WK Plays FFXII

[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...

[Wolf Kanno]

Due to the holiday, I haven't had as much time to play. I mainly went Rare Game hunting in some of the earlier areas. I'm like 29/80 but like 30 of those monsters don't appear until I start the Hunt Club quest. So I'm over halfway done with the regular Rare monsters. I was also clearing up some of Clan Primer entries for earlier areas. I still need to go through the Parinam Rift to finish all the entries there. The two most annoying overall are the Gazer in the Lhusu Mines and the Darkmare in the Stilshrine of Miriam due to both enemies technically only spawning once every time you visit their locations and both only spawning far into the dungeon, making trekking back in a pain.

I also took on Cúchulainn and managed to win, but just barely. I had to pull off an impressive 12 Chain Quickening to get him down to critical before his perma-sap murdered my party. Going in with with my mages first to clean up the Foobars that accompany him helped. I probably would have had an easier time had I remembered his other annoying spell was Disabliga. So had I gone in with everyone equipped with Black Belts, I could have lasted longer. I am tempted to try fighting Zeromus, just to see how bad it's going to be.

So I'm probably going to wait until I reach Archades to tackle Zeromus and Exodus so I can have access to some better gear. I also gave the Nu Muo sage two of the three missing Medallions, so I'm not far from making Chaos available either.

[Wolf Kanno]

Just a very minor update. I made a few small mistakes while hunting some of the last rare game in the regions I have access to. The first was testing my luck with Zeromus, and as I assumed, he whooped my ass hard. I'll need to wait until I have access to X-Potions to feel safe in that one.

I also dabbled in some rare steal and treasure chest farming in the Necrohol, which was a mistake as I wasted an entire evening and only got like one decent piece of armor for Lady Ashe. I was unfortunately inspired due to getting extremely lucky and nabbing a Defender Greatsword from a rare steal and I was gunning for a Save the Queen from the rare game in the Babreus Deadlands.

I did finish up the Phon Coast and even acquired the Site 11 Key for the Lhusu Mines, but I'm going to hold off on that until the Gilgamesh Mark opens up. I distinctly remember the Site 11 section having some endgame level stuff there, so I'm going to hold off for just a bit.

Next up is the Tchta Uplands and the Steepe. I'm going to tajke a slight detour to Balfoheim before I check out Archades. I may also try to take on the Great Wyrm while I'm in the Sochen Cave Palace, because I waited too long to fight him last time and crushed him like a bug, so I'm hoping an earlier encounter will make it exciting.

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor update.

I explored the Tchita Uplands and the Sochen Cave Palace. The Uplands don't have much to do in the Zodiac version since it removed the treasure chest gimmick the area originally had. It does have the funny Archadian Father and Son team who set you up on a unofficial Hunt against the Mandragora Court. The are also doesn't really have that many unique monsters either.

The Sochen Cave Palace on the other hand does have some cool stuff. Despite the amount of undead soldiers you deal with in this game, I do appreciate how chilling all the lore is for them. Like you get you vengeful spirit types like the Fiends from FFX, but others are placed there due to curses and such not and honestly the cosmology of Ivalice feels a bit more chilling here because a lot of monsters and most of the undead are the direct results of the sentient races just being pricks to each other. A lot of monsters are just abandoned war or working animals that have gone feral again but maintain their instincts from being used for war, and some undead are simply soldiers oath bound to protect and serve their masters, despite the fact they and their kingdoms have long since been lost to time. SE is tapping heavy into fantasy tropes with this game and I'm here for it.

I did do the Waterfall Puzzle in the palace, but sadly the prizes are not nearly as good in Zodiac. In the original, you got the Iga and Koga blades but here it's just 1000 Needles and a Megalixier. I am debating about trying my hand against the Ring Wyrm before moving onto Archades though.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update Time!

Okay, so turns out I can't fight the Elder Wyrm yet due to not having the key from the Wrym Researcher. So I headed to Archades and got my Chops. I know a lot of players hated this side quest since it halts the action and feels a bit like a waste of time, but I appreciate how it gives you a lot of insight into what Archades is like and what it's people are like as well. It definitely has a nice blend of New York City and L.A. (or any capital city for a country) vibe to it in that it's a place that will feel very foreign to anyway not originally from there and is the kind of place where there are just as many stories of failure as success. Of anything, I feel XII doesn't really get enough credit for some of it's social commentary.

Anyway, I made to Draklore Lab and fought Big Daddy Cid who is the second hottest Cid just behind yellow condom suit Cid from VI and tied with chubby Robin Williams Cid from VIII. Scrumptious

We had out fight, got some Balthier Lore and are now being egged onto go to Giruvegan. The end of the game is in sight... but first, let's take down all the Mark Hunts that opened up and start a few quests. I'll admit this is the point where the Normal Mark Hunts are kind of dull, just being palette swap monsters and the only unique aspect is the fact we're being slow dripped all of the nasty support skills later Mark Hunts and Bosses are going to have like Ignore Shield, 0 CRT, and lots of pailings... The two elite marks I unlocked was the Bolito fight, which is actually the Ba'Gammen rematch that ends with his very own Boba Fett style ending. I do appreciate the buildup to this mission with the Clan murmuring about a Clan Hunter and suspecting Monid. The other one I unlocked was Man of Mystery, but I'll save that for another night.

After unlocking X-Potions and having better gear, I tried to take on Zeromus, but that's still a no go. It's a pain in the ass dealing with a tanky boss using percentile damage while being swarmed with up to seven undead wizard knights skeletons with no good crowd control options available. I've tried using Quickenings, but frankly, they are not reliable enough to get good damage, and even if I do wipe out the lot of them, they just respawn less than a minute later. I'll wait until after Giruvegan when I have Excalibur. I also finished most of the Medallion quests, so I could go check out Chaos but I sort of want to do this in order.

Other than that, I explored Cerobi Steppe, checked out Balfoheim, started the Missing Cockatrice mission, and managed to meet six of the seven airship sisters. I like how the Medlallion Quest give some Nu Muo a moment to appear, since I feel they are not utilized as much as the other Ivalice races, and it's amusing seeing the Craftsman Moogles wandering around Ivalice. Not to mention more fun with the Street kids of Rabanastre like Filo and Kytes. If there is anything I feel XII has done better than any FF game that has come after, it's the side content. Like thinking back to XIII trilogy and FFXV, hell even XI if I'm allowed to be controversial, I feel XII nails the side content well.

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor Update tonight.

I got a bit burned out and started playing Phantom Pain instead, which is why this thread hasn't been super active. Finally got burnt out on that game, so we're back.

I mainly finished exploring the Lhusu Mines this evening and completed the Man of Mystery Mark Hunt, which is frankly one of the best Mark Hunts in the game. I think only the Shadowseer comes close, and even then, not by much. I obtained a lot of great weapons here, a shame I don't have the Ulhan or Bushi classes to make use of the Dragon Whisker and Masemune I just acquired. Got the Orochi and Zwill Crossblade for Balthier (third strongest Ninja Blade and Dagger), the Whale Whisker for Basch (second strongest Pole) as well as a Renewing Morion (Auto-Regen!), Vaan got some Glimmering Robes so he's no longer easy canon fodder, Lady Ashe got the full Genji Gear and the cool Magepower Shisack helmet along with Excalipor as a conselation prize, and Fran got the Bone of Byblos which is a great FFTactics reference along with being her strongest melee Mace, though not necessarily her best weapon. The Bonebreaker may be stronger and more useful since it uses the Guns algorithm for damage as well as inflicts Disease of all status effect, while the Chaos Mace raises Dark Magic by 50% which might be her best mage weapon.

Regardless, I managed to get everyone but Penelo to reach the Gilgamesh fight at an odd number not divisible by three which always makes this fight significantly easier, but Gilgamesh is a toughy when he's down to his last 20% of health. Will need to restock on items after this fight, but it's such a treat of a fight and I love watching him pull out fake weapons from other FF games.

With that done, my only other tasks is cleaning up a few sidequests like the airship sisters and escaped Cockatrice fight. I also will tackle the Elkder Wyrm before reaching Giruvegan, and maybe I'll even attempt Zeromus one more time now that I have stronger weapons and armor.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update Time!
Tonight was more productive. I finished the Seven Sisters quest, the Missing Cockatrice quest, started the finishing minigame quest, and even did the Madhu Beverage quest. The Madhu would have been more practical if I had done it when it first opened back when I got the Dawn Shard, but it was fun getting a lot of NPCs in Bhujerba drunk. The Cockatrice quest is a personal favorite even if some points can be a bit more frustrating than they should. I haven't started fishing yet, but I did acquire the Matamusa Rod so I can start it officially.

I did try my hand against the Elder Wyrm and was promptly destroyed for my trouble. I could probably setup a scenario to win this fight, but since he's an HP sponge and basically the Beta version of Yiazmat, I've decided to wait until I get Excalibur before thrashing it.

The real victory tonight was taking down Zeromus, though it was still close with my ill-equipped B squad of mages winning the fight at the end with a Quickening. I then tried my hand at Exodus, who only seals items and doesn't have any notable allies helping him, and the dude died under a minute with little problem. Zeromus is bulltrout... So I may try my hand at Chaos and taken down the Humbaba Mistant and Fury before heading to Giruvegan. I gave Zeromus to Fran so she can get another Channeling Augment. Exodus is the tricky one because he gives Monk access to Souleater, which is a great skill for the Chaos fight and Basch would make great use of it. On the other hand, it also gives Fran access to some decent Heavy Armor and lately, her fragility has become a bit of an issue. I'm leaning more towards Basch because while the skill is only really useful for one fight, the Armor upgrades will likely not be strong enough to be practical for endgame for Fran anyway. I'll sleep on it and see how I feel.

I also need to double check if there are any rare game in Lhusu Mines I missed. I'm purposely holding off on the Hunt Club to make collecting the rest of the rare game a bit easier to find. I also need to start hunting Entites to fill the Bestiary as well as some Bangaa.

Now that we're getting to the point where I have access to endgame gear and abilities, I may do another assessment of the classes as well as some foresight into how my first playthrough using the second classes sort of warped my impression of a few classes. We'll see. Chaos is next, my last numbered FF villain Esper, and then the rest will be the Ivalice Exclusive ones. I am not looking forward to Zodiark, but I'll likely try to be more patient this time and save it for after the Pharos. I may also check to see where some spells are because I'm annoyed I don't have Shellga yet.

Anyway, the end is getting close.