Final Fantasy XII: Hands on results

[PhaTz]

that tomato is fuck'n me up! this game is way too hard!

[Cylor]

Reminds me a lot of Vagrant Story and that's a good thing.

UPDATE: Very fucking happy I bought this game.

[Liquid Blue]

Words to heed

A few tips-

Quickenings are the limit breaks of the game. Once you acquire the license for that quickening, it becomes unavailable in that spot for other party members, so they'll have to branch out to other parts of the license board to get theirs.

Characters not in your active party will not get EXP but they will get LP.

In regards to where to go on the license board, let me make things a little bit clearer. The entire bottom half is just for armor/weapons , don't worry about it until you get certain armor or weapons you want to use. Check down there every now and then but it is a waste of LP to max out Spears or something when you won't see more than a 2 spears for the first 10 hours. Magic, for the most part is learned through the upper left, of the top half of the license board. Accessories, on the upper right half.

The middle, especially left middle is where the bulk of your points will go for the first couple hours of the game. I'm about 11 hours in and I'd like to think I've gathered more LP than a casual player would at this point, so I'm just giving you a heads up. Getting a +150 hp license is much more satisfying than getting a White Magic 4 license, since I don't have any white magic that powerful. The right middle of the board is for techs like 1000 needles and souleater. Save those for when you buy the techs, except Charge. Get charge and White Magic 1 for everyone, everyone. Charge let's you get back small amounts of MP, but the gamble with it is that it could reduce your mp to 0- not that big of a deal when you only have 4 mp left. Once you acquire the license for charge, you can go to the Eastern part of Rabanastre and buy it out of the tech shop across from the Sandsea.

-To get charge, go down 1 slot from steal (first aid) and once to the right.

-To get +50 HP, go 2 slots to the left of steal

-To get the first shield block license, go 1 slot to the left of steal (gambit slot), and 3 down.

-To get +100 hp, go two slots down from the first shield block

Charge is so valuable because it lets you keep a steady, faster flow of magic rather than just letting it recharge naturally. This is important because you do not want to spend all of the meager money you have, on potions. Keep a good number of potions in stock for emergencies (10-15), but not much more than that until you reach Bhujerba. You will never have enough Pheonix Downs on you because those fuckers are expensive, so keep casting, keep charging, and keep your people alive.

One other thing- steal, steal steal!. I can't emphasize enough how little money you will have unless you steal loot, and steal it often. You'll be too broke to buy silent shots for Balthair (they fucking rape) when they first become available, and other goodies like that if you don't steal. The main way you make 70% of your income (not counting side quests, hunts, etc) will be by selling loot you get, so steal and steal often.


Note for the people that haven't been to the Bhujerba Mines yet, when you go in, the second bridge you cross is a great place to rack up chains and bone fragments (steal them). Undead mobs are on the bridge and they continually spawn there, so just run back and forth and go crazy. I got nervous around chain 32 because I hadn't been to a save point for awhile so I left it at that. Later on I found out that I made a little over 8k on the stolen bone fragments alone, kickass.


Charge is your friend. It's invaluable on the bridge.

[Nethila]

someone on GAF posted the perfect description of FF12

"FFXII is a MMORPG without the MMO."

imo, i like the new combat system and the license board. but i'm not too fond of the grinding.

[Kim]

I think I chained 183 on the skeleton warriors until I had to fight the hunt that was little bit into the mines.

[Liquid Blue]

I wanted to go higher but was worried about a boss being around the corner and my lovely self dying.

I guess since I played FFXI for a few years I don't really notice the fights you call grinding, but it's awesome and I love it :wub:

Btw, when you get enough license points, the middle left of the license board has two skills called "Headhunter and Martyr". These give you mp for killing a foe and taking damage, respectively. Smack both of those on a character and you won't even need to charge anymore. But charge is still good for the beginning of the game.

[Cylor]

Yeah, I don't really consider it grinding either. I am just about to set out for the mines and I haven't really used charge at all. Doesn't seem worth the risk to lose all of your MP, but maybe I'm just dumb. Are Quickenings worth buying? Or are they, like magic, not as good as just physical attacks?

And as far as weapons and stuff, is a gun worth it for Balthier? I had him gunning before but I switched him over to daggers and I take 'em out like trash.

[Liquid Blue]

I would only use charge when you have 10 or less MP, it's a cheaper option than using ethers and faster option than letting your MP go up normally. I usually get 12-16 MP when I charge, so if I'm down to 2 mp it takes me anywhere up to 14-18 mp, which is a good few more cures. I've never charged more than twice in a row, but yea it's worth it when you can go from 0-22 mp (if you're lucky) in about 3 seconds.

Quickenings are limit breaks, your special attacks. Once you get a license for one character, that particular quickening slot disappears from the other characters boards, and thus they have to get their own quickening on another part of the board. So far I have Basch's only, but it's great for bosses, usually taking out 1000 mp. Only drawback is it zaps all your MP, but Basch doesn't use his alot and also- bam! Charge~

As more people get quickenings you can string them together via pressing different buttons, the more you can land before the timer runs out, the more damage gets dealt.

Guns are awesome for Balthair, they ignore armor defense so they're great for enemy knights or Judges, especially those armored mages (go go silent shot).
If you're going in the mines and have anyone with a bow on, I'd suggest giving them another weapon for the moment. Bows are good against flying creatures, but you won't face any in the mines. Guns rock all the time though, all the time.

[Stabwound]

Quickenings become less and less useful as the game goes on. The main reason is that they are overkill for regular enemies, and on bosses you can't just blow all of your teams MP on an attack that only takes 1/2 of the bosses hp away.

[Cylor]

My latest thoughts:

A seamless mixture of Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy (series), Final Fantasy Tactics, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Metal Gear Solid (series), Chess, War and Peace, Kingdom Hearts (series), FFXII, WoWMMORPGs (World of Warcraft-like Multi-player Online Role-playing games), Tactics Ogre, Hollywood, and Japan.

[Stabwound]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you enjoy it more than I do.

[Cylor]

Haha yeah I think so. I want to attribute it to your old roots with the game but I'm not really sure.

[Stabwound]

Well, like I said originally, I don't think it's a BAD game at all. I just think it was a bit disappointing. I was expecting another game in the style of FFX, but it is really nothing like it. It's probably best that you don't go into it with huge expectations like I did.

Even though the story annoys me, it's still a strangely addictive game. I find myself just running around clearing maps of monsters. Haven't played in about a week, but I probably will soon.

[Liquid Blue]

Friend of a friend works at square, he just let me know of something interesting.

dont forget to unlock the super bazaar items. you get them by doing things like killing 500 undead, visiting a vendor 100 times, etc. each special bazaar item you unlock is super expensive, but each one makes it so that a different enemy type will drop their "rare" drops more often, and will unlock more rare drops for them to give you. this is necessary for getting the better bazaar items open

i know one of them can be easily done by jsut repeatedly opening and closing the shop window at an item vendor. i think you need to do it like 120 times or something


another one that's easy it to kill like 500 undead. ill try to find out which ones there are.


BAZAAR SPOILERZ


Lore of Hunter - increasetreasure drops from monster and bird types - clear Texta hunt mission, talk to client in rabanastre

lore of knight - increase drops from giants and isects - talk to any weapon shop 30 times

lore of mage - increase drops from magic enemies - talk to any magic shop 25 times

lore of dragoon - increase drops from dragons and plants - read the bulletin board 40 times

lore of the sage - increase drops from elemental and spirit types - talk to any shop 100 times

lore of spellsword - increase drops from mollusks and undead - read the bulletin board 20 times

lore of the scholar - increase drops from specialist type enemies - talk to any armor shop 15 times

canopus pot - enemies can drop Arcana - sell Phoebus Leaf, Horracty Flame, and Demos Clay

[Capital Knockers]

I just got a Playstation 2 this morning, along with FFXII. I skipped most of the posts just because I haven't played it yet and I don't want any spoilers. I just had to post to say I gots it. B)

I've played FFI - FFVIII so this is going to be a sweet ass jump ahead! Any recommendations on which I should get next? FF9, 10 or 11?

(btw - FF2 (Cecil) FF8 FF7) my favs in order.