sincere | Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings

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dorky

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings

Contains some spoilers for early chapters of the game.

Apparently the aegyl are bewinged Nobodies? I was confused because at first they kept talking about how they were incomplete and had no hearts, and then they started talking about how the aegyl lack anima, with no segue or explanation as to what anima is. You can't introduce new terminology like that, are you missing HEARTS or missing ANIMA?

Vaan and Penelo are cute, and so are Vaan and Kytes. And so is Tomaj. Still want Filo to fall off the face of the game. You are eleven years old. No, you can't be as popular with the boys as Fran.

I love how nonchalant Fran is about getting gifts from Tomaj and Kytes, but... what did she mean when she said that when Balthier gave her gifts, it was... 'different'? Balthier is not a cat, I'm pretty sure that he didn't leave dead animals on her doorstep. maladaptive suggested that he used to bring her flowers... naked. Hot.

Tomaj's apparent dedication in wooing Fran is adorable, even if Vaan warns him and Kytes that Balthier is probably not going to be amused. (I bet he will be, though. He's not an insecure fella.) If he really wants a viera chick, though, maybe he should court the Judge of Wings. She's less attached, and if she still had someone to send her flowers maybe she'd stop trying to destroy the world. :(

Must... save Balthier... Fucking Mateus, this battle is taking forever.

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Short of the Ba'gamnan battle at the beginning of the game, that one was the hardest for me. Well, not so much the saving Balthier as the battle immediately after it.

And the deal with the Aegyl, IIRC, not that it's clear, is that someone stole all their feelings and/or ability to feel (that being heart and or anima) and made them into yarhi in the World of Illusion.

On another topic entirely, while I was disappointed with Penelo being your healbot, the whole thing with her being a bad cook who slowly improves is really adorable. (Oh man and it only gets better when you get Basch because the cooking quests are hilarious.)

Well, I guess Balthier doesn't have it so bad. The reason I keep losing is more because, you know, I keep dying, all my heroes. It's very inconvenient. Mateus tends to knock out a chunk of my forces before I can get to attack the Judge of Wings.

Oooh, I'm not up to that thing about the yarhi yet. Iiiinteresting.

The battle system is extremely limited, so while I too am disappointed, everyone got boxed into one tiny role. A little aggravating. But I actually also liked her cooking business -- not so much that she's a bad cook, that's like, Bad Japanese Cliche #14, but that Vaan likes her food anyway, and every non-human who gets on the ship loves her food. XD I thought that was a nifty twist on the usual "Female love interest is ideal except for utter inability to cook." I'm pleased that she'll improve, too.

If you talk to her at appropriate times, quests for ingredients get added to the mission board thing. (Which is why I always talk to everyone after finishing something.) And yeah, sorry for the spoilers; I forgot that you get that info AFTER the Balthier battle. I've actually gotten to the point where I like the battle system, but mostly I look at the types, summon accordingly, and mob things.

I always talk to everyone. :3 I looooves it, that's how I know Balthier ♥ Fran. :D CANON, BITCHES. Uh, I mean.

I've already gone on a quest or two for her ingredients, and I agree and all, it's easier when you get the hang of it. I still think it's kind of sad to be limited like that -- and I hate that it doesn't pause when I try to give orders to my troops -- but mostly right now I just wish I could have more level II espers. Only three is painful, since I always need one of those slots for the carbuncle...

Seriously. By the time you get those three slots, the level 1 espers are just so... pointless. XD

I don't tend to like the class system such as it is, no, but on the upside, it means that Penelo levels pretty fast, since you have to have her all the time. (I was so glad when she learned revive; not that Llyud is bad to have on your team, but I'd rather have him attacking.) And by the end of level 5 you can grind for Auracite, though it's pretty easy to get from then on in.

OH MY GOD HOW DO YOU MAKE PENELO LEVEL??

I don't understand it, she has never once been out of my party voluntarily but she's like four levels behind, she just earns less experience than everyone else. D: Whyyyy.

I have a lot of auracite now -- I found one optional battleground on the island where they were stranded that gave auracite, so I ran through it a couple of times, because I was sick of not being able to get espers when I needed them. XD Right now I think I have about 12 pieces, and while I haven't gotten most of my level III espers yet, I feel pretty good about it.

I get the impression that EXP is related to damage dealt - for obvious reasons Penelo doesn't level that much. Thankfully, Ashe can equip an embroidered tippet, so if you're just leveling, you can put her in a party with whoever you want to level.

I know, and it's so frustrating to have to have one person use them in every battle.

WHAT IS THAT.

"You have lamias, why are you using those level 1s? LAMIAS DUDE. ENTICING SNAKE WOMEN."

I wonder if it'll change when I get some level 3 espers.

I love embroidered tippets.

I spent the latter half of FF12 going "I has a tippet."

Noooot that I've noticed. In fact, that made it more aggravating for me, because they didn't summon the level 3 espers at the beginning of battle -- they used lesser espers. I had to summon level 3 espers manually. So I haven't used level 3 espers at all. >_> But yeah, right now I have 2 level 1 slots, 2 level 2 slots, and 1 level 3 slot per troupe.

They make life much easier, yes.

Oh, I just love the word.

Tippet tippet tippet.

Well, you can use level 3 espers if the board has points where you can summon; just dismiss some of the lower-level espers and then summon the level 3 esper. Another trick using the dismiss-these-summon-that technique is that if you want Vaan to get to his quickening faster, you summon a lot of low levels for him - the faster they get killed, the faster his mist builds up.

Yo, I went to EB games to grab FFXII and the guy at the store said it super-sucked. Now, I'm usually trusting of an EB employee opinion. But, I respect your take on things too. How is the gameplay and storyline on XII and is it a good buy? (Use FFVII as your comparison for a good game!)

To be honest with you, comparing them is really a very difficult task. They're different in virtually every conceivable way. But I would say that yes, FFXII is absolutely worth buying, just to experience, even if you go back and trade it in when you're done.

First of all, I want to stress how amazingly well-produced FFXII is. The in-game graphics are incredibly detailed and gorgeous; the voice acting is excellent across the board; the music is beautiful. I also happen to think that the characters are well-developed and interesting.

Now, as to your specific questions: as far as gameplay goes, FFXII will take you a while to get used to. It takes everyone a while to get used to. And yes, the criticisms are true, you can just let your characters autobattle if you set your gambits right -- but then those same people often later complain about how difficult the game is. The whole point of the gambit system isn't to make you stop playing, it's to make you stop micro-managing. Once you get used to not having to tell Vaan to hit every single time his turn comes around, you can instead look at the bigger picture -- what enemies need targeting next, who needs a quickie emergency heal, what outside the realm of the "expected" needs to be done. It's extremely different from any other FF combat system and personally I think it's a welcome change. (I wish they'd stuck with it in FF12:RW instead of going for this babied-down tactical system.)

And the storyline is also pretty unique. There's a lot of politics and personal growth in this game, and a lot less of "saving the world from evil". In fact, there's nothing that blatant at any point in this game anywhere. FFXII lives and breathes subtlety. There's zero "canon" pairings and there's zero "love story" vibes (although there are several hinted-at pairings and hinted-at canon, these are so masterful that the entire fandom seems to have been fooled).

I'm not going to lie -- the story actually suffers a little because it can't quite make up its mind whether it wants to be a political monster or a saving-the-world-from-evil monster, and towards the end they just sort of give up on one and swing back towards the other. But I greatly enjoyed the politics, the characterization, and the philosophical issues brought into question. I would probably buy any game that promised me a Balthier and a Fran.

So in short, I know why it isn't some people's cup of tea. Not everyone likes period dialect and subtlety and elegance in their video games. :D But it hit all the right buttons with me. So I recommend giving it a whirl. You can come vent at me if the combat system frustrates you? XD

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Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings

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