

Most amazing jew boots

Tell me, is there any kind of special prize for beating all of the marks? I have yet to defeat the Seer and have no desire to do so, ever. I'd rather fight Omega MKXII again than walk around in Subterra for even a minute.

Motivate me, people.

Most amazing jew boots

Oh, well. In that case I'll just consider myself to have honorarily defeated it. I don't think I'll ever bother to complete the rest of the beastiary or minigames. I've already attained all of the Espers and beaten all of the hardest bosses. There's nothing left to do. There's no point in doing the fishing game, because I never picked up the Omega Badge, and there's too much running around required for beastiary filling.

I think that at this point, I am pretty much done with this game.

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

You need to get Okami soon. All in all, I enjoyed Okami more than FFXII. I've already been through it three times (it's that good), so I'm full of tips and hints if you happen to get stuck.

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

If you can keep your main attacker decoy'd and reversed, always, it is easy. But if decoy wears off for more than a second or two, and one of your party members dies, you will have to run away and revive them.

How ya doing, buddy?

Simply setting the right gambits and attacking didn't work for me. Even at level 99 and with all buffs and the best armor, he was still hitting for around 5000-7000 points each time, far too much to heal; I would have been in a constant curing loop. Even my highest HP character equipped with a bubble belt could only take three or four hits at the most.

Curaja shouldn't be needed if Omega is only attacking the person who is the decoy. If that person can be re-reversed before he runs out of HP, then Omega will be healing him constantly. I had both of my other characters with reverse and decoy gambits for my party leader to be extra sure that neither of the buffs wore off. Once I had the chain started, I killed Omega easily. The dashing off was before I figured everything out properly. This way my main attacker rarely took damage, and my other attackers stopped only occasionally to rebuff him.

In this case, the berserk status was beneficial, because the main attacker did more damage that way.

Also, if you do go and fight Omega, don't make the same mistake I did.

Be SURE to pick up the Omega badge before leaving the area!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It's not as "damn" as Renewing Yiazmat, though. And to think, if I had only realized that I didn't have the badge before I went and saved, everything would have been OK.

FELIPE NO

Be sure to open only the Zodiac chest.

Originally Posted by Alex

If you successfully met the conditions for getting the Zodiac Spear, facing
the camera north, let's label the chests 1 - 4 across the bottom (X axis) row
and 1 - 4 upwards from the bottom left chest to the top left chest (Y axis).
The Zodiac Spear is in chest (4,2) using the (x,y) system (over four, up two).
One of the two closest chests to the room's entrance.

His guide has perfect instructions for running directly to the room full of chests. You should really read it. I would never have made it through the Necrohol with levels in the mid-thirties without it.

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

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The Deadlands is creepier

Speaking of this, one of the most profound moments in the game for me was standing on the edge of the bridge remnant where the Nu Mou was. Standing there, looking out over the Deadlands, observing the waste, the seething Mist, the sun barely able to penetrate it even at higher altitudes, nothing more than an illuminated cloud at lower elevations, and listening to the mournful music playing in the background. "A Land of Memories" quickly became one of my favorite tracks.

Finishing the Bangaa beastiary entry really drove home the point.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

The destruction and how horrifying it must've been for those who didn't know their friends and family were gone, captured right there in that last page.

What I wondered about the most was the people who were there when it happened. They probably didn't even realize anything was wrong, until they suddenly awoke as fearful, undead creatures. The explosion certainly took everyone instantly. I can't help but imagine all of the people there, especially the children. They never expected anything and never knew what hit them.

It makes me wonder just how powerful a piece of Nethicite really is. If Nabudis and the area surrounding it is any indication, the Midlight Shard must have discharged several megatons of energy, at least.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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Nethicite the size of the Great Crystal could do.

Ah! I meant to post about this a while ago, but got sidetracked. My question: If the Sun-Cryst is the mother of all Nethicite (that is, all non-manufacted Nethicite was physically taken from it) where the heck the did Great Crystal come from? Is the entire thing made out of Nethicite? How would that be possible? Or perhaps just the smaller spherical crystal that was embedded in the bottom level? But even that piece is much larger than the Sun-Cryst.

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

Spoiler:

But the Sun-Cryst is also mentioned as being the "Source of its unending power", meaning that the Sun Cryst somehow remotely empowers deifacted Nethicite.

Here is a quote from the Japanese story translation:

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King Geln : Ashe Banalgan Dalmasca, the one who seeks power. You must seek the holy power that we have kept. 'Heaven's Cocoon' sleeps in the tower of a distant sea. It is the orgin of all Nethicite and the source of power. The Tyrant's fragments that you know of were cut from this Cocoon.

If the Great Crystal is the actual source of all Nethicite, why couldn't they just make a new Sun-Cryst? And concerning the Sun-Cryst itself, it doesn't look like it was cut from anything. It actually seems to be a very well-formed crystal.



That's the clearest picture I could get. It looks pretty smooth, considering pieces have already been cut from it. As for the Occuria, I'm not sure how six (and now, five) beings could be the source of all of the Mist in the whole world. And if they're so powerful, why don't they control history directly? Even if they do have weaknesses and are afraid, there is still nobody around at this point in time that could possibly challenge them. They should move in and get a grip before they are surpassed. Of course, they would then be hated, but you have to make sacrifices, right? Or perhaps the fact that they haven't tried to interfere directly means they're not all bad? I mean, they could have easily slain everyone in the Pharos when they decided the attack the Sun-Cryst. But they didn't. Personally, I have never considered the Occuria to be truly evil in the same way that Kefka or Albedo are evil, for example.

(You know, now that I really look at it, the Sun-Cryst is kind of evil looking. Up close, one can see strange colorings and perturbations of its interior structure.)

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

Spoiler:

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Well, some surfaces seem smoothed/polished, but it still looks like it came from a larger object. Often times something whole and complete is often shown as being spherical (like that mass of Nethicite in the crystal). This thing looks like little more than a glorified shard.

Well, I guess we can't know for sure.

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As for the Occuria? Think about it. They seethe Mist, even the approach (The Feywood) to where they dwell (Giruvegan) is thick with it, it's the power within the stones that drive the world, and also what creates monsters out of regular things. The Mist, if you want to simplify it... is pure, flowing power. It's mentioned that whenever mistflows change, whatever lands they cover are irreversibly changed.

You use gather it to summon beings that challenged the gods themselves and unleash attacks far more powerful than anything you could manage normally.

Mist doesn't seem to do anything more than pervert flora/fauna into beasts drunk with its power, or enable/create destruction. Only when it's sealed away in stones and slowly drained is it beneficial. I see the Occuria and what I see are seemingly immobile entities who bear not a passing resemblance to a stone (and now that you brought up the cryst pic, they have the same general shape as the source of all nethicite's power). Oh, as I was saying, they ooze Mist. Their features are frozen like stone, and they pour mist out. Heck, theirs is an especially dark kind, no less.

My personal theory concerning Mist and the Occuria is that they are so powerful spiritually (or magically, if you prefer) that their manifestations leak excess Mist. Or perhaps, their presense causes disturbances in the local Mistflow. Personally, I think Mist itself is just a natural phenomenon, like Pyreflies or Mako.

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If Mist is simply power, and the Occuria aren't gods, then they're at least creatures who drank so deeply that it corrupted them utterly. Simply reading through the entries you see that at every point that some other group started gaining power that might soon be comparable to theirs, they destroy them. I don't know about you, but commanding a princess to slaughter everyone and leave a few alive, sounds pretty damn evil. Maybe if it had been a human character saying this, and not some hideous thing, you probably would've agreed.

Well, yeah, I suppose that is pretty evil. Although, for the record, I don't find the Occuria to be Hideous at all. On the contrary, I find them to be very beautiful, especially this one:



I mean, come on, it looks like an angel.

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Kefka and Albedo were evil, no doubt. This simply doesn't deviate that far from them, since in the short time we were treated to the Occuria, we were shown their unbalanced and bloodthirsty nature (something you were keen to notice in the entries). Not to mention, those same entries mention that after a certain event, the gods retreated behind the wall of an ancient city, and more.

I don't believe that they were bloodthirsty per se. I do not think that they want to go around destroying people, simply for the sake of destroying. I can't imagine them wiping out a group of people and saying to themselves "Heh! That was cool!". They would probably say something more along the lines of "We do what we must. To survive". At least, that's probably how they see it. What would you do if you were in their position?

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Oh and the cryst's appearance? It looks like there's something inside, but we can't quite make it out due to the crystal distorting the image of the thing inside.

I wish the video wasn't riddled with Youtube's compression; then we could see the inside clearly.

And no, I have no completed the Garif entry, yet. In fact, I haven't played in days.

I was speaking idiomatically.