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Thread: FFXII: TZA Impressions

  1. #46
    Witch of Theatergoing Karifean's Avatar
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    Yeah the depths of the Lhusu Mines are like the "second-hardest optional dungeon" of the game (hard to say how it really compares with the Subterra and Great Crystal tho) so it contains some truly incredible gear. Going there as soon as you can makes you pretty insanely powerful for the rest of the game =P

    Though if there's one place I consider about on par on being worth going through as soon as you can it's the deeper Great Crystal, since it nets you the best Greatsword in the game and thus kinda makes all the other optional areas muuuch easier afterwards =P

  2. #47
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    So I've reached Giruvegan and made Chaos my bitch on the way.

    Pros:

    • I still really love the whole quest to fight Chaos, out of all of the Espers, this was one of the most satisfying to get to and face.
    • Completely forgot how hilarious the death animations for Humbaba Mistant and Fury were.
    • Chaos put up a pretty good fight, largely because I have nothing but Gambits to protect me from Confusion, and partly because I love the Sealed Attack command restriction because it makes you have to think outside of the box for your melee party members.
    • Thankfully, the Rafflisia fight wasn't chore this time around.
    • Did a little Rare Game hunting while I was on my way to Giruvegan, the Wood Toad was particularly tricky and involved me looking it up a bit, but I still have to hand it to the devs that they went above and beyond designing this game with so many neat elements like that.


    Cons:

    • I know I've said this before, and I don't mean to harp on it, but it really is the only glaring flaw in an otherwise pristine masterpiece of a remaster. The weak difficulty of the title hurts this game. One of the things I always loved about the original was how vital buff and debuff spells were in this game after years of it being an afterthought. Yet, I'm getting close to the end of the game and I've only found myself in a few scenarios where buffs or inflicting status magic was absolutely needed to survive. The Rafflisia fight was an eye opener as I watched Ashe pull off a combo that took down half of the boss's health within the first 30 seconds of the fight, before it even had a chance to spam it's first annoying status spell. The biggest challenge when dealing with the various Rare Game is keeping the damn thing alive long enough for my thief characters to steal. I've honestly taken out half of the rare monsters in my list without even realizing they were rare games, and I barely fear the elementals either. It's been the only real let down of the game for me.

  3. #48
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Finished Giruvegan and recruited Reddas to help deal with the Pharos.
    Pros:

    • I still love the look and music of Giruvegan, it's still one of the most haunting locations in the game.
    • I don't think I noticed this the first time, but it looks to me like the Occurians are actually mental projections of some gargoyle looking race that is under medical stasis. Each Occurian manifests near a strange gargoyle statue with tubes and wiring connecting them to it, so I wonder if their "immortality" is simply a matter of their medical knowledge reaching a point to allow them to transcend their physical forms.
    • Ultima is still my favorite Esper battle hands down. I love the fact she cycles through the restrictions of the other Espers, it really sends the message home that she's their leader, and hints to her role in Tactics.
    • EXCALIBUR!!!
    • Despite it's much more muted nature since the world doesn't come to an end halfway through the game or you watch a giant meteor in the distance, or towns get swallowed up in Time Compression/the Void, the tension of the major conflict created by the villains is still pretty tense. It's like noticing a train wreck is about to happen and all you can do is sit back and watch it happen and it's glorious.
    • Despite being one of the hardest Rare Game to spawn for some reason, I fought the Larva Eater three times trying to find Ultima.
    • I forgot how cool the Diabolos Mark Hunt as a narrative. This is the second Mark Hunt given to you by a dead person and it's still eerie.
    • While I'm still working on it, I love how they handled the Deathgaze Hunt as well.
    • Speaking of Airship travel, I completed the Seven Sisters quest and got a Ring of Renewal for my troubles. Kind of nice that the game gave you a quest you could wait and do while waiting for the RNG to let you fight Deathgaze.
    • After several attempts, I finally took down Disma in the Lhusu Mines. Holy hell is that Rare Game a piece of work. Nearly a million HP, casts all -aga elemental spells, super fast, hits hard, has a max twelve hit combo, and it can ignore evasion and shields; and this all before it's gets it's insane boosts when near death. Talk about a well earned victory. Even with Reddas, it's a challenge.

    Cons:
    • Oh man, I forgot how much of a chore the Great Crystal is. It's not even trying to find Ultima or Omega that's the problem, it's trying to hunt down all the Treasure chests because there are very few good maps on the internet that show you where they are, and instead I have to go by the cumbersome naming scheme the area has. I'm still missing two really good items in the Great Crustal, namely the Artemis Bow and the Staff of the Magi.
    • I think Shemazzai or however you pronounce her name is easily my least favorite Esper. I don't care for her design, the battle with her is underwhelming, she's one of the few new Lucavi/Espers that has never appeared before either in the Tactics or TA, nor is she representative of a former FF Villain, and she's just kind of blah overall. Should have upgraded Iblis to this form since they let Zodiark Summon take his role as the 13th Zodiac Lucavi.

  4. #49
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Cons:
    smurf ZODIARK AND smurf DARKJA. I'm honestly trying to figure out how I even had the patience to beat hims the first time, but it's sad to jump fromone of my favorite Esper battles (Ultima) who is actually a pretty well thought out and thrilling battle to "Mr. How much does the RNG hate you?". My god is Darkja such a cheap move and the fact the best you can do to offset it is use Shell to reduce it's Insta-Death effectiveness to only 50% is kind of a slap to the face. I came close to killing the bugger a dozen times in the last two days and his assortment of high power and cheap moves combined with the ridiculous speed and immunity to physical towards the end is seriously messed up. He's almost tied with Yiazmat as my least favorite boss battle in this game just due to his fake difficulty. I mean if Darkja cast Disease or Doom, he could be manageable, but instant death in a game with no protection from it was kind of a low blow.

    I'm going to go make the Hell Wyrm my bitch so I can feel better about myself.

  5. #50
    Master of Kittens Galuf's Avatar
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    i am 100% with Wolf on that one.... only i didnt have a hell wyrm to make myself feel better , only 2 more harder bosses which i havent killed yet. sad cos zodiark is a cool sounding name

  6. #51
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Haven't tackled Hell Wyrm just yet, decided to clear out all of the Mark Hunts I had opened up instead, including taking down Hell Wyrm and Yiazmat's baby brothers Fafnir and Behemoth King.

    Pros:

    • After a little backtracking, I went back to the Great Crystal after finishing up the Piscodeamon Hunt and finally acquired the Artemis Bow and Staff of the Magi.
    • I still love the way the Fafnir Hunt ties into everything. It was name dropped back when you first went to see the Gran Kiltias and after all the events there, you watch the place turn into a hell hole only to spark hope in everyone after taking down the ancient wyrm the Gran Kiltias had sealed away. Nice touch. I was also happy I remembered the easy way to keep the blizzard going so I didn't have too much trouble getting the guy to spawn.
    • It's interesting how all of the Mark Hunts from the Viera Village are actually connected by the characters. I don't think I noticed this the first time around, but there is a bit of a mini-drama going on in the village that's told by the three or four Mark Hunts you undertake for the village.
    • Excalibur is a wee bit broken in this game I feel. I now regret not giving Basch the White Mage job so I could have access to White Robes and get the Holy Boost.


    Cons:

    • I am now at the point where my only options for the game are either completing the plot, or dealing with the more tedious elements of the game. I'm not really sure I want to deal with Treasure Chest farming all of the missing high end gear I want in the Tchta Uplands. Especially when the drop rate is 5%. Nor do I really want to farm the materials for all of it either. I have four Mark Hunts left, and barring the epic Shadowseer fight in the bowels of the Pharos, the other three are some of the most tedious for me including Pyrlaster and his BS Growing Threat move, the annoying teleport spamming horse thing at the Pharos, and of course the tedious grind fight that is Yiazmat; whom I'm likely going to look up a strategy to get this rather dull fight done within a reasonable amount of time. My other chores are completing the Sky Pirate Den which includes beating Yiazmat, Omega XII, Zodiark, and completing the bestiary, which will likely be the most interesting thing to do, as well as trying my best to get all of the Quickening Concurrences, despite my terrible luck in using those. So yeah, I'm basically at the dull completionist checklist. On the brightside, I'll get to check out Trial Mode soon as I basically decided I wasn't going to bother with it until I finished a first run through.

  7. #52
    Witch of Theatergoing Karifean's Avatar
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    Never ended up bothering with any of the hefty RNG gambles this game besides some 10% stuff like the Wither and Addle technicks and Ribbons. Fortunately you get a set of each ultimate gear for free in the Henne Mines, so you don't really need to bother with Cerobi shenanigans.

    Excalibur is IMO the best weapon in the game and why Knight + Bushi outdamages almost everything else with minimal setup. Ironic though that it cannot be used against Yiazmat and Omega, heh.

    If you don't like the grind that is Yiazmat, I got a pretty word for you: Wither. It's the most broken move in the game, and Yiazmat is the one time you really have no reason to feel bad for it especially because the Trial Mode has another Yiazmat fight where he has less than 1/10 of his main game HP and it's actually a pretty okay fight. So no reason to play fair against main game Yiazmat =P

    The other remaining marks you listed I don't really remember, they're not as hard as the Behemoth King in any case. Don't think there's much they can do against a simple DPS/Tank/Healer team at this point.

  8. #53
    Master of Kittens Galuf's Avatar
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    trial mode with the entite battles are really hard, they weaken your team up and then you have no magicks for zeromus, once past that though i have not seen but the judges are scary sounding. goodluck on your attempts though, i gave up sincei dont know much good grinidng areas to beat yiazmat and omega ( or tactics either) or where good items are to help. anyway goodluck

  9. #54
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Short update, cause I didn't do a whole lot. I beat Hell Wyrm, whom I should have attempted before going to Giruvegan it seems. Just crushed the poor guy and didn't even have to worry about bringing in the second team. I was glad it went by so fast considering how much health he was. Other than that, I got two more Hunt Club trophies to spend, and I'm attempting Zodiark once again before moving onto the Pharos. I'm probably not going to bother with the Diamond Armlet roulette game in the Cerobi Steppe cause that's just a waste of my time. Perhaps if I get unnecessarily close to a perfect game, but that's unlikely. I do need to double check to see if there are anymore Spells or Techniques I'm missing that are not located in the Pharos though.

  10. #55
    Master of Kittens Galuf's Avatar
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    goodluck on zodiark, make good use of that auto save point

  11. #56
    Recognized Member Scotty_ffgamer's Avatar
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    I’ve never really messed with trying to do all of the hints and side quests in this game, which I’m attempting now. It’s been a fun time.

  12. #57
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Zodiark has finally been dealt with and I'm plunging head first into the Pharos.

    Pros:

    • Finally beat that smurfer Zodiark. Partly by gaining a few more levels, partly by abusing Excalibur+Haste+Berserk. I actually killed him with a combo attack before he could get his Physical Paling up which was kind of funny. Even more so because I did this during my second attempt because during the first one, he shifted his weakness absorb Holy and I watched in horror as Basch's blows kept healing him. It's all good though.
    • Finally got Holy
    • The Pharos has been an interesting dungeon, of anything, replaying this game has shown me that the criticism of the "boring dungeon design" is really unfounded as several places have some interesting mechanics or feature to them that sets a lot of them apart from each other. Not to mention the general atmosphere of the whole game.


    Cons:

    • There is a chasm I wish to cross in the first part of the First Ascent of the Pharos that I can't figure out how to get ot. It has a treasure chest and everything, the second area had something similar and you had to hunt the Red Face demons to open it up, but it doesn't seem to affect that one. That treasure is taunting me...
    • Just found out I'm missing some Techniks that I will have to backtrack to get. In addition, I seem to have missed Esunaga and Scourge as well, so I may need to leave and grab those as well.
    • Though I haven't dealt with Yiazmat yet, a thought occurred to me that there was some lost potential here. I feel like they could have implemented a thing where for every Mark Hunt you complete with a member of Clan Centurio, that member could have appeared to help you out and take the beast down. Granted, I understand there was a technical limitation that prevented this since the originl idea of Hunt involved hiring and teaming up with teams of other hunters to help you but was dropped due to the limitations of the PS2, but it could have been interesting to see TZA get a bit of an upgrade, oh well.
    • I've acquired enough of the game's "ultimate" weapons to be less excited when I do find new gear. I just acquired the Gungnir, which was a favorite of mine in the original, but it's kind of useless to me at the moment due to having the infinitely better Dragon Whisker. Same deal with Greatswords, Katanas, and Ninja Blades since my party has Excalibur, Masemune, and Mensa. Maybe I will try to acquire the Tournesol and Wyrmhero Blade this time around.

  13. #58
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Pharos is completed, at least from a story standpoint, I need to go back in to do a few things. Right now, I plan to find the missing magic and techniks I missed, finish the last three Mark Hunts that are not Yiazmat, and then I'll tackle Sky Fortress Bahamut and give myself a break from the game for a little while. I plan on getting a few more of the ultimate weapons before tackling Trial Mode, but at the moment, I'm not really in the mood to tackle the farming that this will all require, nor the snore fest that is Yiazmat. I figure I'll come back to it eventually to finish up the last of the trophies and whatnot.

    Pros:
    • Despite some headaches here and there with me being a little slow on the pickup for puzzles, the Pharos was a pretty snazzy dungeon, and worthy of being considered FFXII's definitive final dungeon. Great puzzles, cool bosses, and some of the best story moments in the game. It's actually interesting how every party member gets a moment in this dungeon.
    • I have finally collected the last two Espers, and despite both being pretty anti-climatic in the face of my overleveled Ultima/Zodiark killing party, I've always had a soft pot for these two particular Espers because one was the main villain of Tactics, while the other was my favorite Race Guardian from Tactics Advance.
    • I forgot how much I loved the Ardor spell.
    • I unlocked the footrace mini-game!
    • I'm looking forward to the Dark Seer Mark Hunt, I especially love that he summons the Four Gods of Eastern mythology.
    • I've had a surprisingly better time this playthrough of unlocking more of the weapons and running into the various Rare Games, which has kept the game pretty exciting.
    • I get to look forward to hearing my third favorite Final Boss theme in the series.


    Cons:
    • I'm too over-leveled, and despite lobotomizing Reddas' Gambits to let Basch have a somewhat fair duel against his brother, he still managed to wipe out all of his health with only three hits.
    • I somehow missed Flare, and like the Great Crystal, I'm going to have to really hoof it back inside the fortress to get it since there are not many shortcuts.
    • I love FFXII, but much like FFII and XV, this game does suffer a bit of burnout for me. I'm close to 120 hours of game time, and I'm starting to feel it.

  14. #59
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Alright, we're heading towards the final stretch. I acquired all the missing spells and Techniks I missed (I'm still trying to figure out how I missed Flare) and the only Hunt Mark left is Yiazmat, whom I'm going to save for another day when I decide to come back to this and finish getting all of the trophies and deal with Trial Mode.

    The only things left for me to do, besides finishing the game which I plan to do tonight, include:

    • Beat Yiazmat and Omega XII
    • Create all of the Ultimate Weapons including the Wyrmhero Blade
    • Complete the Beastiery (Mostly Rare Game and completing entries for certain creatures, mainly Bangaa and Garif)
    • See every Concurrence (I think I'm only missing Blackhole by this point)
    • Complete Trial Mode to earn the two new Trophies


    It's been a pretty wild ride, and I've been mostly happy with this entry. Since I imagine I will crush Vayne and Venat like a bug since that seems to be the recurring theme for all of the story mode fights I'll say right now that with the exception of the nerfed challenge, all of the new gameplay features have been stellar and given this game a much more tight design which it really needed. I can say this is the definitive version of the game, and if you love FFXII, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

  15. #60
    Recognized Member Scotty_ffgamer's Avatar
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    I’ve really loved playing this version. I do agree with the difficulty though as I’ve been zipping through the story pretty quickly.

    I’ve really been enjoying the hunts and taking the time to talk to everyone too. Don’t know why I skipped out on both of those things before.

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