Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

I've always felt like this myself.
Personally I've always seen Asche as the "protagonist" of the story. For a good part FFXII's story is her story, she's at the center of the plot that furtherly develops.

Vaan is more like the eyes through wich such story gets told to us (the players), but it's Asche's story, and of course both Basch and Balthier play a very big role in it, but it doesn't change the fact that it's Asche's story.


I dunno, a lot of time has passed, I barely remember details, but I remember this is how I felt when I played the game on PS2 originally.

I don't think there was anything wrong with starting with Vaan and Penelo. The problem is they go nowhere as the story progresses.

There is the weird image of Ashe's dead husband following Vaan that fizzles and that's the last piece of story where either of the 2 matter.... Which is less than 1/2 way thru the game.

Furthermore, the villian were somehow right... In that man should somehow retake the reigns of history... This is absurd from a story point. The so called 'gods' are evil so Ashe and party reject becoming get their patsies, but still take out the renegade 'god' and final bad guy who fail in their world conquest and war mongering and yet the new 'fallen angel' has accomplished her goals.

The worldbuilding, art, character creation, and gameplay were all great imo. But the writing, story and plot fell thru by the middle.

It's the first ff game where I lost interest in the story but just enjoyed the game play.

Oh that's still there, remember this game is from the "need more help, visit Playonline" era where video game companies were trying to redirect gamers to their websites and merchandise. The Zodiac spear is a bonus item for someone who actually bought the paper game guide, though the Internet makes that a non-issue now. Realistically your not supposed to get that overpowered item on a regular play through.

The Zodiac Spear, at the very least, doesn't have that gimmicky chest nonsense attached to it anymore.

Instead it's a 1/100 chance spammable chest spawn later on in the game.

Penelo and Vaan = R2 and C-3P0

Ok another update. Dedicated a lot more time to this game today than Stormblood, I'm so proud (and grateful to my FC for quick queues).

Focusing on the Zodiac playthrough some more, as compared to my original playthrough. Last time, I basically went through the entire game with 3 characters, Ashe Fran and Basch. Smashed everything, essentially ignored the other 3 except for times when I just wanted to mess around and level them. I basically created an A team and a B team, and the A team was always a good 20-40 levels higher for most of the game.

I can already say thats not gonna be the case in the Zodiac version, my current party levels are 22, 20, 19, 18, 16, and 13. Its actually pretty difficult to get them all in there while progressing forward. But its been essential to have 3 DPS and 1 WHM current, and after unlocking some HP bricks my BLM is making a comeback. The good thing is while characters don't acquire XP if they aren't in the battle, they do acquire LP for the license board still.

BLM is really strong early, its going to require precise gambits to control her damage output because it doesn't matter if your other DPS have max gear and the BLM has ***that fire spell is going to get the mobs' attention. Its easily the biggest damage dealer of all the classes early on and you have to protect them as best you can, and thats where the gambits come in. So in that sense, I think the gambit system definitely has more utilization than the first time around. And with the 2nd job available, its much easier to give them a weapon to poke the mob with before breaking out the magic.

Moving on to the voice acting, as soon as I hit Golmoro Jungle I turned the JP audio on, because I did not want to listen to Fran's English voice as she guided us through her life in the Wood. Instant improvement, JP voices are way better for all of the characters when it comes to the cutscenes. Penelo is kind of obnoxious in battle but its not a big deal.

Its still a fun game to play, the same highs and lows are there, Vaan's position in the story is complete nonsense, he has lines just for the sake of having them.

The YouTube video says 18 new more powerful weapons have been added. It's worse than Zodiac Spear.

Invisible Treasure chests.
1/100 chance of getting new, more powerful weapon.

I'm returning the game, based on this.

Losing the chance to get Zodiac Spear in the original is why I didn't finish the final dungeon for PS2.

Director Ito/SE is a masochist.

been playing ff12 on emulator this week just got fomahult and zodiac spear both are pretty good i didnt realize how beneficial putting gun on main tank can be for range tanking some of the hunts i used to hate doing like the mouse nms with confuse in the sewers. But the 1/100 second chance at zodiac spear chest has always been a thing in henne mine, even in the original, ive gotten one on the ps2.

It was 1/1000 supposedly I thought in the PS2 version. However people also found ways to rig the rng a bit and make it consistently somewhat common from what google is telling me.

Right.

Zodiac Spear in Henne mines:
1/10 chance of chest appearing
1/10 chance of being an item
1/10 chance of being zodiac spear of it's an item.

1 in 10^3 = 1 in 1000.

This is so *** stupid. I actually edited my PS2 save in a hex editor. The first and last 4 or 8 bytes of the save is just a CRC. I edited my save to give me 3 Zodiac Spears on PS2, then I never beat the final dungeon because I beat the game as far as I'm concerned.

Weren't there two ways to get the Zodiac Spear? One with the "no chest opening" early in the game, and another method much later?

Also I remember Zodiac Spear to be one of multiple fantastic weapons, not the best single weapon in the game, now was it?


Meh, anyway gonna wait for a PC version. Not announced yet, might not happen at all, but I think it totally will.

From a respawning chest in one of the mines yeah.

IZJS added another 12 weapons called the FINAL FANTASY weapons that have since been renamed. Most of them dethroned the old top tiers, or are just slightly better versions.

Yes and they are ridiculously stupid to obtain. Invisible chests with 1/100 chance of getting it

They're also stupidly powerful.

Also, most of them are gained the same way you'd obtain Tournesol. Kill a bunch of high level enemies for low drop rate items and sell them in a way that causes the bazaar to put the item up for sale.

Alternatively, the chests are literally move 1-2 rooms over and try again.

Seitengrate is the only exception and there's a damn good reason for it. 224 Attack, which is far better than the next best weapons, with range equal to the games enemy draw distance.

Ridiculously hard to obtain ultimate weapons in a Final Fantasy game?!

Technically they're not hard to get, it's just potentially a time sink rolling the dice over and over again.

I wonder if they bothered to add models for the new weps this time...

Seitengrate is just as invisible as the chest you find it in. Watching my characters draw an invisible bow... Slightly amusing at first, but just annoying after the novelty wears off.

Still invisible.