So I have reached Archades and I'm working on Chops.

Pros:
  • I still enjoy the Carrot mission, and it's one of my favorite Ivalice running gags. While she whooped my ass the first time around, I beat her the second attempt by having my melee leader swing past her and make her direct all her Breath attacks away from the long range fighters.
  • Back to foreshadowing, I'm already hearing the rumors of the Clan Hunter and Centurio is worried it's Monid.
  • Took down Queklain (I'm just using his badly translated name from FFT cause it's easier to spell). I just needed to get the right accessories and stick to long range weapons and spells to maintain offense. That leaves only two Espers I've unlocked to fight (Zeromus and Exodus) and I can kind of start the quest to go fight Chaos, but we'll see about that.
  • Forgot how gorgeous Phon Coast was, one of the really nice areas despite being kind of mundane.
  • I really love the cutscene between Balthier and Ashe when he reveals part of his backstory. In my first playthrough, when he said he was a former judge, I really thought he was the missing Judge Zechs. In truth, looking back on the cutscenes of this games while also playing Tactics Ogre on the side, almost all of the story scenes are played out just like Tactics and his older entries. They still maintain his directing and writing style perfectly and in hindsight, his previous games are also light on "party interaction" outside of choice moments. There is actually a cute moment when you reach Archades where Vaan and Penelo reflect on their journey and Penelo mentions Vaan has grown up a bit, only for Basch to pat him on the back and make a joke about "knowing the trouble with working for nobility" of which Penelo quips if Basch is finally revealing how he really feels about serving Ashe. Overall, I am convinced more of my initial observation that XII's writing is a bit more subtle and highly underrated compared to other FFs.
  • I forgot how funny the Mandragora Fight was in the Sochen Cave Palace was. Especially the WTF outro cutscene where their spirits ascend to heaven.
  • I love the design of Archades, and my favorite part of the Chop quest is how much it kind of reminds me of Xenogears and when your party finally reaches that place. The whole game, you're dealing with the army and the assholes of the place, occasionally seeing the backstabbing politics as well. Then you finally reach the place of dread and unlike other Imperial capitals you infiltrate, the place feels pretty normal with self-absorbed but basically normal citizens dealing with normal day to day things and completely oblivious to what their government is doing to the rest of the world. It's an interesting parallel to real life I would imagine.


Cons:
  • I've come to the conclusion that XII's easiest excuse for making a battle 10x more difficult is simply to have have you deal with high spawning undead while trying to deal with the real focus of your mission. I had barely finished the Roblon fight which was basically a support unit who defends itself by being in the undead lands only to fight Zeromus who works almost the exact same way. Not helped by him being the first of the "sealed command" boss battles. Got trounced really badly by him simply because I would have ten undead on the map with him and no effective way to crowd control since magic is sealed in this fight. The undead's habit of inflicting Stop with their normal attacks isn't helping. I'll have to come up with a more effective defense to deal with him. It is an interesting parallel to Tactics Ogre (and FFT and Vagrant Story in hindsight) as Matsuno seems to really love making undead the one type of enemy you don't want to deal with ever. Some of the most dreadful missions in TO have been maps filled with nothing but undead.
  • I feel part of the problem with the Tchita Uplands is that they are too big and way too easy to get turned around in, thankfully the Zodiac Version dropped the obnoxious treasure chest mechanic in this region, but it does feel like a region where nothing terribly interesting happens and is way too big for it's own good. Not going to be helped when the Cerobi Steep opens up since that area feels like more of the same.
  • I'm conflicted with the Chop quest. I mentioned the positives above, but I also can't help but feel this is a bit of an arbitrary quest with really contrived justifications within the plot. Like I overall enjoy it, but I feel like it could have been better implemented.