Zodiark DOWN! (FFXII)

So after a ridiculous amount of power leveling, I got my guys to level 95. I went back in for the last summon, the only summon I haven't gotten in all the Final Fantasy games. He still tried to repeatedly cheat with back to back to back to back instant kills, but I was able to pull out the win eventually. Finally, I have all summons in all games. Ahhhhhhhh........ Bonus objective complete. Was a fun one. I think getting all of the summons was the most full-filling part of the whole journey. I can finally rest easy now without that bastard Zodiark hanging over my head. Now, the wait for 14 begins... Too bad there's no summoner class. =(

Completion

So I got the platinum on FFXIII, but the final summon on FFXII still nags at me. Now that thirteen is done, I'm very tempted to go back and attempt that evil bastard again. I NEED all the summons for a feeling of completion for the series!

Final Fantasy XIII, The Latest Adventure Ends... Sorta

So I wrapped up FFXIII this weekend. Overall was a good game, and while it had some great strengths, it had some weak spots. Unfortunately, the weakest point was also my favorite part of the franchise: the story. I found the story completely lacking, I could have written something better in a couple of days and they had four years. Anyway, aside from that, the game was really great. The music wasn't as good as past performances, but the battle system is simply amazing. The leveling system is interesting, reminding me of a Grid/License hybrid. And the graphics are just off the charts, especially the pre-rendered stuff. I really enjoyed it, and it's definitely one of those games where I want to keep playing it.

Which is nice, since the game offers a large chunk of content AFTER the game is beat. In fact, you can't even access the final tier of abilities until the final boss is dead. And you can't even think about beating some of the really tough mobs in the game until your characters are maxed out.

A couple of other little things to pick at. While not devastating, I didn't like that there were no summon quests. Overall the summons were VERY weak in this game, almost completely useless. And I don't like that they required the TP system to summon them. Also, while I'm not sure I dislike it, it is VERY hard to get the ultimate weapons in this game. Not because you have to go on some crazy quest (that I can dig), but rather you need to sit and grind money for hours to go buy ONE component at a shop to make ONE weapon. The alternative is to try to find some method of being cheap or grind until end game when you're strong enough to beat the mobs that have a 5% chance of dropping the item. I think they could have been a bit more creative on that end.

Anyway, as this is the first FF on the PS3, it's the first to utilize the trophy system. So my current goal is to obtain a platinum trophy for the first time on my PS3. This entails a great many trials which I look forward to. One of which is completing all hunts with a 5 star rating. So far, it's been pretty fun doing all the hunts, I feel like I'm getting to play a whole different game with a different goal now. Good times. Another difficult trial is killing the end boss with a 5 star rating, and I've already completed that. Was tough, but only took me like ten tries. The last really tough one will be to obtain every weapon and accessory in the game. This is tough because of the money aspect. Getting all that cash to make 6 ultimate weapons just makes me cringe but I'll do it. Another one I'm looking forward to is completing the Chocobo hunts. Got about another 60 hours of post credits play to put in, looking forward to it.

On a side note, it still bothers me a month later that I didn't get that ONE last summon in FF12, so I think I might also work on getting those guys to 99 in parallel while I play FF13. I know, I'm crazy. =)

Final Fantasy XII, And so Our Journey Ends

Right down to the wire, in fitting Rhek fashion. I finished FFXII tonight. A bitter sweet feeling as I close the book on this great adventure. Let's finish it up.

Saturday I had finished up most of the story line, defeating Cid in the Pharo tower, the 100 floor dungeon. Since that time, my party has been getting summons and grinding. I got all summons, my summon roster on the status page of the character sheet filled out completely, but there was one more. A hidden summon, so evil it doesn't even get a roster spot. For this summon I knew I'd have to be of a much higher level. I grinded out levels 52 through 71 by way of setting up gambits and leaving my characters in a never ending room of spawns. Now some of you will say I cheated. I don't really care. Ninety-nine percent of this game was completed by setting up my gambits just perfectly then directing my controller into the direction of the mobs. I never had to engage, or heal, or do really anything once my gambits were set properly. So what's the difference if I stare at the screen while I grind or not in my opinion.

Anyway, it was all for naught. I stopped my characters at level 71 because the mob Zodiark is around level 67 and 71 is a prime number. Why's that matter? Well the fucker has about a zillion abilities which are level division dependent. Anyway, after getting about 20 more levels, buying TONS of gear, technicks and magick and researching the fuck out of this mob I headed in. I admit I could have been more prepared. I could have gone on a ton more hunts, spent another ten to fifteen hours on the game and gotten bubble belts for everyone, mirror mail, and the like. But since I'm kind of on a schedule here, there simply wasn't time. Now, this guy, is not just tough, GETTING to him is a bitch in itself. There's no nearby save crystal and the mobs can kill you in two to four hits, or simply KO you, confuse you, sleep, you name it. It's a LONG fucked up walk to Zodiark.

I set everything up as best as I could, studying my gambits and finessing things for like an hour. Then I traveled carefully in, died a bunch and finally made it to the secret chamber. I engaged and got him to about half health before he killed me. Let me explain how he kills me. He casts a spell called Darkja. This spell has a 50% chance of instant killing a character. There is no way on the planet to avoid it, no spell, no buff, no item, no gear, nothing. And for some reason he always gets lucky and eventually kills all three of my main characters in one shot.

I went in a second time, a third time, a fourth time. Keep in mind, it's a bitch of a walk every time. The fifth time I got him to about 10% health. But it got to the point where he was just casting Darkja once a second. I couldn't keep up. I failed.

I have been defeated, I am defeated. I give up. Zodiark will not fall to Rhek in the allotted time. My little side quest that I'd given myself to obtain every summon in 12 games is incomplete and will probably remain so. Maybe I'll go back and grind to 99 and do all the hunts and get all the other gear one day, but it's not very likely. A very bitter taste in my mouth that one left...

Very frustrated, I said fuck this and went into the Bahamut without any preparation. What followed was a series of awesome cut-scenes with all out war between the Bahamut ship and the imperial fleet against the resistance fleet as it heads to Rabanastre.

The Strahl flies into the mess and hails the Marquis capital ship, the Garland. Ashe tells him to stand down for a while, we're going in after Vayne. He does so after we use a voice changer to pretend to be Larsa, aiding us into the ship.

We head on in and within a matter of two minutes we're in a final showdown with Gabranth. My characters were still setting up their buffs when he went down. That's how over powered my guys are now.

Next in came Vayne. He went down just as fast in his first form, but then he had two more transitions. Eventually, flames consumed his body and Venat granted him the power of the Undying. He sprout wings and became godlike in true final FF villain form.

This was by no means a difficult battle, only long. Many of the bosses in this game have pallings. They differ from boss to boss and many bosses have several. Take for instance the summon Ultima. She would rotate between no use of weapons to magick to technicks to items, etc. And many times there would be a null barrier, meaning that ZERO damage will go through by means of physical or magic, depending on the barrier. So during the course of the Vayne fight I was literally standing there swinging at IMMUNE for five minutes, waiting for the barrier to finally drop. Then he'd raise it again. Annoying but not difficult.

Eventually he fell and I got treated to another series of great cut-scenes. In the final act, the Bahamut is out of control and headed toward a crash landing on Rabanastre. We try to leave on the Strahl but the engines aren't starting. Balthier and Fran head out to 'check the engines' and finally they come on and Vaan takes off.

With the Bahamut crashing, the old capital ship of the imperial fleet volunteers to ram crash into the Bahamut to stop her from hitting the city. But then we get a transmission from Balthier. Apparently when he and Fran went to check the engines, they did so off ship. They're still on the Bahamut trying to fix the drives before it hits Rabanastre. They'd kindly like the Alexander to not kill them all.

Balthier is successful in restarting the drives and re-routing the massive ship but it's too late for them. The ship is crashing into the desert. It seems to be the end of Balthier and Fran. Seems to be...

Afterward we flash to a year later, Rabanastre being rebuilt, Ashe being corronated, Basch taking care of Larsa in Archadia, Vaan and Penelo flying the Strahl... We see a whole lot of city cuts and Penelo gives a narrative of the after math and rebuilding. At the end though, the Strahl has been stolen. By it's original owners. Good times. Great game. End game stats. Game was probably more like 55 hours, but the grind really pushed it higher.

A couple of side notes:

Again, I loved the huge ships in this game being named after all the FF summons. I also liked that many of the summons were named after old FF end game bosses, like Chaos, Ultima, Zeromus, etc... Lot of really good name drops there, especially for someone who's just beaten all of them over the last three months.

The story of this one was no where near as good as previous FFs. It was okay, but there wasn't a lot of good motive and the end never resolved what happen to the Gods, or to Venat who betrayed the Gods. What was Venat's purpose? I would have expected him to be the true end game boss.

While the end credits rolled, they showed art work they'd done for the game. The clothing and style was so much more old school than the actual game and it looked gorgeous. I really liked it quite a bit. I wish they would have utilized those art concepts in the game. It would have made for a MUCH cooler feel. It's amazing how much art work has to do with the overall game experience.

Once again, we had no character naming, and in truth, while Vaan was the beginning of the game and the main character in every city, the story was more about Ashe and her fight against the empire. The split there between who you're following and who the story is really about hurt the emotional attachment or involvement of the player in the story line. And not being able to name your characters always makes it feel less like your game.

Once again everyone could do pretty much everything. I've stated before that I was always a bigger fan of designated roles but it's not a huge deal. The license board is probably one of my least favorite leveling systems. But no where near as annoying as two or five.

Awesome, beautiful cut-scenes all the way through. I really enjoyed them, but it felt like 90% of them where airships or fights of airships. No issue there, just saying...

Hate that I couldn't beat Zodiark. I've always hated the 'cheap' bosses in games where it requires more time and luck than skill of any sort.

Was a little weird playing this game in that I really didn't DO anything after I set up my gambits. I just steered my players around and watched them fight.

Loved the on screen mobs though, random encounters can get a little overwhelming. You feel more in the world when you can see all the mobs. That's all my comments on this one.

So... yeah. All done. Wow. Been quite a ride. I'm SO glad I did it, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed it. Really. I'm glad it's done because FFXIII comes out tomorrow! But I loved it, even the lame ones like FFII. The only down side is that I felt rushed through some of the REALLY great games in there like FFVI and FFIX. I mean. I really loved those games. They were special, and I hated that I was just blowing through them because I had this deadline.

Umm.. so I guess this is my last post about a game. I think I'll do one more post later to finish up the blog to rank my favorite games in order.

Time for the next project, become an artist! Oh yeah, and umm... beat the fuck out of FFXIII. =)

FFXII - Bahamut Rising

TWO DAYS LEFT!!!

Alright, into the Pharo dungeon I went, for-e-ver. The final dungeon of FFXII consisted of about 100 levels of gameplay. Fortunately many of those levels were just stairs but there were still about a good 20 levels of mob ridden, puzzle solving madness spread over three tiers of dungeon ascension. Each ascension held it's own challenges, a fine final dungeon indeed.

Over the course of SEVERAL hours I finally burned through two more summons and reached the summit to enter the chamber with the Sun-Cryst. It was a little smaller than I'd imagined, about the size of a shield. Once there, it was time for Ashe to decide her course of action. She draws the treaty blade and steps forward. The Sun-Cryst reacts, turns on, or something, in a pretty cool cut.

As she approaches, Rasler appears before the crystal, nodding to her, urging her to continue. She finally confronts him though. She asks if he would have her cut from the Sun-Cryst, to exact revenge on all of the empire for him. He nods. She then tells the ghost that the true Rasler would never be so blood thirsty and she cuts through the apparition with the Treaty Blade. The true nature of the spirit is revealed. It has been the Gods in disguise trying to manipulate her through her love of Rasler. She will not be a tool to be used, she will not cut from the Sun-Cryst.

Gabranth appears from the shadows. He confesses to the murder of Ashe's father and Reks, he wants Ashe to cut from the Sun-Cryst. He is goading her on, though I'm not sure why. They have a lengthy discussion about revenge and how killing people doesn't bring anyone back. Blah, blah, let me kill this guy already. He deserves it. Finally when Gabranth realizes Ashe will not be swayed, he attacks. For being one of the final bosses in the last dungeon he went down quite easily.

When he hit about 1/5 health though, Cid stepped in and tossed Gabranth aside, yelling at him for not fulfilling his promise to Larsa to protect Ashe. The mad scientists continues with some long speech about becoming more than man, becoming a God. He infuses himself with a bunch of power and I engage him with Venat's aid. At about fifty percent health he also summons Famfrit whom I have to defeat first. Not too tough of a battle though, all said and done. He finally fell, and said his final farewells to his son Balthier.

After this fight, Ashe draws the Sword of Kings to destroy the Sun-Cryst. But the stone senses it's own impending doom and begins to react. It draws in Mist and pushes Ashe back. Vaan and Ashe press forward against the tide of power emanating from the crystal, but it's almost too much. They sense something is about to happen, it's time to get the fuck out. Reddas takes the sword from Ashe and makes a final charge at the Sun-Cryst. He makes it through and buries the blade through the center of the crystal. The screen goes white.

We come back to the party at the Strahl taking off from the island tower. Apparently Reddas is dead, the Sun-Cryst is gone and we got out of there. Who knows how.

Back in pirate town we find Al-Cid, the guy from Rozarrio, waiting for us. I'd forgotten that was his name. I wonder if he's supposed to be the real Cid from the series, who aids us. He tells us that the Rozarrian division of the resistance fleet went off course and attacked a city in Archadia to incite a reaction. And they were successful. The Archadian empire is now on a course to engage the resistance fleet. But we tell Al-Cid that Vayne has lost his advantage, the Dawn Shard is powerless now.

However, Al-Cid has some news of his own. In it's last moments, the Sun-Cryst gathered enough power to breathe life into Bahamut, who has now awakened. And Bahamut is under Vayne's control. That can't be good.

In fact Vayne is heading toward Rabanastre to completely wipe out the town. So the final battle is to be us vs Bahamut and Vayne. But you know what comes before that. Summons.

So off I went to get summons, but it wasn't going to be easy. Let's go through an example of just one. Before I could even think of going after my first summon, I had to get several items. To do this I had to get them from hunts. To get them from hunts I had to complete other hunts to open those hunts. After I got the items, I had to track down the people to get the other items. Once that was done, I had to get to the summon usually in some crazy far away place. Once I was there, I had to actually beat the bastard. And as stated earlier, boss battles in this game are HARD. And the higher the summon I go for, the harder it becomes. Some summons are just ridiculously difficult, locking out all magic or all attacks or just casting non-stop death or disable.

So I'd often have to go back and find some new merchant to get some ability or piece of equipment just to survive ten seconds in the battle. And that was typically in some far off different place I'd have to travel to as well. A LOT of walking around.

I got all but three of the summons. The last three look ridiculously hard and I need to do a bit of leveling before I can even attempt them. The good thing though is that once they're all defeated, the Vayne battle will look like a joke. Hopefully I can wrap things up today or tomorrow. Just in time.