I just wanna talk about my experience so far, which has been fun, fun, fun! If you recall, I have been playing with two stupid 5-ringgit discs which I alternate because they were stuck at different places. It's unfair that nobody I know had the same problem. The guy at the shop even said that it may be because of my PS2. Poking faults at my Kujong was unforgivable, so I decided not to patron his shop anymore and scoured for an original disk. Watashiwa-san finally solved that problem for me when she gave me FFXII as a...gift, I think. Thank you again ^_^.
Right. When I stopped last I was on my way to Archades, the capital of the Archadian empire, the empire colonizing the hero's country. I only got to the first part of the underground palace (Sochen Cave Palace) where you fight the Mandragoras and won - and STUCK! rawr! The last save point was TWO SCREENS away! Two screens are a lot of space seeing as those two screens are vast plains with lots of encounters and I had a few level ups on the way - all gone! I actually fought the mandragoras twice and got stuck at the same place. I used the other disk and that one was EVEN WORSE.
So...I stopped. I could not deal with the frustration so I just stopped playing to cool my head lest I commit suicide. When I got the original disk, it didn't recognize my previous saves so I had to restart from scratch, which was not exactly a bad thing, since I had the chance to obtain the Zodiac Spear - the strongest weapon in the game. Not even half as painful to obtain compared to the Tournesol. The spear required that you refrain from opening several treasure chests in four unique areas. AND have you run through a necrohol of vicious monsters if you want to acquire it early. I actually acquired it slightly later than the first available opportunity thus had better armor and stats, and even then, I barely survived *shivers*. I am NOT going back anytime soon. Not before I level up to 99 which is possible it seems O.o.
ANYWAY! What's up with those elementals anyway? Really? they are just flashing blobs of magic that attack you on a whim and you can't even counterattack with weapons! You'd like to cast magic back to it but it casts reflect on itself, and if you reflect back what it casted upon you, they absorb the damage! rawr! I know that it's possible to win against one but it will be very tough, and is just not worth it seeing as it is considered a normal encounter. One thing I like to do is...have the party leader wait at the border line between screens, send someone with Thief's Cuffs out to steal from the elemental, and wait. It's funny to see the assigned thief run towards the elemental, steal, and when the elemental starts chasing you - run for you life! Hahahahahaha! I like borderlines. It's convenient how enemies just stay in their own areas and won't chase you into the next.
And those mandragoras! Five vegetables - running around in such a vast space! I bet the people at Square Enix are having a laugh at gamers as we go around chasing them one by one! I haven't gotten the Zodiac spear when I beat them, but they had pretty high evade and weapon attacks will miss at a 40-50% rate which is annoying, except for guns, which ignore evade, but is pretty slow. The last one I killed out of the five was Onion King. When he was critical he ran off to the other side of the room, either to cure itself or just to be a pain, so I hit him with Fira - and BAM! Death! Satisfaction. This was done with original disk, so I was near tears when I was finally given access to the rest of Sochen Cave Palace. sniff. I was just eager to get to Archades and get upgrades on equipments and magicks so I can start doing some level V marks hunting.
Unlike previous FF games I played (VII, VIII, IX) you cannot abuse GFs (guardian forces in FFVIII) or creature summons in VII and IX. I admit, I abuse GFs for every boss battles in FFVIII simply because...why not? But not in FFXII I think they realized that these creature summons are making the game way too easy, thus with its new fighting method, FFXII required more strategizing. What's great is that, whatever status spells you have in your inventory, it can work on both you and the enemy. Bad status effects like blind, silence, poison, sap, immobilize, disable etc can be used against enemies and even bosses! There's this great accessory that reverses the affects of healing items, so if you use Remedy againsts an enemy it is similar to giving them a cocktail of bad ailments! It made battles so much easier when enemies are blinded and silenced. I'm usually the type to just "charge right up with the strongest weapon and heal as I go" but this strategy is getting old. These statuses do not go away unless healed - and enemies RARELY heal - unlike positive buffs like protect and shell. At the same time you can know what status effects an enemy is immune against. Give them the whole load - and see what sticks XD. And as intimidating the bosses are, they are normally vulnerable to at least one ailment, be it just blind or silence. Only one boss so far is immune to everything in remedy...but he's the master of bad ailments and an opitonal boss at that.
One of my favorite status ailments to use against an enemy is 'disease'. With the reverse acessory you throw a vaccine at an enemy. Items are great compared to magic when it comes to inflicting ailments because the success rate is 90-100%. With disease, HP will always appear as full even as you inflict damage on them. While it doesn't look like the enemy is losing HP, they actually is - disease conceals their own HP status. Why this is awesome is because, when enemies are at a critical, or when their HP drops to about 30% or so, they start having all these annoying attack/defence. Either they have high defence, become immune to magic/weapon, or attack you really, REALLY hard. It's automatically triggered by low HP. Disease cancels this COMPLETELY so the enemy will get on as if it has full HP and sticks to their normal attacks - which is usually far more tolerable - and BAM! Sudden death! <
I use remedy before every boss fight now.
I think it should go without saying that I referred to online FAQs during this playthrough. Not the walkthrough. I like to be surprised. But the specific ones like Marks Hunting and Weapons guide. Like all FF games, FFXII have much to entertain apart from its own storyline; secret dungeons, secret areas in the dungeons, rare game monsters, optional espers etc etc. Why, just the quest to gather the materials for Tournesol (strongest one-handed sword, 10 points less than Zodiac spear)alone should keep you occupied for a good part of the game, really, and take you to all these different places. Though I think I won't even bother with Tournesol in this playthrough. I already have Zodiac Spear and Fomalhaut (strongest gun) both acquired through chests - next I may concern myself with the Masamune or some ninja swords for their swiftness and elements. After all, you really only need to outfit 3 characters and having different weapons help. Those annoying flying creatures can only be brought down by ranged weapons unfortunately.
I want to attempt the jelly auto-levelling next and bring everyone to level 99. It should be doable now. I want to see how far their HPs will go.
And oh, the ever so sexy Balthier! My favorite character. Not only is he sexy (in demeanor and appearance) he also speaks with an accent! Hahahaha.
I guess slippers are in for Sky Pirate fashions eh? xD
Ta'ra!
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