WK Plays FFXII

[Wolf Kanno]

Alright, I'm jumping back into this marathon!

Since I already played this a few years ago, I'm going to being doing this playthrough a bit differently, and I'll be doing a self-imposed challenge run. The theme of which is an FF1 any % run. What this means is that I will not be unlocking secondary classes and I'm limited to the starting classes from FFI. So the only classes I can use are Knight, Red Battlemage, Shikari (essentially thief and ninja), Monk, and Black and White Mage classes. I've also already figured out who is playing who. I am still debating about espers, but seeing how they are more novelty than functional, I may give them a pass. I was also playing with the idea of limiting my weapon and spell selections to what is available in FFI, but I also was hoping to speed run this playthrough a bit.

XII has a tendency to be very involving and I feel this marathon has been going slow enough, so that's why I'm any % this and will likely not be going after all the Mark Hunts this time. Maybe I'll do it if I come back to the file.

So as an added play along, guess who gets each class this playthrough.

[Wolf Kanno]

And thus we begin.

The opening is really a whirlwind of action and information. Basically cramming what was at the least, a year's worth of information into a ten minute movie. It's really amusing how the opening kind of downplays Ashe (the game's real main character) and sort of makes you think it's going to be Razler, then Basch, and then finally Reks. I also like the framing device of the game being Marquis Ondore's memoir, especially helped by his excellent voice acting.

So we start with Vaan and the class I chose for him was Aries/White Mage. The zodiac sign sort of fits him, though I imagine he would be more of a Sagittarius realistically, but the hot-hotheadedness certainly fits the sign of Aries. White Mage on the other hand does not. Aries is a Cardinal Fire sign of action and excitement, so I feel a melee focused sign would have fit better. WHM should have been Cancer or Pisces, nurturing water signs. Not that many of you care about astrology. Anyway, I have three mage classes and three melee classes to choose among my party of six, but I opted to make my healer be one of the boys.

Anyway, I defeated the Rogue Tomato, saw the parade, and spoke to Old Dalan, so I'm moving onto collecting the materials needed to restore the Crescent Stone to enter the palace. I am taking a slight detour to visit Nalbina Fortress where I got my first mage class weapons, so now that Vaan is equipped with his Rod, we can get moving.

I'm going to be honest, but I feel FFXII has some of the best nameless NPCs in the series. It's actually fun talking to characters in this game because they either fill you in on more lore or they have their own interesting mini-plot lines going. The world building in XII is incredibly underrated

[Wolf Kanno]

Didn't get as far as I had hoped, but that might also because XII actually has stuff to do in the early game. I spoke with Old Dalan and headed to the Giza Plains during the Dry season. Met up with Penelo and rescued the lost kid and did the Sunstone quest which only required hitting up two shade stones this time around. With Penelo in my party, I went off to deal with the Thearax or whatever it's called Mark Hunt since that fight is way more manageable with two people fighting. I am a little annoyed that although we got our first hint of Gambits, the game has not given me control of it yet. Sort of sucks when you';re using classes that really need a bit more nuance with their A.I. scripts to be effective. I feel I could take down one of the rare games wandering around the Estersands if I could get Penelo to cooperate.

Penelo gets to be my Black Mage once again since she was my White/Black Mage makeshift Sage my last playthrough. I was thinking of making her a Knight just for the humor of seeing the petite member of the team be the one lifting massive knightswords but Black Mage just felt better. Unlike Aries, Capricorn being the Black Mage makes a bit more sense, it's symbol is a goat fish like being that obviously conjures up images of Baphomet and the Occult. Capricorn are serious, ambitious, and can often be rules lawyers who learn how to game the system to help them with their ambitions. While it's a bit more intense than Penelo's personality is, she does strike me as an earth sign, but more like a Virgo, which is still a responsible sign, but one that is a bit more likely to look the other way if it benefits them. Taurus would also work since she's so stubborn, but that's Uhlan class and not an FFI class.

Anyway. with Penelo helping out, I started the Patient in the desert quest and cleared up the Blooming Cactoid Mark Hunt which will eventually coincide with what's going on with the river village problem of all the menfolk being strangely absent. Once again, FFXII really does world building right. While it does have it's info dumps in the form of the Clan Primer, I still appreciate the smaller quests and these remote villages that add to the setting. Rabanastre is also an underrated starting location. I know most fans will think of either Midgar, Balamb Garden, or even Alexandria as great starter locations, but I appreciate the fact Rabanastre gives you so much more freedom and things to do right at the beginning while it slowly drip feeds story and world building to you. I can see how a lot of players may dislike this approach, but I feel it really showcases how much unappreciated craftsmanship really went into this game. You can tell the Ivalice team were refining a lot of design elements they picked up from working on FFXI. Anyway, next up is taking the Sunstone back to Old Dalan and getting inside the palace. The leading man and his stoic partner are coming up.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well I've worked my way up to the party meeting "Amelia" in the Waterway. After ditching Penelo, who is always more cunning and level-headed than I remember. Vaan travels through the waterway to make it into the palace basement with all the other servants. The only notable thing here was running into the rare game Razorfin in the sewers, and it being weak enough that Vaan could actually beat it. I've ran into two other rare game so far, but both were beyond what Vaan could handle at this point.

Since I didn't have to worry about a Zodiac Spear, I looted the hell out of the place and did the puzzle to find the treasure room, which I always forget about and low key has one sequence (when you power up a sigil to open a door) that reminds me of the temple puzzles in FFX. We'll get to my thoughts on those when I reach FFX of course. Vaan then bumps into the Leading Man himself and his impeccable partner and makes a run for it after he steals the Goddess Magicite. I do like the Hindu statue that hid the magicite as it reminds me of the ultimate boss from Vagrant Story. Not to mention I always liked the fact Ivalice is one of the very rare non-MMO FFs to acknowledge multiple religions within its setting, but we'll talk about that when I get to the Stillshrine.

Course the fete was a trap to lure out and destroys the resistance and Ifrit decimates them. The party tries to escape on the mist powered hoverbike Fran uses but... well we have the Goddess Magicite so that crashes and burns and the party has to hoof it out through the waterway. On the brightside, I've finally unlocked Gambits proper, but on the downside, my options are very limited.

So the leading man and sky pirate extraordinaire made it easy to make Balthier a Shikari since it's basically the Thief and Ninja class combined. It even has some of the same issues as it's FF1 counterpart in that it's extremely limited weapon options early games makes it feel weak in comparison to other classes in the early game. I also forgot that Balthier starts with a license to at least use the starting gun of the game, so that's helping at least. This class being Pisces though does confuse me a bit. While all water signs can be emotionally manipulative, Pisces tend to be manipulated more often than others and tend to be more indecisive than even Libra. I'm guessing the angle here might come from the fact their Tarot Card association is The Moon, which is a card that signifies illusion and deceiving oneself and others. I would have probably chosen Gemini for this class since they are the sign known more for deceiving people. Balthier himself strikes me as either a Gemini or a Leo anyway. Mostly because he's incredibly chatty and knowledgeable like a Gemini, but the whole self-centered "I'm the leading man' nonsense fits Leo's need to be the center of attention, but that is also balanced out be the fact he's surprisingly willing to look out for strangers , which is also a Leo trait.

Fran on the other hand, since she's known as the Battlemaster and always does start with more skills and equipment options than others, made her a perfect fit for Red Battlemage, especially since it worked out really well my first playthrough. Like Balthier, I forget she starts with a Bow license but I may still switch her over to a Mace and Shield combo once I get her Gambits properly fitted. Red Battlemage is probably my favorite of the magic classes in FFXII. The class being associated with Cancer doesn't bother me as much as some of the other class associations. While I feel White Mage is the best job for this class since Cancer's are known to be helpful and emotionally nurturing, often regarded as the mom's of the zodiac (and consequently, their opposite sign Capricorn is usually referred to as the dad's of the zodiac), Red Mage isn't a bad choice either because water signs are often associated with psychic or occult leanings, so at least we finally have one using magick. Cancers will also raise hell if you threaten someone they care about so, Battlemage fits pretty well. As for Fran, I'd probably choose Scorpio as her zodiac sign since she's okay playing second fiddle to extroverted Balthier despite being the more resourceful and useful one. She's also more secretive than the other cast members and her narrative about being being banished for letting herself be bewitched by the taboos of her society fit the sign pretty well.

Rant aside, having a full party has made traversing the sewers pretty easily and we met up with Amelia. I love the fact that we pull a bit of a Cloud in this game and Balthier is explaining all of the gameplay mechanics as he does the Gambit tutorial and then explains what a Guest character is to Vaan as well. I also forgot that the first actual boss of the game is the Flans in the sewers, I got the first actual Victory scene and everything and it's partially also why I'm thinking of trading in Balthier and Fran's starting weapons. Anyway, I saved afterwards and ended for the night.

Thinking back though, FFXII really does stand out from the games between it. While I now better understand my friends assessment that XII is just an offline FFXI in gameplay and feel, XII just feels better because it streamlines so much of the experience. Like yeah, quests are still a bit obtuse to find but are usually easier to solve without a guide. Combat is more zippy and due to the standalone nature of XII's design, the game strikes a better pacing balance. It just took all the things I loved about XI and made it better and more tailored for my tastes.

On the opposite end, this game just blows XIII out of the water. XII's cast might feel more muted than most FF casts, but Ivalice is just a richer setting and the gameplay just feels more robust. In XIII, I'd probably be trapped in Chapter 3 by now being switched back and forth between different groups of characters with the shakiest of understanding of who they are and why I should care. The Roles would be partially open but largely still feel like what I was doing the first several hours anyway and be going down my third set of corridors with only the Datalogs to really give me any form of insight to their significance. Meanwhile, In XII, I have a better grasp of the story, the characters and their motivations through the narrative and NPC dialogue. Even the empire, is actually softened a bit and more humanized if you walk around and really chat with people as some are very much the insufferable invaders the characters think they are while others have more humanizing and sympathetic traits like the guard in Rabanastre who came to love the city and wishes to genuinely protect it and its people, or the one in Nalbina Fortress who switches place with one of the laborers so they can see the abuse he has to deal with. I've had three damn puzzles to play with, three Mark Hunts to distract me, and I've started a major questline in the Estersand. I've also met two small settlements that have no real story significance but fill in a lot about the local culture and make Dalmasca feel lived in. A lot more time was spent making this world feel alive than in XIII.

[Wolf Kanno]

Two days worth of progress to report, though not a lot happened. Made it through the Nalbina Dungeon, officially recruited Basch, discovered Penelo was kidnapped, and we're heading to Bhujerba now. I also cleaned up two Mark Hunts, took down a Rare Game that was taunting me named Nehkbet, started the Ktjn quest and the Seven Sisters quest.

Nalbina is an underrated dungeon and one of the better ways to do a more linear dungeon if you ask me. I like how the Battery Mimics draining the power quickly turns this dungeon into a mad dash to find and kill them. In addition to needing at least 30% power to open the final gate, the fact the lower lights starts summoning an ungodly amount of undead to overwhelm the player was a neat way to keep you on your toes. Honestly, FFXII has some underrated dungeon design.

I also find it interesting Basch has four playable character models in this game, and funnily enough gets the most costume changes of any party member at a total of six different outfits (Rabanastre Armor, Order outfit in the tutorial, shirtless prisoner, found clothes, main outfit, and Gabranth's armor), which is even more than Lady Ashe. The Nalbina Dungeon is also amusing because the devs reuse the same Bangaa corpse for all the bodies found in the main prisoner area.

Basch's job is Monk, though I would really love to keep him as a Knight but I promised I was going to try to be a bit more unconventional this time around, but a mage class felt too weird. But his time as a prisoner fighting bare-fisted made me think Monk might not be a bad job for him, and now that I don't have all that sword nonsense going around for him, I can see how poles really fair for him. Monk is Virgo in the Zodiac Jobs and it's not necessarily the worst choice. Fire or earth signs feel the most natural, I would have probably done Taurus personally but whatever. I also feel that might be Basch's sign as he is pretty committed to his loved one and what he wishes to protect and the man is too stubborn to die, and Taurus are often both very committed and very stubborn. I do really want to play with barehanded with this class as I feel it's often very overlooked and while there are times you have bare-fisted characters fighting like Prisoner Basch or Vaan and Balthier fighting the Seeq guards in Nalbina dungeon, you don't often get to see Brawler in action. The algorithm for it looks interesting and I get the sneaking feeling this combo works really well with a high-level monk. So we shall see.

I think the interesting observations I've been meaning to talk about is some of the environmental design. Like I feel it's clever how all the doors the player can interact with in Rabanastre tend to have these subtle twinkling crystal objects acting like torches on either side of the door. Just a nice and quiet means of helping the player out. The other was the waterways in Lowtown, which never really registered for me. It makes sense due to the city being built over an lake in an oasis and the Garsmythe Waterway is located beneath it, but I never noticed all the water wheels and water paths flowing through the area. Makes it weird it was a storage area, but I imagine if it was food like vegetables, fruits, and meat, it would be a good place for it since I imagine the flowing water cools the whole area. There are also these little fans above the stalls that probable helps too. While it's the poor second class citizen part of the city, my temperament with the heat and Dalmasca's illogical desert dress code would make this my ideal part of the city. I am curious what the pet of Old Dalan is since it looks a bit like a pink Carbuncle depending on the design. I also think it's interesting Vaan is such an anti-imperial and yet was not really aware that the Resistance was headquartered in Lowtown, especially since a lot of the members are aware of his brother Reks. Likewise, the scene with Vaan speaking to Reks and giving him the Galbana Lililes feels really vague and surreal, making me wonder if the scene is mostly symbolic and Reks' death was different? The game implies he dies of his injuries but the manga adaption says he died from torture instead. I also just now realized that the ship Vaan and Penelo acquire in Revenant Wingswas named after Reks' favorite flower. Neat.

Well, with no new items or quests left in Rabanastre, it's time we head to Bhujerba and partake of the most infamous quest in the game.

[Loony BoB]

As someone who pretty much never does challenge runs (and very rarely replays games), I'm curious how the challenge impacts your 'feeling' towards the game, if at all.

[Wolf Kanno]

As someone who pretty much never does challenge runs (and very rarely replays games), I'm curious how the challenge impacts your 'feeling' towards the game, if at all.

Honestly, not much has changed because I haven't reached the point to use two classes yet, and frankly TZA was based off the original Zodiac Braves version which did restrict you to one class. I'm in essence just kind of playing the Zodiac Braves version. The other factor at play here is that restricting myself to just the original job classes (and counting Shikari as Thief/Ninja) gives me access to all the prime real estate jobs anyway. The big kicker is not having access to all the Time Magick and not having access to the powerful spear and katana class weapons. I could make this more challenging for myself if I went the extra mile and restricted my equipment and abilities to ones that only exist in FFI.To give this some context, doing so would restrict my White Mage to only being able to use the Healing Rod and my Black mage could only use a Dagger until I acquire the Judicar Staff and Staff of the Magi. Shikari could not use ninja blades and only use daggers and my monk would be restricted to bare-handed only. Red Mage would be royally screwed because I wouldn't be able to use most of the class's magic and the only weapons I can give a character (in my case I nerfed myself by giving it to the one party member that doesn't start with Daggers unlocked), is the Defender Greatsword, which I would have to find the Esper associated with it.

I might still try this if I feel the game is getting too easy, but honestly, I don't intend on lingering on this title like I normally would, so I may save that for another time.

**************************************************************************************************** ***
In update news, I've finished the Bhujerba arc. I took down Ba'Gamman in the Lhusu Mines, let Vaan pretend for a moment he's actually someone important in this story for a while, got captured by the imperials to rescue Ashe and Penelo, and took down a Judge. I finally have my full party as well, and it's going to be interesting seeing who I run with for a while.

By process of elimination, Ashe gets to be Knight, which as typical of a Matsuno title and FFI, is a very powerful class with excellent synergy with all the other classes if I was duel classing. By choosing Ashe as my knight, I also get to start with some low level white magic as well. Leo is the zodiac sign of Knight, and one of the few I can get behind. We're obviously invoking historical figures like King Richard the Lionheart with this choice, but Leo's tend to be warm, friendly, and larger than life. They are also very protective of loved ones and have a tendency to see themselves as "knights in shining armor". So this works here. With that said, if I was to choose a zodiac sign for Lady Ashe, I would actually go Aries as she is very dominating, forceful, quick to anger, and yet still very sensitive and childish in some ways. I also like the connection with Belias this would give since he's associated with the Aries zodiac sign and is guardian to her ancestor.

I think the most interesting observations I did not realize is that Basch's main outfit is from Bhujerba. The color scheme is unique but the design is the same as the soldiers from this country. Vossler is more fun in TZA since you can mess with his gambits and he starts with a bunch of skills you can use to make him more interesting in combat. I also seem to have acquired a bunch of accessories, so now I'm scrambling to unlock them for the team since they were the one thing I was sort of forgoing over augments and abilities. I also think it';s weird Shikari starts with all the HP+ skills so early. He's tanky because of HP and has even more than my Monk and Knight classes. Just feels a bit weird. Also, now that I have access to gambits, Penelo can really shine as a Black Mage, and she's the only character I have with no healing gambit setups. I'm going to play around with status effects for a bit. Next is the dreaded Sandsea.

[Wolf Kanno]

The Sandsea is done. This is definitely one of those places where you can tell the devs just wanted you to gain some levels and gets some licenses. I'm easily halfway through every character's boards and the average of my party lv. is 22.

I know most people hate this location on account of the fact it's technically two locations and they are quite large, but I've always digged the place. I like getting those high chains and the wandering Salamander Entite certainly keeps you on your toes. I also really like the mini-quest with the Urhtan Eater to get the Esker Berries for the Garuda fight. Course Garuda is not nearly as powerful as it was in the OG version, so the item usually goes unused by me.

Raithwall's Tomb is next.

[Wolf Kanno]

Not a lot of [progress tonight, mainly just screwing around the Tomb of Raithwall. I managed to take down both Demon Walls, though I am sad the Zodiac version removed the Demonsbane as a prize. Now it's just a Scathe Mote. I did manage to score a lucky theft and stole a Blood Sword from a Steele Bat, so along with the one as a treasure in here, I'll have two. Though I do find it funny how the Blood Sword gets some legacy treatment despite not being a terribly great weapon. It gets its own license on the board, and while the Sap effect inflicts on use is great, it does lose it's usefulness when you realize the Chopper knife does the same thing and can be acquired earlier. Granted the Blood Sword is a stronger blade, but even before you get it, you'll have access to a stronger sword through the shops beforehand

The other distraction here has been trying to find and kill the rare game in here. One was really annoying because it's one of those two-faced statues that wander around this dungeon, but it only appears in the area right after the Demon Walls, and like the Kaiser Wolf in the Westersand, you have to wrack up a 12+ Chain before it appears, and unlike that rare monster, I can't leave the area it spawns in. Now this area is swarming with Steele Bats, so this shouldn't be a problem, but it also has a few amorph slimes as well, so you end up needing to switch gambits around so you don;t accidentally break your chain by killing one of them. The other one I was trying to spawn never happened for me, and sadly, the game kind of crashed before I could try again. This one is a special Lich that only appears when a regular Lich gets knocked to critical health and uses an ability called Divide to create a second Lich, but the issue is that there is only a 20% chance it will be the Cultist Lich and Lich's created through Divide can't use the ability. Complicating the matter is that the Lich may not use Divide right away when knocked into critical health, so you have to be careful you don't kill it before hand.

I will say, the Lore from the beasts in this dungeon has been some of the best so far as it fills in backstory about Raithwall and the major royal and political families. In fact it kind of spells out why Judges exist, which is interesting because they are not intentionally military units but basically a law enforcement group created to keep the Archadian Military from trying to overthrow the empire, like it tried in the past. House Solidor is so powerful because their family is from the Ministry of Law and thus control the Judges. So they effectively run the military. Likewise, a hint as to why Vayne is so interested in Raithwall is revealed as well because Raithwall is originally from the continent of Valendia where the Archades Empire is from. The Dynast-King simply set up shop in the Galtean Peninsula due to its strategic importance. It's also impressive that his family line and empire survived for four centuries before collapsing, and even more impressive that the Dalmasca line Lady Ashe is from managed to maintain their country for seven centuries before the start of the game.

The game never fails to impress me though. It's interesting how subtle and well crafted the differences are between different countries. Like Bhujerba feels very different than Rabanastre, and likewise the Archadians feel very different from either of them. And while the Ivalice races are all culturally unique, it's emeshed better with their nationality as well, so a Moogle from Rabanastre has a bit of different attitude than one from Bhujerba. Like Bangaa and Seeqs get the raw deal in Rabanastre and Nalbina fortress due to the Archadian occupation, but they don;t deal with the racism you see there in Bhujerba. There are layers upon layers of detail that makes Ivalice feel a bit more real than say Spira or even Vana'diel for me. I think the biggest difference is that the races are integrated better in the different nationalities and the cultures they create, whereas both of those other places do the typical fantasy thing and have every race be their own nationality. Which isn't to say Ivalice is not guilty of this as well with the Viera and to a lesser extent, the Nu Muo and Archades, but I appreciate the fact that the major cities feel like both a melting pot ethnically, but still distinctively their own cultures from one another.

The other fun observation is how dense Vaan is and how he is essentially a Big Fish in a small pond type of deal who finds himself thrown out of his pond into the great big ocean. Like he's incredibly well respected among all the orphans in Rabanastre who look towards him and Penelo as role models with most of the pickpockets of the city being taught by him. Yet he is completely out of his depth in this story and completely oblivious to the geo-political nonsense he has been caught up in. He is incredibly adorkable. It's also pretty fun watching the adult characters teach Vaan and Penelo more about the world. Like people use to complain that no one in this game talks to each other, but that's just patently false, I think at this point the only two characters that haven;t had a straight up conservation with each other is just Ashe and Penelo and both are my newest recruits. There is also some great background elements going on as it is very obvious if you pay attention that Balthier knows way more than he's letting on. He gives it away a lot if you spot him in the background during plot heavy parts.

I'll try to take down Belias tomorrow night.

[Wolf Kanno]

Not as much progress tonight either. I managed to fight the Cultist Lich Rare Game, spawned him with my second Lich even. After that, I simply took down Belias who couldn't muster up much of a fight with the four party members bum rushing him. Wish the fight with him in FFTactics was this easy. Lady Ashe gets her first temptation by the Occurians as Lord Razler appears before her. I always forget that Vaan is the only party member besides Ashe that can see him. I'm wondering if its because Vaan's hatred for the empire isn't going unnoticed by the Occurians and he's being set up as a potential "spare' in case something happens to Ashe? Afterwards, the party gets captured by Judge Ghis and we reveal that Vossler was working with the empire. Though unlike most types of these betraylas, Vossler is working in Dalmasca's interest, he just decided that fighting the empire was pointless and settled for having Lady Ashe restored as a puppet monarch since it would technically get the imperial occupation out. The fight with him was also over before I realized what was going on. It was a nice story-gamplay integration to have Fran start in the Berserk status due to the overloaded nethicite. The party escapes (though I do question how they managed to since it looks like the Leviathan blew up shortly after the fight with Vossler), and Now Lady Ashe wants to learn how to use the Nethicite so we need to head south into the Kerwon continent to speak with the Garif.

The rest of my evening was spent wandering the Garasmythe Waterway looking for the White Pudding Mark, only to discover that the dungeon is now occupied with much higher level monsters including Malboros and damn Water Entites. I find it amusing how Entites in FFXI are annoying but fairly easy to deal with. Like if one is powerful enough to wipe the floor with you, then chances are you were likely not supposed to be in that area to begin with as everything could likely kill you effortlessly. Meanwhile, in XII, these assholes cause lots of dungeons to have tense moments as you try to get around not using magic around them while fighting the easier monsters. Anyway, I am way too under-leveled and under-prepared to deal with this dungeon so I had to scramble out of there. I did start the quest for the Earth Tyrant in the Westersand, so I may do that along with the Mark Hunt out there. It also looks like I can finish some other smaller quests like the Desert Patient, the Missing villagers, and July the Streetear. I also got my second to last part of the Ktjn the Viera quest finished as well. So I have lots to do.

[Wolf Kanno]

A more productive two evenings than my last post. So as my last paragraph sort of let on, my team might be kicking ass in story mode, but side content had a big leap in difficulty, I have also lost out of the boons I could have received with the Second Board, and it's becoming a bit more obvious to me what I'm missing out on such as extra HP gains. Belias only really helped Ashe's Knight class as well to earn her a Potion Plus bonus. The real trick will be seeing which Espers are going to whom as I'm looking at the chart and I've got some tough choices ahead of me.

So with all the extra bits too tough for me, we moved forward and proceeded through the Giza Plains during the Rainy Season and I honestly like the rains seasons a bit better, from there we reached the Ozmone Plains, which might be one of my favorite minor eareas in the game. The lore speaks about it being the sight of a massive airship battle in the past, and so you can see old school airship wreckage dotting the landscape. It also has one of the more convenient entrances to the Zertinian Caverns and the one closest to Adrammalech who might be in my future as I hope to take advantage of my extra guest character to clean up some stuff.From here we reach Garif village and I've always found the Garif kind of fascinating, especially since we have a Geomancer among their ranks who sends you on a few Mark hunts and eventually will lead you to Zodiark...

Anyway, the journey was a bit of a waste as the Garif are clueless as to how to use the Nethicite anyway to both the Occurians and Lady Ashe's disappointment. Course, Ghis' little experiment ended up using all the Mist inside the Dawn Shard anyway, so it's now a mostly useless trinket, though not a bad accessory for my magic-less Monk and Shikari classes. On the other hand, we are reunited with MVP guest character Larsa who wants to help Lady Ashe regain her throne so the Resistance won't spark a war between Archades and Rozzaria. With no more clues to help her, Lady Ashe reluctantly agrees to go to Mt. Bur-Omiscace to meet the Grand Kiltias and have him recognize her as the princess and announce it to the world. We also get a nice scene between Vaan and Ashe where we learn Vaan is also seeing the ghosts but he can't tell if it's Prince Rasler or his brother Reks. But we get a real nice character moment for Vaan as he admits he's been just an angry kid lashing out and just trying to find a way to grieve his brother's death. But now that he's with the group, he resolves to stay so he may find a real path for himself. So we've reached sort of the emotional end of Vaan's arc in the story, and he'll return to being the clueless man-child the party knows and tolerates. We also get a nice exchange between Basch and Balthier with Basch checking Balthier's allegiance since he's still reeling from Vossler's betrayal. Balthier, in true sky pirate fashion, feigns allegiance and is still keeping his cards close to his chest after getting his feather's ruffled after Larsa mentioned Draklor Laboratory.

With the story out of the way, I was able to shop for some much needed equipment upgrades, finally get my first -ra level spell, and take down a few hunts and even took down the Earth Tyrant, who is nice sly reference to FFVI according to the Clan Primer. I went back to the Waterway and was able to hold my own, and managed to complete the Ring Wrym, White Mousse, and Marilith Hunts. Marilith is especially a pain as she must have the ability Adrenaline cause she can start one- shotting party members once she's at critical health. I had to resort to using a Quickening to beat her in the final stretch. I am also debating about ignoring Bazaar goods going forward. I managed to Unlock all of the main Monographs so I can start getting better drops. I just need the funds to get the Dragoon one and obviously it's a bit early to get the Canopic Jar, but with my party's limited weapon pools, I don't really need to drop my gil to go after some bazaar goods anymore, so I'm thinking of just ignoring any bazaar items I unlock until I reach endgame. I'll instead try to hit up Balfoheim as early as possible and use my money to keep the team well equipped with conventional goods from shops, treasure finds, and enemy drops. Though I may need to make an exception for Ninja Blades as I don't think they appear in shops as normal items. I'm honestly ready for Greatswords and Ninja Blades as the team needs a bit more oomph that isn't magic and Basch getting lucky with a full combo. I miss range weapons, Spears, and katana's far more than I thought I would.

I'm going to finish the Gil Snapper and Orthros Mark Hunts and see if I can finish the Desert patient and missing villager quests. If I'm feeling saucy, I might explore the Zertinian Caverns and try my luck against Adrammalech. I'm going to have to do some serious prep work before I can tackle CuCuchlainn, even though I finally acquired the Water System Key. I have a feeling I may have to wait until I've passed Archades and heading to Giruvegan before I can seriously tackle some of the espers with the challenge I've given myself.

[Wolf Kanno]

Spent most of the evening working on side quests. Did the simple July the Steetear quest in Nalbina which introduced me to XII's version of Biggs and Wedge called Gibbs and Deweg which was really funny. Finished the Cactoid Family quest in the Estersand village as well as drop off the final item in the Desert Patient quest. The Catoid Quest is one of my favorite because it ties back to an earlier Mark Hunt. In fact, I'm just going to say this now, FFXII is probably the last chronological FF I've played where I felt the side quests were good. XIII and XV's quest often felt like busy work with samey quests. In XII, the quests not only help expand the setting with fun minor NPCs but I like the fact they feel part of the world. Some Mark Hunts get named dropped long before you ever unlock the hunt like Diabolos in Bhujerba being a demon that eats bad children, or the Flowering Cactoid hunt unlocking a quest involving saving a village from the monsters family that is now searching for him, or even all the quests that build up Clan Centuiro throughout the game. Like sure, I'm still just doing fetch quests and monster hunts but the game takes the extra step to make it feel like part of the world and narrative. It's not like XIII where all the hunts can be summed up as "I got a Focus to kill an annoying monster, and I failed" or FFXV where five colorful NPCs just send you on ten quests to find something for them. Like there is some real narrative pull and integration going on in XII's sidequests.

I also hunted down Gil Snapper and Orthros giving me my FFV and VI references. I forgot how funny the Orthros Petitioner was with her being a bumbling female Seeq thief who talks to Vaan like he's the "one who got away" or how in addition to the Gil Snapper getting the Clan Hunter Bansat to start getting motivated to work for the clan again while also the whole quest being connected to the brother and sister in the Giza Village who thought they accidentally summoned the Mark and need you to seal it in a jar only to discover later they misunderstood the elder who likely sent them on the quest because they're both kind of bratty. Like I was originally going to ignore the Hunts and just barrel through the game, but it's hard not to engage in them since they are so well done.

I likely won't be playing tomorrow, but on Wednesday, I'll likely move the story along since I don't have anything else to do except get my ass handed to me by the optional Espers I have access to.

[Wolf Kanno]

Tonight we delved into Fran's past and went to the Viera village while trying to go to Mt. Bur-Omisca. We had to take a slight detour to Henne Mines to rescue Fran's younger sister and we got our second hint of Venat and their first physical appearance. Not to mention we got Vaan's cringiest scene which is still hilarious and now has him in the proverbial dog house with the female members of the party.

I honestly love Fran's story bit and I feel its criminal how underrated she often is among the cast when I talk to some fans. Granted, she's fighting Basch over who is the most stoic member of the team, but no one complains about Lulu doing the same thing. The Viera are weird, at first, you think they're like a Tolkein-esque High Elf type deal, but really, they feel more like some weird Amish type group. Gated community, ignoring the outside world, adhere to a strict code of ethics, live within a more simple life style than the rest of the world. Not to mention the tendency to treat those who leave the co0mmunity as though they are dead. The heartbreaking part is watching Fran tell her little sister to follow the rules of the Wood and consider her dead even after her sister was trying to defend Fran from their older sibling. I also noticed that Fran's ears have a black fringe to them but neither of her sisters do, or anyone in the village. I wonder if the hair changes the longer she's away from the Wood, and if the color change symbolizes her inability to hear the Wood?

I also liked the conversation she has with Balthier before going to the village where she calls out his interest in the Nethicite being part of his past as well. The other cool exchange is one between Ashe and Basch as they leave the Golmore Plains (a nice reference to FFTA) and discuss how they may not be able to forgive the imperials but Basch seeing hope in how well Vaan, Penelo, and Larsa are getting along. FFXII always gets slandered for not having a strong story or characters, but I honestly can't agree. Of anything, it's ability to juggle personal stories while staying focused on the grander narrative puts it above a lot of other FFs. But I may save this rant for my final thoughts segment.

I did take down one MNark Hunt for the Garif, being a Ghost haunting the mines that was created from the Garif that fought the imperials when they tried to make the mines. I also tackled a Rare Monster in the Golmore Jungle that requires a 21+ Chain to even appear. I also got a few upgrades to equipment and unlocked Thundara and Bubble. I even got Haste! Except no one in my party can use it...ever. I also explored the Zertinia Caverns and managed to take down Adrammelach. Vaan ended up acquiring him so he could get access to another Battle Lore and the Souleater ability. The two most important items I acquired was the Thief's Cuffs and the Diamond Armlet. The Thief's Cuff are a bit underrated if you ask me. Not only does it raise the Steal Probability, but it also allows the wearer to steal more than one of an enemies items. If Zidane had access to that, I feel most fans would stop slandering his thieving skills.

I think once we hit the halfway mark (probably after the battle with Judge Bergen) I'm going to do a real assessment of all the classes I'm using.

[Karifean]

Not to mention we got Vaan's cringiest scene which is still hilarious and now has him in the proverbial dog house with the female members of the party.

Funnily enough, I think it's also his best scene. The scene does open up with Balthier complimenting Vaan for a reason; he basically took charge and stood his ground against Joté very well, and in "the two sides of the same coin" of Vaan's straightforwardness to me it most directly conveys what the whole point of Vaan as a character is. He doesn't get lost in needless complications, for better or worse. I always felt the party was kinda ridiculously harsh on him for asking Fran her age. Feels like it earns more of a headpat over still being a boy than an annoyed "try to grow up, please". But well, we're not supposed to take it seriously I suppose.

[Wolf Kanno]

For the life of me, I've been having a hard time updating this

So we have finally reached Mt. Bur-Omisace and met Gran Kiltias Anastasis who is apparently from a race called Helgas race. It's interesting spotting some of these races that weren't in FFTA, though according to the wiki, they are spoken of in FFTA2. FF fans should recognize his voice too, as he's voiced by Dwight Schultz who famously voiced Maechen, Mika, and Oaka XXIII in FFX and even played a minor character in The Spirits Within. We also got to meet Al-Cid Margrace, who spends the first minute of his introduction feeling a bit out of place with his sunglasses and then hilariously tries to flirt with Ashe with the same level of success as Edgar to Terra.

We also learn that Emperor Gramis has been murdered, so no more Larsa for me, which I will come to regret later. Still the political intrigue scenes we get in Archades are fascinating. Between the infighting among the Judges about Vayne, the Seante using the lost of the Leviathan as a pretext to finally be rid of Vayne, and the ambiguous conversation between Gramis and Vayne where I really do feel they plotted Gramis' death so they could use it as pretext to setup the Senate; Archades has some interesting politics going on.

So with all that going on, Anastasis decides that Vayne can't be trusted to sign a peace accord with Ashe, so instead, we need Ashe to travel to the Stilshrine of Miriam to collect the Sword of Kings, which will allow her to destroy nethicite. So off we go...

Well no, I finished up some sidequests instead. I took down the Couerl that was attacking pilgrims on the mountain, helped Clan Centurio member Monid to tackle the always annoying Trickster and his overpowered Choco-Meteor attack, and even got access to deeper parts of the Lhusu Mines to save some runaway rich kids. I also finished the Patient in the Desert quest to get the key back into Baraheim Passage so I could fight and obtain Zalera The Death Seraph.

While I know it's never been outright confirmed, I feel Zalera, like many of the Espers, is a callback to classic FF villains. In his case, I would say Sephiroth. He has a one wing physical trait, he's connected to a shaman he exploits, and his ultimate goal is to kill all life so he can absorb it into himself. Throw in the fact the shaman has some thematic and even physical characteristics that are reminiscent of Jenova and Aerith, I feel it's obvious.

Anyway, off the the Stilshrine of Miriam next.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update time!

Stilshrine of Miriam is finished, the Gran Kiltias is dead, and we're now going to take a long trip to Archades so we can say hi to Daddy Bunansa. The Stilshrine is a pretty cool dungeon and I love the statues coming to life to attack. It's also interesting how this temple is for an older god that's not directly connected to Kiltia of Light religion, yet it was apparently built in the Galtean Age, and yet it also has mechanical wonders that are apparently older than the Galtean Age. My guess is the temple was repurposed by the Kiltia faith when they moved into Bur-Omisace and the temple was older than the faith itself. Kind of like Hagia Sophia is in the real world. The God of Swords has an interesting design as well being half hume and half bangaa. It makes me wonder if all the races have a common ancestor. See this kind of lore gives you something to chew on and speculate, we'll be having a very different conversation about lore drops when we get to the next entry on this list.

Judge Bergan also gets a killer intro like Judge Ghis and like Ghis before him, Judge Bergan is killed before I really had much of a chance to really enjoy the fight. Someday, I'll do a play through where I actually skip the side content and play the story mode straight to finally feel like these story bosses are an actual threat. Granted, that's also what Trial Mode and Minus Mode are for...

I also got the item needed to fight Zeromus, but considering I don't think I could take Cúchulainn on just yet, we're going to skip him for now. We're at the Tier 2 Espers who all have some weird gimmick that makes them like 10x more annoying to fight and sometimes require certain skills. I'm eyeing which jobs have Souleater just so I can make the Chaos fight less of a chore than it has to be. Likewise, I need some better status defense options before I tackle Cúchulainn and I sure as hell don't want to deal with Zeromus and his no magic rule while he's using gravity magic to systematically lower my health while hordes of undead are swarming around my party. I'll need to come up with a strategy that will work for Ashe, Basch, and Balthier who will be running point on that fight. Exodus will also be available once I reach the Mosphoran Highwaste north of Nalbina Fortress.

Before my next update, I'll do my breakdown of my six FFI classes I'm using, especially since most of them are mastered outside of the extra stuff through Espers.

[Wolf Kanno]

Okay, let's do a job breakdown at the moment. I will preface this to say that I haven't unlocked the extra stuff with Espers, seeing how I only have four at the moment, but I more or less have everyone's base stuff unlocked. I will be starting this in order of my least favorite class to my favorite.

Shikari - This one is finally starting to change for me, but I was fairly amused that this class perfectly recreates the Thief/Ninja dynamic as the thief portion is weird, and I've only recently started to enjoy the class now that I'm getting Ninja blades. The weirdest thing about this class is the high HP it gets. I figure I would get more evasion skills which I sort of due since I can use daggers with a shield, but daggers lack punch, and even though I obtained a Gladius before formally recruiting Basch that dagger has abeen a mixed bag due to it's Wind attribute. So I've got this meat shield that sort of hits like a wet noodle compared to my two other offensive classes because all of its weapons that are not guns use speed for the damage formula, but Ninja blades fix this due to their high combo rate and the fact TZA fixes Ninja blades by not making them all dark elemental, which was detrimental in a game where every third dungeon was Zombiepalooza. So the class is growing on me. I sort of want to unlock guns for it so I can have better long range options that are not magic, but I think the esper that unlocks it for me also unlocks useful spells for the other characters, we'll see. On the brightside, I did set up some decent steal gambit options that have made it useful for it's primary role.

White Mage - While Shikari has largely been disappointing in early game, White Mage largely falls into boring but practical. I am counting the hours until I acquire Protectga and Shellga because that will make this class much more useful. I do think it's weird they use Rods in this game, but I think that has more to do with XII making Rods the White Mage option when traditionally it was a Black Mage one, but whatever. I am sad it doesn't have access to Maces, which are also traditionally White Mage weapons, but I'm intrigued that it does get Greatswords. The class gets enough Battle Lore's to hold their own in combat, it's just the weapons don't hit hard, hence why I feel like Maces would have been a better option. This class is great when fighting a tough Mark or Esper, but ho-hum when dealing with everything else, especially when I have to streamline things to shut off support gambits when they are not needed. I am, stoked it learns Bubble as well, but disappointed I don't get Haste in any form. Useful class, but very "set em, and forget em" once you get all the spells.

Monk - This is a pretty solid class. It lacks the high damage potential of earlier incarnations, but makes up for it with surviability. I feel I will see some serious improvements once I get Ultima for the class and acquire two more Swiftness augments. The class does feel slow and Unarmed is only ever so slightly faster than using the Poles. The real advantage of not using poles is only against enemies with high magick defense. Poles may use the users strength for damage calculation but it also uses the enemy's magic defense as well. It is interesting to see this class on it's own. In my previous game, I mixed this class with Knight and got some insane bang for my buck in terms of HP boosts and magic options, but Knight is just a more useful class with more useful weapons by endgame, so I never really got to spend time using the weapons of this class. I sort of wish poles had a higher combo rate, or that Monk could unlock the Genji gloves but whatever. I do like the FFTA shout out in terms of the class getting some heavy White Magic options with it's esper placements. This class can effectively be turned into a second endgame white mage if you set them up right. So I have a feeling this class may climb the ranking before endgame.

Knight - I know this class swill be fighting for top spot before the end, but based on it's function for the first half, it's here for now. Like Shikari before it, this class also plays into the Warrior/Knight dynamic from FFI. One-Handed swords and shield combo is pretty snazzy in the early game, and once you start getting elemental weapons it can finally do some serious damage, but I already know this class really starts shine once Greatswords finally unlock, and the Excalibur alone makes this class overpowered by endgame. But the first half has this class fall into the same category as White Mage just for melee offense. Boring but practical. I did get some extra mileage by giving it to Ashe, meaning I got access to some basic white magic in the beginning so all that MP doesn't go to waste. It's white magic give it some good support options, but not as good as Monk's potential. I also feel it was not a smart move to make Telekinesis an optional skill I have to fight over with espers. But then again, when this class starts hitting hard, you're probably not going to care about options when the basic build is "give them Excalibur/Ragnarok/Tournesol and let them hit things really, really hard". If I could make any over changes, I would give them acess to a few Spears or Katanas, not the good ones mind you, but a few low to mid level ones might have been nice.

Black Mage - Magic is incredibly overpowered in this entry, which is nice for a change especially since magic feels underwhelming in later entries after this. But for a game where the main enemy strategy to take out the party is to overwhelm them with numbers, having a class that does crowd control really well is super useful. Low level magic is potent as well, but this class really starts to shine once the -ara and -aga level spells are acquired. and with the elemental staves to boost their damage, this class is just a beast. It's biggest flaws are the usual black mage issues of being fragile, having the lowest natural HP of the six classes, no good defensive options unless you unlock the heavy armor, but even that is just going to hurt the BLM's damage potential in the long run. It does get access to hand-bombs but this also feels a bit misguided (would have given this to White Mage honestly) since Black Mage doesn't need a long range option as a mage. Of anything, the class has the most lackluster options with espers with most of its best options being much needed HP boosts. Getting early access to elemental weak and vulnerable Gambits gave magic a huge boost in TZA.

Red Battlemage - Basically Black mage but with healing options, defensive options and decent combat options when magic is a no-go. This class is very much a master class with great options overall, especially since you can dramatically boost it's offensive potenital by the end with Esper options to acquire Greatswords and the -aga level spells. Maces are surprisingly good weapons despite being slow and a mage with better HP options and access to a shield makes them stand out quite a bit in the early game. They also get enough Magick Augments that the difference in elemental damage potential between it and Black mage is sometimes hard to notice until elemental staves get involved. But whereas BLM is screwed when the reflect status is around, RDM can use dispel to make life easier. I do wish it gained a few more useful Time Mage spells (haste anyone?) but getting exclusive access to Arcane was a nice touch to keep them feeling different from BLM in the early game. It was weird they don't get access to Blizzard, but whatever.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update time!

Mainly went through the Mosphora Highwaste and the Salikawood. I also took a detour through the Nabreus Deadlands and the Necrohol of Nabudias or as I shall rename it for this playthrough where only two characters have resurrection magick "burn through Phoenix Down" Zone due to me likely hitting up this area prematurely.

The Highwaste is short but I did start some of the quest stuff to reach Exodus, though I have no intention of tackling him until after Archades. He's not as hard as Zeromus due to only losing out on items for his fight as opposed to magick, but he does hit hard and I would like Shellga for this fight.

The Salikawood is an interesting place. I always forget the search for the lazy Moogle Quests in here, but it's pretty fun, especially since Salikawood is filled with non-aggressive animals in a few zones. In fact, I don't feel like the place gets any real enemy threats until you reach the Necrohol or Deadlands, then suddenly the top area starts spawning those annoying goblin monsters and Mantis creatures. The battle with the optional King Bomb was surprisingly challenging. He's a bit like a combination of the Big Mom Bomb fight from FFIV and the one against the Ourborus Bombs in FFV. By which I mean he likes to spawn multiple smaller bombs who love to use Chain Reaction for big damage, but the bastards also use Renew to keep King Bomb alive so you have the quick death from IV but the prolonging the fight from V. I had to switch out my mages Gambits to use multi-targeting spells as long as the enemy was vulnerable to it since the party can't use Aquara outside of items. I also found the Wood Toad Rare monster, who is one of the more ingenious if annoying monsters to encounter on account of the fact it has a 20% spawn rate in a specific zone and has the invisible status when it does. I ran into this thing in my last playthrough on happenstance, but he's always amused me nonetheless.

The Deadlands wasn't so bad outside of the area where Roblon was hiding but the Necrohol is a pain in the ass due to the high spawn rate of the enemies who usually appeared with Haste and Shell already active, as well as all the HP/MP traps littered everywhere in the entrance ways. I actually meant to just peak in and leave, but then I was alerted to the fact that a lot of White Mage support magic was lying around here. So I managed to gain Silencega, Protectga, Bravery, and Faith. I do still need to see if I can get the Ensanguished Shield from here, but I'll wait until after I reach Archades and acquire some better crowd control spells. I did find the secret Shop and bought some Power Armlets for the Stop resistance.

I also caught up on all the Mark Hunts available and managed to beat Roblon, who is honestly one of the toughest non Elite Marks for this portion of the game on account that the area you fight him in spawns countless Dead Bones that like to cast Reflectaga on themselves to limit you're ability to crowd control. I only managed to finish this fight thanks to acquiring an Opal Ring in the Necrohol that allows a party member to pierce through Reflect with Magick. Even then, it was a challenge, because the Dead Bones will beeline towards the party member inflicting the most damage.

I also did the Carrot Elite Mark Hunt and fulfilled a Ivalice Tradition, since this concept has existed in the series since the original FFTactics as a side mission. For those unaware, there is always a mission involving the search for a pet named Carrot for an eccentric client, and the pet turns out to be a Malboro. This one gets an extra layer of challenge since Ribbons are extremely rare in this game, and you have to enter Salikawood and reach Carrot's location without killing anything.

I think I'm feeling confident enough to try and take on Cúchulainn before moving on, and part of me also wants to clear out any more rare game that is not connected to the Hunt Club. I also need to farm the Seeq enemies on the Highwaste because their Ivalice lore is actually the creation myth and finally gives us some insight into the Stilshrine of Miriam since it follows the God of Swords. After that, Phon Coast, and likely a side journey to Balfoheim...