Final Fantasy XII

[Flintlock]

I find the Phon Coast really dull. I think it's because it comes after the Salikawood, which is such an interesting location, with all its winding paths, wooden bridges (with those lovely footstep sounds), and the light breaking through the trees. It takes a good while to explore and even longer to remember your way around it. By comparison, the Phon Coast is just overly wide, bright and flat. You can run from one side to the other without too much trouble. All it really has is one interesting cut-scene.

Besides the Salikawood, I'm fond of the Necrohol of Nabudis (the way the two join together is really pleasing, too, with the occasional Baknamy wandering out of the Necrohol as a warning that tougher enemies are ahead), the Sandseas (for nostalgic reasons - I got so lost there when I first played the game, but it gave me an amazing sense of just how big the game is), the Ridorana Cataract (beautiful setting and music), and Mt. Bur-Omisace (particularly after defeating Fafnir, when the original music starts to play again).

 

[Lex]

^I enjoy Ogir-Yensa but despise Nam-Yensa, and I'm not sure why. But I like Ogir-Yensa for the same reason you do, I was blown away by how large the game was and I think that's the first time you feel like you're crossing out of the desert properly. I think the reason I dislike Nam-Yensa Sandsea is because I spent hours in Ogir-Yensa just navigating and exploring only to discover Sandsea: Act II and I was like... I've had enough, let me through the Sandsea XD.

I'm not sure what my favourite area is. My favourite dungeon by miles is the Great Crystal. The music and the sound your footsteps make is amazing. Although in terms of variety it doesn't have much going for it.

Town: might be Eruyt. I like that it's secret and hidden, and I have a thing for "great treehouses" in fantasy settings, probably due to my childhood fascination with Lothlórien.

 

[Pixel]

Here's a great, indepth interview with the localisation team, including Jack Fletcher. Interesting, not just for FFXII fans, but anyone interested in the translation process.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/a-v...ization-and-voice-acting-of-final-fantasy-xii

 

[Dragonslayer Ornstein]

There's a lovely place in the UK called the South Downs just a little below London. It's full of tons of greenery, salt cliffs, other nature places. Looking at it really reminds me of Cerobi Steppes, if anyone's near it like where I'm at or starved for an interesting day out, dare you to go there. Play the music while you wander it for nerd points. It even leads to the ocean.

http://www.walkandcycle.co.uk/assets/img/walkandcycle/southdowns/sdw_banner_9.jpg

Who else here loves Sakamoto's tunes? It's probably the music that's why I like Cerobi Steppe a lot.

 

[Flare]

There's a lovely place in the UK called the South Downs just a little below London. It's full of tons of greenery, salt cliffs, other nature places. Looking at it really reminds me of Cerobi Steppes, if anyone's near it like where I'm at or starved for an interesting day out, dare you to go there. Play the music while you wander it for nerd points. It even leads to the ocean.

http://www.walkandcycle.co.uk/assets/img/walkandcycle/southdowns/sdw_banner_9.jpg

Who else here loves Sakamoto's tunes? It's probably the music that's why I like Cerobi Steppe a lot.

That place look beautiful! It seems like it would be so much fun to walk around that area... just by looking at it I started thinking of the Cerobi Steppe music (which I agree with you, that's definitely a big reason I like the Cerobi Steppe).
I really love Sakamoto's music, and I think it really sets the atmosphere for Ivalice. I wouldn't mind if he did the music for another FF game in the future.

He also does the music for the Romeo X Juliet anime; ever seen it? It's of course based on the Romeo and Juliet play, but in a fantasy setting. I really enjoyed it, even more so when I recognized Sakamoto's music. He has some beautiful songs for that anime.

 

[Dragonslayer Ornstein]

I like anything he does the music too. Directors are smart enough to hire him for stuff like political settings anyway, like Valkyrie Chronicles.

Maybe I should check that anime out. Or the OST at least.

Yea. Cerobi Steppe is insanely cool. hi 5 on good tastes

 

[lithiumkatana17]

There's a lovely place in the UK called the South Downs just a little below London. It's full of tons of greenery, salt cliffs, other nature places. Looking at it really reminds me of Cerobi Steppes, if anyone's near it like where I'm at or starved for an interesting day out, dare you to go there. Play the music while you wander it for nerd points. It even leads to the ocean.

http://www.walkandcycle.co.uk/assets/img/walkandcycle/southdowns/sdw_banner_9.jpg

Who else here loves Sakamoto's tunes? It's probably the music that's why I like Cerobi Steppe a lot.

I LOVE Sakimoto's music for this game. I love that the Prelude and Final Fantasy themes were brought back for it. One of the first major moans I heard when the game came out was that score supposedly wasn't memorable enough, or it sounded like something out of Lord of the Rings. But Howard Shore's scores for LotR were freakin' awesome, so I labeled that as an invalid point. The orchestrated score fit the tone of the game very well. Can you imagine the overall sound of X's score in something like this? Definitely not. And as for not being memorable enough--that's always been a matter of opinion. I can think of several memorable tunes from XII's OST off the top of my head. Even the piano collection that they finally came out with not too long ago kicked some musical ass. Wish they had more songs on it, but I was finally glad to have a piano collection for the game nonetheless.

 

[Flare]

^I just recently discovered the Piano Collection for XII earlier this year; I enjoy all the songs (I've only so far sampled them off of iTunes, I've yet to buy any), and most of them are songs I could listen to pretty often. XII's music is some of my favorite in the series, actually. It really does have memorable tunes, and a wide variety, I think.

 

[Kuja9001]

Still wanna play this.

I like this theme

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Hi everyone!

So I wanted to run something by the Final Fantasy XII fans here (as it's the only place I know where there are decent amount of people who liked the game).

I want to make an FFXII centered Facebook page. I've seen a few out there, and they all leave much to be desired. And I feel like it would be a decent pet project; something to keep my mind busy.

In addition to posting art and screenshots from the game, I want to post fan art, AMVs, and gameplay videos, anything centered around the game, and probably Ivalice in general (althought I've never played Tactics).

I've already come up with a list of questions just to generate discussion, but I haven't had the time to think up any more lately because the fall semester nearly killed me. Anyone have any ideas? I'd give you credit, if you like. I probably won't even put the page up until the new year.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to link everyone to this great article I'm reading right now on Twitter.

It's a 3-page article/interview with the localization team from XII and VAs Elijah Alexander (Vayne) and Gideon Emery (Balthier) respectively, taking a look back on the game after 10 years. I have to say, the way the team explains the localization and translating processes they used for the game is just absolutely fantastic.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/a-v...ization-and-voice-acting-of-final-fantasy-xii

 

[Mayo Master]

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to link everyone to this great article I'm reading right now on Twitter.

It's a 3-page article/interview with the localization team from XII and VAs Elijah Alexander (Vayne) and Gideon Emery (Balthier) respectively, taking a look back on the game after 10 years. I have to say, the way the team explains the localization and translating processes they used for the game is just absolutely fantastic.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/a-v...ization-and-voice-acting-of-final-fantasy-xii

Thank you very much, that was a great read
Besides the localization of FFXII was awesome, IMO. Not sure I've seen a better localization from a Japanese game since.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to link everyone to this great article I'm reading right now on Twitter.

It's a 3-page article/interview with the localization team from XII and VAs Elijah Alexander (Vayne) and Gideon Emery (Balthier) respectively, taking a look back on the game after 10 years. I have to say, the way the team explains the localization and translating processes they used for the game is just absolutely fantastic.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/a-v...ization-and-voice-acting-of-final-fantasy-xii

Thank you very much, that was a great read
Besides the localization of FFXII was awesome, IMO. Not sure I've seen a better localization from a Japanese game since.

I didn't realize it was published in October until I finished reading it, but it was new to me!

It was interesting to hear how they came up with the basis for the different cultures and accents around Ivalice for the English version. And it was crazy to know that the whole localization was done by only two people. I loved hearing their opinions on the VAs and why they made several of the decisions they did. And having Elijah's and Gideon's input on the process was a delight to read. I love it when you have VAs that are enthusiastic about the roles they voice, even if they've never heard or played the games.

 

[Lex]

Someone made this very pretty video of all the Esper attacks and it made me realise I've seen none of them XD:

 

[Tennyo]

You never used an Esper?

 

[Flintlock]

I know I'm not Lex, but I think I've had a similar experience to him with the Espers. On my first playthrough I only got the compulsory ones and a few more that I happened to bump into. I summoned them all once but I probably didn't see any of their special attacks because I didn't have a guide. On my second playthrough, which ended up being a 100% run (or as near as dammit), my one and only Esper use was at the Gate Gigas, because it's compulsory. I couldn't be bothered to use any of the others even though I got them all (including Zodiark last week).

They're pretty rubbish for the most part as far as I can tell.

 

[Geostigma]

I also did not really use them I did hunt down the extras though as that was pretty fun.

My strategy for pretty much all bosses was to just wear them down with my party until the boss enrage mechanic kicked in and then I would just chain Quickenings. That worked like 99% of the time lol.

 

[Mayo Master]

IMO the Espers were really underpowered in that game. Especially at high level. It was a shame because the Esper game mechanics seemed interesting, however they could hardly keep up with the regular damage output of high level characters.

 

[Tennyo]

Yeah, I guess you're right. The idea of summons being controllable in battle is cool on paper, but SE hasn't quite gotten it right yet. Even in FFX I would only summon aeons for their overdrives/powering their overdrives, then dismiss them quickly.

 

[Fangu]

Belias is amazing to use against Vossler, but other than that I've barely used them. Apparently they can't be debuffed. And great if you need to revive your reserves.

I feel like I've written this exact same post somewhere else on the forum...

 

[Flare]

I actually used Belias my latest playthrough shortly after I got him during a Hunt battle against some ringwyrm in the westersand. The wyrm was quite a bit stronger than me but was weak to fire, so I just summoned Belias, stayed on the other side of a cactus where the wyrm couldn't reach me (they're so slow) and had Belias blast him with fire spells. totally worked too.

That's like the most use I've ever gotten out of a summon in XII before.

 

[Lex]

You never used an Esper?

I know I'm not Lex, but I think I've had a similar experience to him with the Espers. On my first playthrough I only got the compulsory ones and a few more that I happened to bump into. I summoned them all once but I probably didn't see any of their special attacks because I didn't have a guide. On my second playthrough, which ended up being a 100% run (or as near as dammit), my one and only Esper use was at the Gate Gigas, because it's compulsory. I couldn't be bothered to use any of the others even though I got them all (including Zodiark last week).

They're pretty rubbish for the most part as far as I can tell.

I also did not really use them I did hunt down the extras though as that was pretty fun.

I've "caught them all" (sorry, I've been playing Pokémon a lot this past week) twice on 100% runs and I've summoned them all at least once, but I've never ever seen any of their "ultimate attacks" (which is what's being shown in that video). I didn't even know they existed. With the exception of the vagina cannon, which I know I've seen before (not in-game) but didn't think "ultimate attack".

I thought Espers just kind of lumbered around slowly on screen with your one character then fucked off after a certain period of time XD. How do you even activate their special attacks?

 

[Strangelove]

i don't think i ever got them all in either version i played (know i didn't get ultima), but the ones i did get i think i tested out the ultimate attacks in the zodiac job system version since you could activate it manually?

but that was mainly to see them once and then i didn't really use them

 

[Flintlock]

In the non-IZJS version at least, each Esper has its own requirements for using an ultimate attack. They're far from obvious. The one I remember off the top of my head is that Zodiark requires the summoner to have the Petrify status. The rest can be found on the FF Wiki, I'm sure.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

The overall concept of the summons; their powers, their concept art, their backgrounds--it all figured into the story very well, but the execution of using them in battle was less than thrilling. The only times I tended to use them were for the hunts that I wasn't prepared to undertake (which was all of them; I always went for the ones way out of my league ), but other than that, I rarely used them, even for boss fights.