Final Fantasy 12 - Reviews
- Thread starter London Geezer
- Start date
DuckThor Evil
Legend
Yes I did finish the game in the middle of December. I put around 70h into the game and my three main characters were at level 82, if I remember correctly. I spent quite a bit of time to level up my characters as I started college last fall, so I only bought 2 games in five months (because I'm broke) so I wanted to get my moneys' worth. I didn't really bother to find the espers though, except for maybe two extra ones.
I'd say in the end the story is a bit lacking compared to previous Final Fantasy games, not because it was more political etc. but it just didn't feel as massive and grand as the other FF games I have played. I might be a bit bizarre though since FF8 is clearly the best so far imo.
Cool so since you finished the game... Last question for now...
Is it worth levelling up ALL the characters, or can i focus on three and forget about the rest? I was getting worried that there might be times when some characters exit the party for story reasons and i'd be left with some underpowered ones (cough Vaan cough)... Or that at one point i'd be forced to play with Vaan and end up stuck somewhere with a very underpowered gay pin up. So i've been powering him and the other up "just in case", but i think this is just making my life harder and my levelling strategy SO much longer...
At this point all my characters are all pretty much at the same level for that reason... Some are more powerful than others, but there is not a huge discrepancy between the strongest and the weakest...
DuckThor Evil
Legend
I'd say that you only need 3 powerful characters, that's what I did. Now there might be an occasion where this could be a small problem, for example if your three characters fall in battle you might not be able to resurrect even one of them with very weak character, this was almost an issue for me in the final boss battle, and I imagine that it could be little troublesome if your characters are much lower than what mine was (level 82), however I'm not sure whether the final boss is scaled according to player level, but I doubt it. My other characters were rather weak though, none of them were over lv 15...
But as a rule of thumb I would say that the three main characters are all you need to develop. The final boss has one REALLY powerful attack which often either kills 2/3 of your characters or the very least drops them to near zero, after that it's really crucial that you manage to heal/revive your characters fast enough, during the constant bombardment that comes from the boss, live or death can really be decided in a fraction of a second in those particular moments mainly depending on how long it will take until your next turn becomes available, in essence whether the boss or you get's the next move. You either have to manage to heal atleast one of your characters to max or bring out a benchwarmer that has enough health/gear to sustain one hit.
Personally I think you don't need to bring the benchwarmers to the table, but you might need a bit of luck in the battle if you don't, or at the very least you can't have any bad luck. I only died once in the final battle, but it was a close call on my second try also.
edit: If you die in the final moments of the boss battle, you lose some time as there are no save crystals for quite a long time before the battle.
edit2 Oh I wanted to point out that whether you need more than three characters is naturally related to the strength levels of your main guys, so if the top team is really strong they need less help and the reverse applies too, so basically I can only tell accurate information based on what I saw, so if your three characters are at a very high level they don't need help, but I'm not sure if they are at lv 50-60 I honestly don't know whether that's enough to beat the final boss.
edit3
you don't need to worry about characters becoming unavailable due to story reasons.
Last edited by a moderator:
Ok well all my characters are already over level 25 i think. I'll focus on 4 just in case and i'll keep the others not too underpowered...
Thanks for all the info!!
Just as long as the game doesn't force me to use particular characters at times, i'll be fine!
crazygambit
Regular
Vaan has the best overall stats so I suggest you level him up. My party is Vaan as the tank, Penelo support/steal, Ashe attack mage/healer. With Basch as backup tank. It works quite well.
... Really?? I REALLY can't stand him...... I have used them all basically so now i can choose who to level up for real. My Vaan is quite powerful, but i SO wanted to get rid of him...
What u mean "overall best stats"? I thought you can level them all up pretty much the way you want cause they all start from the same place on the levelling board thing...?
DuckThor Evil
Legend
I noticed that there is small variation between the characters, but the differences are very small, I would say that they are small enough to be called meaningless. My party was Vaan, Basch, and Balthier and they were all fighters/healers. Vaan didn't really bother me because well after having seen Tidus and the entire FFX-2 he felt like a gift from heaven
Sometimes I still see nightmares about Tidus laughing...:smile:
I noticed that there is small variation between the characters, but the differences are very small, I would say that they are small enough to be called meaningless. My party was Vaan, Basch, and Balthier and they were all fighters/healers. Vaan didn't really bother me because well after having seen Tidus and the entire FFX-2 he felt like a gift from heaven
Sometimes I still see nightmares about Tidus laughing...:smile:
See it's these things that i hate... Having to make decisions... I loved FFX and a few others cause you had a "mage", you had a "useless", you had a "basher"...
I want to be taken by the hand!!! I already have to make enough decisions in reqal life without this giving me headaches!!
I used to have this problem with money in the beginning, but now, after I put "steal" ->"enemy =100%HP" in one of the active characters just above thier action moves, I have all the best weapons money can buy, and about 50000 gil in reserve. This is getting me a lot of loot, and some of the loot can be sold at nice price.
As they say - a worked penny is onest money, a stolen penny is gained money...
Oh i see... I have never really given much attention to "steal" in FF games, guess i'm gonna have to start now... I just don't like "wasting" a cycle for something that does no damage or anything else really... But if it's the only way for wealth in the game, bring it on!!
DuckThor Evil
Legend
See it's these things that i hate... Having to make decisions... I loved FFX and a few others cause you had a "mage", you had a "useless", you had a "basher"...
I want to be taken by the hand!!! I already have to make enough decisions in reqal life without this giving me headaches!!
I agree it sucks ass that the characters aren't locked into a class anymore, sure it gives you freedom, but it makes the character shallower. Also I would like that there are only four playable characters that remain throughout the game in your team, that way it's possible to get more emotionally attached to the characters. Now it's much harder to give a shit what happens to them.
That's why I said gambit is excepional - there are a lot o things that I were too tiresome or boring or even plain difficult to perform in former FF that you can now get automated. You can tweak the gambits in many ways, and then see the results in the action of the characters, and this is more fun that just selecting/performing these actions yoursef.
crazygambit
Regular
Yeah I use that too. Together with the thief accessory (can't remember the name) and all the grimoires you get a lot of loot quickly. The grimoires you buy from the Bazaar and are pretty expensive, but I would suggest buying them all except maybe the one that's 25000 gil since that one only works on elementals. They make enemies of a certain type drop rare (i.e. more expensive) loot. Highly recommended.
About gambits, is there a way to reliably target your guest party member (especifically the last one). I'm using lowest magick resist, to automatically cast berserk on him, but it's not working to well, cause when he gets far, beserk gets cast on another character, which obviously sucks.
you will have to find something that is unique to your guest. they are pretty much independent entities.
not necessarily. you can define classes by selecting specific licenses and enabling particular gambits for each character. from these two features you can indeed have specific roles for each character.
i made the choice of ensure all my characters are the same level. indeed my progression through the game is not as fast as other people's (i.e., all my six characters are level 32 and i'm just starting the 50th hour of gameplay) but i like having the option of swapping active party members depending on which strategy is best suited for the situation. i have diverged from the main plot points of the game every so often so i can explore the world of Ivalice at my leisure.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
Yes but it's not the same thing. I'm thinging party of four heroes who actually has a real backstory based on their abiliities and class you know stuff like
/deep narrator voice
"at the age of 10 she already did level 5 destruction spells!" :smile:
I'm not sure if you catch my drift, but I think that locking the characters to a single role would greatly add depth to the characters and imo would make following the story and characters more appealing to me. I don't need to have the choice and power to alter everything in game at least not always, sometimes I just wan't to follow a great story, powerful rich and unique characters would be a great starting point for such a story.
What I did about leveling up is - I keep one character in the active party all the time (Fran - cos I like looking at her ass) and keep all the others at same level. Right now she is at level 50 and the others at around 40 - about 70 hours into the game. I am doing a lot of mark hunting right now, leaving aside the main story. I have put "golden armlet"(or something) on everybody to colect double LP - so now I am about 80% done with the licence board of every character.
I'm using only melee weapons, on fastest battle setting, everybody on "haste" all the time, and I like the crazyness of this on the screen and there is hardly any slowdown ever, even in the most crowded battles.
I use gambits for everybody and very sledom I need to intervene - I can simply enjoy each and every battle and it never tires me one bit.
It a beautifull game...
I'm using only melee weapons, on fastest battle setting, everybody on "haste" all the time, and I like the crazyness of this on the screen and there is hardly any slowdown ever, even in the most crowded battles.
I use gambits for everybody and very sledom I need to intervene - I can simply enjoy each and every battle and it never tires me one bit.
It a beautifull game...
