Squeenix Final Fantasy XII remaster

[Delterius]

Its the FF7 curse. Everything needs to be bigger and better. Kinda like how Blizzard can't just make Diablo 3, they need to turn it into a revolutionary business model for nickel and diming.

 

[Max Stats]

I got a -50$ discount code for this game: PCSX2

Enjoy.

Do you have a discount code for a computer to play it at more than 5fps? My ancient coal burning laptop doesn't run PCSX2 well.

Wouldn't want that even for free. Especially Zodiac edition

Why is that?

Because original game is "hey we fucked up HP system in game and players need 24/7 healing with all their characters ! Which means for best efficiency every character needs to properly heal thus every character is the same more or less. I know ! Let's divide our license board into classes and only 3-4 of them can heal properly ! that will do We call it international/zodiac edition"

Which means that in game where every character needs to heal you have now about half ability to heal. Hell if you don't know classes before hand you can even end up in situation where you can't heal with any character.

And then there is whole XII boring as fuck single player mmo dungeon design. Basically long corridors of nothing filled with same enemy type for next hour or two reapeat whole game for 100 hours.

If they would cut down dungeons in half, remove van and panelo and rebalance game about combat itself and not fucking "heal heal heal heal" then i would buy it.

I played both vanilla and zodiac back in day. Dropped zodiac half way because i had only one character that could heal effectively.

:kwafuckyeah:

CLosest I can comet to a brofist for now,

 

[Hyperion]

You shouldn't wanna brofist, because he's wholly incorrect.

Dragon Quest sticks mostly to its familiar conceits and traditions.

This would be a good thing if they didn't go full casual with their games starting with DQ9. Changing everything to a stupid pun, or some sort of alliteration is aggravating as well.

 

[Blaine]

Certain people seem to have forgotten that we're discussing a JRPG. Perkel is forever playing the voice of dissent in his quest for brownie points; thing is, he's nearly always pointing out obvious shit that everyone already knows.

A JRPG with linear corridors and treasure nooks? You don't say! It's a good thing we have smart guys like Perkel around to give us all the facts, because it never would have occurred to me otherwise. Oh, wait... there's not a single person on the Codex to whom environmental complexity in games is more important.

FFXII disguises it corridors fairly well; since most areas have multiple interconnections, if you aren't consulting your map, then you CAN get turned around/have trouble finding a specific entrance. I also appreciate the lack of quick exits and shortcuts, and restricted fast travel. In JRPG terms, that's all well above average.

It can be a bit empty and tedious at times, and monster models are reused fairly often, but they're much more than mere stat-boosted palette swaps (in both visual design and behavior). Each has slightly different meshes/textures and a thoughtful and well-designed new color pattern, some so much so that they look very different indeed. The game was released 11 years ago, and again, this is a JRPG. It has over sixty unique, non-reused designs (by my vague estimate), which is more than acceptable. Many are simply reused often.

Anyway, yeah, it's a bit of a problem that there's only one proper and complete healing job out of 12, and a runner-up in the form of Red Battlemage; with the right setup, they can do almost everything White Mage can, almost as well. A second character filling in with items here and there is sufficient. You have to sacrifice a firstborn to the Great Old Ones and recite several chapters of the Necronomicon to unlock the (fairly decent) White Magic potential of Knight and Monk, and also give them a second job with Magic Power augments in order for their healing to be decently strong.

What they should have done was do away with crappy Measures and make Machinist a Tactics-style Chemist on the side, with unique abilities that supercharge and grant AoEs to potions and hi-potions, grant additional uses (or some free uses) of some consumables, etc. Even skills allowing increasingly discounted shop prices of consumables would have worked just as well.

All that being said, you can take White Mage on two characters if desired, or simply use your one White Mage all the time and rotate everyone else. And even having said that, I've had no difficulties so far with one White Mage and using one of each job so that I've got all twelve in use. You do have to compromise on min-maxing if using all jobs, and plan METICULOUSLY to maximize what's unlocked by espers and quickenings regardless.

Here's what I finally settled on for my dudes:

LITERAL autism from text file

PENELO
White Mage: Quickenings HP/Battle Lore, Adrammelech for Soul Eater, Cuchulainn for Libra, Famfrit for daggers/Numerology, Chaos for decent Greatswords
Uhlan: Quickenings BLM 5/6 (!!), Hashmal for Bonecrusher, Cuchulainn for Wither, Famfrit for Potion Lore 3, [[Choas]] for BLM 7/8 (!!), [[Ultima]] for Expose
(2 SWFT)


ASHE
Black Mage: Quickenings HP, Mateus for OK Handbombs, [[Zalera]] for Steal/Poach, Hasmal for best Handomb, Zeromus for lv.9 heavy, Ultima for Telekinesis
Monk: Quickenings for WHM 9 and Phoenix Lore, Zalera for Traveler, Shemhazai for Potion Lore 3, Hashmal for WHM 4, Famfrit for WHM 10, Chaos for WHM 11/12 (!!), Ultima SWFTR, [[Zodiark]] WHM 13
(2 SWFT/3 w/Ultima)


FRAN
Archer: Quickening WHM 4, Shemhazai best Heavy, Famfrit easy HP
Red Battlemage: Quickening WHM 2/nice HP, [[Shemhazai]] WHM 7, [[Cuchulainn]] BLM 9/10, Zeromus Cahanneling, Exodus var. Heavy, Chaos/Ultima/Zodiark for Greatswords
(3 SWFT)


VAAN
Shikari: Quickening Ninja Sword/Yagyu & Mesa, Mateus Gil Toss, Zalera nice HP, [[Adrammalech]] Shades of Blk, Cuchulainn WHM 12, Exodus Stamp, Ultima Phoenix Lore x2
Time Battlemage: Zalera Ether Lore 3, [[Adrammelech]] WHM 4, [[Zeromus]] Addle & Shear, Ultima/Zodiark Swords



BASCH
Knight: Quickening for revive/HP/Excalipur; [[Mateus]] and [[Hashmal]] for WHM 6-9; Cuchulainn Battle Lore; Ultima Telekinesis and Battle Lore
Bushi: Quickening for HP/Battle Lore; Cuchulainn or Ultima Stamp; Zeromus more Magic Lore; Exodus big HP



BALTHIER
Machinist: Quickening for Magic Lore, Zodiark nice HP, Exodus Green Magic 1, [[Famfrit]] Time Magick 8-10
Foebreaker: Quickening HP/Battle Lore, [[Belias]] Horology, Zeromus/[[Exodus]] 3x Magic Lore, Ultima Swiftness

 

[Alex]

Yup if you would cut down every area in two aside from few smaller ones, remove van and panelo make mc Bach and rebalance a bit it would be amazing game. Unfortunutelly lead designer Matsuno who designed FFT and Tactics Ogre got booted out from project midway and someone else took over

It would still be a single player mmo...

 

[Perkel]

A JRPG with linear corridors and treasure nooks? You don't say! It's a good thing we have smart guys like Perkel around to give us all the facts, because it never would have occurred to me otherwise. Oh, wait... there's not a single person on the Codex to whom environmental complexity in games is more important.

FFXII disguises it corridors fairly well; since most areas have multiple interconnections, if you aren't consulting your map, then you CAN get turned around/have trouble finding a specific entrance. I also appreciate the lack of quick exits and shortcuts, and restricted fast travel. In JRPG terms, that's all well above average.

I didn't say single thing about linear corridors and treasure nooks. I precisely said that game simply had WAAAY TO BIG areas filled with absolutely nothing.
Which is where single player MMO moniker comes from because it plays like one.

But since you talk about it...

FFX with its linear corridors plays a lot better than FFXII because areas at least from moment to moment are varied. Every 5 minutes you have something new on your screen. And FFX was big downgrade and precursor to FFXIII corridor garbage extravaganza compared to something like FF9.

And don't even mention loot chests/boxes in FXII. There isn't anything worth checking because you always get some random garbage crap like 20 gil or something. In FF9 you could find chests that could contain awesome loot that could help you. In FFXII almost all loot will be bought by you in shop.

FFXII feels like Neverwinter Nights 1 in therm of level design. We don't know what to do to make level interesting so we multiply level size by 10 and monsters number by 20.

 

[Colour Spray]

I have a feeling the recent out-break of isekai anime comes from a desire for a return to proven jrpg settings and game-systems that isn't being fulfilled by a market obsessed with re-inventing itself and remaining trendy. The thing ffxii does better even than the more lauded (don't ask me why) ffx is in delivering a classic jrpg setting without being overtly cliched. And, because the story isn't minutely focused on character melodrama, and because the setting is both detailed and cohesive, there's a good sense of adventure and discovery; even if the gameplay isn't to everybody's liking.

It's like when people say ffviii is a shit game I'm equally bemused. There's a few things which were definitely design errors, like the draw magic system and the long-ass guardian force cut-scenes; but it's still a solid entry in the franchise and has some of the best set-pieces in the entire ps1 library. You don't even really start to feel betrayed by it until you get to the orphanage at the end and realize these ass-holes grew up with each other and they're only just now finding out about it.

X is more like a game I'm happy I played once, but don't ever need to try again. The characters were okay... some good, some bad, but overall pretty decent. The game-play had some good ideas, like having the turn-order list; but mostly it was a little too prescribed. You'd always use tidus against dogs. You'd always get wakka for birds. And you'd always get Auron for anything that looked reasonably beefy. There's very few points in the game where the designers decide to throw a wrench in the works and force you to adapt, or take a previously established concept and turn it on its head; albeit in the case of the Yunalesca fight, when they do it's all the more memorable because it's so rare that they did.

I never played the Nintendo games so I'm happy remaining blissfully unaware whilst people who owned the wrong console in their childhoods can be condescending about their superior taste.

 

[Hyperion]

Blaine, your party is similar to mine except for like 3 differences, but you have a few errors. You have different characters you're theorizing as taking Cuchulainn ("Queklain!"). Only 1 person can take a particular Esper and unlock the bonuses.

When it comes to "Queklain," there's basically 1 tough decision for you to make - do I give him to my Shikari (Hunter) for Protectga and Shellga, or do I give it to my Red Mage for all of the -aga attack spells? Personally I chose the latter because my WHM will have it.

Also to keep mind, one of the most enticing parts of Monk / Black Mage is you don't need Ultima for 3 Swiftness Nodes because the BLM gets 2 naturally. Getting the BLM's 2nd will allow you to grab the 3rd because they're next to each other.

Also 8 was shit because the Draw system was so bad, the Orphanage was stupid, Laguna was a fop, and everything reeked of a daytime soap. And Perkel doesn't know what he's talking about. I literally spent 2 hours right after Raithwall's Tomb oing through Mosphoran Highwaste and The Salikawood gearing out my entire party in equipment that isn't available till the Phon Coast / Archades. And used that gear to go through Nabreus to farm Leynirs for a Defender - 90 attack and 37 evade.

Also used it to get a Scorpion Tail F (new name now that I forgot), the strongest Hammer in the game with 133 attack, for Vaan before completing the Henne Mines.

And I got a set of Platinum Armor from the bazaar - 49 phys defense. None would havd been possible without "useless chests that contain 20 gil."

 

[Blaine]

The double-bracketed esper names are the ones I've actually settled on for each character (tentatively, in a couple of cases). I wrote all the potentials down first so that I could see which was best for whom. Unfortunately, some of the esper license board unlocks are pretty mediocre, whereas a few wall off very good stuff for several jobs, which is fairly annoying.

Perkel isn't entirely wrong about the chests: Many do contain potions or small amounts of gil. The way they work is decidedly MMO-like, right down to wearing some bangle and then farming an area hoping for rare treasure to appear in the endlessly respawning chests there. Apparently you also have to check for invisible chests in a few areas that only appear 1% of the time, as I recall reading in some preview. When non-special chests do yield equipment, it tends to be stuff you can buy from a merchant in the latest town. There ARE unique one-time chests, though. I suppose it's better to think of them as resource nodes than proper chests.

Everything about treasure chests in FFXII smacks of trying to sell strategy guides, because the game tells you nothing, and you sure as shit won't figure it out any other way unless you scientifically spend dozens of hours tediously testing chest-farming techniques (even then, you might still miss invisible chests). This was doubly true of the 2006 edition and the notorious method used to obtain the Zodiac Spear. Fortunately, we have the Internet for free and superior game guides, but I don't usually read guides myself.

There's a lot I could say in criticism of FFXII, and even specifically of the Zodiac Age remaster. For example, often the only way to know if a town NPC has new dialogue after progressing the story is to talk to literally every single fucking one of them again, and only some will have anything new to say. A color-coded talk bubble that turns grey only when you've heard their newest dialogue would be in order. Almost all of it is just flavor text, anyway. Also, you can't keyword search license board squares; can't preview unselected job license boards if you've already selected a board for all of your characters; can't sort your equipment and items at all (very strange, for a FF game); the Clan Primer doesn't quite explain exactly how the quickening and esper minigames work; I could go on.

 

[Hyperion]

Item sorting: Open Menu > Inventory > Hit X on Any Category of Items > Hit Square > Sort however you please.

To be fair, the Diamond Armlet + Cerobi Steppe item farming isn't mandatory, most items are available through the bazaar or stealing. Many of the high level dungeons in Zodiac actually have one time, non respawning chests of the top,end gear. Only downside is you only get 1 of each, so fully equipping your party is impossible through that means.

Invisible Chests, I think there are 2 - one for the Seitemgrat on the airship, one for the Invisible Shield in the Great Crystal. Both are stupid items that are also invisible and so strong they break the game. The game actually put hints for the secret gear in the form of the 16 Phon Coast chests. Unfortunately it was related to Japanese kanji, so us filthy gaijin never had a chance.

Zodiac Age now lets you import Trial Mode items into your main game. While this does require a guide to see what you can steal, and lots of resetting if you don't steal what you want, it's better than Cerobi Steppe farming, or L. 99 Red Chocobo farming. Going from Trial Mode level 1 - However far you can go is vaguely reminiscent of the Ancient Cave from Lufia 2 though, which I appreciate, even if it isn't random. Zodiac Spear chest was fucking dumb for sure.

Talking to every single NPC following story changes is definitely an old school feature that remained in the game. One of the few that maybe shouldn't have been included.

 

[Blaine]

Yeah, I figured I might have missed a contextual hint about sorting items. Thanks.

Other complaints I have: Technicks that form the backbone of a job (Foebreaker being the prime example) not being available until many hours into the game and long after second jobs are unlocked; the decidedly MMO-like Chain system of increased loot rewards that can't feel like anything other than meta-grinding; the need to intensely micromanage Steal and Poach to the point it's not worth using unless strictly necessary for the Bazaar; and most dungeon-crawling battles (i.e. not marks or bosses) being a case of auto-attacking with maybe a Protect and/or Shell Gambit for the leader/"tank" and elemental weakness Gambits for mages, if desired. Then of course when you're in a difficult fight, the mark or boss is resistant or immune to most of the status effects that you never need to bother using on normal enemies either, as is JRPG tradition.

Speaking of which, the Gambit system, while extensive and quite fun to use, is ultimately fairly simplistic and unsophisticated. You can't combine conditions or actions in a single line to create more nuanced Gambits; put another way, the only logic gate you can use is a single-input AND gate, where a single condition is the input and a single action is the output. Actions, once begun by the Gambit system, are carried out to completion unless manually overridden. For example, if Balthier is in the middle of attacking and an enemy's HP goes critical, he won't abort his attack and use Poach instead, no matter how high Poach's priority is.

Gambits can also be dumb in some ways. If you equip Goddess Magicite on Basch, he's permanently Silenced until it's removed, and your characters will use all of their MP and all of your Echo Herbs trying to cure his Silence if you have Vox or Echo Herb Gambits set and enabled. I made this mistake once absentmindedly, laughed, and reloaded the autosave.

Another example: Regardless of priority, if you set "Foe HP = <30%" and "Steal" as a Gambit, then the character will try over and over to steal once the condition's met, even after a successful steal. You must therefore either constantly manually override, or go into the menu to disable the Gambit, then re-enable it after the fight. Ergo, automated stealing with no manual override only works in dedicated "Stealing Parties" with each member's Gambits set to avoid accidentally killing the target before a successful steal; and even then, you'll have to manually issue commands to finish enemies off once successful.

 

[Hyperion]

Well, Breaker is an extreme example. Berserker definitely would have been a more "Final Fantasy" name for it as it wields axes, wears heavy armor, and has good, if not exceptional, HP.

Problem with the breaks is they can't give them early because they're too good. Shear (Lower MDef) is found the earliest, basically right after Raithwall's Tomb, but is also probably the least useful one, except against maybe Chaos.

Gambits when compared to Dragon Age's Tactics are lousy because they're only singular commands and your allies also have no base AI. I've never really looked at them the way you do - I enjoy making basic attack Gambits and playing the rest of the way pseudo turn-based. Only exception is a Gambit to exploit every weakness on my Mages because they know the element to use even if an enemy is immune to Libra.

As for stealing, yeah it sucks, but that's the case for any RPG where stealing rare items is worth it. I like making my White Mage either Balthier, or Fran due to innate Steal, and making a "Foe HP = 100% - Steal" and keeping Thief's Cuffs on them at all times. Every enemy they walk by gives an 80% chance at their common item. Easy money. The Silence thing is really stupid, but is more of an issue with the Item - would have been better if it just sealed the Magic command. The Poach thing is weird. My Penelo has a ">2 Foes Present - Bio" Gambit and she absolutely interrupts her basic attack for it. Though I never really Poach things even if I should.

Gonna have to disagree on Status Effects though. Status Effect magic, and Dispel are absolutely necessary to take down Marks before you can just outmuscle them through gear and levels. In fact, I'd say this is the only FF where these spells aren't total dogshit, as every monster except the absolute toughest enemies have some ailment they're susceptible to.

Prime examples off the top of my head are White Mousse and Orthros. Available pre Raithwall, but impossible to kill unless you exploit their weakness - Sleep. Put them to sleep then spam Drain with everyone who has it and they're helpless. Makes getting to them harder than the fight. Blind also makes every single attack heavy Mark in the game a walk in the park. Marilith, and the Ring Wyrm can be killed at the same time as White Mousse and Orthros due to the power of Blind. White Mousse gives a Burning Bow, Ring Wyrm gives an Ice Brand. Good night, first Demon Wall.

Nihopaloa + Remedy trick is considered dirty, and cheap for a reason heh. And you can get one via Bazaar as soon as the Voera grant you passage through the Jungle. Just need 2 Death's Heads from Dark Skeletons (Warmage Monograph), 3 Libra Gems (Steal from Lanthers / Wild Saurians), and 3 Blood Stained Necklaces from those Zombies in Adrammelech's room. Also a Warmage Monograph drop.

It's even available through the Clan Shop later, as if the game is telling you how Hunters beat the toughest marks. With all 3 Remedy Lores it instantly causes every single Status Effect in the game with 100% accuracy. Including disease. I actually did it to Braegh, the horse mark in The Salikawood, a few minutes ago. Immobilize, Disable, Slow, Silence, Sap, and Disease all work. It's a punching bag for a Hasted, Berserked Basch to just lay into and kill in seconds.

Status Boosters are just as good too!

 

[Blaine]

Well, Breaker is an extreme example. Berserker definitely would have been a more "Final Fantasy" name for it as it wields axes, wears heavy armor, and has good, if not exceptional, HP.

Problem with the breaks is they can't give them early because they're too good. Shear (Lower MDef) is found the earliest, basically right after Raithwall's Tomb, but is also probably the least useful one, except against maybe Chaos.

It's not just Foebreakers, though. Virtually every warrior-type job is deprived of any interesting or particularly useful Technick for a goodly portion of the game's first third, reducing them to boring auto-attackers. Compare this to the jobs in FFT. The simplest physical jobs, like Dragoon and Archer, essentially have just one ever-improving action ability; but because of the tactical nature of the game, this is satisfying. Investing in Aim and Jump steadily increases the tactical value of the abilities. Many of the other physical jobs have numerous action abilities unique to them.

In XII, you're got a grand total of 24 Technicks, one of which is basic and useless (First Aid), and another (Libra) you simply recast occasionally. Most of the rest of are shared between many physical jobs, and a huge chunk of them are reserved until later, whatever the reasoning behind it. In my opinion there should have been more Technicks, and more unique Technicks specific to each job to set each of them apart more. Many physical classes are based on just one single Technick, with a few more made available from the shared pool.

 

[Max Stats]

You shouldn't wanna brofist, because he's wholly incorrect.

Nope the Zodiac boards were garbage.

 

[Blaine]

Generally speaking, the job system in XII looks fairly good on paper/in the menus, but is largely unsatisfying in practice.

Most of the physical jobs are very similar to one another, with choice of weapon being the main differentiating factor between them; even those are largely superficial. The second-biggest thing XII dropped the ball on were the Technicks. There aren't enough Technicks, too many of them are marginal or even useless, and too many of them are shared between numerous physical and even magical jobs. The best ones are also reserved until fully halfway through the game, although you can nab a couple early if you've played the game before/read a guide.

The one physical job that's really unique, Machinist, requires you to constantly switch weapons in order to take full advantage of both Guns and Measures (or even just Measures). This is pure shit. Measures should have been a separate set of abilities usable with a gun equipped.

Now, there's plenty of magic in FFXII, but the vast majority of those long lists of debuffs and so on (as I mentioned earlier) for the most part aren't worth taking the time to use on normal enemies, since simply damaging them is faster and more efficient, both time-wise and MP-wise. And then among marks and bosses, only a select few debuffs are effective... and you don't know which they might be until you try a bunch, or read a guide. So again, that long list of debuffs (and DoTs, too) goes largely unused.

That leads me to what I believe is FFXII's biggest problem: Too many short battles with too few enemies and characters participating, and too many solo and paired enemies spammed all over the maps. Trash mobs should have come in less frequent but larger groups (with exceptions for "big" enemies), should have been much harder to kill, more rewarding to kill, and the party size should have been four characters at all times, not just with guests.

This would have made all those debuffs and so on actually matter more than 2% of the time, as is the case in the Tactics games. There are more player and enemy characters and they're all harder to kill, so debuffs and little nuances actually matter a lot more.

 

[Great Deceiver]

The best part of the game (at least the original/international version, haven't played this remaster) are the hunts. Everything else is filler.

 

[Hyperion]

It's a little unfair to compare XII and Tactics to one another in terms of gameplay, as they play nothing alike. They're set in Ivalice, and the similarities pretty much end there. I'd also argue that Tactics allows for even more abuse in terms of trucking the difficulty - you can learn a skill that literally makes you invincible to all direct physical attacks (Hamedo), or have 100% chance to evade anything that isn't magic - guns included with 100 Brave if you use Blade Grasp. Sure you can say Lancers feel different from Knights, but once you have access to infinite Excaliburs, and Chaos Blades, why are you using anything but them? Why even use a party of 5 when Orlandu can beat literally any encounter the game throws at you on his own? Steal the Chantage from Meliadoul and Agrias is literally invincible - she resurrects on her next turn if she goes down, and can blast through groups of enemies with Holy Sword. Even the infamous Wiegraf fight - if you don't expect it, yeah, it's impossibly difficult and you may have to restart your game because that shit sucks. But if you've built Ramza even reasonably well it's literally as simple as putting on the Samurai '2-hand' ability, and hitting him once with the biggest fucking weapon you've got and you win as long as he doesn't block. Then it just becomes a test of hoping RNG doesn't shit on you. Or you can run around like a pussy and use Shout 74 times to get fast enough to go 2 or 3 times to his once. I prefer the former, it's faster.

Or even worse, play War of the Lions, and make Ramza a Dark Knight. I was absorbing 500+ points of HP in Chapter 3, and I even de-leveled him back to 1 so his stats would be shit. It didn't matter, because he was an invincible monstrosity with a damn Ice Brand. Even worse, Mustadio the pussy is in love with Agrias, and buys her a perfume in Chapter 4 for her birthday - it gives +3 Str / +3 Magic and every buff under the sun. She's literally the best character in the game with that.

Trash monsters are nasty in the endgame side areas in XII. I just reached the Phon Coast, got the Site 11 Key and went to Lhusu Mines. I couldn't remove Penelo from the group, or I would get wiped by a group of Dark Lords because their physical evasion is through the roof, did 50% of my HP per hit, and had AoE spells that destroyed my heavies. I had to put Lure on Basch, manually pre-cast Firaga, and HOPE Basch blocked an attack or else he was dead meat. Until I found the 100% chance Maximillian, and then he took only 750 or so with Protect up, and I stomped those Skeletons. The main game was balanced around doing only the absolute bare minimum - no hunts, no sidestuff, no exploration, no additional Espers, NOTHING. Delving off the main path for even an hour will completely wreck any difficulty the story may have had.

But at the same time, if you do things like head into the Nabreus Deadlands, Necrohol of Nabudis, Site 11 of Lhusu Mines, or taking the back entrance of Henne Mines the moment they're available, abusing status effects is a bit of a must if you want to get by. As for Debuffs, Blind and Slow work on pretty much every enemy you come across except for a few. Gilgamesh is the only boss I can think of off the top of my head that's immune to Blind, while Slowing his ass takes a MASSIVE edge off the fights and you're trying to get the goddamned Genji stuff.

And like Great Deceiver said, FFXII is all about the optional Hunts, Espers, and uber-bosses / areas. No one cares about going through Raithwall's Tomb. We're rushing through that to test our builds in the late, late areas - all of which are more challenging than anything present in Tactics.

 

[Blaine]

It's a little unfair to compare XII and Tactics to one another in terms of gameplay, as they play nothing alike. They're set in Ivalice, and the similarities pretty much end there.

It's not unfair at all, and Ivalice has nothing to do with it. The Job System is the main point of contention, and that system offers far more variety and nuance in any of the Tactics games than it does in XII. Don't get me wrong: Jobs are a marked improvement over the generic License Boards of the original version, but it's pretty clear that the Zodiac edition is a modification of what was once a generic system.

I'd also argue that Tactics allows for even more abuse in terms of trucking the difficulty - you can learn a skill that literally makes you invincible to all direct physical attacks (Hamedo), or have 100% chance to evade anything that isn't magic - guns included with 100 Brave if you use Blade Grasp. Sure you can say Lancers feel different from Knights, but once you have access to infinite Excaliburs, and Chaos Blades, why are you using anything but them? Why even use a party of 5 when Orlandu can beat literally any encounter the game throws at you on his own? Steal the Chantage from Meliadoul and Agrias is literally invincible - she resurrects on her next turn if she goes down, and can blast through groups of enemies with Holy Sword. Even the infamous Wiegraf fight - if you don't expect it, yeah, it's impossibly difficult and you may have to restart your game because that shit sucks. But if you've built Ramza even reasonably well it's literally as simple as putting on the Samurai '2-hand' ability, and hitting him once with the biggest fucking weapon you've got and you win as long as he doesn't block. Then it just becomes a test of hoping RNG doesn't shit on you. Or you can run around like a pussy and use Shout 74 times to get fast enough to go 2 or 3 times to his once. I prefer the former, it's faster.

The possibility of grinding, min-maxing, and extensively employing metagame knowledge to become powerful in Tactics doesn't invalidate the game's baseline or overall difficulty. The game doesn't physically prevent you from min-maxing if you choose to, but this is a benefit, not a detriment; or put another way, it's a symptom of the freedom the game offers you.

Orlandeau is bullshit powerful, yes, but sometimes fun is more important than challenge and you get him very late in the game. If you want to maintain the challenge, don't use him and also avoid using obviously OP job combos. I realize a lot of people believe that if the game doesn't literally prevent you from becoming OP then its difficulty must be judged by the most OP combinations possible, but that's wrong.

And like Great Deceiver said, FFXII is all about the optional Hunts, Espers, and uber-bosses / areas. No one cares about going through Raithwall's Tomb. We're rushing through that to test our builds in the late, late areas

By your logic, the filler is a great majority of the game to simply be slogged through, which objectively speaking is a mark in the game's disfavor.

Also, many of the Hunts are... eh. Some are just bigger enemies with normal HP. Some are good, although all of them that employ the Paling invincibility field are garbage (and it's easily bypassed with 3x characters casting Drain anyway, I discovered). Exodus spams Scathe and uses a Paling at 25% HP, such a challenging and interesting fight, amirite? Cuchulainn has been the best fight so far. Fought him at level 39, and it was ROUGH. Like many challenging fights however, it requires constant White Mage spam, just like an MMO healer.

Anyway, my point is that overall variety in the bulk of the gameplay is lacking, and it seems you agree on that point. You've described a lot of min-max/cheese strats for specific challenges and powerful enemies, but that's doesn't really contribute to overall variety; although it's good that the game isn't easy throughout and offers strong challenges.

...all of which are more challenging than anything present in Tactics.

No. Refer to my second paragraph above.

 

[Hyperion]

I was never a big fan of Palings either, especially since the two counters to it are, like you said, Drain spam, and turning the game speed down to the minimum, since it has a flat timer on it, not modified by the game speed. This gives the enemy less turns. Exodus isn't the worst example of a Paling fucking you over, it's actually one of the better ones. He become immune to Physical damage, but has reflect on. You need to either Dispel him, or be wary enough to have an Opal Ring on your Black Mage. Because items are blocked, Dispel Motes aren't an option either. Dispel is kinda cheesy though, since you can sometimes get him into a cycle of just spamming Reflect instead of Scathe, and Flare...

The Trickster on the other hand...fuck that overgrown chicken cocksucker. Dude becomes immune to physical, magical, AND removes all debuffs. Plus he cycles his elemental weakness like the dude from Vector in FF6. But you have no way of knowing what his weakness is, because he's immune to Libra. And he will Cleanse / Paling more than once if the battle goes on long enough, which it probably will because he starts spamming Choco Comet, which makes the Tactics Choco Comet look weak.

I think it'd be better if you compared the job system to FF5, instead of tactics. And when you compare it to 5, they feel pretty similar. Most of the physical classes are identical, except the weapon they use to attack until they learn their big abilities late in the game, like X-Fight for the Hunter. And if you avoid grinding, mastering one class takes a very long time unless you frequently get lost or explore every little nook and cranny in the world.

By your logic, the filler is a great majority of the game to simply be slogged through, which objectively speaking is a mark in the game's disfavor.

Yeah, sorta. It sucks, but at the end of the day it's a Final Fantasy game, where the main story is almost never challenging with the minimal investment and playing. Been like that since FF4, really. Tactics, and 5 are the exceptions if you have no min/maxing knowledge. But I'm also saying that I'm rushing through most of the game to get to the 'good stuff' as a person who has played this game approximately 6 times between the original, IZJS, and now this version of the game.

If it makes you feel any better, this game did have a lot of complaints from people who played it that it was actually too tough in all parts, which caused some of the adjustments in the Zodiac versions of the game.

The possibility of grinding, min-maxing, and extensively employing metagame knowledge to become powerful in Tactics doesn't invalidate the game's baseline or overall difficulty. The game doesn't physically prevent you from min-maxing if you choose to, but this is a benefit, not a detriment; or put another way, it's a symptom of the freedom the game offers you

This is exactly the case for 12 as well. The only difference is it's a lot easier to become powerful, and nearly impossible to totally fuck up your characters, unlike Tactics.

P.S. - Cuchulainn's a douche.

 

[Blaine]

Yeah, the Trickster was ridiculous. I just barely made it through that one with my skin intact, and that fight was where I realized that Drain bypasses Paling, which saved me. Can't debuff it, can't deal physical damage, can barely deal elemental damage after spending turns trying to figure out what works, it runs around aggroing the zone, and it spams Choco Meteor almost as fast as its animations will allow.

A lot of the enemies and especially bosses/marks/espers in XII pull that kind of shit when they go critical, just absolutely spamming attacks. I understand why they add that burst of attacks to the end, but it can be pretty obnoxious.

When I did Zalera, I happened to be level 38, which is only divisible by 1, 2, 19, and itself, and isn't a prime number. All it could do was Sleep and Kill occasionally. Easiest fight in the game so far.

Anyway, the game isn't totally a slog. Some of the dungeon puzzles are pretty decent, or at least require you to pay attention/be aware/keep track of what you're doing, which is good. Some of the area gimmicks are good too, like the need to rush to the next battery mimic in Barheim Passage and not dally. These aren't real challenges to someone who plays old-school dungeon crawlers and solves actual puzzle-puzzles as a hobby, but they're appreciated nonetheless. Some of the main and side quest "town puzzles" or mysteries even require you to keep notes as you go along, although they can be a little too old-school in their fetch-questiness at times. I'm thinking of the Barheim Key side quest especially.

And while a lot of debuffs may go unused most of the time, buffs, curing debuffs, and removing enemy debuffs help make up the difference a bit later on, I'm finding. I've gotten the hang of poaching (though it slows things down considerably), which also helps combat feel less like an auto-attack fest; when I got out of Giruvegan and sold all my loot and unneeded equipment just recently, I went from 251,000 gil to 487,000 gil.

The world is quite huge in a pretty good way, with an enormous number of cities, towns, and zones. They did a good job of making it feel like a dynamic, living, inhabited world, especially considering the game was made in 2006. Children play, workers haul, guards patrol, etc. Of course, most combat zones are simply a matter of filling in your map and aren't particularly challenging to navigate or explore... but hey, JRPG.

 

[Blaine]

Having finally checked a guide to learn some of the steps to obtain ultimate weapons—and a guide is absolutely mandatory for FFXII, unless perhaps you fancy going in blind and spending 100+ hours of pure tedium systematically clearing areas to spawn rare game, stealing and poaching hoping to discover ultra-rare drops that aren't recorded anywhere in the bestiary even after you find them, etc.—I think I'll skip getting the ultimate equipment, as well as any optional bosses that are mechanically impossible to beat without said equipment.

The ultimate dagger, for example, requires you to kill nearly 300 enemies in order to spawn a rare enemy that has a 3% chance of dropping said dagger. That's the only way to get the dagger. Fortunately the spawn can be exploited using autosave and resetting, but even with that these are unheard-of levels of nonsensical grinding... and I played FFXI for two years starting from release, so believe me, I have a basis for comparison.

That's my #1 sorest disappointment with the game: They don't give you the proper tools to discover or keep track of bazaar recipes and rare drops in-game, except through extremely tedious trial-and-error or by consulting a guide.

I am glad that the era of JRPGs being purposely designed to punish you for not buying a guide is over. Then again the era of good JRPGs actually being developed and released is almost over, so it's a bit of a two-edged sword.

 

[Hyperion]

https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/939426-final-fantasy-xii-international-zodiac-job-system/faqs/63057

Scroll down to the Trial Mode section. It has some interesting fights in the latter half, and you can steal steal what you want. Will be a lot of resetting and reloading, but if the farming bothers you, this should be more tolerable. Once you have what you want, just Load the game from the Trial Mode Auto Save and you'll take everything with you into the Main Game. New to the Zodiac Age. As long as you've a pair of Thief's Cuffs it shouldn't be too bad. 'Rare' steal with them on is 12%, not such terrible odds all things considered. Past Stage 50, some of the fights are nasty, and you have to complete them to keep the item. Good mix of challenge, and grind. Be careful because you gotta kill things like the Hell Wyrm (4 million HP) in the late stages, and there's no leaving the boss room this time.

Most side content can be completed with the stuff you find in the optional areas in one time chests. Site 11 of Lhusu Mines where you fight Gilgamesh has loads of good gear. Dragon Whisker, Whale Whisker, Zwill Crossblade, Orochi, Maximillian in an area not on the map, Masamune in the final room, Magepower Shishak. Nabudis has Black Robes, and a White Hood, plus some good spells.

Elvorets in Nabudis can be farmed for a Maximillian. They're weak to Wind, so a single Aeroga will clear an entire room of them. The Skeletons in the Nabreus Deadlands, which spawn almost infinitely in the area where you fight Roblon, have Golden Skullcaps as a Very Rare Steal. Lordly Robes are found in Pharos, and the locked area of the Henne Mines, I think. Haven't gotten there yet, so my memory might be fuzzy.

I have 40 hours in the game and have the Sagittarius A, and Scorpion Tail F already. And most materials for the Whale Whisker, and Masamune I. 2 of 3 Orochi N materials can be farmed pretty easily from the Mantis enemies in Feywood. As for the Bazaar, always hold onto everything and sell at once. You can exploit it and get multiple items with the same batch of loot. For example, selling the materials for Tournesol and Masamune I at the same time will only require 3 Gemsteel. Had you done it separately you'd need 3 Gemsteel for the Masamune I and 2 for the Tournesol, which is a big timesaver.

 

[Blaine]

I've been through a bunch of Nabudis et al., have two Maximillians, and have done a fair bit of Trial Mode already, up through 30. Frankly I find memorizing the gimmicks pretty annoying, but obnoxious gimmicks are what XII is all about. Stop and Disable in particular are extremely gay, doubly so because they work far better on your characters than they ever do on enemies. In my first run through the 11-20 trials, I had to sit there with my entire party Stopped by Time Requiem spam getting whaled on for 45+ seconds. None could be swapped out, since they were all constantly targeted. Wear anti-Stop accessories, you say? That's what I mean by annoying gimmicks. There's no actual challenge or thought involved.

Ah, well. I think I'm just slightly butthurt because I miss the more nuanced and strategic gameplay of Tactics that this game clearly reminds me of, but doesn't quite capture. Instead of drawn-out battles, the combat in XII is more like two cannonballs of job system-flavored nonsense and overwhelming force smashing together. Whoever is stronger/has a superior gimmick wins. It's pretty typical JRPG-like fare otherwise, though.

What I really want is Hastega, because casting Haste on more than one person (especially automatically through Gambits) is extraordinarily tedious and makes me want to kill myself even at 2x speed, but I assume I need to get further into the Necrohol to find it.

The goblins in Nabudis are clearly a tribute to the annoying and deadly fucking goblins in XI, by the way.

 

[Magellan]

The other day, it came to my attention that Dark Cloud 2 and Final Fantasy XII had been re-released. That finally tipped the scale for me, and so I purchased a PS4—new, because I don't trust anything that's been handled by unknown retards. I'd been wanting to play Nioh, Bloodborne, and a couple of other PS4 games, but I have a strict "bare minimum of 5 worthwhile exclusive games before buying potato" policy. It usually takes 3-5 years for a potato to qualify, if it ever does.

I've long maintained that FFXII is the best mainline modern Final Fantasy title. I certainly enjoyed it far more than the relentlessly linear, sappy, goofy FFX. FFXIII was even more relentlessly linear than X, while its characters and story were demoted from sappy and goofy to mediocre and forgettable. I'm pretty sure FFXV is also shit, although I don't know much about it; all I really know is that I find the main cast repellent. I realize that metrosexual fruitcake hairdos and bizarre fashion-disaster emo fad clothing is all the rage in Tokyo these days, but I hate it. Also, the concept of driving around in a car and snapping smartphone pictures is suspect at best.

If I want to play a Millennial simulator, I'll just browse Reddit for a few hours.

Overall, I agree that Ivalice, the Zodiac motif and aesthetics pioneered in Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story-esque themes and aesthetics, and especially the job system collectively represent the peak of the Final Fantasy series. The original Tactics doesn't quite live up to Tactics Ogre in all areas, but the story of political intrigue and betrayal is excellent and it makes up for its few shortcomings in other ways; Tactics Advance/A2 faltered in story and characterization, but still maintained good gameplay, concepts, and aesthetics; FFXII isn't the objectively best mainline FF of all time (I still believe VI holds that honor), but it's in the top third, depending on personal taste; and Vagrant Story was cool. It's been ages since I've played Vagrant Story (the year it was released and never again), and I suspect I'd find it to be a little datedly edgy these days, but I still remember it fondly.

Actually, my memories of both Vagrant Story and FFXII are pretty damned vague, which is increasing my enjoyment of Zodiac Age since I have only an unspecific familiarity with most of the stuff in it. I haven't played it in 11 years, after all. The new two-job license boards are no doubt a great improvement over the generic catch-all boards of the original (and outside of Japan, the only) release.

The aesthetics and art direction in XII are perfect. The characters' faces are clearly Vagrant Story-esque, the espers are Tactics Zodiac-themed, and the costuming and hairdos and whimsical, elaborate, and elegant without being too fruity (XV) or edgy (also XV, Squall, Seifer, Cloud, etc.).

Even at the time XII was released, the Gambit system, partly real-time combat, and other aspects of the game's mechanics reminded me of an MMO, but in reality the game is still essentially turn-based and overall it's fine. The two-job license board system, the hunts, some non-linear segments, quite decent exploration, and the story featuring political strife and intrigue (which falters later on, but is still far and away better than many FF storylines; also it's strangely similar to Star Wars, as many have pointed out) all comes together to create a well-rounded and enjoyable weeaboo potato thingamajig.

Bloodborne and Nioh are both really good. The Last Guardian is another good exclusive.

 

[Hyperion]

What I really want is Hastega, because casting Haste on more than one person (especially automatically through Gambits) is extraordinarily tedious and makes me want to kill myself even at 2x speed, but I assume I need to get further into the Necrohol to find it

Even worse, it's in the Great Crystal. Can farm the Nabudis Baknamies for Hastega Motes, though. 1 Blizzaga and they're finished! :D