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The Official Final Fantasy 12 (NA) Thread
- Thread starter Red Scarlet
- Start date
Ferrio said:
How did you get through Barheim back entrance at lvl 25? The enemies in there are giving me grief at lvl 35 when i tried it, those Dark Skellies :lol
Where is Cuchulainn located?
Maybe I'll go fight Adremelach again, i remember his Thunderga and his little minions hurting me bad though
Ikse said:
I ran like a little bitch past the skeletons.
Cuchulainn is in the granwhatever waterway in rabanaste or however you spell it. You first have to kill the big slime mark in the waterway before you can get to him. Overall easier to get to, but waaaaaaaay harder to kill.
Vaandaviii
Member
Ferrio said:
QFT.
I arrived there about level 85. I started to slash everything on the screen dealing >5000 per hit, but then that MOTHER****ER cast disablega, wich combined with the "default HP--" status of the battle produced the results I refused to believe :lol
PS: I tried it again and kicked it ass before it could cast disablega.
Here's how I beat him at lvl 25.
First I ran in with only one ch aracter (who could cast dispel). They ran in... if the first spell he cast was disable.... I'd reset. Otherwise I'd cast dispell. Then I'd pull in the rest of my party members.
I'd do my first quickening chain and hope to hell I got something good. Then I pulled out one character and replaced it and did another quickening chain, then replaced them an ddid another.
I did that until everyone was otu of mana (which would be 4 quickening chains total). Then I got my lowest MP person and threw ethers on them until they got 1 mist bar, then triggered my quickenings again. When that was done I threw some more ethers on them and triggered quickenings again.
I did this fight 10 times like this until I got some really good chains outta the thing and was able to kill him. There was no way I would be able to do anything with him hitting my characters for 800 dmg with just his physical attacks, not to mention all his little guys.
First I ran in with only one ch aracter (who could cast dispel). They ran in... if the first spell he cast was disable.... I'd reset. Otherwise I'd cast dispell. Then I'd pull in the rest of my party members.
I'd do my first quickening chain and hope to hell I got something good. Then I pulled out one character and replaced it and did another quickening chain, then replaced them an ddid another.
I did that until everyone was otu of mana (which would be 4 quickening chains total). Then I got my lowest MP person and threw ethers on them until they got 1 mist bar, then triggered my quickenings again. When that was done I threw some more ethers on them and triggered quickenings again.
I did this fight 10 times like this until I got some really good chains outta the thing and was able to kill him. There was no way I would be able to do anything with him hitting my characters for 800 dmg with just his physical attacks, not to mention all his little guys.
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
WTF! Mateus is so hard and an utter cheese ball. Dammit.
What levels did you guys fight her with? Vaan, Basche and Balthier are level 30. The girls are at level 20. I just can't sustain enough damage with the strong three. Argh. I came reeeeaall close one time...but died. My quickenings never kill off the Ice Azers in one shot. So annoying.
What levels did you guys fight her with? Vaan, Basche and Balthier are level 30. The girls are at level 20. I just can't sustain enough damage with the strong three. Argh. I came reeeeaall close one time...but died. My quickenings never kill off the Ice Azers in one shot. So annoying.
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
Diablos said:
Yeah, seems like it. I'll be trekking back to Mt Bur to the two merchants there to upgrade. Oh well. I have really strong weapons now, but because they're 2H weapons, I can't use shields. And it looks like the Ice Shield is imperative to winning this battle.
I hated that boss. I beat him after about 3 tries by using a high chain quickening. It was about 12 I think, and I waited till he spawned his ice crystal dudes before I did it, so that the post-chain attack (Ark Blast I believe) would damage more than just him. That attack killed them instantly and he was down to about 1/2 half, and since he had no backup I was able to just slug it out quite easily
Make sure to ether your healer after the quickening, and have a cura gambit. Mine was Cura @ ally <70%. That advice applies to basically every boss.
edit: Oh yeah, and I think ice shields can be found by
Make sure to ether your healer after the quickening, and have a cura gambit. Mine was Cura @ ally <70%. That advice applies to basically every boss.
edit: Oh yeah, and I think ice shields can be found by
chaining the bats in the henne mines
The way people spoiler stuff in this thread confuses me, so I guess I'll just spoiler tag gameplay related stuff too.
was. I would suggest that you stop using 2H weapons unless the character does not do close range combat (for example, a gun or bow). Shields really, really help for close range. As do the gambit squares you can later unlock that
I had my party like this for the rest of the game from the
fight and beyond:
Basch: Full-on attacker, light healing capabilities (barely anything). Used axes and hammers (1H). Get your hands on the
if you can; not sure which shops sell it but it
which really helps when your levels are kinda low.
Ashe: Balance between attacking and rather strong support magic that I expanded upon at the end of the game, as well as some black magic (but not much). Initially I used spears for her, but they're 2H and the lack of having a shield really sucked, so I switched to swords.
Penelo: Weakest attacker using bows, but lots of support magic. At times (especially the end) I just set her gambits up strictly to heal and manually casting all kinds of support magic (haste, protect, shell, etc).
Also, about the boss: Don't unleash your quickenings until his health is REALLY LOW. You'll get clobbered if you use quickenings too soon, because you'll have no MP and healing is a must. I'd also get used to not using quickenings unless it's to finish the boss off should things unexpectedly get desperate. BUT, make sure you get all three quickening chain levels so you can have tons of MP.
Heh. It's funny you're having so much trouble. That's where I had THE most trouble in the game. edit: Actually, no it wasn't.AlphaSnake said:
Aihrman
increase your chance of blocking with one.
I had my party like this for the rest of the game from the
Mateus
Basch: Full-on attacker, light healing capabilities (barely anything). Used axes and hammers (1H). Get your hands on the
Sledgehammer
randomly hits enemies with disable
Ashe: Balance between attacking and rather strong support magic that I expanded upon at the end of the game, as well as some black magic (but not much). Initially I used spears for her, but they're 2H and the lack of having a shield really sucked, so I switched to swords.
Penelo: Weakest attacker using bows, but lots of support magic. At times (especially the end) I just set her gambits up strictly to heal and manually casting all kinds of support magic (haste, protect, shell, etc).
Also, about the boss: Don't unleash your quickenings until his health is REALLY LOW. You'll get clobbered if you use quickenings too soon, because you'll have no MP and healing is a must. I'd also get used to not using quickenings unless it's to finish the boss off should things unexpectedly get desperate. BUT, make sure you get all three quickening chain levels so you can have tons of MP.
michael000
Banned
Picked up the genji helm and armor and color me shocked, they're not even better than the store bought armor i'm wearing lol. I missed the shield and gloves but out of curiousity do either of them have effects?
Anyway, just beat the game.
First of all, I'd like to talk about all the rumors/potential spoilers that were floating around the Internets that are wrong. Still spoiler-tagging them because you knowing such events DON'T occur is kind of a spoiler too
I figured I'd post that for laughs.
And I will post final impressions later when I can gather my thoughts.
But uh... is it me or are there a lot of
First of all, I'd like to talk about all the rumors/potential spoilers that were floating around the Internets that are wrong. Still spoiler-tagging them because you knowing such events DON'T occur is kind of a spoiler too
Matlock telling me Vaan's father is the final judge - LOLZ, FALSE
2chan/4chan/other message boards...
Vaan and Ashe are brother and sister - FALSE!
Penelo dies!!!!!!! - FALSE!
BALTHIER AND FRAN DIE!!!!!!!!!!!! - ALMOST, but FALSE!
Rasler is the final boss - :lol
2chan/4chan/other message boards...
Vaan and Ashe are brother and sister - FALSE!
Penelo dies!!!!!!! - FALSE!
BALTHIER AND FRAN DIE!!!!!!!!!!!! - ALMOST, but FALSE!
Rasler is the final boss - :lol
I figured I'd post that for laughs.
And I will post final impressions later when I can gather my thoughts.
But uh... is it me or are there a lot of
plotholes that are never addressed... and I mean SERIOUS plotholes.
michael000
Banned
Zaptruder said:
Damn of course i miss the one useful piece of genji armor lol.
As for the shield i read earlier in this thread there is.
Shield and gloves could only be stolen in the first fight, which of course i didn't find out about till the day after i'd beaten gilgamesh to a pulp on bridge 1 :lol
3 questions:
1) Any tips for what looks like the final mark
except just constant raising and patience? Ally = KO to do Arise is my first gambit on all characters and I keep Balthier berserked with Fomalhaut to make sure damage is always being done but he has SO much HP!! Anything I can do to speed it up? I'm level 60 FYI.
2) What's the point of the morbid urn that turns enemies into arcanas? what does arcanas get you?
3) How do I get Excalibur and the best bow (forgot the name)?
1) Any tips for what looks like the final mark
King Behemoth
2) What's the point of the morbid urn that turns enemies into arcanas? what does arcanas get you?
3) How do I get Excalibur and the best bow (forgot the name)?
1) He is not the final mark. Use Haste on all your characters first, do you have high level magics like Scathe? They do a ton of damage, and have patience, this will take a while anyway specially with his magic/physical shields.Tabris said:
2) No clue.
3) Excalibur is in the
Great Crystal in Giruvegan
Well, I don't even know where to start for final impressions, but here we go.
Sound:
The voice acting is EXCELLENT. Best in an RPG; rivals Metal Gear Solid. Top two in the whole market when it comes to voice acting, if you ask me.
However, I wish Japanese developers would learn about something called ogg vorbis, it's an amazing audio format that would have proved superior for the voice acting. Voices would been crystal clear and not have any weird dithering and compression brought about whatever obsolete methods for compression they used on the voices. I'm sure the PS2 is capabile of using it.
Music:
It's a decent OST, but it's no Final Fantasy Tactics. It doesn't have too many standout tracks and it's pretty redundant. Rabanastre especially has terrible music. It suffers from FFIX OST syndrome: the strong tracks are really strong, and all of the other songs that aren't, well, aren't too great.
Graphics: Pushing the PS2 to the limit, no doubt. FFXII has visuals I thought I would never see on this console. It is to my understanding that S-E used really weird geometry hacks to allow for more texturing and stuff. Only one side of the character models were rendered, the other half generated on the fly (by mirroring the other side that has already been rendered). For up-close faces during scenes, the PS2 rendered the bodies of characters the same, but rendered seperate heads to go over them as it didn't have enough power for a completely high-poly model. All of this stuff allows for a smooth framerate and good texturing. Although a lot of textures were indeed washed out regardless... but PS2 hardware is very obsolete, so these kind of things are excusable; overall, the graphics in this game are amazing when you consider it's on PS2. Valkyrie Profile 2 still looks better (and, wouldn't you know, plays better too).
As for gameplay:
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Ah, the story. Let's just tie this into CHARACTERS for a moment:
Vaan - Why is this dude the main character? His brother dies? So what? Basch has more to do with that than Vaan does! He does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the story. Oh, wait, he flies the ship at the end while Balthier almost dies. Right.
Penelo - I used her in battle, but again, she contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the story. She does stuff for Migelo and gets cute with Vaan. Wow.
Fran - Besides being Balthier's partner in crime, she contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the story. Ohh, nice village.
Basch, Ashe, and Balthier are no doubt the main characters. Because of this, I believe the game should have focused on the three of them -- and strictly the three of them -- at the beginning and mostly throughout the story, with Ashe as the center focus, and more emphasis put on her planning stuff with her uncle and the resistance. Or, Vaan and Penelo should have played a bigger role if they were to be a part of the plot as they were. From strictly a story standpoint, the game could have honestly done without Fran... and Penelo, too. Vaan survives because he snuck his way in and eventually found Ashe, but that's about ALL he did outside of being related to Reks.
People always hate on games like FFVII and VIII for having poor character development, but even then the characters were somehow tied into the fabric of the story -- even if you thought it was cheesy, simplistic, overdone, cliche, whatever -- they were tied into it! You understood why they were a part of the story! In FFXII you have three "main" characters that literally are there for nothing but being along for the ride. They're as useless as Yuffie storywise. But even Yuffie played a bigger role than Vaan, Penelo and Fran I think. And she was optional. :lol Or even if you thought one of the characters sucked in, say, FFVIII, there were elements that tied them all together and tied them to the story, making it at least somewhat interesting. FFXII does not have this with its more bland characters. It doesn't have it at ALL. Hell, guys like Reddas had a bigger impact on the story than Penelo, Vaan, or Fran did.
As for the enemies, Cid wasn't as bad as jett and some others are making him out to be. He actually stimulated the story a bit when it really got stale, but in the grand scheme of all things, it didn't help much.
The judges play a decent role, Gabranth in particular playing an excellent one. They are definitely good for the story and seemed to play a stronger role earlier on (save Gabranth who was consistently good), which is why they probably don't suck as much.
Vayne is... Vayne. It amazes me that the party doesn't even fight him until the END of the game. There wasn't enough interaction with him to make you feel like you really wanted to kick his ass.
Larsa is a great character but he fell victim to the crappy story all-around.
I think Ashe is the best female character in a FF since VI and VII, so it's been a while. But she too falls victim to a botched story, unfortunately.
I would agree that the Venat played way too big of a role. Perhaps if the story was set up for multiple confrontations with Vayne beforehand and an eventual killing of Vayne, it would have made more sense. In that the Venat still remained looking to influence someone else and the party had to seek them out in whatever new form and/or allegiance they took. Which makes me wonder what the hell happened to the Venat after you kill Vayne...? They're still relevant because they could return!
Oh, by the way... where the hell is Rozarria in this game? Hey Square-Enix, remember Al-Cid? I don't care what anyone says, he was definitely initially set up to play a MUCH larger role in the story, I think. You can just tell. But yeah, something tells me Matsuno wanted both him and Rozarria to play a larger part in the game, and I think characters would have developed even further had they gone there because it would have allowed for more storytelling. He was in the game only two extremely short times.
I do, in fact, think Matsuno had a whole lot of ideas of where to take this story that Square-Enix didn't want to talk to him about when he eventually got the boot. Prior to the story completely falling apart, you can tell he had stuff set up between the characters that was never expanded upon. Vaan finding out stuff about himself. What did he find? What did he do? Nothing. We learn nothing else about Vaan, and Penelo is even WORSE. The most important thing she did was her narration during the ending... but even then she was just talking about what happened to everyone. I think it would've been better if Ashe's uncle talked about everyone like he did throughout the entire game, duh Square.
But instead of anything major, the characters often seemed to milk out a lot of already introduced ideas and concepts; all of this I would assume for the sake of just having conversation to fill the massive gaps in the storyline. OMG THE MANUFACTURED NETHICITE! Etc.
What about Balthier and his history? Fran's history? How it all ties into everything? Lots of people were going after Balthier and stuff... seems like there was a lot to him that we never got to learn about because Matsuno wasn't there to make it happen. Thankfully, Balthier still does play a HUGE role in the game because Cid obviously gives him that history that's so lacking overall across the characters. But it just goes to show you the lack of expanding upon the characters as a whole still hurts them all at times.
I do wonder if Balthier is related to Mustadio from FFT. I'm going to assume FFXII takes place BEFORE FFT because, in FFT, you'll recall Mustadio talking about how people were obsessed with machines manipulating magic and how it eventually made a mess of everything. I'd assume this happens further into FFXII's timeline (after the ending) and Mustadio is a few generations ahead of Balthier. Just an idea, I could be wrong.
Penelo and Fran are SO bad, I can't even give them any "what if's" as to where their stories COULD have gone. There's absolutely no substance. They stopped developing as soon as they were introduced.
As for the ending... it was pretty lame. I was expecting there to be more closeless between the characters -- that at least would have tied them together a bit more. Vaan and Penelo, maybe Balthier working with Ashe in the Kingdom would have been ideal. It would've given Vaan and Penelo a reason for just sticking around and doing nothing 99% of the time. They kind of earned a place in the Kingdom (by fighting of course)! Instead, they write Ashe off as a snob who, because she's a Princess, can't be bothered by the people that helped make her be where she now reigns? Huh? Who came up with that idea?
Bottom line: This plot has more holes than swiss cheese, and may very well be the sloppiest storyline in the entire series. Considering the excellent localization AND unbelievably great voice acting -- the best in an RPG to date, I'd argue -- that's a shame. Coupled with the fact that Square sat on this game for half a decade -- think about that -- makes it a tragedy, really.
Vaan - Why is this dude the main character? His brother dies? So what? Basch has more to do with that than Vaan does! He does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the story. Oh, wait, he flies the ship at the end while Balthier almost dies. Right.
Penelo - I used her in battle, but again, she contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the story. She does stuff for Migelo and gets cute with Vaan. Wow.
Fran - Besides being Balthier's partner in crime, she contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the story. Ohh, nice village.
Basch, Ashe, and Balthier are no doubt the main characters. Because of this, I believe the game should have focused on the three of them -- and strictly the three of them -- at the beginning and mostly throughout the story, with Ashe as the center focus, and more emphasis put on her planning stuff with her uncle and the resistance. Or, Vaan and Penelo should have played a bigger role if they were to be a part of the plot as they were. From strictly a story standpoint, the game could have honestly done without Fran... and Penelo, too. Vaan survives because he snuck his way in and eventually found Ashe, but that's about ALL he did outside of being related to Reks.
People always hate on games like FFVII and VIII for having poor character development, but even then the characters were somehow tied into the fabric of the story -- even if you thought it was cheesy, simplistic, overdone, cliche, whatever -- they were tied into it! You understood why they were a part of the story! In FFXII you have three "main" characters that literally are there for nothing but being along for the ride. They're as useless as Yuffie storywise. But even Yuffie played a bigger role than Vaan, Penelo and Fran I think. And she was optional. :lol Or even if you thought one of the characters sucked in, say, FFVIII, there were elements that tied them all together and tied them to the story, making it at least somewhat interesting. FFXII does not have this with its more bland characters. It doesn't have it at ALL. Hell, guys like Reddas had a bigger impact on the story than Penelo, Vaan, or Fran did.
As for the enemies, Cid wasn't as bad as jett and some others are making him out to be. He actually stimulated the story a bit when it really got stale, but in the grand scheme of all things, it didn't help much.
The judges play a decent role, Gabranth in particular playing an excellent one. They are definitely good for the story and seemed to play a stronger role earlier on (save Gabranth who was consistently good), which is why they probably don't suck as much.
Vayne is... Vayne. It amazes me that the party doesn't even fight him until the END of the game. There wasn't enough interaction with him to make you feel like you really wanted to kick his ass.
Larsa is a great character but he fell victim to the crappy story all-around.
I think Ashe is the best female character in a FF since VI and VII, so it's been a while. But she too falls victim to a botched story, unfortunately.
I would agree that the Venat played way too big of a role. Perhaps if the story was set up for multiple confrontations with Vayne beforehand and an eventual killing of Vayne, it would have made more sense. In that the Venat still remained looking to influence someone else and the party had to seek them out in whatever new form and/or allegiance they took. Which makes me wonder what the hell happened to the Venat after you kill Vayne...? They're still relevant because they could return!
Oh, by the way... where the hell is Rozarria in this game? Hey Square-Enix, remember Al-Cid? I don't care what anyone says, he was definitely initially set up to play a MUCH larger role in the story, I think. You can just tell. But yeah, something tells me Matsuno wanted both him and Rozarria to play a larger part in the game, and I think characters would have developed even further had they gone there because it would have allowed for more storytelling. He was in the game only two extremely short times.
I do, in fact, think Matsuno had a whole lot of ideas of where to take this story that Square-Enix didn't want to talk to him about when he eventually got the boot. Prior to the story completely falling apart, you can tell he had stuff set up between the characters that was never expanded upon. Vaan finding out stuff about himself. What did he find? What did he do? Nothing. We learn nothing else about Vaan, and Penelo is even WORSE. The most important thing she did was her narration during the ending... but even then she was just talking about what happened to everyone. I think it would've been better if Ashe's uncle talked about everyone like he did throughout the entire game, duh Square.
But instead of anything major, the characters often seemed to milk out a lot of already introduced ideas and concepts; all of this I would assume for the sake of just having conversation to fill the massive gaps in the storyline. OMG THE MANUFACTURED NETHICITE! Etc.
What about Balthier and his history? Fran's history? How it all ties into everything? Lots of people were going after Balthier and stuff... seems like there was a lot to him that we never got to learn about because Matsuno wasn't there to make it happen. Thankfully, Balthier still does play a HUGE role in the game because Cid obviously gives him that history that's so lacking overall across the characters. But it just goes to show you the lack of expanding upon the characters as a whole still hurts them all at times.
I do wonder if Balthier is related to Mustadio from FFT. I'm going to assume FFXII takes place BEFORE FFT because, in FFT, you'll recall Mustadio talking about how people were obsessed with machines manipulating magic and how it eventually made a mess of everything. I'd assume this happens further into FFXII's timeline (after the ending) and Mustadio is a few generations ahead of Balthier. Just an idea, I could be wrong.
Penelo and Fran are SO bad, I can't even give them any "what if's" as to where their stories COULD have gone. There's absolutely no substance. They stopped developing as soon as they were introduced.
As for the ending... it was pretty lame. I was expecting there to be more closeless between the characters -- that at least would have tied them together a bit more. Vaan and Penelo, maybe Balthier working with Ashe in the Kingdom would have been ideal. It would've given Vaan and Penelo a reason for just sticking around and doing nothing 99% of the time. They kind of earned a place in the Kingdom (by fighting of course)! Instead, they write Ashe off as a snob who, because she's a Princess, can't be bothered by the people that helped make her be where she now reigns? Huh? Who came up with that idea?
Bottom line: This plot has more holes than swiss cheese, and may very well be the sloppiest storyline in the entire series. Considering the excellent localization AND unbelievably great voice acting -- the best in an RPG to date, I'd argue -- that's a shame. Coupled with the fact that Square sat on this game for half a decade -- think about that -- makes it a tragedy, really.
Sound:
The voice acting is EXCELLENT. Best in an RPG; rivals Metal Gear Solid. Top two in the whole market when it comes to voice acting, if you ask me.
However, I wish Japanese developers would learn about something called ogg vorbis, it's an amazing audio format that would have proved superior for the voice acting. Voices would been crystal clear and not have any weird dithering and compression brought about whatever obsolete methods for compression they used on the voices. I'm sure the PS2 is capabile of using it.
Music:
It's a decent OST, but it's no Final Fantasy Tactics. It doesn't have too many standout tracks and it's pretty redundant. Rabanastre especially has terrible music. It suffers from FFIX OST syndrome: the strong tracks are really strong, and all of the other songs that aren't, well, aren't too great.
Graphics: Pushing the PS2 to the limit, no doubt. FFXII has visuals I thought I would never see on this console. It is to my understanding that S-E used really weird geometry hacks to allow for more texturing and stuff. Only one side of the character models were rendered, the other half generated on the fly (by mirroring the other side that has already been rendered). For up-close faces during scenes, the PS2 rendered the bodies of characters the same, but rendered seperate heads to go over them as it didn't have enough power for a completely high-poly model. All of this stuff allows for a smooth framerate and good texturing. Although a lot of textures were indeed washed out regardless... but PS2 hardware is very obsolete, so these kind of things are excusable; overall, the graphics in this game are amazing when you consider it's on PS2. Valkyrie Profile 2 still looks better (and, wouldn't you know, plays better too).
As for gameplay:
The end of the game demonstrates that YES, you DO have to think when it comes to battles. There is a lot of planning involved and keeping your party healed while everyone automatically attacks can be pretty exciting. That said, I did nothing extra and would imagine that had I gone on all the hunts and acquired some extra espers, I wouldn't be saying this because I'd be at like level 60 at least. Anyway, sadly, everything before the final few areas of the game is really boring and scripted. Using my leader manually made me feel like I had SOME control, but it still wasn't very deep. When I had trouble, I just went through an area once or twice until I got more exp and items to sell for loot, which I would then use to buy better armor. I had to do this once. Overall there's just no sense of planning and really thinking anything through until the end. The license grid proved to be ok, but I credit that to the Golden Amulet. 
If everyone had a different license grid, I think that would have added more depth to how you could've developed them. This may have not played out very well, but I'm wondering if maybe they should have had like six predefined grids (all still locked of course) that you assign to characters. Each one pertaining to different things. One for physical, one for a certain type of magic, one that's a hybrid of a couple, etc.
But ultimately, Active Dimensional Battle is not the answer. Not until they can at least make the level of user input and thinking match previous FF's, even if they still want to keep the automation aspect. That's just it -- the game is too automated most of the time. From the guy that brought us Final Fantasy Tactics, I was expecting a lot better.
No random battles is nice... but I didn't ask for you to have me have to sell out my thinking to a script, either. You are put at such a disadvantage if you don't use gambits for certain things during important fights. For example, you'll never be able to use a phoenix down as fast as you could if you just set up a gambit to do it. All of this automation really takes away from YOUR experience. There's far too much of it and I hope FFXIII gives the player more control. That's the most important thing to me. Otherwise I may not buy any more FF's if they continue to use ADB and in this way.
Overall, this game is one that had an awful lot of potential... potential to perhaps be the best yet. Sadly, this is not the case. The shortcomings stick out like a sore thumb and it really makes you question if Square-Enix even cared about the story and many aspects of the gameplay after Matsuno left.
Believe it or not, I still enjoyed this game, but there were too many times where I was shaking my head, wondering what the hell Square was thinking.
FFXIII will prove if Square can actually make an RPG that has a good story and consistently good gameplay, something they haven't done since FFX as far as I'm concerned, and that was a long, long time ago.
If everyone had a different license grid, I think that would have added more depth to how you could've developed them. This may have not played out very well, but I'm wondering if maybe they should have had like six predefined grids (all still locked of course) that you assign to characters. Each one pertaining to different things. One for physical, one for a certain type of magic, one that's a hybrid of a couple, etc.But ultimately, Active Dimensional Battle is not the answer. Not until they can at least make the level of user input and thinking match previous FF's, even if they still want to keep the automation aspect. That's just it -- the game is too automated most of the time. From the guy that brought us Final Fantasy Tactics, I was expecting a lot better.
No random battles is nice... but I didn't ask for you to have me have to sell out my thinking to a script, either. You are put at such a disadvantage if you don't use gambits for certain things during important fights. For example, you'll never be able to use a phoenix down as fast as you could if you just set up a gambit to do it. All of this automation really takes away from YOUR experience. There's far too much of it and I hope FFXIII gives the player more control. That's the most important thing to me. Otherwise I may not buy any more FF's if they continue to use ADB and in this way.
Overall, this game is one that had an awful lot of potential... potential to perhaps be the best yet. Sadly, this is not the case. The shortcomings stick out like a sore thumb and it really makes you question if Square-Enix even cared about the story and many aspects of the gameplay after Matsuno left.
Believe it or not, I still enjoyed this game, but there were too many times where I was shaking my head, wondering what the hell Square was thinking.
FFXIII will prove if Square can actually make an RPG that has a good story and consistently good gameplay, something they haven't done since FFX as far as I'm concerned, and that was a long, long time ago.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Diablos said:Well, I don't even know where to start for final impressions, but here we go.
Ah, the story. Let's just tie this into CHARACTERS for a moment:
Vaan - Why is this dude the main character? His brother dies? So what? Basch has more to do with that than Vaan does! He does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the story. Oh, wait, he flies the ship at the end while Balthier almost dies. Right.
Penelo - I used her in battle, but again, she contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the story. She does stuff for Migelo and gets cute with Vaan. Wow.
Fran - Besides being Balthier's partner in crime, she contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the story. Ohh, nice village.
Basch, Ashe, and Balthier are no doubt the main characters. Because of this, I believe the game should have focused on the three of them -- and strictly the three of them -- at the beginning and mostly throughout the story, with Ashe as the center focus, and more emphasis put on her planning stuff with her uncle and the resistance. Or, Vaan and Penelo should have played a bigger role if they were to be a part of the plot as they were. From strictly a story standpoint, the game could have honestly done without Fran... and Penelo, too. Vaan survives because he snuck his way in and eventually found Ashe, but that's about ALL he did outside of being related to Reks.
People always hate on games like FFVII and VIII for having poor character development, but even then the characters were somehow tied into the fabric of the story -- even if you thought it was cheesy, simplistic, overdone, cliche, whatever -- they were tied into it! You understood why they were a part of the story! In FFXII you have three "main" characters that literally are there for nothing but being along for the ride. They're as useless as Yuffie storywise. But even Yuffie played a bigger role than Vaan, Penelo and Fran I think. And she was optional. :lol Or even if you thought one of the characters sucked in, say, FFVIII, there were elements that tied them all together and tied them to the story, making it at least somewhat interesting. FFXII does not have this with its more bland characters. It doesn't have it at ALL. Hell, guys like Reddas had a bigger impact on the story than Penelo, Vaan, or Fran did.
As for the enemies, Cid wasn't as bad as jett and some others are making him out to be. He actually stimulated the story a bit when it really got stale, but in the grand scheme of all things, it didn't help much.
The judges play a decent role, Gabranth in particular playing an excellent one. They are definitely good for the story and seemed to play a stronger role earlier on (save Gabranth who was consistently good), which is why they probably don't suck as much.
Vayne is... Vayne. It amazes me that the party doesn't even fight him until the END of the game. There wasn't enough interaction with him to make you feel like you really wanted to kick his ass.
Larsa is a great character but he fell victim to the crappy story all-around.
I think Ashe is the best female character in a FF since VI and VII, so it's been a while. But she too falls victim to a botched story, unfortunately.
I would agree that the Venat played way too big of a role. Perhaps if the story was set up for multiple confrontations with Vayne beforehand and an eventual killing of Vayne, it would have made more sense. In that the Venat still remained looking to influence someone else and the party had to seek them out in whatever new form and/or allegiance they took. Which makes me wonder what the hell happened to the Venat after you kill Vayne...? They're still relevant because they could return!
Oh, by the way... where the hell is Rozarria in this game? Hey Square-Enix, remember Al-Cid? I don't care what anyone says, he was definitely initially set up to play a MUCH larger role in the story, I think. You can just tell. But yeah, something tells me Matsuno wanted both him and Rozarria to play a larger part in the game, and I think characters would have developed even further had they gone there because it would have allowed for more storytelling. He was in the game only two extremely short times.
I do, in fact, think Matsuno had a whole lot of ideas of where to take this story that Square-Enix didn't want to talk to him about when he eventually got the boot. Prior to the story completely falling apart, you can tell he had stuff set up between the characters that was never expanded upon. Vaan finding out stuff about himself. What did he find? What did he do? Nothing. We learn nothing else about Vaan, and Penelo is even WORSE. The most important thing she did was her narration during the ending... but even then she was just talking about what happened to everyone. I think it would've been better if Ashe's uncle talked about everyone like he did throughout the entire game, duh Square.
Instead, they seemed to milk out a lot of concepts for the sake of just having conversation. OMG THE MANUFACTURED NETHICITE! Etc.
What about Balthier and his history? Fran's history? How it all ties into everything? Lots of people were going after Balthier and stuff... seems like there was a lot to him that we never got to learn about because Matsuno wasn't there to make it happen. Thankfully, Balthier still does play a HUGE role in the game because Cid obviously gives him that history that's so lacking overall across the characters. But it just goes to show you the lack of expanding upon the characters as a whole still hurts them all at times.
I do wonder if Balthier is related to Mustadio from FFT. I'm going to assume FFXII takes place BEFORE FFT because, in FFT, you'll recall Mustadio talking about how people were obsessed with machines manipulating magic and how it eventually made a mess of everything. I'd assume this happens further into FFXII's timeline (after the ending) and Mustadio is a few generations ahead of Balthier. Just an idea, I could be wrong.
Penelo and Fran are SO bad, I can't even give them any "what if's" as to where their stories COULD have gone. There's absolutely no substance. They stopped developing as soon as they were introduced.
As for the ending... it was pretty lame. I was expecting there to be more closeless between the characters -- that at least would have tied them together a bit more. Vaan and Penelo, maybe Balthier working with Ashe in the Kingdom would have been ideal. It would've given Vaan and Penelo a reason for just sticking around and doing nothing 99% of the time. They kind of earned a place in the Kingdom! Instead, they write Ashe off as a snob who, because she's a Princess, can't be bothered by the people that helped make her be where she now reigns? Huh? Who came up with that idea?
Bottom line: This plot has more holes than swiss cheese, and may very well be the sloppiest storyline in the entire series. Considering the excellent localization AND unbelievably great voice acting -- the best in an RPG to date, I'd argue -- that's a shame. Coupled with the fact that Square sat on this game for half a decade -- think about that -- makes it a tragedy, really.
Sound:
The voice acting is EXCELLENT. Best in an RPG; rivals Metal Gear Solid. Top two in the whole market when it comes to voice acting, if you ask me.
However, I wish Japanese developers would learn about something called ogg vorbis, it's an amazing audio format that would have proved superior for the voice acting. Voices would been crystal clear and not have any weird dithering and compression brought about whatever obsolete methods for compression they used on the voices. I'm sure the PS2 is capabile of using it.
Music:
It's a decent OST, but it's no Final Fantasy Tactics. It doesn't have too many standout tracks and it's pretty redundant. Rabanastre especially has terrible music. It suffers from FFIX OST syndrome: the strong tracks are really strong, and all of the other songs that aren't, well, aren't too great.
Graphics: Pushing the PS2 to the limit, no doubt. FFXII has visuals I thought I would never see on this console. It is to my understanding that S-E used really weird geometry hacks to allow for more texturing and stuff. Only one side of the character models were rendered, the other half generated on the fly (by mirroring the other side that has already been rendered). For up-close faces during scenes, the PS2 rendered the bodies of characters the same, but rendered seperate heads to go over them as it didn't have enough power for a completely high-poly model. All of this stuff allows for a smooth framerate and good texturing. Although a lot of textures were indeed washed out regardless... but PS2 hardware is very obsolete, so these kind of things are excusable; overall, the graphics in this game are amazing when you consider it's on PS2. Valkyrie Profile 2 still looks better (and, wouldn't you know, plays better too).
As for gameplay:
The end of the game demonstrates that YES, you DO have to think when it comes to battles. There is a lot of planning involved and keeping your party healed while everyone automatically attacks can be pretty exciting. That said, I did nothing extra and would imagine that had I gone on all the hunts and acquired some extra espers, I wouldn't be saying this because I'd be at like level 60 at least. Anyway, sadly, everything before the final few areas of the game is really boring and scripted. Using my leader manually made me feel like I had SOME control, but it still wasn't very deep. When I had trouble, I just went through an area once or twice until I got more exp and items to sell for loot, which I would then use to buy better armor. I had to do this once. Overall there's just no sense of planning and really thinking anything through until the end. The license grid proved to be ok, but I credit that to the Golden Amulet.
But ultimately, Active Dimensional Battle is not the answer. Not until they can at least make the level of user input and thinking match previous FF's, even if they still want to keep the automation aspect. That's just it -- the game is too automated most of the time. From the guy that brought us Final Fantasy Tactics, I was expecting a lot better.
No random battles is nice... but I didn't ask for you to have me have to sell out my thinking to a script, either. You are put at such a disadvantage if you don't use gambits for certain things during important fights. For example, you'll never be able to use a phoenix down as fast as you could if you just set up a gambit to do it. All of this automation really takes away from YOUR experience. There's far too much of it and I hope FFXIII gives the player more control. That's the most important thing to me. Otherwise I may not buy any more FF's if they continue to use ADB and in this way.
Overall, this game is one that had an awful lot of potential... potential to perhaps be the best yet. Sadly, this is not the case. The shortcomings stick out like a sore thumb and it really makes you question if Square-Enix even cared about the story and many aspects of the gameplay after Matsuno left.
Believe it or not, I still enjoyed this game, but there were too many times where I was shaking my head, wondering what the hell Square was thinking.
FFXIII will prove if Square can actually make an RPG that has a good story and consistently good gameplay, something they haven't done since FFX as far as I'm concerned, and that was a long, long time ago.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
QFT, and yes while the story is imho one of the worst in the series I also still enjoyed the game a lot. I have high hopes for FFXIII though.
michael000
Banned
What you /spoilered out is basically what i said a week ago in this thread when i finished the game lol. Totally agree on just about every point storywise.
I've given up trying to justify to myself that the story wasn't bad and am ready to say that this FFXII was a nice game with terrific gameplay, graphics, and sound, but a lousy and incomplete story. I seriously believe that the story was what suffered and got screwed with because of all the delays. It's like they said don't worry about that, just wrap it up and get it done, we're 2 FULL YEARS BEHIND let's be done with it :lol.
That being said my excitement for FFXIII hasn't diminished at all. The next gen graphics are of course a given but i was one of the few who actually really enjoyed the FFX world and direction it went. If the FFXIII team (the same as the one from FFX) can add in more gameplay but keep the story going at the same pace that FFX did it'll be worth the wait and the pricetag.
I've given up trying to justify to myself that the story wasn't bad and am ready to say that this FFXII was a nice game with terrific gameplay, graphics, and sound, but a lousy and incomplete story. I seriously believe that the story was what suffered and got screwed with because of all the delays. It's like they said don't worry about that, just wrap it up and get it done, we're 2 FULL YEARS BEHIND let's be done with it :lol.
That being said my excitement for FFXIII hasn't diminished at all. The next gen graphics are of course a given but i was one of the few who actually really enjoyed the FFX world and direction it went. If the FFXIII team (the same as the one from FFX) can add in more gameplay but keep the story going at the same pace that FFX did it'll be worth the wait and the pricetag.
Bennett2: Yeah, same here. But I've gotta admit, I don't know if I can look forward to FF in the same way anymore. I'll still be willing to play FFXIII the day it comes out. But if it's more of the same, or there's a bunch of things about the story, and most importantly, gameplay that just don't feel right once again, I'm not going to support the series anymore. I'm giving them one more chance, and I mean that.
michael000: :lol agreed... I honestly wonder if they even cared about the story. I don't think they did, after Matsuno left.
I liked FFX too. If FFXIII has gameplay more like FFX or at least not as automated (in that putting the controller on the floor is not an option), Square will have restored my interest in the series fully.
michael000: :lol agreed... I honestly wonder if they even cared about the story. I don't think they did, after Matsuno left.
I liked FFX too. If FFXIII has gameplay more like FFX or at least not as automated (in that putting the controller on the floor is not an option), Square will have restored my interest in the series fully.
Yeah, I just beat the game and that ending was very disappointing. It was an old school traditional ending. Didn't do anything to spark any emotion. Just basic
Now with that aside, I loved Balthier and Fran!
I don't know if I'm going to put the effort towards King Behemoth, Altima, Zodiac and Yizmat.
"You beat the final boss and peace has returned across the land!"
Now with that aside, I loved Balthier and Fran!
I don't know if I'm going to put the effort towards King Behemoth, Altima, Zodiac and Yizmat.
Finished the game yesterday at level 58 and with 97 hours invested at the point where I went to finish it up.
Amazing final 90 minutes, from
Definitely one of the best FF endings, up there with FF6 and FF8's, as is the game in its entirety.
Never invested this much time in any RPG before, and never in such a short timespan either... the game is just filled with things to do, and I still have all the
left to do.
Amazing final 90 minutes, from
the dogfights to the boss fights (despite being very easy they were very epic) to the final boss (which was awesome and pretty hard... loved the music, plus it was heavily inspired by Bahamut) to the ending.
Never invested this much time in any RPG before, and never in such a short timespan either... the game is just filled with things to do, and I still have all the
super hunts(Fafnir, Behemoth King, Seer, Yazmat, etc.)
michael000
Banned
Diablos said:
I knew i wasn't the only one, just seems we're in the vast minority :lol.
FFX battles were fine. Typical ATB but with the ability to swap out characters on the fly. In fact think swapping characters in that game was designed much better than it was in FFXII. Sure, the Sphere Grid was a bit predetermined (fixed in the International version though), but actual battles were fun enough for me.
charlequin
Banned
Diablos said:
I kinda feel like people have a seriously odd picture of what is and isn't Matsuno in this game. The way the story is advanced in FF XII isn't really any different than the way it's done in Vagrant Story or FFT -- same amount of cutscenes, same sort of "important" events highlighted, etc. I really think either Matsuno never really fully synched with the story requirements of a AAA full-scale RPG, or the process of trying to flesh out his original story outline into what a full game required was part of what held up development and got him kicked off the project. I don't have any problem with the FF XII story for what it is, but it's pretty clearly not as much content as, say, X... and it makes it clear that if this had been a co-directing gig (assuming Matsuno could deal with that -- maybe he's a crazy control freak) with someone who was more up to putting together an FF some of those rough edges might've turned out differently.
I still think this complaint doesn't really get at the actual problem very well. The main reason you can't just set FFX to Memory Cursor and push forward with a rubber band on the controller is that you have to level up manually. I can't really understand how just putting the illusion of interactivity back up is good enough when what you should be asking for is a different battle system that requires too many decisions for automation to be sensible.
michael000
Banned
charlequin said:
Pretty sure we're both talking about the cutscene to actual gameplay ratio from FFX not the actual battle system (well that's what i'm talking about anyways).
On a side note what else has matsuno worked on? Heard the name plenty of times but i'm not one of those that follows every producers history etc (well outside kojima). Most i tend to familiarize myself with are teams. IE: i heard that FFX team was working on FFXIII, so since i recognize that i know their work :lol.
nelsonroyale
Member
I think fran is just a foil to balthier...she doesnt need some incredible revelation or to play some incredibly central role...balthier is the captain and she is his crew...its obvious shes decided to put here trust with him, she is the silent type etc....I think this is an ff game with some ordinary characters, which Im sure is intentional..It seems like people here want everyone to have some fantasical backstory, with some dark secrets in their pasts...I mean youve got vaan, a street kid, an orphan, brought up on fighting titanic battles against the empire of dire rats in the sewers...he isnt necessarily going to be the central drive when he meets up with a notorious sky pirate, a princess and the strongest knight in a kingdom...I mean in ffx they tried to have the tag along lead as well, though tidus certainly had more talent in general than vaan...but here we have a rather unremarkable lead...tagging along on a great adventure...I dont think it is a bad thing that vaan and panelo never take the central role, they are just helping out on a grande exploit..they are hardly going to dominate it
peace
peace
charlequin
Banned
michael000 said:
The bit about automated gameplay is complaining about the presence of the gambit system. For me, being able to "fight with spreadsheets" (as a friend of mine put it) is desirable because the battle system is already rote for random encounters and the process of varying my strategies then seeing them play out is an interesting and desirable form of gameplay in itself.
I can understand that watching AI routines win fights for you can be disconcerting to someone who is fully convinced of the value of interactivity but honestly FF fights have been winning themselves for years now. Just going back to the "old way" and providing an illusory sense of interactivity might be all that Diablos wants out of FF XIII, but for me if it's going to step away from the new elements of ADB I want it to go way out of its way to make battles interactive in fact instead of just in theory.
The big things he's responsible for are the Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre series, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Vagrant Story.
michael000
Banned
charlequin said:
Err no i still think you're misunderstanding me (or maybe i'm misunderstanding you....), i'm talking about the actual cutscenes. Where's there's no enemies whatsoever, they just talk to move the plot along.
As for Matsuno, after looking at what he's worked on, the amount of plot and how it played out in XII make sense now. Here's hoping they don't let him touch any other FF's by himself again.
I have now played 15 hours of FFXII. I'm loving it. Im not loving it as much as FFX but I really like it.
The combat system is tons of fun, the art direction is the best I've ever seen in a game, I love the customization aspect of the game. The sotryline so far seems very good, is not on FFX levels IMO but then again these are 2 different types of direction.
The graphics are good, a technical achievement for PS2 but sometimes I can help but feel FFX looked better in some areas. FFXII has a very rough look to it meanwhile FFX is very smooth looking, on realtime cutscenes FFX characters animated better than FFXII characters.
It could probably end up being my 2nd favorite FF though.
The combat system is tons of fun, the art direction is the best I've ever seen in a game, I love the customization aspect of the game. The sotryline so far seems very good, is not on FFX levels IMO but then again these are 2 different types of direction.
The graphics are good, a technical achievement for PS2 but sometimes I can help but feel FFX looked better in some areas. FFXII has a very rough look to it meanwhile FFX is very smooth looking, on realtime cutscenes FFX characters animated better than FFXII characters.
It could probably end up being my 2nd favorite FF though.
charlequin
Banned
michael000 said:
You're misunderstanding me. I was responding to something that Diablos posted and wasn't really paying attention to what you said one way or the other. :lol
EDIT: I don't mean that in a mean way, I'm just not sure why you're telling me I misunderstood something when I was responding to only one very specific part of Diablos' post in the bit you quoted.
There's no danger of that, Square-Enix injected him with poisons and sank him into the ocean before firing him from the company. Now we're guaranteed that we'll never see another good Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, or Vagrant Story game again. :-(
I have a question; I got this game a couple of days ago and since I always, ALWAYS am underleveled when playing Final Fantasies (It's a general rule for me; kept me from beating FFIX and FFX and had to start them again), I have to ask if I should train right now. I'm now in
All my party is currently lvl 12,
So, am I underleveled? I
or do I just suck? :lol Oh and I hate the license system. Makes me worry even more about how well I'm spending my points
the airship (Imperials captured me or something; I'm not sure how the place is called; it's after the mine in which Larsa acts as guest with another name and then pretending Vaan is Basch around Bhujerba (sp?)).
(the guy who joined who was disguised as imperial is 16, tho).
So, am I underleveled? I
died reaching the central room, when you're ambushed by 2 groups of 1 judge and 2 guards.
Squall5042
Member
So what level do most people beat the game at??
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
Fireblend said:I have a question; I got this game a couple of days ago and since I always, ALWAYS am underleveled when playing Final Fantasies (It's a general rule for me; kept me from beating FFIX and FFX and had to start them again), I have to ask if I should train right now. I'm now inAll my party is currently lvl 12,the airship (Imperials captured me or something; I'm not sure how the place is called; it's after the mine in which Larsa acts as guest with another name and then pretending Vaan is Basch around Bhujerba (sp?)).(the guy who joined who was disguised as imperial is 16, tho).
So, am I underleveled? Ior do I just suck? :lol Oh and I hate the license system. Makes me worry even more about how well I'm spending my pointsdied reaching the central room, when you're ambushed by 2 groups of 1 judge and 2 guards.
You're supposed to run away from those Imperials. Not fight them. So far your level is ok. And Vossler is supposed to have a higher level than yours.
psycho_snake
I went to WAGs boutique and all I got was a sniff
I got this game a couple of days ago. So far Ive played the game for just over 7 hours, I just got past the part where
. So far this game has been very good. I have to disagree with Diablos and say that the new battle system is amazing. With previous FF games I always got bored of levelling up my characters because the combat system took a lot of time, but battles are so quick in this game. The gambit system works fine, it gives the player enough control over the party characters. The battle system makes the game feel more like an action game and that has made it a lot more entertaining.
you eascape from Barhein Passage after defeating the mimic queen
Best FF ever so far.
Actually look forward to killing everything on the map. And the overall presentation of the game...no RPG matches this. The animation and the way the camera moves during cutscenes...it really impresses me. It's on an entire different level compared to other RPG's Everything is very immersive. There's so much to do and going on. It feels like a MMORPG. Kinda of overwhelming.
Oh and it can be difficult as ****. In previous FF's I would die 2 or 3 times throughout the game. I've died many times in my four hours of playing. Just got ambushed on the Giza(sp?) Plains by Warewolves after 30 or so minutes of leveling (which is actually fun).
I wish there was a save anytime feature or at least checkpoints. Some of the enimies are brutal and can make you lose a lot of progress.
Actually look forward to killing everything on the map. And the overall presentation of the game...no RPG matches this. The animation and the way the camera moves during cutscenes...it really impresses me. It's on an entire different level compared to other RPG's Everything is very immersive. There's so much to do and going on. It feels like a MMORPG. Kinda of overwhelming.
Oh and it can be difficult as ****. In previous FF's I would die 2 or 3 times throughout the game. I've died many times in my four hours of playing. Just got ambushed on the Giza(sp?) Plains by Warewolves after 30 or so minutes of leveling (which is actually fun).
I wish there was a save anytime feature or at least checkpoints. Some of the enimies are brutal and can make you lose a lot of progress.
michael000
Banned
charlequin said:
Well you [quoted] me so i assumed you were addressing me. No skin off my rear either way :lol.
On a side note WTF is up with those magic pots. My chars are all around between 60-61 and i ran into one last night. It wiped us out lol (which sucks since i had about an hour of killing stuff since my last save), and was easily the most difficult thing i've fought in ages. I think Balthier was the only char who actually did more than 0 dmg per hit and he only did ~200 or so.
Fifty said:
2 1/2 story dungeons left + the 1 areas it takes to reach them. Feywood + xxxx.
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
Hahaha. Killed that **** Mateus. The ideal way to beat the bitch is by equipping your characters the following way:
Two characters must have a 1H Sword + Shield. I used the Flametongue (but I would suggest using a powerful weapon WITHOUT an elemental attack). And two Ice Shields were used to halve the damage that bitch does with Blizzaja.
Golden Helm + Shielded Armor = Insane strength, Insane Defense and Automatic "Protect" always enabled.
Have at least 5 Quickenings earned between two characters. I unleashed a 10 hit chain with Vaan and Basche and it leveled the little ice ****ers and dealt ~17,000HP damage to Mateus.
From there on, make sure you have one character dealing serious damage from afar (I used the Loxley Bow with Balthier). And two characters going to town on Mateus. When you've lost about 600HP in the party, do a Cura and restore it -- that way when she casts/recasts Blizzaja, it won't bother your health much. Obviously, after pulling off a chain of Quickenings, two characters will have low MP, so try to keep one of them moving around to regain and have your far-off fighter doing the Curas from time to time.
It's a simple battle once you have the right equipment. I killed her in about 4 minutes. Hehehe
Two characters must have a 1H Sword + Shield. I used the Flametongue (but I would suggest using a powerful weapon WITHOUT an elemental attack). And two Ice Shields were used to halve the damage that bitch does with Blizzaja.
Golden Helm + Shielded Armor = Insane strength, Insane Defense and Automatic "Protect" always enabled.
Have at least 5 Quickenings earned between two characters. I unleashed a 10 hit chain with Vaan and Basche and it leveled the little ice ****ers and dealt ~17,000HP damage to Mateus.
From there on, make sure you have one character dealing serious damage from afar (I used the Loxley Bow with Balthier). And two characters going to town on Mateus. When you've lost about 600HP in the party, do a Cura and restore it -- that way when she casts/recasts Blizzaja, it won't bother your health much. Obviously, after pulling off a chain of Quickenings, two characters will have low MP, so try to keep one of them moving around to regain and have your far-off fighter doing the Curas from time to time.
It's a simple battle once you have the right equipment. I killed her in about 4 minutes. Hehehe
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/magazine/powered/preview/#
Was searching for some FFXII tips on quickening chaining and found this on the S-E japan website. Since I don't read Japanese I don't know if it's ongoing or whether the story is based on the game. The art is pretty cool though... Does anyone know if this is an ongoing web series or something you have to purchase in a bookstore in Japan?
Was searching for some FFXII tips on quickening chaining and found this on the S-E japan website. Since I don't read Japanese I don't know if it's ongoing or whether the story is based on the game. The art is pretty cool though...
Does anyone know if this is an ongoing web series or something you have to purchase in a bookstore in Japan?charlequin
Banned
michael000 said:
I actually quoted something Diablos said that he addressed to you.
WOW...
8:00pm: Nameless goes to Gamestop
8:30pm: After much deliberation, the recently dorment Square fanboy emerges and Nameless chooses FFXII over THSP8, R6 Vegas, COD3, and SD vs. Raw all for 360.
9:00pm: Nameless gets home, eats, and watches House
10:00pm:Nameless Watches ECW
11:00pm: Nameless pops in Final Fantasy XII
6:00am: Nameless stops playing Final Fantasy XII.
HOLY ****...Has it really been 5 years since the last "REAL" Final Fantasy game? It sure as hell doesn't seem that long. Hell, I still have an original FFX save on my main memory card. It must have been half a decade, but I didn't truly realize it until I began to experience that all too familiar and wonderful feeling of playing a brand new FF game into the wee hours of the night, for the first time since 2001. This is nuts, I feel like should be getting dressed for school right now..
Whats even more ****in crazy is that I wasn't even planning on getting FFXII, all the delays, along with all the crap Square has put me through turned me off to the game. But I was at GS, and I guess it being the holidays which=a lot of free time. I wanted FFXII for the first time since 2004--it hit me just like that.
8:00pm: Nameless goes to Gamestop
8:30pm: After much deliberation, the recently dorment Square fanboy emerges and Nameless chooses FFXII over THSP8, R6 Vegas, COD3, and SD vs. Raw all for 360.
9:00pm: Nameless gets home, eats, and watches House
10:00pm:Nameless Watches ECW
11:00pm: Nameless pops in Final Fantasy XII
6:00am: Nameless stops playing Final Fantasy XII.
HOLY ****...Has it really been 5 years since the last "REAL" Final Fantasy game? It sure as hell doesn't seem that long. Hell, I still have an original FFX save on my main memory card. It must have been half a decade, but I didn't truly realize it until I began to experience that all too familiar and wonderful feeling of playing a brand new FF game into the wee hours of the night, for the first time since 2001. This is nuts, I feel like should be getting dressed for school right now..
Whats even more ****in crazy is that I wasn't even planning on getting FFXII, all the delays, along with all the crap Square has put me through turned me off to the game. But I was at GS, and I guess it being the holidays which=a lot of free time. I wanted FFXII for the first time since 2004--it hit me just like that.
psycho_snake
I went to WAGs boutique and all I got was a sniff
The new battle system has made levelling up a lot more fun. In previous FF games the battles just took too long and it got very repeptative. The FFXII will probably end up getting repetative, but the battles are now a lot quicker. You can kill planety of monsters in the same time that it took you to kill two or three in FFX.Insertia said:
Some people have complained about the lack of control you have over the characters, but I cant see what the problem is. The gambits seem to be very detailed, so you can make your characters attack the enemies the way you want, but instead of you carrying out the attack it is done automatically. You can even control the other characters yourself if you wish to.
The new battle system has made a big difference to me. In previous FF games I hated levelling up, but in FFXII Im enjoying it. Hopefully SE stick with this combat system in future FF games because its a lot more enjoyable than before.