neko’s thinkbox

Free! Free at last…

How come, how come I have been foolish enough to believe that I would be able to finish the game in the average 70 hours most people need to complete the game? Because of that, I went into super hikkikomori mode (except that I did diligently go to school nevertheless), thinking it would only be a matter of a few days. — How long has it been since my last entry?

Either way, here’s a mix of “tl;dr” rants and pseudo-reviewing by me.

I know I usually take a LOT of time wandering around the cities aimlessly, talking to people again and again to try and find any secret paths, enemies/bosses, and weapons. And I do try to gain a lot of XP to level fast.

After 100 hours of playing, I remember I was around lv 50 or so, I finally had gotten close to the last stage, when I decided to check something up on the internet about the Bazar thingy or whatever it is called in the English version (I played the German one). About how to get the most of my items by trading them, because I kept selling most to keep only 1 of each treasure, and only occasionally did I get new stuff back in the bazar. And guess what I found on the internet? Poor neko got spoiled.

I thought I already had found a lot about the different secrets in the game, well I sure got a gigantic slap right into my face! Doxá-Lanze (or that one strongest weapon), huh? Don’t open these and those treasure boxes, or it will not appear! neko, you opened them all, no weapon for you! The other weapons? Only trading, you didn’t know? Sucks to be you. Fishing? kakaka. All of those mini quests? Not even half of them (and if you did them, then you did them poorly)! Heck, I only fought with swords, with each character, while there were so many other weapons I could use, etc. No magician, no ‘tank’, no ‘damage dealer’, all of my chars were allrounders and I always played with the same match-ups, same gambits (without making use of the variety of commands), etc etc etc.

I got spoiled. I thought at first, well, I’ll just finish the game once, and then play it again, following some kind of guide or so, to get everything straight from the beginning on. But I was already trying to catch up on the many things I missed (which were still recoverable), and slowly but surely, instead of trying to find out most secrets by myself, I was already following some guides. I won’t go much into detail, but the most notable ‘cheats’ were the confection of the Tournesol and the maps in Ridorana and in the Megakristh. I then ordered the official guide, and even got the exact probability rates of each different treasure box on Ivalice. Heck, three hours ago, I was still wandering around the areas to get the right box with the Excalibur… I wouldn’t have known about anything of that. Not even about the second part of the Megakristh, while we’re at it. Ultima-sword? 30% of appearance in that precise location, with 100% of getting the sword instead of gil or anything else. Same while wearing the Diamond Armlet… Seriously, give me a break.

Random artwork to make this craptastic entry look prettier.

My last savegame has reached 170 hours, all characters lv 78. After facing heavy resistance from Omega mk.II, I just got fed up of all of this. For some reason, I didn’t want to try and level up to lv 90 and up, to finish Omega, Zodiarche, nor Yiasmat. For some reason, I started to feel that it was just wrong, getting everything from the guides, closed the book and went over to the Bahamut. And it was over rather quickly, I didn’t even need to press a button, the Gambits did it all by themselves. With characters so strong, only a few sword hits and even the last boss was already done for. Sadly, hadn’t I strayed away so far, hadn’t I gotten this strong before engaging the last bosses, I would actually have enjoyed those fights.

To draw a comparison with FF X, the longest savegame is 570 hours of playing (rest assured, I wasn’t as hikki when I played all of that time). I played until the end, perhaps got the one or another strongest weapon for a character, but had to fight hard towards the end (well, a constant archangel in the final battle sure is witty though). After that, I played to beat all of the black Espers all by myself, then briefly checked upon some guides where to find the appropriate spheres to maximize all of my stats to beat Penance. Sure, if I went to fight the final boss with all stats to 255, I could beat it with my eyes closed, but yeah at least I did enjoy the first attempt with my weak characters.

Same with FF IX, first play was without any kind of guides, and I absolutely loved it. After that, I made 3 (!) more attempts to get all of the secrets, and I finally succeeded in beating Yadis (too bad I never got around to get the Excalibur II though). Even the card game was near to 100%, I had all of them but apparently it wasn’t enough, I think I needed stronger stats, or more playable corners, whatever. Anyway, it was my first Final Fantasy game, and it still is my favorite one. I haven’t played it in 5 or 6 years, but I really would like to play it again, for the story was just admirable, and the Moogles, the Magi, etc. But I digress…

So, do I need to write a review about FF XII? I think I already wrote a lot, but up to now I only gave you negative impressions of the game. Obviously, this game sure got me in a frenzy while it lasted, and I am positive that it is one with the most side quests of all of the series (note that I never include FF XI in my generalizations, because I never played/will play it, and I don’t really consider it as a full-fledged FF anyway. Down with the costy and addictive MMORPGs!). Not to mention the splendid graphics, I absolutely loved all of it. Fully rotating 3D camera (takes a while to get used to it though), real-time environment rendering, even most video sequences were not simply pre-rendered. That was really a refreshing and enjoyable novelty. You finally were able to hear the main character’s name (no, not Balthier, sorry), but then again, you could not change his name unlike in the previous games. But I guess that’s what came with the dubs… have to accept that. Perhaps Vaan sounds better than neko or natsu, after all.

I thought this was fitting. Perhaps not the quote, but Sephiroth ALWAYS fits.

The fights were quite enjoyable as well, however, I feel a bit nostalgic about the previous games, where you got into those random fights, you know, running across an empty field, and the screen breaks, fades, whatever and then you get your 1-3 or more enemies, sometimes ambushed, or anticipated… In this game, you could anticipate all of your fights, since you could see the enemy beforehand and get the first strike. The flow of the fights was refreshing, you finally didn’t get gil from a snake, but snake- or element-related items, which you could then sell for gil. So far so good, but… as I was complaining up there, I mainly used swords. Meaning, everyone was a knight. Or soldier. Either way, I hated that a bit. In the previous games, you got the weapons and the armor/accessories according to each character, mainly because most had different job classes, or at least you could define one precise class and then get the clothes. Well, perhaps this is why they released the FFXII Zodiac version, where this point of attributing a definite class to each character. I should play that one, duh.

Gambits. Oh, those damned… Addictive as hell, they really take away a lot of work. No more wasting time casting Hastega, Protega and Vallum on your characters, they can do it themselves. At first I found them quite handy, and towards the end I even forgot them - I took all of the automated actions for granted, and now that I look back on my gaming experience, I quite dislike it though. I only got to actually enjoy the fights where I couldn’t make use of all of the gambits because of, say, prohibition of magic spells, or attacks, etc. Which is quite sad in the end.

Now comes the most disappointing feature of the game, and I really hated it. Those Mysth-Teks, or whatver they’re called. I only used those once, first because I didn’t really know how to fully use them, second because they dealt relatively low damage if not in a 17 hit chain, and third because it simply was not worth the waste of MP. The licences were only useful to triple the amount of MP. Same for the Espers: I did only use one single Esper once in this whole game… because I couldn’t open a certain gate without it. Not only couldn’t I use it, but where were my Ifrit, Shiva, Ixion/Ramuh, Bahamut, and all of the old Espers we all know? Heck, I still am waiting for a revival of the Knight of the Round Table! No but seriously, I only read about Ifrit as being an exot monster, Ixion was a mob, Bahamut was a flying fortress, Shiva??? T_T I wanna play FF IX or FFVII now… At least in those parts you could rely frequently on those summonings. Here, they’re absolutely useless. Apparently Zodiarche is able to deal 50k damage when a certain condition is met, and that’s all. No… I didn’t like the Espers at all. Good, we have Flare- but where is my Ultima??!? That’s the spell I overused in all of the FFs, why can’t I use it here??? Oh wait, the Esper Ultima does an Ultima if summoner and Esper have critical HP… Gawd, I am slightly annoyed.

FF XII OST cover because I couldn’t find any inspiration for a fitting image here.

I am going into negative comments again. But I can’t help it. I was so enthusiastic about the game, but it started disappointing me in so many aspects. The story sure is one of the greatest, with a nice plot, character development and all that stuff, but… the end sucked. It was so short, and really did not satisfy me - perhaps because it wasn’t as solemn as, say, a FF VII or FF IX (always those 2, but I just adore those). I still get the goose-bumps when I listen to FF IX ending theme ‘Melodies of life’…. followed by the recurrent Final Fantasy theme. In all of the FFs (not sure about X), it appears at the end, during or after the credits - in FF XII however, it appears right at the beginning, but NOT at the end! I so did not get this solemn feeling of having completed a Final Fantasy game again. Call me sentimental, or a reminiscent bastard, but I must have that song at the end! RAWR.

Which reminds me that the soundtrack (once again) doesn’t compete with the old FFs. Well, I do admit I do miss Nobuo Uematsu and the quality of the OST’s has noticeably decreased after he left Square Enix, yet the FF X OST was still very nice even without Uematsu-sensei’s active help. There were few to no catchy tunes in FF XII, unlike its predecessors. They totally ‘misfigured’ my beloved Chocobo theme! My fanfare after winning a boss battle! Awrgh…
However, I almost screamed in joy when I heard the ‘Clash on the Big Bridge’ tune from FF V… Wahahaha, Gilgamesh rocks!!!

Just imagine, a Final Fantasy which contains the best parts of all of the previous games, wouldn’t it be awesome? It might just suck as well, but there are so many good parts in each of the games…

Either way, I still would recommend FF XII, because despite of all those discrepancies with the old FFs, it still is a very good game, and the concept of “Final Fantasy” simply can not be bad (except X-2 and XI…).
So where do I fit FF XII in my personal ranking? Hmm… perhaps like this? 9 > 7 > 12 > 5 > 10 > 6 > 8 (haven’t played 1-4 yet T_T)

Did you enjoy my tl;dr entry? Here, have one more random artwork.

While I was checking a bit about XII on the net, not only did I see the Zodiac Job System, but also the pseudo-sequel they want to release on the DS. FF XII: Revenant Wings… Sigh… this sick trend of creating direct plot sequels sure has taken the upper hand at Square Enix now. FF I to X were all unrelated to each other, and honestly speaking, it was the best thing they could ever have done. Then came X-2, which was a timid (and failed) attempt to create a sequel to an already finished story… FF XI, well, since it never ends, they can always slap another expansion pack to it for I don’t care. FF VII AC was godlike for it wasn’t a game sequel, but there goes Dirge of Cerberus, and Core Crisis - moving away from the PlayStation, and urging the avid FF (VII) fans to buy other consoles and handhelds… So sad they’re breaking the tradition. Sure, Crystal Chronicles was on the GC, but at least it wasn’t related to any FF game. Like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, a game on its own, with its own popularity (I loved FFTA, btw).
So do I need to buy a Nintendo DS to play FFXII: Revenant Wings? NO! Because I will play the ROM, fo shizzle. Ain’t gonna waste money on that.

Uhm, what can I say more… Yeah, I don’t know much about FF XIII, but apparently there will be 3 different game modes, or versions… Gah. PS3, need to buy one first. Perhaps in 2 years, when the price has dropped. Until then… lemme get my life back. Hikkikomori mode is now OFF. Argh… my head is hurting badly now, cuz not only am I annoyed after seeing how much I have written up there, but I am still recovering from Influenza, and I feel like shit right now T_T

By the way, I “could” resume my blogging on Baccano now. No, I have not been waiting on purpose for the subs, but since they are there I can watch them now as well. it’s not like Ayu has finished the series either, ne? Why the “could”? Because I am lagging behind in my English classes, I have shitloads of book yet to read; an essay to write for Monday, a presentation/debate to organize for Tuesday, and another presentation on Friday, so I will be busy with school work this time. But perhaps I won’t be as hikki as I have been with FF XII all along, so I might check back once in a while here ^^ Vamo’ alla Flamenco!