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.

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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.