Finished the Stillshrine of Miriam and Gran Kiltias sequence. I'm now on what most people call the momentum killing "trek to Archades" part of the game, but to compound to the hours it will be before the plot moves again, I had like seven Mark Hunts open up and I have access to four Espers. I took down Adrammalech already and explored the Zertinan Caverns, and I'm debating about taking on Zalera the Death Seraph.

Pros:
  • Going back through the game, I have to give XII props for having some underrated dungeon design. I blame it more on people remembering the boring places like the Yensa Sandsea and the Westersand that seem to go on forever, but theTomb of Raithwall, Baraheim Passsage, Henne Mines, and Stillshrine of Miriam actually have some clever puzzles and sequences that I liked.
  • I forgot how interesting the Stillshrine of Miriam is, largely because it's one of the few non-Occurian structures in XII's Ivalice that actually predates the Dyanst-King. Totally forgot it was a former Temple to an ancient god Miriam the God of Swords. Even more interesting when you see the Sumerian/Egyptian style aesthetic they gave the place and the fact Miriam is possible a Goddess since it has features of both a man, woman, and reptile. Pretty neat.
  • While I have been a broken record about the challenge in this game (I was able to enter the Feywoods and held my own pretty well, wtf?!) Adrammalech raised my hopes that the Espers will retain their BS level of difficulty. He's the easiest of the optional enemies, but his combination of being a flying enemy and the freaking amount of undead that come to his aid was enough to overwhelm my initial group and I had to finish him off with the backup team. It's made me reconsider whether I want to chance dealing with Zalera. I'm already dreading Cuchalain cause he's easily the first nightmare Esper people hate fighting, and I don't really think I can touch Zeromus yet since he's still a good fifteen levels higher than my party and anything five levels higher than me can be a handful. Not to mention he begins the whole "restrict one of your commands" handicaps. So it's been kind of exciting.
  • I honestly find the way Summons and Quickenings are utilized for the License Boards to be a very clever idea. What I mean is that for Quickenings, there are multiple spots they pop up in on the board, and often they are blocking access to some skills or lores, the issue is you can only open it once so you have to choose what skills you want. Espers do the same thing except they run through all the boards meaning that depending on which jobs you gave out, you can have two different characters fighting over an esper to gain access to their additional blocked off licenses. Right now, I have to figure out who to give Adrammalech to, Vaan will gain access to a few more Battle Lores while Ashe will gain access to the useful Cura and Raise spells. I'm waiting to open up a few more Espers to see what rewards I can get before making my choice. As it stands, I feel like Fran may end up being Esperless.
  • I got a really good Katana from an enemy drop while wandering around Zertinan Caverns.
  • I am either very lucky or the requirements for their appearances have been altered a bit, but I've been running into far more Rare Game than usual. Almost makes getting the Ba'Gamman Sky Pirate Trophy feel like it's in reach. Not the mention all the cool rare items you can steal off of them.
  • I have obtained all of the Monographs. Got a crap ton of money from the loot I got in the Caverns.
  • The Carrot Mark Hunt has opened, and the Ivalice tradition continues. I had a Good Feeling!

Cons:
  • I'm starting to really look forward to the Judge Battle in Trial Mode, simply because the guys are a little lackluster as bosses in the main story. I crushed Ghis, and Bergan didn't put up much of a fight either. This is an absolute shame because the characters have such great presence in the story proper.
  • I must have incredibly bad luck or the game is glitching on me, cause I can't get the chest with the Thief's Cuffs to spawn in the Zertinan Caverns. This is frustrating because A) it's spawn rate is pretty high and the item is 100% guarantee, B) I took down the boss that carried the item before I could steal from him, C) The Zodiac version has changed how you get the item, so I can't buy them anymore, and D) this is all just reminding me how much I hate the spawning treasure chest mechanic in this game.
  • Speaking of mechanics I don't care for, I still wish XII had kind of dropped the Bazaar mechanic, or at least made the improvement from TA2 to it, so I can start saving and looking for the items needed for certain items. Overall, I'm not wild about making ultimate weapons as much as I am about earning them through a quest. Probably why the Masemune is one of my fave weapons in this game.