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. =)
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