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.