Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AČ]

Man, you guys are making it sound like I'm going to need to have the codebreaker by me the entire time I'm playing FF12.

[Thad]

Only if you want to get the stupid optional shit.

You DO know how Final Fantasy games work, right?

[AČ]

Having beaten 1 (NES, PSX, GBA), 2, (PSX, GBA), 3 (DS), 4 (SNES Hardtype, PSX, GBA, working on DS), 5 (SNES, PSX, GBA) 6 (SNES, PSX, GBA) 7 (PC), 8 (PC), 9, 10, Mystic Quest, Adventure (Grey Brick)....


Yes. I know how FF games work.


BEAT ME MORE SQUARE-SOFT, BEAT ME MORE.

[Brentai]

To be fair, I was only going for the normal optional shit, and I was pretty damn thankful that the TV Tuner setup made it so easy to click over to GameFAQs.  Normally I make it a point to play FFs through without a guide, so make of it what you will.

(Or just make of it what I did: after the second time I consulted the FAQ and said to myself "the fuck I would have figured that out without looking it up", I just started looking shit up in the first place.)

[McFrugal]

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that FF12 was designed with the expectation that people would share information.  Like, it's not *supposed* to be reasonable to complete on your own.  Heh.

[Brentai]

To be fair, the original LoZ (best game evar) was designed that way, and don't get me fucking started on FF9 (which I didn't play very far, but don't get me started on it anyway.)

But yeah, I hate it when Square tries to make buying the textbook a requirement for the class.  Fortunately, they only do it a couple of times in Lee-Ham's cycle, so we're good for a while.

[Detonator]

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that FF12 was designed with the expectation that people would buy the official strategy guide.  Like, it's not *supposed* to be reasonable to complete on your own.  Heh.

Makes sense to me.  As Brent noted, designers have been doing this for decades.

[Alex]

To be fair, I was only going for the normal optional shit, and I was pretty damn thankful that the TV Tuner setup made it so easy to click over to GameFAQs.  Normally I make it a point to play FFs through without a guide, so make of it what you will.

(Or just make of it what I did: after the second time I consulted the FAQ and said to myself "the fuck I would have figured that out without looking it up", I just started looking shit up in the first place.)

It was that Chocobo hunt, wasn't it?  Or the Zodiac Spear?

That fucking chocobo hunt though!  I spent a good half an hour on it before I busted open the guide to find out that the fucker is INVISIBLE!

 

[Brentai]

Er, I think it was some much earlier hunt, but something like that.

I don't give two shits about the Zodiac Spear.  Playing through the game the first time with the ultimate secret weapon is just lame.  ...although considering how they flicked the switch to make all enemies apparently start doing 2x damage once you're expected to have Bubble, I kind of don't want to see how much HP they're going to start having once I'm playing it again.

[Thad]

I beat it without the Zodiac Spear, but that was after the point where I said "Fuck this, I'm done with the hunts."  Which was shortly after I spent an hour whittling Gilgamesh down.

There are a lot of things that piss me off in games.  Hour-long battles are among them.  Hard to say whether REALLY EASY hour-long battles (such as the Gilgamesh one) are worse than hard ones that keep you on your toes to the end -- I guess the hard ones are probably worse because then you might actually die and have to do them over.

[Brentai]

I'm certain the worst kind of all is CHECK THIS OUT   TIME. TO. DIE.   BY THE POWER OF ALTHENA   HRRRRRRRRAAAAGH!!!  CHECK THIS OUT   TIME. TO. DIE.   BY THE POWER OF ALTHENA   HRRRRRRRRAAAAGH!!!  CHECK THIS OUT   TIME. TO. DIE.   BY THE POWER OF ALTHENA   HRRRRRRRRAAAAGH!!!  CHECK THIS OUT   TIME. TO. DIE.   BY THE POWER OF ALTHENA   HRRRRRRRRAAAAGH!!!

[Romosome]

IT SHALL BE ENGRAVED UPON YOUR SOUL

[Thad]

I had trouble getting into Shining Force simply for the fact that every attack was an unnecessary cutscene.  It probably wouldn't bother me if I had played it BEFORE FFT and Arc the Lad.

...And tangentially, I'm thinking maybe I should dig up my saved copies of KateStory XIII-XVI and clean them up and post them on my site, XII-style.

...Also: it seems that next year is the 15th anniversary of the thing.  We should probably do a thing then.  ...It's 2 AM and my vocabulary is wiped; I should get to bed instead of re-skimming XII.

[Friday]

I'm certain the worst kind of all is CHECK THIS OUT   TIME. TO. DIE.   BY THE POWER OF ALTHENA   HRRRRRRRRAAAAGH!!!  CHECK THIS OUT   TIME. TO. DIE.   BY THE POWER OF ALTHENA   HRRRRRRRRAAAAGH!!!  CHECK THIS OUT   TIME. TO. DIE.   BY THE POWER OF ALTHENA   HRRRRRRRRAAAAGH!!!  CHECK THIS OUT   TIME. TO. DIE.   BY THE POWER OF ALTHENA   HRRRRRRRRAAAAGH!!!

You know the first time I beat him I didn't save and died because I failed to realize I had to use the plot device I had been carrying around the whole game to avoid Luna vaporizing me

Yeah I was sort of angry at myself but mostly at the game

Also if you could never quote Nash again ever that would be cool

[Kazz]

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that FF12 was designed with the expectation that people would buy the official strategy guide.  Like, it's not *supposed* to be reasonable to complete on your own.  Heh.

Makes sense to me.  As Brent noted, designers have been doing this for decades.

unrelated note, the guy at Gamestop tried to sell me a Spore strategy guide.
 

[AČ]

...how does that even WORK.

[Norondor]

I beat it without the Zodiac Spear, but that was after the point where I said "Fuck this, I'm done with the hunts."  Which was shortly after I spent an hour whittling Gilgamesh down.

Yeah, i had to keep turning my allies off so i could steal from him before killing him. So glad I'm following the power FAQ.

Although, it actually doesn't mention the Excalibur... though it suggests spending 10,000 hours grinding adamantite and gnoma entites for the Ultima Sword, which, along with Lindwyrm, the Tournesol, the Nosada, and a handful of other things i could mention, were put into the game for the express purpose of trying to break FF series completionists of their self-destructive habits (to absolutely no avail, of course).

[McFrugal]

I would like to note here that I picked up the official strategy guide for FF12 at a bookshop one time, and couldn't find any mention of the "do not pick up these chests" element to get the Zodiac Spear.

[McDohl]

I know the Brady Games book I had called out the chests.

[Alex]

You know the first time I beat him I didn't save and died because I failed to realize I had to use the plot device I had been carrying around the whole game to avoid Luna vaporizing me

Yeah I was sort of angry at myself but mostly at the game

I made this mistake the first time too.  But I was young and stupid and thought 'What's she going to do?  One shot me?'.