Boom!

Final Fantasy XII will finally be in PAL territories come later this week, Thursday to be precise. Unfortunately for me I won't be getting the game upon release as I had to choose between this and Okami and well Okami won that battle thanks to it being unique. That said, I still really want Final Fantasy XII and I plan on picking it up as soon as possible.

Anyway, this thread is obvious for discussion about the game. Who has it? Who is getting it this week? What are your impressions?

So on and so forth. :)

I've gotta ask this question for you PAL people. If you have played it, does it have the "black borders of doom"? Meaning squashed characters and pathetic framerates like in FFX? Also, what's the bonus disc like for those who pre-ordered at EB?

I haven't played enough of this game (roughly 20hrs yet still not very far), been well over a month since I last booted up my NTSC version. I need more play and less work, I've booked some holidays for next weekend which'll hopefully be enough

There's a pre order bonus disc from EB? Why didn't the tosser who was trying to convince me to pre order tell me that? What is it? Just 'making of' crap or something actually cool?

As for the notorious PAL inferiority, I'm hoping and praying for 60hz selectability for the sake of lip syncing alone. I've never understood why Square seem to be the only developers who have this problem, but I really hope it's finally resolved.

I think it's the OST soundtrack, or part of it

Sigh, I better go up at lunchtime and find out...

:D

Picking my copy up tomorrow... along with the bonus disc as they didn't have it in when I pre-ordered. I'm actually looking forward to this one which does surprise me somewhat.

Elpres genuinely looking forward to a Final Fantasy title! How long have I been asleep? What--what year is this? :P I'll also be getting mine tommorow if all goes well. :)

Haha, as it does us all :D

Went up to EB and asked the guys there about the bonus disc. They were completely mystified but the obnoxious voice over guy announced that there was a bonus disc with the pre order that had wallpapers and crap as well as the soundtrack. They said they didn't know anything about it but suggested it might just come with the game anyway. So I preordered and picked up the guide for 10 bucks off, mostly for purdy pictures :D

So yeah, here's hoping there actually is a bonus disc coming my way tomorrow.

Had a quick look through the manual and there doesn't seem to be any mention of a 60hz option... very ominous. Although there's widescreen so that's something at least.

TRIPLE POST! Take that Mr Norris! :D

No, no 60hz... devastating. More horrible lip sync and awkward pregnant pauses in the dialogue await I'm sure. Oh well.

EB was a no show with the bonus disc. The dude said they would be in next week... whatever that really means. I think somone screwed up :D

Only played it a little bit to see what it was like, going to have a big intiation session tomorrow night. Opening sequence was super sweet, had a Lord of the Star Ring Wars feel to it... if that's even possible. The letterboxed fmv is a little disappointing, although the ingame graphics are amazingly awesome. Hard to believe what Square's pushing out of the ol' station.

Anyways, digging the mmorpgesque battle system. Keen to sink my teeth into it tomorrow...

Don't use my surname in public! :P
Just call me /backslash, slashy or God.

What I said on Hyper a moment ago:

Anyway, I don't really need to comment ;)

Double post ftw! (ok, time to stop acting like an idiot now)

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Old Hyper post from yesterday:

My kingdom for a save point! Walking around the Ozmone Plain is not fun when you're in dire need of a save point, reaching uncharted territories and wandering around aimlessly for hours on end. I guess there's probably a map for purchase available but I never think about it until it's too late. I found a cavern (called Zetarian or something) containing some level38 enemies but I decided not to risk it because there wasn't a save point anywhere near it.

I encountered the Crocodile containing the Frog ring from one of the hunts, killed it off but it took a few goes, most of my magic was immune to it (white/green magic) and it kept attacking Balthier whilst I was trying to distract it, he got killed quite a few times and Fran was constantly healing which meant I was the one to do most of the damage. Didn't have Belias equipped back then either (despite being only an hour or 2 from where I am now) which explains the onslaughter I received.

In regards to Summon/Quickening Belias is equipped to Vaan and one of the quickenings is equipped to Fran (the one involving a fury of attacks, unfortunately I equipped it to the least strongest person), I used Belias when I encountered a swarm of birdmen and started to get hammered pretty quickly, so I summoned. Whilst doing that, a warrior who's meant to be an ally wondered into the scene. Mistaking him for another enemy, he began attacking and eventually killed off Belias, but at that point he was at 1/4 health, so I continued attacking since he was attacking me now. After defeating him, I received 1600exp and 4LP (no dropped items).

Finally reached Jahara now and as soon as I saw the save crystal, I ran towards it, saved the game and turned off the PS2 to get some much required food. Fran is currently on the highest level at 28 and all my characters have nearly 2,000hp.

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New fancy smancy post:

Last night I arrived at Eruyt Village, Fran's hometown of the Playboy bunny girls lookalikes. What a bunch of stuck up snobs they are! I hope they all die. What's the point of them having a ": )" emoticon and then when you talk to them they say "Leave this place now, or forever be my sex slave". Actually wait, they didn't say that, it was more like "Leave this place now, or taste my blade as it goes down you're throat" Something like that...

Before arriving at Fran's hometown and wandering through the jungle, Larsa (little pouncy prince kid) got a spell cast on him and was put to sleep. Since I didn't have any antidotes, I figured I'd just hit him with Vaan's sword instead. Larsa had 1200 HP anyway so he should still be okay, I hit him, dealt 1600 HP damage and instantly killed him :lol: Well, the guy had it coming anyway

Just now I've arrived at Henne Mines where I ran around for an hour without finding any savepoints before getting killed by a group of Flans. I flicked a switch, 8 Flans drop from the ceiling, I summon Belias since he does fire damage and flans are weak against it, then one of the Flans casts a confuse spell on me and I start killing off Belias, within 2 hits he was dead. If it wasn't for me, he would've beaten the crap out of those flans I tells ya!

I really need to find more time to play this... I've not even gone inside the palace yet. :P

Must be something to do with you buying those other 3 games last week :P

I've now acquired the Sage's Monograph (only 25,000gil from Bazaar sale in Jahara). The merchant's a bit stupid, after you buy/sell stuff from him he constantly keeps repeating about these rare monographs and complains "if only I knew where to find one" Well mate, you're selling one right now..

Having this key item gives me superior loot from elementals Levels are around 35 now and I've upgraded a few more weapons, tomorrow I will attempt to finish Henne Mines. Currently clocked at 30hrs.

I still have that damn theme song and that "kiss me goodbye" single stuck in my head... back from when i was in tokyo on launch day...

"Kiiiiiiissssss me gooood byyyyye!"

Ah... good times. I would've picked up a copy back then if it wasn't for my appalling japanese...

*sigh*

Finally got around to having a good belt of this over the weekend and I'm loving it. Screwing around with just Vaan I was thinking the battle system was okay, I sort of felt myself feeling like I should be running around trying to avoid the counterattacks or something. But when you get a party together the system really shines. It feels so free flownig and chaotic, I love it :D

Have only just got back rasanastre (or whatever it's called) after the long bout starting at the temple so i'm not really all that into it yet. But so far I hate Vaan... his voice is far more irritating than Tidus and the character is just dull. Penelo is okay, nothing too special. Fran is more interesting, although her voice sounds a little awkward, but it kinda suits the character. Balthier on the hand, is awesome. So much character it's hard to believe he was written by someone at Square :D

Anyways, so far so good. Hopefully I can fit in a lot more of it into my busy Warcraft/attempting to make comic deadline schedule :D

BTW, are any of us Evoians actually still playing this? Thread seems a little dry :D

:lol:

Hey I have a question: How do you beat Rafflesia?

He's a level 43 monster..my party are 45/46 but I didn't stand a chance cuz it drained all my mp, then confused/disabled/sapped the whole party. Then..after I'd remedied everyone, it cast a move that brought everyone's max hp down to 1/1 so there was nothing I could do. I can't bring in my reserve party because their levels suck..like 10,13 and 19.

I've only tried once, but I really don't want to fight this boss over and over again >_>

Nobody seemed to be responding to my posts so I kinda gave up. Luckily I continued posting at Hyper

Well now whenever I'll just quote myself when I'm referring from Hyper so you can stop rereading my posts :P

Now: Obtained Wind segment after talking to a guy who sits on top of a waterfall at the plaza where all of Rabanstre gates are combined. When everybody in town starts talking about sandy wind storms, that's when you'll be able to locate this item. Basically it allows you to explore areas where you couldn't before because the wind pushed you back. There's a particular place in Dalmasca Estersand on the far northeast corner where you'll see a cutscene of a dinosaur wandering into the storm. I'm guessing that's one of the places for a Clan Primer mark. Haven't checked it out yet though.

On another mark I had to go down to Garamsythe Waterway again to kill a mark. Not the ghost, this time it's a blob thing, after defeating it you get a key, take it back to the guy who posted the mark and he'll give you a copy of it. Go back down there and you can now use the key to unlock the Sclieth (sp?) gates. They're glowing pedestal devices next to the save point and that huge gate upon entrance. Once again, haven't checked it out.

Once I finish both of these tasks I'll attempt heading to Mosphoran Highwaste again. Keep getting distracted by the side-missions..

I was way below level 40 when I beat Rafflesia. I basically got some equipment (I think it's sold at Eruyt) that gives immunity to disable. Sap I can deal with no problem, but if you get diseased, you want to cure that asap (It reduces your max health).

After a bit of pummeling, I did a quickening combo, subbed another party member in and did another one (have to get lucky with mist charges), then did 2 more with the other party members.

I must be the laziest Final Fantasy player ever, I beat the game ON level 45 :P

You sure are :P Did you do any side missions at all?

Current position:
I've past the Sochen Cave's second boss and took the elevator to the surface before saving. Rather annoyed there was another boss battle chucked in when I hadn't saved since the first one, didn't expect it either. I simply opened the ancient door expecting more mediocre enemies but I find myself facing another tough battle especially since all my characters only had 50-60% health to begin with (like I said, didn't expect it)

To make matters worse, I noticed that my Gambit system was crap. Didn't realise that if all your characters were confused you could get them to use Esuna on eachother. So yeah, thanks to my guys killing eachother instantly dealing 2500hp blows I was stuck with 1 remaining character with 300hp left (still on confuse). So I flicked to the menu screen, adjusted my Gambits for each character, then after Balthier used Esuna on himself, I quickly used some Phoenix Downs to revive my other characters, all while trying to dodgy the disappearing/reappearing enemy at the same time, then once that was done I casted Cura and healed my guys to get back into the battle.

But now I was getting poisoned/immobilsed! So I went back into the menu, adjusted my accesories, took off Libra since that was doing bugger all and gave my guys some immune gadgets. Went back into the game and eventually killed him! But man, what a pain in the ass it was! It'd be nice even to just have an auto-save system before boss battles.

I've enver played final fantasy in my life.
The only reason i know about it is because when I was younger, my sisters older brother and his friend played it alllll night.
And I just watched him raise them bird things.

Yeeaahh.

You mean summons right? :lol:

^ Actually I would dare say that by 'bird things' he means the Chocobos...

I'm currently at 'The Pharos at Ridorana', beaten the first boss, travelled through 50 flights of stairs (seriously), got to the end before saving my game. I think there's another boss fight coming up. Really tedious amounts of hacking+slashing now, at least with FF7 bosses they actually had a purpose of being there for the storyline, the Shinra guys, Bahamut, etc but with FF12 there's just one boss after another with no explanation except to annoy the crap out of you.

I just want to finish this game and get it over with, seriously, I'm not even enjoying it anymore. Even Markymark isn't posting anymore, he knows it's crap :P

Pharos has got to be the worst designed dungeon I've seen in any RPG. :angry:

I agree, I'm up to the Third Ascent right now and it's bloody hard. I've got lvl 57 characters but once I encountered a teleportation where I found a map, all these skeleton enemies continously spawned out of nowhere and my guys kept dying. On top of that, both doors were locked by some kind of magic force and there weren't any teleporters nearby to zap me back. 2 of my characters were turned to stone despite me using Esunaga and they simply vanished off the screen! F*cking retarded!

I agree. All those little rooms around the central ring are just a time waster. There's little treasure and the enemies respawn like crazy. :argh:

So guys, how about killing those guys that make a sonar ping when they die to form bridges?

Pretty wacky!

Most of the times when I ventured out my way to find what the fuss was about, I ended up receiving weapon/accesory items that were worse than what I already had. Only just though, and then when I arrived at the 40th something floor, I hear a ping noise, yet I'd already crossed 2 hidden bridges. Couldn't figure out where the hell it might've been coming from and gave up in the end and yes, I did know about those fake walls.

Some of the walls I knocked down though only gave me stuff like Pheonix Downs/Hi-potions. Did that happen to anyone else?

Are you still able to explore the world after you beat it? I'm up to the part where I would go to Kill Vayne but I'm not yet so I can finish up the espers and the hunt club. I've got all the marks done except the very last one with 50mil hp. I kinda want to do everything before I beat it if I can't do shit afterwards.