Final Fantasy XII

[Arianna]

Not if you equip...oh shoot what was it now? There's an accessory that you can equip so that you can still cast spells on characters with the reflect status. :/

Also in fighting Yiazmat can I leave the fight and go away to other places or can I only just quickly save and run back? How long can I stay out of the arena?

Tennyo, you should be able to complete the story portion of the game just fine with that around-about level. Where are you storywise?

For the extra areas, you've got to go higher. Personally, I just try to get everyone as high as I can while I go through the story and level up when I want and need; I'm done with the story, just need to get on with the hunts.

The opal ring, I believe is the accessory that will keep magics from bouncing off of your characters (who wears it) if and when you have Reflect status equipped. Though, I could be mistaken, and that could be the accessory that gives you Reflect status... ?

Rickysee said it, you can stay out of the arena for as long as you need too. Thing is, some treasures do reappear down there, so you can't go hunting for them in the arena, as that will give the dragon time to rebuild his defenses as well as cure all his HP.

Great luck!

 

[Tennyo]

Ah yes, opal ring is what I'm thinking of. If you wear it you can cast magic on people/enemies with reflect cast upon them. Mirror Mail is a special armor that automatically casts reflect on you. Is that what you were thinking?

Also I'm done with the story lol. My first post on this page is about how I beat it. I just need to do side stuff now.

And okay, so as long as I stay completely out of the arena Yizamat won't heal himself? Good to know. I was being told by people that you can't leave the fight with him at all, which doesn't make sense for how much HP he has. :/ Also had one jerk completely insult me for stating something as stupid as being able to leave the fight. Asked me if i had ever even bothered to play FFXII. ¬_¬

Also I think the book says that if you go any farther away than the save point or stay away for too long he heals himself. :/

 

[Joker]

Yeah, that's what I remembered reading. That's why I'm so surprised you can leave and go do stuff without him healing...sounds fishy, tbh O.o

And I still cba to find my way out. Someone come do it for meee ;_;

 

[Arianna]

You cannot stay away too long from Yiazmat inside the arena. Once you leave the arena, it stays where it is for the while, until you go back in. You can leave the fight; and, as many times as you want and/or need. Now, I never enountered an issue with how long I stayed out of the arena... Could there be one? I can't say no and be 100% sure, but I don't think there's an issue.

 

[Tennyo]

Well I'll just have to test it now, won't I.

 

[annacamille]

My characters are now level 80!! They were only level 67 before I started powerlevelling at the Henne Mines.

Yiazmat, your ass is mine... on Friday after finals...!!!

 

[Arianna]

I defeated Pylraster. I'm off to do some leveling up and also get some more marks. My next intended target is the dragon in the southern part of the Paramina Rift. I want to get some more trophies and finish off the marks that are posted on the bill board.

Though, I swear I don't recall having so much trouble defeating these guys the first time! Pylraster killed me about six or seven times before I bested him. I also did try the Paramina mark, but got killed; that fight's failure I attribute to being very tired.

One team is level 75, the other is level 74. I try to keep all the characters up around the same area level wise, but I believe I mentioned that before. I have everyone equipped with the strongest weapons, which of course are swords, so call for close contact fighting.

 

[Makoeyes987]

If you leave Yiazmat for too long...he can start recovering his HP. I've seen that happen. I don't know what the specifics are off hand, but sometimes, if you leave him, he'll just start healing himself. It's rather fucked up.

 

[Arianna]

Bumping the thread: Anyone here try to gather elixirs, megalixirs and the ribbon accessory before entering the subterra region of the Pharos Lighthouse (where one can get it as well)?

I just did so - for three straight days - and a few hours each - I finally have my three ribbons! I used a method to get it in Cerobi Steppes.

There are two others places one can gain this valuable accessory: Pharos, and then the locked off part of the Henne Mines.

You need the Diamond Armlet to get superior and rare treasures from the chests you encounter in the different areas. All the more reason to go back and travel all of (transversable) Ivalice!

Now, on to gain elixirs and megalixirs! Damn Magic Pot!

Fafnir! That's the dragon's name. I just defeated him early this morning or late last night. I fight sleep too much, and usually do so playing a video game, so... I forget! Also, I finished off Piscodaemon.

If you leave Yiazmat for too long...he can start recovering his HP. I've seen that happen. I don't know what the specifics are off hand, but sometimes, if you leave him, he'll just start healing himself. It's rather fucked up.

Hmmmmm... So I guess it's just best to go, heal, and then come right back. If I recall I think the manual says not to even waste your potions and stuff, just use magic and/or leave and then come back. Anyhow, there is a time span, you can leave Yiazmat safely for some minutes to save, without him healing.

PS: I got it wrong - towards the end of the battle with Yiazmat, he will cast Reflect on you! You have to dispell it away before you heal yourself.

 

[annacamille]

I forgot to mention that I already beat Yiazmat!! Hurrayyyy.. The last few bars of his life were a big pain in the ass so I basically kept going back and forth to the crystal to heal and save. Is that cheating?! lol

 

[DrakeClawfang]

I never realized how flaw XII's magic system is until the Subterra dungeon. I order up a cast of Scathe, and while it animates the enemies keep attacking. Doesn't seem fair sometimes that an enemy's spell can stall your own casting while his buddies can attack at normal speed.

For those who aren't clear, only so many spells can animate at one, but attacks can animate normally during spell animations, so your mages can continue to be attacked while they stand helpless in the middle of casting a spell.

XII's realtime system is great, but it's highly flawed. Hopefully XIII can streamline it more.

 

[annacamille]

I never realized how flaw XII's magic system is until the Subterra dungeon. I order up a cast of Scathe, and while it animates the enemies keep attacking. Doesn't seem fair sometimes that an enemy's spell can stall your own casting while his buddies can attack at normal speed.

For those who aren't clear, only so many spells can animate at one, but attacks can animate normally during spell animations, so your mages can continue to be attacked while they stand helpless in the middle of casting a spell.

XII's realtime system is great, but it's highly flawed. Hopefully XIII can streamline it more.

This is why I avoid magic there... it's SO laggy D:

Ugh have you seen footage of the demo yet?! There's still a battle transition screen... WTF!?

 

[Arianna]

I never realized how flaw XII's magic system is until the Subterra dungeon. I order up a cast of Scathe, and while it animates the enemies keep attacking. Doesn't seem fair sometimes that an enemy's spell can stall your own casting while his buddies can attack at normal speed.

I hate this! Thanks for bringing it up, 'cause I (for one) totally skipped over this annoying trait to Final Fantasy XII. I ordered spells to be done, but then something interferes and so that spell is skipped over and the gambit action is done instead. Grrrr! I said Curaja not Attack!

 

[DrakeClawfang]

I hate this! Thanks for bringing it up, 'cause I (for one) totally skipped over this annoying trait to Final Fantasy XII. I ordered spells to be done, but then something interferes and so that spell is skipped over and the gambit action is done instead. Grrrr! I said Curaja not Attack!

I know, the Gambit system is flawed. I have all my party members with the Gambit "Ally Any - Esunaga", and if the entire party gets hit with say, Poison, they all cast Esunaga on each other. "uh, no, one casting is enough you dumbasses", and now I have to manually assign other orders to them to avoid wasting MP.

Not to mention Stealing is a hassle, if you want to make money you have to do it, but the only way to set up a Gambit for it I found reliable was "Enemy Any - Steal", but then the stupid AI keeps stealing once they already get the item.

And while I'm on the subject of items, XII and VIII suffer the same afflicition with their item systems. To get the rarest weapons and equipment you have to find rare items, which often require you to find more rare items, and of course, you'll have no idea how to get them. Like the Durandal, you need Lifewick and Emperor Scales, where the hell do I get those? Unless you look on-line or buy a strategy guide you'll have no clue. Is your average gamer expected to be able to figure this stuff out on their own?

Like I said - XII's system was good, but it had glaring flaws. I loved XII, I still do, but its system was a pain in the ass sometimes.

 

[Tetsujin]

And while I'm on the subject of items, XII and VIII suffer the same afflicition with their item systems. To get the rarest weapons and equipment you have to find rare items, which often require you to find more rare items, and of course, you'll have no idea how to get them. Like the Durandal, you need Lifewick and Emperor Scales, where the hell do I get those? Unless you look on-line or buy a strategy guide you'll have no clue. Is your average gamer expected to be able to figure this stuff out on their own?

As far as I know, they deliberately make this shit BECAUSE they know that gamers can and will and have to look it up online. =/
That's why there's these stupid chests that you aren't allowed to open if you want the strongest weapon in the game. And those chests indicate in no way you aren't allowed to open them.

 

[DrakeClawfang]

As far as I know, they deliberately make this shit BECAUSE they know that gamers can and will and have to look it up online. =/
That's why there's these stupid chests that you aren't allowed to open if you want the strongest weapon in the game. And those chests indicate in no way you aren't allowed to open them.

But that's the thing, you shouldn't have to. Some games have well-hidden secrets, but with enough patience and work you should be able to discover them on your own. Like Chocobo breeding in VII, it's much harder but you could figure out how to do it without help, obviously someone else did at some point. A game should not expect me to go on-line for help to play it properly.

 

[Makoeyes987]

That's kinda mid to late 90's thinking right there. Almost every household has some form of access to internet, and most games are either bundled or advertised with their respective strategy guide, especially gamestop. That's also excluding the walkthroughs and stuff that are included in gaming magazines and internet sites. And I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know of the existence of gamefaqs and other resources that essentially divulge every major secret to the game. If they left secrets and difficulty at the level where you could figure them out on your own, they'd be pretty easy, given how easy it is to find answers to everything. The difficulty curve has now been raised.

And the gambit's systems "flaws" are kinda like programming. It's not a mistake, they're doing exactly what you tell them to do. If you tell them to steal, they won't do anything else but steal. They don't have any intelligence. Some gambits aren't really worth using because some specific actions just require or necessitate a human hand due to the need of dynamic strategy and practical common sense. Something that you really can't program a character to do.

 

[Cthulhu]

Saying the gambit system is flawed because it's not a complete programming language is saying that Basic fails for not being suitable for building operating systems with. It's limited so it doesn't become needlessly complex, and Square has attempted to find a middle ground between automation and the hardcore fine-tuning programmer nerds.

I mean, I'd personally love to program a gambit like

boolean okayToCast = true;
for (Character char : getCharsInParty()) {
  if (!char.hasNegativeStatusEffect() || char.isCasting(Spell.Esunaga)) {
    okayToCast=false;
  }
}

if (okayToCast) {
  this.cast(Spell.Esunaga);
}

but you can't expect people to learn a programming or simple scripting language for a game to work, not even if it's integrated neatly into a GUI. They've already made the gambit system pretty complex (if I say so myself), and whilst it may have its flaws for the hardcore purist players, I think it's just fine.

 

[DrakeClawfang]

Oh I don't question Gambits were useful, especially for tedious castings like buffs and the like. But other times they made the character act in a way they shouldn't. Also, since each character can only have 12, this limits the complexity of the AI script you can write for them. Though granted, any more would be too many.

 

[Cthulhu]

Yeah, 12 was plenty for me. And I found the gambit system tedious enough to program in already, especially considering you'd have to repeat it for all six characters.

 

[Purple]

Yeah but I fun though.

Totally random: I just noticed people from Archades speak with English accents while those from Dalmasca do not. Kinda cool eh?

 

[Tennyo]

I thought everyone sounded rather proper and British, but that Archadians sounded more Scottish, or something. lol But then what do I know? XD

 

[Purple]

They sounded English to me

Larsa
The Senators
The Judges
Vayne (?)
The King
Dr. Cid
Balthier

 

[Strangelove]

Didn't that bonus DVD talk about it? Or what that some other interview with the localization staff

 

[annacamille]

Has anyone beaten Omega Mark XIII or whatever that is? It looks like a pain in the ass to go through the crystal. Is the fight worth it?