LTLTTP Final Fantasy XII - The Zodiac Age

[Falselogic]

I got my second license boards for my party! I met people who wore masks with giant horns. Bunny people don't like me and I have to find out why!

I still find the gambit system burdensome and unenjoyable! Powering through though! I'm going to beat this game this time!

 

[Lakupo]

New forum, new thread! Perfect timing for another shameless plug of the FFXII Zodiac Age Job Randomizer picker I made a few years ago! For indecisive types like me.

(I named it before actual game randomizers skyrocketed in popularity, maybe I should rename it)

 

[Aleryn]

OoOoo the PS4 version is patched to allow job changes now!

... and the Gambit System is BEGGING for a mod that allows all of them unlocked at the beginning of the game.

 

[Falselogic]

Fran reunited with her family! And then quickly un-united. It was sad. Now we're off into the mountains! The fight against the fern gully dragon has the first one that I felt challenged with. Mostly handling all the debuffs he does in that special move of his...

 

[Falselogic]

Made it through the SrilShrine, and got my second summoning! The midboss battle in here was interesting, had to switch out my weapons for some alts due to the 'magnetic' effect. Tried to power through it and it was just too slow.

Back to Mt. Bur-Omisace! Where I am sure everything is just a-okay!

 

[upupdowndown]

Fran reunited with her family! And then quickly un-united. It was sad. Now we're off into the mountains! The fight against the fern gully dragon has the first one that I felt challenged with. Mostly handling all the debuffs he does in that special move of his...

Fran's "I am as them now, am I not?" is one of the most quietly devastating lines in all of Final Fantasy. It's not dramatic. It's just a recognition that Fran has made certain choices that can't be undone (and frankly, she wouldn't undo if she could), and she was fully prepared to leave behind her family in order to make them.

...I don't know how it took me until 14 years after the original release to come to the conclusion that "FFXII's bunny lady party member is also a Gay Allegory"

 

[Falselogic]

Fran's "I am as them now, am I not?" is one of the most quietly devastating lines in all of Final Fantasy. It's not dramatic. It's just a recognition that Fran has made certain choices that can't be undone (and frankly, she wouldn't undo if she could), and she was fully prepared to leave behind her family in order to make them.

...I don't know how it took me until 14 years after the original release to come to the conclusion that "FFXII's bunny lady party member is also a Gay Allegory"

That whole vignette is just heartwrenching without being dramatic. It is all understated. And as you said just devastating. By far the strongest scene of the game as of yet.

 

[upupdowndown]

That whole vignette is just heartwrenching without being dramatic. It is all understated. And as you said just devastating. By far the strongest scene of the game as of yet.

there's some stuff later with Balthier that I think comes close, but the Fran subplot being willing to leave things emotionally unresolved makes it one of the most messily realistic FF subplots ever

 

[Issun]

Made it through the SrilShrine, and got my second summoning! The midboss battle in here was interesting, had to switch out my weapons for some alts due to the 'magnetic' effect. Tried to power through it and it was just too slow.

Back to Mt. Bur-Omisace! Where I am sure everything is just a-okay!

Oh man, Mateus is one of my all time favorite boss fights in games.

 

[Falselogic]

Okay, so a whole bunch of Monster Hunts opened up for me. Do I really need to do these? I did the first ten or so, but its just a slog. Getting the hunt, finding the poster, going to the monster, meeting their criteria, slogging through the fight, and then going back to the poster.

Is it worth it to keep doing them, can I just move the story forward instead?

 

[Yaara]

They're extremely optional content! If you feel they're a slog you can absolutely do none of them, you won't lose out on too much.

 

[jpfriction]

Mostly just a way to unlock newer more different hunts. Also Montblanc will say "wait, you killed the Shadowseer?" when you beat one of the higher ones, and that's fun.

 

[Falselogic]

Just finished the fight with Cid. That was different. I really had to change how my gambits were set up so that the team would focus on his options instead of attacking him.

Getting the chips in the city was an annoying sidequest. I'm glad they toned it down for this version of the game.

 

[Zef]

Getting the chips in the city was an annoying sidequest. I'm glad they toned it down for this version of the game.

NOOOOOOOO!

(I respect other people disliking them, and I understand why, but I still love the chops quest and I'd be sad to see it whittled down.)

 

[pudik]

i get them all anyway. Must let the other imperials know my worth

 

[Falselogic]

I've made it to the Pharos Tower. I'm pretty sure this is the endgame. So, I immediately turned around and started working on all the hunts I'd accrued and not completed. I'm at #16 now.

 

[Zef]

Mind, there's still a bunch of Hunts that become available after the Pharos.

 

[Falselogic]

Gonna be honest with you Zef, I almost never do post-game content. I've completed all the Hunts except for the Deathgaze one (you have to go to all the aerodromes) and Fafnir. I don't know why Fafnir wouldn't spawn...

Probably not going to keep trying though! Back to Pharos!

 

[Falselogic]

Ah, I thought Pharos was where the game ended! Joke's on me! Though I did beat the game today! It really is Star Wars the Final Fantasy. Seemed a little rushed at the end and the whole Ashe subplot didn't go anywhere. But overall very enjoyable. The gambit system is interesting I hope the future games didn't continue to use it. I prefer either a turn based system or a direct action system. This weird hybrid where I have to program my party members, not so much!

 

[ThricebornPhoenix]

Counterpoint: Gambits are great and they should be backported into every previous RPG.

I wish I could automate taking out the trash in real life.

 

[Zef]

It really is Star Wars the Final Fantasy. Seemed a little rushed at the end and the whole Ashe subplot didn't go anywhere.

Hm? Ashe's plot is central to the game, and she gets her proper development and denouement through events at the Garif camp, the Stilshrine, Giruvegan, and especially at the Pharos. That's why her characters goes, "RAR! I keel u imperials!" when we first meet her at the sewers, and why she ends up renouncing the power of the Occuria and declares that, “I am simply myself. No more and no less. And I want only to be free.”

The Ashe from the opening chapters, and probably even all the way up to meeting the Pope Grandpa Gran Kiltias would have happily nuked Archades and become the next Dynast-Queen.

I wish I could automate taking out the trash in real life.

It doesn't work if you keep giving manual commands to preempt it, though.

 

[Falselogic]

It must not have clicked with me then. I never really felt that she was torn up about things. And then in the end she doesn't even get to cleave the stone. It's done by someone else.

 

[Issun]

Ah, I thought Pharos was where the game ended! Joke's on me! Though I did beat the game today! It really is Star Wars the Final Fantasy. Seemed a little rushed at the end and the whole Ashe subplot didn't go anywhere. But overall very enjoyable. The gambit system is interesting I hope the future games didn't continue to use it. I prefer either a turn based system or a direct action system. This weird hybrid where I have to program my party members, not so much!

XIII did the programming thing but in a completely different way that focused more on roles. It's also a lot faster paced.

Haven't played XV yet, but I'm pretty sure it's closer to direct action.

 

[Zef]

I don't remember that part well enough (been a while) but was destroying the Sun-Cryst her motivation for going to the Pharos? I only remember the "stopping Cid" aspect of it.

At any rate, it's also a matter of narrative expediency and further development of her satellite characters. Even as she and Vaan struggle to bring the divine swords upon the crystals, Reddas knows Ashe's role is not to blow herself up doing it, but to live on to topple Vayne and free Dalmasca. Her arc, by dint of rejecting the Occuria, has hit a turning point, but won't be complete until she achieves the freedom of her country. Conversely, and unlike Ashe and Vaan, Reddas's journey hasn't been one of redemption, but of atonement. He used the power of the gods to destroy an entire kingdom and lived to regret it. That's why he uses all his might as Judge Magister to push back against the flow of the crystal--which Ashe and Vaan, being more "regular" people in narrative terms, couldn't do--and end said godly power with his power as a man.

The game later does the game thing and expressly has the human (and Viera) party take on the stone-enhanced Vayne and the divinely-enhanced Vayne, but whatcha gonna do, that's an RPG being an RPG I've never been all that satisfied with a game as political and nuanced as FFXII having a mandatory "final boss" per se.

 

[Falselogic]

For sure. The peak of the story seems to be at Pharos. It's why I was surprised there was more after it.

Oh, I guess there has to be one last big fight, huh?

 

[pudik]

im gonna be honest i really don't think the star wars parallels go very deep. the bulk of the story is told with a lot of familial and political drama that doesn't really connect unless you treat each character as an amalgam of a bunch of details that go across multiple characters of star wars across multiple movies, or treat everything that is about a anti-imperialist rebellion as a star wars adaptation. It's just kind of frustrating because sure matsuno probably likes star wars and there are parallels but the story is pretty unique both in the context of final fantasy and video games at large and it rarely gets credit for it.

 

[spines]

I've never been all that satisfied with a game as political and nuanced as FFXII having a mandatory "final boss" per se.

honestly, having replayed most of the game last year, i didn't feel like there was an especially clear thrust of the story. the main political elements of the story happen far away from the main characters, who are on a final fantasy macguffin adventure for most of the game. i think it's obviously easy and understandable to take this as some kind of value clash, but at the same time it seems like you're saying (and i would agree) a "political" story by definition reaches far beyond one conflict and the actions of a small number of people involved in it. setting aside the difficulty of, like, actually coming up with some kind of "ending" for such a story instead of unsatisfyingly leaving the door open for the audience to imagine an endless chain of reprisals and standing greivances to play out indefinitely, i do think this viewpoint makes me think that a finite jrpg (even as opposed to, at least, a kind of jrpg-as-a-service like 14) is an extremely ill-suited medium for it.

 

[pudik]

I don't really get the idea that the political elements happen far from the characters. maybe specifically in the sense that political discussion is largely vayne and judges and ondore etc, but the characters are basically defined by their relation to the ongoing war. The "macguffins" aren't the drive for the story, just services to the poltical action. (except for when the story involves the occuria maybe)

 

[Lokii]

I also find the Star War comparisons to be pretty inaccurate.

Vaan doesn't even get a lifesaber

 

[ThricebornPhoenix]

It doesn't work if you keep giving manual commands to preempt it, though.

Why wasn't this in the instruction booklet