Well, I'm still tearing my way through Final Fantasy XII. The difficulty curve is getting a bit more wonky, but overall things are still well in hand. I bumped in an unexpectedly unvoiced cutscene, and it was a shame since it was Balthier-focused and Gideon Emery is really good at the snark.
I also had a squicky bit of comedy come across my way. The gist is that I was rewarded for taking down a nasty undead boss, with a message of thanks because this boss's offal is good eats. That's right; somebody somewhere is cooking up lich poo and enjoying it. So many questions, so much effort to suppress the answers.
Things have heated up, and hopefully I'll wind up with even more places to tear around and plunder the countryside. I've realized that I'm not quite skilled enough to handle some of the extra areas without some serious grinding, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Oh, and Rogue One Mon Calamari look like this game's Toad family of monsters. It's clearly a trap. Regardless, The Harvest Never Rests!
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Sunday, December 11, 2016
I'm On A Rampage!
Blarargh!
Hail once again to the spambots! It's been a productive day in Final Fantasy XII. I was foolish and forgot about the importance of preparation and paying attention to gear, and boy did I pay for it. Got my ass slowly munched by a giant mutant turtle of doom; then I realized that I had gear on almost everybody that rendered them against the ice spells it was flinging. I finally had to give up and reset. Sure enough, once I actually fiddled with the equipment like a proper nerd, the boss got pwned pretty good. The Harvest not be denied.
I've found myself a bit irritated that elemental weaponry has a tendency to be crap in this game, but things are compensated by having new variants of tradition FF goodies. The Blood Sword was a surprise, going from a crappy Drain spell on a stick to being a +10 Sword of Nasty DoT Ailments. Another surprise is that undead in this game are vulnerable to Poison and Sap (!) which can lead to some hilarity.
I've finally gotten to where the good soundtracks are playing, and now things are ever better. Few things can be compared to tearing about the countryside and wrecking freaks to a kickass tune, especially with all the enhanced loot drops and purloined goodies that my party is now enjoying. Bring me your shinies!
Hail once again to the spambots! It's been a productive day in Final Fantasy XII. I was foolish and forgot about the importance of preparation and paying attention to gear, and boy did I pay for it. Got my ass slowly munched by a giant mutant turtle of doom; then I realized that I had gear on almost everybody that rendered them against the ice spells it was flinging. I finally had to give up and reset. Sure enough, once I actually fiddled with the equipment like a proper nerd, the boss got pwned pretty good. The Harvest not be denied.
I've found myself a bit irritated that elemental weaponry has a tendency to be crap in this game, but things are compensated by having new variants of tradition FF goodies. The Blood Sword was a surprise, going from a crappy Drain spell on a stick to being a +10 Sword of Nasty DoT Ailments. Another surprise is that undead in this game are vulnerable to Poison and Sap (!) which can lead to some hilarity.
I've finally gotten to where the good soundtracks are playing, and now things are ever better. Few things can be compared to tearing about the countryside and wrecking freaks to a kickass tune, especially with all the enhanced loot drops and purloined goodies that my party is now enjoying. Bring me your shinies!
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
They Made Grinding Fun
You know, I've had a copy of Final Fantasy XII for quite some time. I forgot the details of the original provenance; suffice to say that at some point I wound up with one, then traded it to a friend for my old copy of VII back, then somehow got a second copy (both copies were the steelbox Collector's version even), and that second copy has been hiding among my gaming artifacts for years now. I had this notion that somehow XII was too different for me to be much fun, or had some abstruse mechanics that would require some head-on-wall action to take place before I found the secret to enjoying the game properly (post-SNES Square games are bad about that).
I was an idiot. Screw what the nostalgia-drunk fanboys have been braying; this game is frickin' awesome. Most JRPGs just pay homage to the tradition of grinding and farming as a necessary evil. Final Fantasy XII embraces grinding and made it enjoyable.
Yes, there is something of a learning curve, especially if you jump straight in from an 'old school' FF game, but nothing a bit of action RPG experience won't cover. Once I got over the initial hurdles and got my feet wet, things started clicking along pretty well, and now the Harvest has been properly unleashed upon Ivalice. The decision to update the combat to allow free-run and working area-of-effect mechanics, combined with a consistently challenging difficulty curve, adds a layer of strategy and tension to things, giving some much-needed emphasis on risk mitigation and resource management. On top of all that, stepping away from FF's long tradition of constant cash drops in favor of the material hunting/bazaar system gives a sense of purpose to all the random monster-mashing going on.
In most games, I tend to have a fairly impatient "plow through the story" mindset. Here I am actually fiddling around, eschewing direct plot progression and fast-travel in favor of wandering around and collecting all the goodies I can, and it's paid off splendidly so far. I can't claim I've over-leveled, but I feel that my plucky group of adventurers actually have the skillset, power, and experience to waltz in the next Evil Dungeon of Plot Progression and take on The Horrible Denizens That Guard The Important Relic without the distinct impression that I brought a rubber knife to a chainsaw duel. It's a powerful feeling for a gamer.
Oh, and I really like how the 'mine' zones give a whole visual reference to Vagrant Story's Lea Monde. That was a nice touch.
I was an idiot. Screw what the nostalgia-drunk fanboys have been braying; this game is frickin' awesome. Most JRPGs just pay homage to the tradition of grinding and farming as a necessary evil. Final Fantasy XII embraces grinding and made it enjoyable.
Yes, there is something of a learning curve, especially if you jump straight in from an 'old school' FF game, but nothing a bit of action RPG experience won't cover. Once I got over the initial hurdles and got my feet wet, things started clicking along pretty well, and now the Harvest has been properly unleashed upon Ivalice. The decision to update the combat to allow free-run and working area-of-effect mechanics, combined with a consistently challenging difficulty curve, adds a layer of strategy and tension to things, giving some much-needed emphasis on risk mitigation and resource management. On top of all that, stepping away from FF's long tradition of constant cash drops in favor of the material hunting/bazaar system gives a sense of purpose to all the random monster-mashing going on.
In most games, I tend to have a fairly impatient "plow through the story" mindset. Here I am actually fiddling around, eschewing direct plot progression and fast-travel in favor of wandering around and collecting all the goodies I can, and it's paid off splendidly so far. I can't claim I've over-leveled, but I feel that my plucky group of adventurers actually have the skillset, power, and experience to waltz in the next Evil Dungeon of Plot Progression and take on The Horrible Denizens That Guard The Important Relic without the distinct impression that I brought a rubber knife to a chainsaw duel. It's a powerful feeling for a gamer.
Oh, and I really like how the 'mine' zones give a whole visual reference to Vagrant Story's Lea Monde. That was a nice touch.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Mark It!
Well, Final Fantasy XII is letting the fun keep rolling. All sorts of elements are acting like curveballs, even when they're very much not curveballs. I've already sunk so much time into messing around with the hunts and farming for shinies that I keep feeling underpowered from a skills/spells standpoint. It's telling how much fun you can have in a Repeated Prolonged Grindfest and suddenly registering that the big story is hanging out in a corner and you still haven't unlocked the -ra series offensive spells yet.
It's also a refreshing surprise how much world-building and detail has gone into things. The windy trails are actually windy trails, with little switchbacks and gullies and dead ends. The items have wonderful little snippets of information; the equipment lists are about the only thing without any real details, which it kind of a letdown. But all the 'loot' materials have nice little flavor texts, and combined with the bestiary can give you the chance to glean useful information and add to the immersion.
The bazaar system is still a pleasant surprise. I've gotten used to direct, intricate, fiddly crafting systems, with indirect 'ordering' systems having a habit of being too damned obtuse to be fun (Tales of The Abyss is loads of fun, but the trade shop is horrible, as I've stated ad naseum), but this actually a lot of fun. It's rare that I get a feeling of contributing to an actual economy; that all the pelts and magic rocks, and freaky monster parts are actually filtering down to the craftsmen, who make all sorts of useful things for the city's trade, meanwhile offering my team of adventures special deals as a sort of thank you. The whole concept is very refreshing, and goes well with my material hunter mindset.
One more unexpectedly fun thing is the Mark system. Bounty-oriented sidequests can be a tough balancing act, and things can be exacerbated by JRPGs' habit of making things infuriatingly obscure, but so far so good. The idea is simple: Find a job at the bounty board, kill the offending critter, get goodies. There are little details that add to the immersion that I like, for example actually going out and meeting the client to seal the arrangements, and getting little snippets and clues about things. Like the bazaar, it can help make one fell like an actual adventurer getting to do adventurer things while making a positive contribution to things. Gripe all you want about Vaan being a glorified sidekick and not having much plot relevance; he's a perfect fit for all these little missions and errands that the hunts and bazaar revolve around.
Oh, and whoever made undead mooks vulnerable to Sap is freakin' awesome. The Harvest Never Rests!
It's also a refreshing surprise how much world-building and detail has gone into things. The windy trails are actually windy trails, with little switchbacks and gullies and dead ends. The items have wonderful little snippets of information; the equipment lists are about the only thing without any real details, which it kind of a letdown. But all the 'loot' materials have nice little flavor texts, and combined with the bestiary can give you the chance to glean useful information and add to the immersion.
The bazaar system is still a pleasant surprise. I've gotten used to direct, intricate, fiddly crafting systems, with indirect 'ordering' systems having a habit of being too damned obtuse to be fun (Tales of The Abyss is loads of fun, but the trade shop is horrible, as I've stated ad naseum), but this actually a lot of fun. It's rare that I get a feeling of contributing to an actual economy; that all the pelts and magic rocks, and freaky monster parts are actually filtering down to the craftsmen, who make all sorts of useful things for the city's trade, meanwhile offering my team of adventures special deals as a sort of thank you. The whole concept is very refreshing, and goes well with my material hunter mindset.
One more unexpectedly fun thing is the Mark system. Bounty-oriented sidequests can be a tough balancing act, and things can be exacerbated by JRPGs' habit of making things infuriatingly obscure, but so far so good. The idea is simple: Find a job at the bounty board, kill the offending critter, get goodies. There are little details that add to the immersion that I like, for example actually going out and meeting the client to seal the arrangements, and getting little snippets and clues about things. Like the bazaar, it can help make one fell like an actual adventurer getting to do adventurer things while making a positive contribution to things. Gripe all you want about Vaan being a glorified sidekick and not having much plot relevance; he's a perfect fit for all these little missions and errands that the hunts and bazaar revolve around.
Oh, and whoever made undead mooks vulnerable to Sap is freakin' awesome. The Harvest Never Rests!
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