I'm playing through all of Final Fantasy, and everyone is invited (Playing Lightning Returns now)

[gogglebob]

I was a little bummed that Lulu and Wakka didn't get an updated character model.

I adore Final Fantasy 10-2, but I will never stop being mad that not only did they not get new models, but Wakka is distinctly supposed to have gotten a little out of shape since his warrior/sports star days, and Lulu is nine months pregnant. That is the kind of thing that usually impacts your "character model".

 

[nataeryn]

Chapter 2 clear.
I feel like i got my feet under me in chapter 2. I had a few strategies in the first half of chapter 2 that just weren't working. I started off really struggling to just keep the girls alive, but once i started taking more advantage of Chain and the features of different Garment Grids, i was ending fights faster. I was surprised how much of a difference some changes in strategy helped me without grinding levels. Also, i think this game just expects you to KO more. Phoenix Downs are plentiful and cheap by FF standards.

I gave my Sphere to the Youth League. I helped a kid catch a chocobo and fought a chocobo eater. I spotted the two lost Ronso kids in the Calm Lands, and I helped hire some musicians in the Woods. I discovered that the preist girl from the first game is now a reporter.

The mini games in FF10-2 are giving off FF7 vibes. I don't like all of them, but none of them stick around for long and so far the required ones have not seemed to be too troublesome.

I was pretty amazed at the big mechanical stuff under Bevelle. It makes sense they would have stuff like that down there, hidden away, but the scale was pretty cool. I was wondering how the game was going to handle us not ending the game. Like, i know we're not going down there and smashing Vegnagun at level 20. I did not expect it to have just left through a hole in the floor though. I also did not expect to be fighting Dark Bahamut. Seeing him definitely made me nervous. Dark Knight Paine, WM Yuna and BM Rikku with a Waterga spell and a Wring were able to beat him before he killed us.

 

[nataeryn]

Chapter 3 cleared.
Sphere break was a fun minigame, but I did not win the tournament or get the dress sphere. I tried 3 times and felt like i had the idea down, but the game would give me a "1" and break my combo too often. Oh well.
I did get the trainer and berserker jobs. I like Trainer. Yuna gets Yojimbo's dog. Paine gets a falcon that can just carry a monster away to instantly defeat it. Berserker is a little better than in FF5 since it starts the battle under your control and you can voluntarily put it into berserk status. I also got Samauri, but haven't tried it yet.

Not really much to say about the story. I don't really understand why the dark aeons are back. The only part of the story that really stuck out to me was what Wakka had to say about memories. First of all, he quoted an Al Bhed saying to Rikku, showing how much he has grown. Second, he realizes that he's got more important things to look forward to and that was more important than a memory of a place. I like that we saw Wakka growing up and learning to move on.

Then when Yuna was in the vision with the not quite Tidus and he moves to put his arms around her she says "Don't touch me" and then questions if her feelings are hers or Lenne's. Maybe Yuna needs to learn to let go too? I guess we'll see what happens next, once I figure out where Paine went so i can talk to her.

 

[nataeryn]

ff10-2 complete.
By far I connected with Wakka's story the most. He's learning how to be a dad. He knows its important and that he has to be true to himself. I thought it was fun to see him grow in this new role. I really liked him getting important advice from Rikku and speaking some Al Bhed to her. He has grown a lot and it was a fun story to watch.
Kimhari's story was my other favorite. He's struggling with the Ronso and these two kids teach him about what the Ronso need to do moving forward.
I probably missed the conclusion to most of the rest of the stories though. I ended up with 62% completion. Which is more than i thought i would get honestly.
From the main story, it just felt kinda okay. Some dudes and Paine were part of an elite force and all ended up leaders of different factions, despite hoping to be a crew and in the end come together. All of that felt a bit undercooked.
I didn't really connect with the Shuyin story much. Another dead guy from 1000 years ago with zero connection to Tidus (but has all his overdrives). Fighting the aeons was because they got drawn in despite having killed them in the last game. Felt more like a justification to reuse some assets.
Yuna's big speech before the final boss was pretty good though. She refused to accept sacrifice as a plan. That's the way old spira did things.
Overall, I felt the story stuff was just okay. Some good parts. Nothing really bad though, just okay.

The systems felt really good though. Dress spheres are fun. Sphere changing is fun. Combining Garment Grids and certain jobs is great. Some jobs feel a bit underpowered. Considering the multitude of ways FF5 can be broken, maybe erring on the side of caution is not a bad thing. I died a lot and I used a lot of items. Unlike most recent FF games, by the final boss, i was on my last few potions and phoenix downs. I also rushed through the game a bit and was probably a little underleveled at 39.

FF 10 was the last of the old fashioned systems and FF10-2 is a harbinger of the future. Its more dynamic and more fast paced. It makes better use of 3d space (and has a jump button). The world has a more open feel by jumping around into mini stories and playing a big variety of mini games. Maybe most important, the game is just fun to play. The vibe of the game is to have fun. I enjoyed myself the whole way through and finishing the game never felt like "homework".

Before jumping into FF12, I'd like to fill in the gap for FF11 since Felix skipped it and while I'm not going to play it, I've got enough experience with it to at least talk a little about the story and context in the series.

 

[FelixSH]

I would like to say something about X-2, but I forgot too much about it already. But I enjoyed your writeups. And I'm looking forward to what you have to say about FF11. I would actually love to play it, but only as an offline version. Before that, I will try 14 at some point.

 

[nataeryn]

It all began with a Stone, or so the legend says.
In ages past, a sentient jewel, enormous and beautiful, banished the darkness.
Its many colored light filled the world with life, and brought forth many gods.
Bathed in that light, the world entered an age of bliss,
until after a time, the gods fell into slumber.
That world was called Vana'diel.
​

Final Fantasy 11 is like no other FF game before it, since it is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game. It was created in the likeness of MMORPGs that came before it, notably Everquest. Unlike most any other MMO, however FF11 uses the job system, so a single character can change into any available job. Each job has its own job level. So, there's no need to level "alts". Your primary character is "you". The story is your story. I feel like FF11 embodies some of the spirit of FF1 in that way. (there are still reasons to have alts, but it mostly revolves around the economy and crafting)

There are other similarities to FF1 as well right off. Firstly, that you have access to the same 6 starting jobs from the original. Warrior (WAR) Monk (MNK), Thief (THF), White Mage (WHM), Black Mage (BLM) and Red Mage (RDM). There are 5 races to pick from. I've put in parenthesis a rough equivalent from fantasy tradition. Hume (basic humans), Elvaan (elves), Mithra (cat girls), Taru-taru (gnomes basically), and Galka (Orc shaped Dwarves?). There are 3 starting nations. San d'Oria is the home of the elvaan. Its a royal hereditary government located in the Ronfaure forrest in the northwest. There's the royal chateau and the cathedral. Bastok is the home of humes and galka. Its a republic located in the southwest in Gustaberg near various mines. the Metalworks is a dominant feature (Cid is there). In the far southeast of the contient is Windurst, home of the taru-taru and the mithra in exile. The government is headed by the Star Sybil, who resides in a great tree at the center of the city called Heaven's Tower. There's also several ministries around Windurst that study various magics, whos ministers are also important political figures.

Back in 2003-ish, I started in Windurst as a taru-taru male BLM named Taeryn. I don't remember my original server name. Story has to take a back seat, because the world of Vana'diel is extremely dangerous and there is a death penalty (lost XP when you die). Like other MMOs of its time, FF11 is grindy and making progress requires a full party of 6 players. All mobs can be /check'd to see their power relative to yours. Even Match is about your level, is worth about 100 xp and will probably kill you. Parties can take on the Tough, Very Tough, and Incredibly Tough mobs that reward higher xp and can give a Chain bonus if you kill them quickly. Parties need to be formed of like level players though because your xp is scaled down if you're too far below the party (highest level member i think). Parties also need different jobs. MMO players will recognize the "holy trinity" of Tank, Healer, and Damage dealer. WAR is the tank, with access to the Provoke ability. WHM is the healer with the cure spells. But many jobs in FFXI have unique roles or abilities. You also unlock a subjob, which gives you some of the power of a second job at 1/2 the level of your main job. So a BLM/WHM will have more MP to cast spells and a limited assortment of white magic to help with a little bit of healing in a pinch.

If you are familiar with FF14, you'll know that in that game, every character should be doing damage. FF11 was not that way. HP/MP only recharged when you were /heal ing and it was very slow (ticks up faster the longer you rest). Mob focus ("hate") is tenuous and most jobs can die in just a couple of hits. If you're a WHM, cure the minimum required, debuff if there's time, then /heal as much as you can to keep your MP high to minimize downtime. If you're a DD, you want to do just enough damage that you don't take hate away from the tank. If you're a tank, you want to generate hate and hold it. A "puller" will bring mobs back to camp (a safe place away from respawns) at a pace that will minimize unneccesary downtime and avoid links (pulling more than one mob).

Each physical attack that connects from you or to you rewards Tactical points (TP) in a percentage up to 300%. 100% or more allows you to use a weapon skill, depending on your weapon type. If two or more DDs coordinate they can chain the weaponskills for a Skillchain, awarding bonus damage. BLM can participate by matching their spell element to the element of the SC for a Magic Burst. Other than coordinating skillchains, the pace of battle is very slow, so there's plenty of room to type messages into party chat, or your linkshell (guild).

Servers are small enough that you get to know players. Unlike other MMOs, servers aren't region specific. The game has a pretty robust auto-translate function. So if you type a word and hit the Tab key, if it was in the dictionary, it would wrap it in red and green < symbols > so you could communicate roughly with the JP folks.

The story treats the game like a single player game. You are the hero and all the other players never appear in your cutscenes. You start off doing missions for your home nation. Each nation is dealing with a threat from a beastmen race that lives close to them. the Yagudo (bird men) live near Windurst. The Orcs live near San d'Oria. The Quadav (turtle men) live near Bastok. A few missions in, the home nation will have you meet with their leader and you'll be tasked with traveling to the other nations as an ambasador, meet with their leader and do a mission for them. The final mission of that chain will have you traveling deep into the beastmen zones to fight a dragon and an ahriman, who is a servant of the Shadow Lord.

You see, 20 years ago, the 3 nations united a joint army along with the central city the Grand Dutchy of Jeuno to fight the beastmen hordes and defeat the shadow lord. They won, but now it seems that perhaps the shadow lord is returning.

 

[Pombar]

I didn't really connect with the Shuyin story much. Another dead guy from 1000 years ago with zero connection to Tidus (but has all his overdrives).

My reading of this is that Tidus and all the other people in Dream Zanarkand were conjured from the memories of the surviving population of the actual living Zanarkand that had existed before they turned themselves into a giant Fayth - so Tidus was basically the population's memory of Shuyin, or conjured out of stuff those who knew him remembered, the same way dreams draw from our memories but can mix them up a bit and have them be something else at the same time.

 

[nataeryn]

In that last mission, we met one of the various important NPCs, Lion. She says she is an adventurer just like you. If this were FF2, she would have been a guest character in your party. (In fact, in current retail, you can recruit a bunch of the important NPCs to be in your party in lieu of other players so you can play solo).

That fight was an instance battle, capped at level 25. However, the zone that would probably be a "dungeon" instanced group content in other games, in FF11, almost the whole world is open. So a higher level player can get you TO the boss fight.

Speaking of getting around the world, Vana'diel is BIG. Any kind of transportation you have to unlock, so you're walking to most places at least once. Chocobos have to be unlocked at level 20 in Jeuno, which means walking through two very dangerous zones. Hostile mobs will detect using sight, sound, or magic. So, if you can get access to Sneak and Invisible, you can safely walk most places. WHM can learn those spells and cast them for free at a high enough level. Ninja (NIN) can cast them using a ninja tool, which is a consumable, crafted by players. Or anyone can use a Silent Oil and Prisim Powder, which are consumables that are crafted by players. So, if you're a broke BLM (spell scrolls cost gil and get expensive fast), you can try to walk by carefully weaving between patrols.
Another important mode of travel is the teleport points, Dem, Mea, and Holla. WHM gets the teleport spells. The scrolls can each be obtained through a quest that is non-repeatable, but the scrolls can be sold. So many people would just buy them. many people looking for a teleport would offer to pay for a teleport and WHMs sometimes felt it was owed because they had to buy the spell. Which is what caused me to decided to switch my main to WHM and never demand payment for teleports.
The last way to get around is via Airship. They go from Jeuno to each of the other cities on a real time route. You can't get an airship pass until you finish this next mission though (or pay a big hunk of gil). The main advantage of airship travel is you can safely go do something else while you wait for the airship ride to finish.

Anyways, after a bit more effort with your home nation, your head of state will send you to Jeuno. You meet with the archduke Kam'lanaut and his (smaller) brother Eald'narche. The beastmen are trying to revive the Shadow Lord using magicite. You get sent to speak to Aldo, local contact for the Tenshodo. Aldo was the kid in the intro movie. And you meet his sister Verena. Basically, there's some goblins (another beastmen tribe) that live in Jeuno and trade with people and Verena is friends with one, but tensions are rising around the whole shadow lord thing. Verena is pretty much the only one trying to encourage peace.

You see a vision of a band from the various cities on an expedition to Xarcabard in the northlands. They find nothing and two of the party fall into a crevace and can't be found, Cornellia and Raogrimm. We learn that their companion Ulrich turned on Raogrimm and tried to kill him, but Cornellia stepped in front of the blade and was killed.

You venture into the beastmen strongholds and get the 3 magicite, but see a vision of the shadow lord. he claims that "anger, cowardice, envy, arrogance, and apathy will destroy Vana'diel and that we awakened him. We had the magicite over to the archduke and learn there's a 4th in Castle Zvahl (the shadow lord's home base in Xarcabard) and that the Castle is sealed and there's 3 keys to the seal, one key held by each of the 3 nations. Unfortunately, while we were getting magicite, all 3 heads of state were attacked and the beastmen have the keys to open the seal. also Eald wants to talk to Verana for some reason.

Next we learn that there's actually a 4th seal in Fei'Yin (ancient home of the lost race of the Zilart). There we meet Lion and a galka Zeid. He tells us that the vision of the adventuring party with Raogrimm we saw earlier was 30 years ago. Zeid tells us the 4th seal is broken and a new one will be useless. Your next mission will be to Castle Z itself and stop the resurection of the Shadow Lord. Of course you're too late. You learn Zeid is the one who cut down the shadow lord 20 years ago. And that Raogrimm is the shadow lord, awakened by his Galka rage 30 years ago. You fight and defeat the shadow lord.

And so the shadow lord was defeated thanks to your selfless courage and sacrifice
Through the clouds shines a symbol of newfound hope for the peoples of Vana'diel
But none should forget that wherever there is light, there is always shadow​

There's more stories in the expansions, but that's the gist of the main game. Getting to many of those fights requires being high level and dealing with enemies that can not be snuck past. There's a ton more to the game and a lot more jobs to unlock. In my day, I was obsessed with unlocking Summoner (SMN), but to get the summons you had to do a level 75 fight which took having several high level friends, or doing a level 30 mini-fight solo. I tried those solo fights and I would get so nervous that my hands would shake. There's no other way to say it than FFXI was a tough game if you didn't have a good group of friends that are skilled players with enough gil to afford quality gear. I was able to connect with TheSL here at TT and I have him and Laharl to thank for getting to experience most of the story of FF11. We did a bunch of it after the level cap was raised, so the difficulty was lower, but not completely gone.

I have tried WoW and FF14. I do like 14 quite a bit, but I never got into any other MMO like I did 11. It was at the end of an era. WoW came out not that long after FF11 and MMOs got faster paced and offered more convenience. The end game became where the real game starts and so the leveling process became all about speed. MMO players became the locust swarm, devouring content ever faster. Guides and out of game resources go up instantly so everyone knows all the mechanics for every dungeon and nobody even bothers to explain it to you. There's programs that can log your DPS and perfectly min-max your rotations.

In terms of its spot in the lineage of FF games. 11 made me feel the way i felt playing FF1 when i was a kid. 11 is full of characters and political entities like in FF2. 11 entices you with jobs you recognize from FF3 and FF5. 11 can absolutely awe you with its sense of scale and unique zones that remind me of FF6 and FF7. 11 is full of unique races and impressive architecture like FF9. And I think 11 shares a slow pace with FF10 and and open sense of adventure with 10-2. Most similar though is the next game FF12. The elevator pitch i remember was FF12 is like a single player FF11. I bought FF12 at midnight of release day. And I've never finished it...

 

[nataeryn]

I have started on FF12.
I bought the game on release day. At that point in history, i was nearing the end of my college career and was entering the time where i had money for games, but not time. I think the random chests, the open license board and the challenging hunts combined to put me off of the game.
Though I still have my PS2 disks, I'll be playing The Zodiac Age version on Switch.

The opening cutscenes and story are giving me The Phantom Menace vibes. We're using computer graphics to generate big crowds for a parade or a huge battle. the story starts off with a big political scope of nations at war. The first shot of Rabanastre feels Naboo-ish. the dropships and fighters have a bit of an art deco style with the chamfered corners and pointy bits under the engines.

Vaan too feels a bit like a star wars protagonist. He's got big dreams and a bit of a chip on his shoulder about being a small fry. His thieving isn't quite robin hood style. He robs the guards picking on the merchant, but wants to keep the money. I immediately like the Vaan/Penelo dynamic. Its not like FF9 or FF7 for example. I like that Vaan is being impulsive and Penelo is trying to temper him a bit. Remind him of his responsibility, put his feet back on the ground.

I think the first time I played FF12, i struggled with the openness and trying to make the game too much like FF11. In fact, the game as a "single player MMO" feels more like FF14. The zones outside of Rabanastre feel a lot like the outside of Ul'dah. I like that things aren't corridors like FF10, at least outside. The waterway is pretty linear, but its nice to look at and feels like a dungeon from an NES FF, with short dead ends off the main path with a treasure chest (maybe) at the end.

I started off making Vaan a Shikari. He starts with a dagger and is a thief. I may swap him to something else later though. My recollection is he's pretty buff. Penelo i started as a Black Mage. I know she has good MP, and well her outfit has some black on it... I made Fran a Machinist. I know her stats are bad and guns have no impact from stats. So she'll sit back at range, shoot and heal as needed. Balthier for the moment is also a Shikari. Basically, i only had daggers for him to equip.

Before I went to rob the palace, I tried beating the cactus hunt, but we were only lvl 2 at the time and though Penelo's fire did good damage, she ran out of MP and i ran out of potions, so i will come back to it later.

 

[Mogri]

I like that things aren't corridors like FF10, at least outside. The waterway is pretty linear, but its nice to look at and feels like a dungeon from an NES FF, with short dead ends off the main path with a treasure chest (maybe) at the end.

You can return to the waterway later. It is... significantly less linear when you aren't being corralled through.

 

[nataeryn]

So far, I'm at the point where i have to declare that Basch is not dead.
To your point Mogri, I've felt a little corralled so far, but the game feels less linear than FF10 to me. Like, I can tell that I'm on rails, but i can see where there's more track out there for me to explore once things open up.

I sort of rushed through getting out of prison. I remember last time having a lot of trouble with the battery mimics and keeping the power on and I remember really having a hard time with the queen. No idea if i did something different, or maybe the TZA is just easier.

Once back in town, i switched Vaan to Monk. His vest just made me think monk. Basch i made a Knight. We took care the the flowering cactus easily and the ghost in the waterway too. I tried Cluckatrice and only managed to take out 2 chicks before i ran out of potions. I'll come back to that one later.

Flying off to Bujerba and the game brings back the star wars vibes again.
The mines with Lamont were uneventful. Fran got the bench. I just ran away from the Banga bounty hunters. It felt like maybe one of them ran faster and maybe we would be able to pick them off, but then at the zone transition, they were all right there.

So far, I've liked the story pretty well. It has a natural flow from one event to the next. Unlike FF10, we've got to build the party. This game feels more like FF6 or 7 in that these people are getting thrown together by chance and are having to learn to trust each other. I like how we started with the big political situation and we've zoomed down to the point of view that is more mundane, but caught up in this bigger political chess game. There's an empire I have no real power to fight, a resistance that I'm not a part of and a neutral city leader trying to play both sides, but doesn't even currently know I exist. So far there's no indication that Vaan is the chosen one or special in any way.

I was thinking about how the break out of prison segment compared, since final fantasy characters almost always seem to end up getting thrown in jail and then immediately break out with no consequences. I couldn't think of one before FF5 off the top of my head.
In FF5, we get thrown in jail at Karnack and get caught by Xdeath for a moment.
In FF7, Shinra locks us up for one scene and we get thrown in desert jail under the gold saucer.
In FF8 we break out of that big drill jail.
In FF9 Steiner and Marcus have to swing the cage when they get caught.
In FF10, we get thrown in the Via Purifico.
The only one I've never seen would be in FF11, colloquially called GM jail, its an actual in game location called Mordion Gaol that only a GM can teleport you to and from.
Not officially an FF game, but the Chrono Trigger prison escape is pretty iconic and probably influenced later games. So the prison break as dungeon to my memory has been pretty common from FF7 and beyond, but I think 7 did it really well (best?) 7 uses the captivity as an opportunity to do some important story development and character moments. FF8 has some character moments, but not as impactful. FF10 does it less well. Its not really jail, its just dropping you off in a dangerous place and hoping the wildlife takes care of you. Maybe that works on "regular" folks. FF12 feels like its sort of in between. Clearly the imperials didn't build this prison. They're just taking a fortress and locking the doors. It feels within the realm of plausible. Still the character moment of Basch conveniently having an identical twin just feels rushed.

From a gameplay perspective, I'm having a great time. Random chests frees me of any feeling that i'm missing anything. A light weight set of simple gambits saves me having to input too many commands, but the game pauses and lets me take direct control when i need to. I know i can re-roll licenses if i need to, so i feel safe to just pick something at works for the moment

 

[gogglebob]

Final Fantasy 2 has the prison break segment as part of the initial raid on the... whaddyacallit... giant airship thingy. Dreadnaught?
Final Fantasy 3 tosses your gang in prison when you fly right into the middle of a civil war. Poor choice, dummies!
Final Fantasy 6 has the "unseen" prison break of when your gang is hanging with the empire while "you" are in Thamasa. Or you have Locke's escape from South Figaro, which is very prison escape-y, and you jailbreak Celes along the way.

It's part of the Hero's Journey, so it happens a lot. See also The Xeno franchise, or Wild Arms.

 

[nataeryn]

I had to take a break due to hurting my hand, but I'm on the mend, so I made a bit of progress.

The team crossed the sandsea. the map opens up with some arrows point off in different directions, but I made a beeline for the western exit. I did take a moment to help the Yensa fight a big turtle. I hadn't seen this event before.
Fighting Garuda was pretty simple, but i found the inside of the crypt more interesting. I mostly used a magic-heavy party to cure the undead and tried to use ranged attacks to spread out and avoid the self-destruct from the big statue looking things. Penelo and Ashe threw water spells at the fire summon guy which means Penelo tanked the fight too, which was not ideal with her tiny hp, but potions are fast. Against Vosler, Ashe used the Dark spell to wipe out the adds and pull hate. Then it was just swapping between the magic team or the physical team, depending on if reflect was up.

I haven't given everyone 2nd jobs yet. I might shuffle things around again.

The names of whatever fantasy stuff just slides right off my brain. I know i got a shard and it blew up a whole fleet. Whateverified nethicite... I feel like my DM has a really cool backstory he's proud of and I'm disappointing him by calling it the boom boom rock. Also, i find it funny when in cutscenes, anytime a character needs to be holding a key item, they just have it in their hands. They don't get it out from behind their back like a cartoon, they just have it. Also how many times have these guys slipped out of handcuffs in like seconds?
I like that the story has so far pushed us through a whirlwind of heists and escapes from the empire. It still feels very Star Wars-y. Now the story gets to a moment where they need to prepare to go to the next point. The party however doesn't feel firm yet. Ashe is still buying loyalty from Balthier. Unlike Han, Leia and Luke, there's no romantic tension in this group. But asking for her ring in payment after her having a vision of her dead husband seemed like an odd choice and i want to see where that goes.

 

[nataeryn]

Ok, decided to pick some 2nd jobs
Vaan - Monk/Uhlan - adds heavy armor to the monk pole which scales on str and combos better than spears. spears gives him a flying enemy option or theoretically if i needed to target Def instead of Mdef.
Balthier - Shikari/Foebreaker - adds heavy armor to the dagger. Good evasion and def for tanking hits. hand bombs for range if needed.
Basch - Knight/Bushi - I think by mixing heavy and magic armor and battle and magic lores, i can make the katana hit about the same as a sword with better combo potential.
Fran - White/Machinist - Guns don't scale with stats so i can attack from range when not healing.
Ashe - Red/Archer - focused on casting power. bows give a non-spell ranged option and scale with str and spd, so still seems to do good damage. and i got a free bow upgrade from a hunt.
Penelo - Black/Time - i like giving her an xbow so she stays at range, though she's almost exclusively casting spells.

While I did check the internet to confirm i understood how some of the weapons work, I didn't try to form a perfect team here. Trying to maintain that mindset that i can always change it around if its not working.

We talked to the horn guys out past giza plains. So our bomb rock is empty and we need to go to a mountain. We ride a chocobo to the jungle and need to go talk to the hidden viera to unlock a magic gate.

The main thing I liked in this little story bit is seeing the beginings of the team forming. Vaan and Balthier both are signaling that they are wanting to hitch their wagon to the Ashe train. Its starting to remind me more of the parts I liked about the FF10 crew.

One of the challenges of the gear being less connected to chest rewards is that money is in very short supply. I have access to unlimited diamond armlets from Trial mode, but that gets boring quick. It reminds me of FF9 in that way where i needed to do that sythesis buying and selling trick many times to have enough funds (FF11 had a real isssue with gil being in short supply too, but that had more to do with competition with bots and gil sellers) This in comparion to FF10 where i never felt like i had a money shortage.

 

[nataeryn]

After talking to the Viera in the village, i learn that one of theirs went missing recently and is back to the west and quickly discover there's some trouble in Henne mine, so we use a chocobo to get over there. The mine has some gates that have to be opened or closed and sometimes pressing the button caused a bunch of slimes to drop on our heads, but they are weak to Fira spells so went down pretty quick. At the end of the mine, we found the missing viera and she was possessed and we had to fight Tiamat. This boss was not too much trouble. Balthier started out tanking with 65 evade, but eventually got an effect where he couldn't do anything, so i swapped him for Vaan.

we learn that the missing viera is Fran's little sister and her other sister is the one we talked to earlier. We're allowed to walk through the barrier and Fran insists that her little sister stay home. Because Fran left she can't hear the wood. Her sister says the wood misses her and Fran says that it was a nice lie and we leave.

On our way out, we have to fight an elder wyrm boss. I was not prepared for the big spore attack that put a bunch of negative statuses on. I only could cure confuse twice with items and didn't have a license for Esuna yet. thankfully the confused melee fighters were also blinded so once i could, i swapped party members and was able to end the fight before i ran out of replacements.

After a quick climb up a snowy mountain, we go over the plan, which won't work. The plan was to have Larsa and Al-Cid convince their empires to avoid war and the priest to put Ashe back on her throne. Unfortunately Larsa's dad was killed, probably by Vayne but blamed on the senate so Vayne can grab power from them. So since war can't be avoided, the team is off to collect another relic of the dynast-king. Larsa leaves the group, stunned by his father's death. It seems some of the judges are loyal to him though so hopefully they can keep him safe. He seems nice.


Having recently fought a number of large creatures, the lack of a fixed camera is missed. I'm often using Baltheir or Vaan as my party leader to pull hate, but with anything big, i'd rather control a ranged character so i can see what is happening. And in tight confines, i just end up staring at the top of their heads. FF11, perhaps because of its MMO nature, tended to have massive spaces, so a 3rd person camera has plenty of room to fit behind the characters in the environment, but the scale for a lot of the map is really huge. The room with the slime fight in henne was just a mosh pit of slimes and fire and i couldn't really tell what was going on.
The environments are really amazing. I really liked how dark and gloomy the jungle area was.

I feel like i'm getting a better hold on the story now. In a way it feels like FF2 or FF6, but with the addition of a 2nd empire and the plucky resistance being caught in the middle I like as a different way to tell a familiar story.

I've powered up some, so i'm going to go clean up some hunts i left for later next.

 

[nataeryn]

I picked up new hunts, and headed south through the snowy mountain. I accidentally stumbled into Trickster, a white glowing Chocobo that can turn invisible and runs all over. There's a banga helper for the fight, but you can't control him or set his gambits, but at least he can take a hit. I got trickster down to half health. he started using a meteor type ability that kills my front line guys. So I threw down some quickenings and then it became totally immune and I quickly died. So, i guess we'll try that again later.

Further south, i found the feral cat thing hunt and that was much easier. Fran has esuna now, so she can undo all of its debuffs and we easily win the battle of attrition that way.

Then I made it to the big temple. Seems like I need to use the dawn shard to use the teleporter, so I give it to Vaan, who has no need for his MP. For things weak to wind, Ashe and Penelo can quickly knock them out. Bashe has a water element katana and a water spell knock out bombs. Penelo used Break on the 3 avian things, though having to wait out a 10 second timer makes Break not nearly as good as it was the turn based games.

For the magnet boss, I use Bashe, Ashe and Penelo. All three use mystic armor. I give Penelo the flame staff. Bashe had no choice but to use a metal sword. Flame staff and fira seemed to pretty well handle it.

For the ice boss, I use Vaan, Fran and Balthier. Vaan has the storm spear and the dawn shard. Balther has an ice shield and Fran takes half ice damage from her armor. I tried bringing in Penelo to Thundara the adds, but the boss has reflect on it and that killed Penelo. Since the main group can't really take much damage, the fight is fairly simple. With that, I've got the Sword of Kings. The group decides to test the sword on our nethicite shard but Ashe sees a vision of her dead husband shaking his head so she doesn't destroy the stone. Interestingly Vaan did not see any vision this time.

On the way out, the group spots a big fleet of airships and smoke from the mountain. I teleport back up the hill and its raining and now all the NPCs are injured refugees. I make for the temple and find Judge Bergen standing over the dead head priest. He makes a big speech and we see the evil spirit. Time for a fight.

I go in with Balthier who's sporting the Ashura Ninja sword, Penelo with the storm staff and Ashe. Penelo throws a couple thundaras and Ashe a couple of darkras to wipe out the adds. Unfortunately, Penelo aggro'd Bergen and KO'd very fast. So I swapped her for Bashe. Balthier combo'd Bergen like crazy, but Ashe is struggling to keep up with healing, so Bashe subs for Fran. At about 20% enemy health i throw a quickening to save Balthier at 12 hp.

Al-Cid wants to protect Ashe but she's decided we're going in to Archadea to try and destroy their shard. It looks like a long walk, so that's where i stopped.


I feel like the game really picked up steam here. The big temple was really interesting to navigate. There was a variety of enemies that each of my party members could exploit so i got to use everyone. we got 3 bosses in quick order and each one had an interesting wrinkle. I'm excited to travel into the empire. The environments have been so good and I want to see what's going to be in all these new zones. From a story side, the empire attacking this temple was just cartoonishly evil. The FF12 empire is definitely giving off FF6 vibes. Speaking of 6, its interesting tha the summons in this game arent the focus. So far we've found 2 summons protecting 2 relics, but the empire isn't after them. Summons played a major role in 6, 8, 9, and 10. If anything, the process of diving into intricate underground temples to defeat elemental bosses and collect relics reminds me of FF1. But I could point out little inspirations or call backs to probably almost any of the FF games in 12. It doesn't feel like any one particular game was a direct inspiration.

 

[nataeryn]

I made it to Old Archades. Most of the trip was pretty uneventful.
In the forrest, I thought i needed to get past the Bomb King. I died to it twice. First time, i was just unprepared. Second time, i had it to like 10% health and it full healed and when that happened the 2nd time, I just ran out of MP. You can't ignore the adds because they will blow up and kill anyone who doesn't have strong fire protection. But focusing on the adds just means BK will re-summon them. So, I gave Belias to Bashe with a Murasame (water element katana). I had Belias tank the adds because it absorbs fire damage. then Bashe runs in to do major damage. I dismissed Belias before it did a big fire attack to heal the BK. Then I had Baltheir silence BK with a Mage Masher and Bashe cut it to pieces.

From playing a lot of FF11, I am overly fond of Mandragoras and all the variations on them in FF12 is just adorable. I had fun fighting those little chaos demons. Penelo has some gambits for elemental weaknesses and although I can't see them even with Libra, the gambit system can, so Penelo hit some big AoEs.

In the next zone, i solved the waterfall puzzle and got the next ninja sword and 1k needles. Which feels anticlimactic. Only Bashe and Balthier can get the license and both of them can easily do more than 1k damage with a normal attack.

Ahriman was mostly easy. a penelo aoe spell kills all the adds and then bashe and balthier do really good damage until they got immobilized, so i swapped into a ranged team. penelo pulled hate and KO'd a couple of times. A lot of these bosses get tougher at low health and it can be deceiving. You think the fight is easy and then things start to go off the rails unless you hit the quickening win button (which i have done a few times).

Not a lot of story in this section. Balthier reveals Cid is his dad and was going to be a judge but ran away.

Next time, we'll infiltrate the Dreadnaught. I mean Vector. I mean Shinra. I mean Lunatic Pandora Lab. I mean Draklor.

 

[nataeryn]

real life busy weekend. But I managed to clear Draklor.
The door puzzle wasn't too tough. I got a little turned around on the last set of doors.
For Dr. Cid himself, the physical team took the field. When Bashe, Vaan and Balthier all get combos, things go down quick. Balthier subed out for Fran for healing, but Dr. Cid solo is just too slow to be a real threat.

I went back and killed Trickster. That was a tough fight. First, trickster runs all over and the party chases him, aggroing everything else and targeting gets weird. The middle part is pretty simple, but a frantic rush to keep healed and buff for the 3rd phase. When he goes invulnerable to physical, and starts throwing comet spells, that killed me twice. Gambits are the key though. Since they can read weaknesses that I cant see, i set Penelo with all the elements except dark, light, and earth. Ashe has Darkga. If none of them hit, I sub in Fran with a Gaia rod. The killing spell from Penelo came out as the animation from comet was killing Fran and was about 1 second away from killing penelo too.
I really liked that the Trickster fight feels made to take advantage of the gambit system.

 

[nataeryn]

Ancient City of Giruvegan complete.
Penelo the Black/Time mage continues to shine. She can one shot Behemoths with a Glacier staff. The only thing that slows the team down is getting hit with all of the status effects.
The last boss/summon does the same element switching trick as Trickster, but i was prepared this time. With quick substitutions and weapon swaps, I was able to hit her shifting weakness several times. Not that i really needed too. Bashe/Balthier/Vaan could have easily just used simple physical attacks.

So, next I'm headed to a lighthouse and I presume climb through a big dungeon to get to the Sun-cryst and decide if we're smacking that big rock with one of two different swords.

I'm not trying to be flippant about the story, but there's so much jargon. I did like the scenes with the immortals. I liked that it wasn't immediately clear that what they want us to do is the right thing. In many FF games, they reveal an evil force and it is pretty cut and dry that the thing we're fighting is bad and often wants to destroy everything. At least FF12 here is making it a little more unclear from this scene if we should follow the orders of these things. The empire is also clearly evil from how they bombed the temple earlier. I don't know. I guess we'll find out next time after I climb a tower.

 

[nataeryn]

made it through the 1st and 2nd part of the tower climb.
Hydro is undead, so Vaan uses the Holy Lance with Fran and Ashe throwing cure spells. Once MP ran out, i swapped in Balthier and Bashe.
Pandemonium is weak to Wind, so Penelo blew her whole MP bar on Aerogas. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the air boosting staff because i'm short on LP for her. Bashe is using his wind katana and Fran healed. It being invulnerable is a pain since you just have to wait. I had plenty of MP though.
Slyt is weak to fire and can be oiled. Ashe has her Fire bow and Penelo with a flame staff with Balthier buffed and using a shield. Slyt died in about 3 rounds. I think combined they were doing about 30k damage per round.
For Fenrir, I went with an all-physical team. I picked up a couple of Bacchus wine in random chests, so I decided to berserk Vaan and Bashe and had Fran sit back and cast heals.

I liked the style and scale of this dungeon, mostly in the section where you have to kill the green guys to make the platforms appear. Vaan's holy lance has been the star of the show. The only monster that gave me trouble was a big guy that can cast an aoe disable that hit my whole team twice. Thankfully, I just could run away and their health stays where it was so long as you don't kill them.

Hopefully I can finish this up with one or two more sessions.

 

[nataeryn]

FF12 is complete!!
whew that was a long one.
Beshmel went down to wind spells and the wind katana
Gabranth and Cid were a combo of oil and firaga / ardor.
The final battles were mostly a physical fight with Bashe, Vaan and Balthier swapping around and Fran doing most of the healing. During Undying's physical immunity i had ashe and penelo swap out and throw fire spells. Swapped back to the physical party for the final section and threw down a quickening just for fun.

If I had to sum up FF12, the game itself is fun to play and the locations are amazing at times and fun to explore almost always. The story did not do much for me though. I wouldn't say I disliked this party or anything. I agree with Felix that the party feels a little lifeless. Not that that is a problem. I ended up really liking FF2 and its characters are mostly just names. The guests and people you meet are the main focus. FF12 feels a lot like FF2. Similar story scope and plot points. Similar 3 person battle party with a 4th guest slot. The narrative is about airships and empires. And the battle system, at the time, was unlike any before it.

I really ended up liking the battle system, especially in the Zodiac Age. The Job boards let me define each character and build a party in a fairly focused way and everyone got their chance to shine. I only ended up doing about 20 hunts, but I found the large number of boss like fights in the game fun. I sort of wish they gave the hunts a boss-style HP bar at the top of the screen to make it a bit more epic feeling. I did almost no sidequests. I did the one that uses the cactus flower but that's about it. As a result, there's a lot of map real-estate I didn't explore deeper into many of the dungeons. Which is probably where a bunch of equipment, techniques and spells were hiding. I didn't like the random chests and then didn't realize that TZA put of bunch of good stuff into 100% chests so I de-emphasized chests and ended up missing things.

In the context of the franchise, while I miss the tactical turn based gameplay of FF10, FF12 is quick and fun to play. I don't get a minor pang of annoyance from triggering a random battle. Give the battle system some credit because the primary side activity in the last several FFs have been card games or blitzball. ff12 has almost no mini-games and the main side activity is fighting powerful monsters. The cutscenes are plentiful and there's not a big difference between cutscene and in-game other than maybe some flowy hair and fabrics. The world feels big and distinct and full of lore. Like there are so many more stories that could be told in this world.

I know I was way late to this thread, but I really liked sharing my run through the games so far. It helps me to remember my experience by writing about it.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

The thing about FF12, narratively, is that it is Star Wars in most of the ways that matter.

 

[FelixSH]

Fittingly, FF 2 is also pretty Star Wars-y. Granted, my knowledge about Star Wars is pretty small, so might be off, but just from what I know, it seems that way.

Also, congrats on beating it. Are you continuing with the XIII trilogy?

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I mean, it was influential on a lot of things in the basic "rebels vs. empire" setup, but FF12 is so similar that I wrote an article once that mapped out who each character was roughly standing in for. There are some things remixed or combined, but like the game starts in the desert and ends in a high fantasy Death Star, so.

 

[nataeryn]

I definitely felt like it was a mash up of the original trilogy with the visual style and political theatre of the prequels. Rabanastre has a Naboo-ish look to it to me. The Strahl feels like a prequels era starship. Its hard not to see Balthier and Fran as Han and Chewie.

Felix pointed out the FF2-ness of 12 and when i got to the Bahamut being a giant tornado-ship, I was like there's no way that was not intentional.

I am going to play FF13 next. I played the first couple of chapters a few years back. I'm looking forward to coming back to it with more context from the series and especially FF10-2.

Historically, FF13 came out when I had left college and just started my career. This was just a little before I found TT, so i was in a different gaming message board that was very focused on the new releases. I was feeling like i needed to play the newest games and got sucked into more FPS and action games in that era to be able to play with other people. That group significantly disliked FF13 when it came out. They didn't like the linearity and the hand holding early in the game and dropped it quick. So, I internalized FF13 is bad and skipped it. Fortunately, past me was not far away from finding his was to TT and a less toxic gaming culture imo.

 

[FelixSH]

There is definitely a lot to love about the XIII games, even with the problems they have.

Maybe a relevant info: You don't need to read the codex, or however the info-system in the menu is called. The game explains the things you need to know, that's enough (though you can, of course, read that stuff, as I did). And while the new terminology might seem like a lot, there are just three words you need to remember: Fal'Cie, l'Cie and Cieth. The game will explain them, so just don't ignore that, and you will be fine.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

FFXIII wasn't super loved here either, as I recall! I have been playing it a bit over the last year though (stalled out a little but intend to continue), and it's got some real strong points. I think it has grown in regard as the series has slowed its release schedule so drastically. I certainly have benefited from revisiting it after playing other games with a stagger gauge in the last decade; that was a new thing for me then and I didn't really grasp it. Setting and switching paradigms is a neat mechanic.

FFXV is kinda funny in that it has the inverse structure of XIII: wide open for the bulk of it, narrows down to a straight path for the endgame.

 

[Beowulf]

I enjoyed all three FF13 games as I played them, and found they all scratched very different gaming urges. I'm not sure I'll replay them any time soon, but I'm with Felix on the "there's a lot to love."

 

[Lokii]

Big fan of 13 as well. And yeah agreed you don't need to read to codex; you're supposed to be kind of lost at the start and put together context as the game unfolds. Likewise, turn off the mini-map to instantly make the game more fun.

 

[FelixSH]

I do remember, that people seemed to dislike it less here, but on the whole, it was a divisive game. But I really think people here were more welcoming to it, than in other places. But this is just a vague memory, I think there is a gaming club thread in the archive.

Yeah, Lokii is right, the game is linear enough, you don't need the minimap. Just look at the beautiful scenery.

I enjoyed all three FF13 games as I played them, and found they all scratched very different gaming urges.

Yeah, they are all very different, but I think all three are great, great games. I mean, I might even like XIII-2 more than XIII, and LR the most of them (the options for dressing up Lightning are enormous! There are tons of outfits, and you can, if you want, color the individual parts of each, it's insane - didn't do much with the colors, in the end, but that it's there is great. And the amount of cool outfits is awesome, too). Will definitely be some time, before I replay them, but I'll likely forever treasure my time with these games. I hope you play all three, and tell us what you think about them. I'm just not the greatest fan of XII (even though I see that it does a lot of great stuff, just not really for me, in the end), so I couldn't really offer much here. But I'd love to see someone play through especially XIII-2 and LR, and talk about it.