Day 84 - Final Fantasy Tactics (Ten Hour Play)

Game - Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, Day 84
Total Hours Played - 15-1/2 hrs
Current Goal - Play ten hours of the game and talk about how I love it.

What Happened - With Final Fantasy XII done and XIII coming over the horizon, I figured it was time for a brief intermission in the numbered series. Rather than take an actual break though (because that might throw me off) I decided to play one of the off-titles. For this experience, I'm going to play one of my very favorite in the series...Final Fantasy Tactics. I've played quite a bit of the original PlayStation One version, but for my brief playing, I'm going to try out the PSP remake called Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. Let's start with a brief introduction though.
     The setting of the game makes use of the universe known as Ivalice. As the game opens, you are introduced to the story by a historian by the name of Azlam. He's been researching the history of the land and recently learned that events aren't like they've been told. You learn that the common hero of the past isn't actually the true hero as history knows him. You are thrown into the role of the true hero of the story who was left hidden and forgotten by time.
     This Final Fantasy title probably has one of the deepest and most complex stories of the entire series. Honestly, it kinda reminds me of something along the lines of what I just played (FFXII). It's a story about royalty and kingdoms and the right to rule. Blah blah blah. As you continue through the game, you learn that the rabbit hole goes quite deep and that everything is pretty messed up. I won't reveal it all, but I'll just say that the in-game religion gets involved in it all. That's enough to give you a taste for now. Time to get started!
     You get to name the hero of this tale, but his default name is Ramza, Ramza Beoulves. After the little opening piece, you get to view one of the best parts of the remake. The remake from the original game has added animated cutscenes which look AMAZING. They've got a very interesting and different animation style. Following the opening cutscene, you are thrown into a church. A girl is praying there when suddenly the church is surrounded by mysterious soldiers. They're here for the girl, and you (Ramza) are a part of some hired sellswords who are protecting her. With that all said and done, you are introduced immediately into the first battle of the game.

Cutscene! (Example)

     The game auto-plays most of the units, and you only have control of Ramza. It gives you a general idea of how battles go. Final Fantasy Tactics is a Tactical RPG (If you hadn't already guess by the name), and to describe that would be lengthy at best. To shorten it somewhat, Tactical RPGs are first and foremost what the name describes...a game of tactics. You place your soldiers on the field and move them about the battlefield. The field is split into a large grid of squares, and you move about it and perform actions for the battle. FFT is probably one of the easier tactical RPGs out there though. It's got a lot you can do, but it's far more forgiving than most other games among this kind of series. I'll explain a few more things as I get to them, but for now, we'll get back to the battle.
     There's not much to say about this first battle, and it goes through quite quickly. A couple of the AI controlled units on your side are special units with super awesome abilities. They go around and massacre most of the enemy units while you just sit back and try to stay alive. You can get involved, but you almost don't need to. Anyways, with the battle's conclusion (and victory), you are treated to another cutscene. Turns out, someone should have stayed with the damn princess. A man in fancy armor and a cape has taken her and is currently running away. Ramza spots him and seems to recognize the man as Delita. He wonders what he is doing there...Then the game makes a jump into the past.
     Thus begins the start of Chapter 1 - The Meager. (For those who have only played the PS1 version, the PSP remake looks about the same in general, but they've edited most of the talking to make it sound better for the game world's style and such.) Ramza and Delita are recruits in an academy, and the nation is currently under turmoil. After some major war, the losing side was left with a lot of soldiers and mages who were stripped of their titles and jobs. Of course, this doesn't make them very happy at all, so they've formed up a sort of rebellion force called the Corpse Brigade. The guard that remains is growing thin, and the recruits are about to be sent to help aid them. You will be sent to a nearby castle to take up the rear guard for the main force.
     After that is explained, you find out that some of the Corpse Brigade has made it into the city, and you're about to be sent out to deal with it. The first REAL battle! You are the commander of this group of recruits, and they're the initial units in your army. Your initial troops are a mixture of two jobs: Squires and Chemists. Squires are kinda just plain units and the starting jobs for most soldiers. Chemists are the only units who can use items directly. (Game calls them Jobs rather than Classes.) That's enough for now, but I'll be touching down on this after the battle at hand. You get to place five units, and you have the Guest unit, Delita. With your six units, you have to take down a squad of five very angry criminals. To be fair, they're less of criminals and more of people screwed over by the war. Anyways, they plan to cut through town, but we're there to stop them.
     The battles in Tactics generally last anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes each. (From my experience at least.) This one wasn't any different. I split my team up and mostly just tag teamed enemies as I went to take them down. A couple of my people died, but I finished the battle fast enough that they didn't permanently die. (Quick explanation. When a member falls in battle, you have three rounds to revive him. After that, they permanently die.) With their defeat, I'm rewarded some Gil, a few items, and am whisked off to the world map.

World Map

     On the world map, I'm given a brief explanation of the world map, and then I'm set loose. The world map is just a bunch of connected points you can travel between. You get into random encounters on any non-town location, and the town spots come with three basic places: a store, a tavern, and a recruitment office. They're self-explanatory, so I won't go into detail. I can only go from my current town to a nearby castle with only one spot in between so...I head that way. OR SO I THOUGHT! As soon as I go to leave, I'm met with a scene.
     It seems that Barbaneth Beoulve, assuming the father of the family, is about to pass on. I'm at this family's house, and they're waiting by the old man in his bed. They're talking about the events taking place around, and how the war should be coming to a close quite soon. Ramza comes in shortly later, and he talks with his father briefly. Talks about upholding the family name and becoming a fine knight in the service of the crown. Says to trust in his friend Delita and asks that he watch over his sister, Alma. And then...he passes on. Game has just begun and sad times are already had. Anyways, time to move on!
     I head for Eagrose Castle, but before I can get there, I have to take on another story battle on the Mandalia Plains. STORY BATTLE! (FYI, I won't go over every battle I fight. I'll only cover the story-fied ones with actual content.) This battle lets me place my main guy, Ramza, along with 3 other units. This is your typical start up, so as you play through the game, you'll probably end up using the same team of four every time. The battle begins on the plains, and we come to find that a group of Highwaymen are attacking somebody. We come in, and I get to choose what to say between two options. I can either care more about defeating the Corpse Brigade or saving the guy. Of course, I choose that saving the guy is our priority. The goal for this battle is to "Protect Argath". This isn't too hard really since most of the NPCs can take care of themselves, but I try to be careful because overreliance on them being smart will lead to defeat.
     The battle is only the second real battle you have to fight, so it goes pretty fast. I've got my team of Ramza and three soldiers plus the Guests Delita and Argath. There are only five enemies, and they're easily taken care of. With their defeat, we learn a little more about what happened. Argath is a knight apprentice for the marquis Elmdore de Limberry. Then we find out that the marquis has been taken hostage by the Corpse Brigade, and Argath begs that we help him rescue the marquis. However, before we go after him, we have to go check in at Eagrose first. I'm back on the map, but I head back to the initial town, Gariland, first to buy stuff.
     Once I head to town, I'm informed about some special stuff I can do at the tavern. Something about skirmishes I can enter to test myself without possibly losing people. There are also joint missions that I can do with other people it seems, but that's definitely out. Anyways, I hit up the store and buy some items for the trip. Stock up on potions and phoenix downs, and then I head off to Eagrose Castle. I get another scene upon my arrival there. The group is talking with Ramza's brother, Dycedarg, and they are going to be guarding the castle. He's already heard of the marquis's abduction and has sent Ramza's other brother, Zaalbag, along with a group of soldiers to go after the abductors  Argath begs for a platoon of soldiers to go and avenge his fallen brothers, but Dycedarg tells him that the problem has already been seen to. They will stay and defend the castle.
     With that said and done, the group is now walking outside of the castle. Argath tells us that his family used to be well known and highly regarded like the Beoulve. However, his grandfather was captured during the war and turned traitor. He sold out his friends for his own freedom, but that didn't last long. He was killed shortly after being released, and then one of his former friends escaped and spread word of what he did. And thus, their family lost much of their honor and such. As that story wraps up, the group is greeted by people they know. It's Ramza's brother Zaalbag, his sister Alma, and Delita's sister Tietra. It's mostly a brief chat, but Zaalbag lets us know that a ransom note was received for the marquis. They find this suspicious because the Corpse Brigade is mostly aimed at dealing with nobles, and he doesn't believe they'd simply kidnap the marquis for monies.
     Before leaving, he adds on something about one of his spies in the Corpse being last heard of from a trade city called Dorter. He heads out, and the group talks briefly among themselves before leaving as well. Now I'm free to move between five spots! However, I've learned from past plays that you should NEVER immediately move on. Instead, I'd highly, highly, HIGHLY suggest you spend a couple hours leveling up your team. When you travel over wilderness areas, like the plains, you have a chance of getting into random encounters. These encounters are generally against wild monsters, and these monsters are always set to be around your current levels. (I think it's based on the lead, Ramza.) They're very tough battles, but if you take time and gain extra levels, you can make the next part of the game a breeze (or at least actually beatable). This game has a tendency to lock you in spots where you can't gain extra levels and points, so it's highly suggested to use a little time during open periods to gain some extra experience.
     Now it's time to cover the in-game system! THE JOB SYSTEM! I already glossed over the gameplay for battles. It's tactics. There are squares on a field, and you try to outthink your opponent! (Or in my case, just blast the crap out of each individual one and then move on to the next one until they're all dead.) However, I feel that the best (and my most favorite) thing about Final Fantasy Tactics is the Job System. For those who have been following me since the beginning and/or have played Final Fantasy V, this game takes a big page from that game. However, you can't pick any job you want, you have to earn them first.
     Every unit begins the game with two classes: Squire and Chemist. Squires are just super basic units with no real benefits or downfalls. Chemists are the only units that can learn to use items and throw them around. (I already mentioned these earlier but repeating for good measure.) Of course, these are simply the first two Jobs in the game. The total number of Jobs in FFT is 22. (They added two more jobs with the remake.) Beyond the initial jobs, you have to meet specific level requirements to earn the other jobs. I could go on quite a bit, but I'll just sum it up. Squire takes you down a path that builds towards more of a strength-based jobs like Knight, Archer, Monk, Ninja, and so on. The Chemist is more of the magic-based path with the White Mage, Black Mage, Time Mage, Summoner, and more. There are even some super special classes that requires multiple levels of different jobs. This brings us to the next detail.

The Job Wheel!

     The next details is...well details. Abilities, levels, and the hows and whats. There are five kinds of abilities available: Action, Reaction, Movement, and Support. Each character has one of each abilites that they can set (Action gets two technically). This allows you to customize your character with all kinds of abilities. Abilities are learned through the use of Job Points, which work almost exactly like License Points. Examples include a Knight with the Two Swords ability, a White Mage with Time Magic, and much more. The possibilities are nearly endless for what kind of units you can make.
     Units have their own levels, but they also have levels in Jobs. Your character's level rises independent from their Job level though. Jobs are considered "Mastered" when you have maxed them out to level 8 and purchased all of the abilities with them. Your character's HP and MP are partially based on the equipment you use. This evens out to mages having lighter armor but more MP while knights and such have heavy armor that comes with more HP but less MP. There's a whole lot more I can talk about, but I don't want to ramble on anymore about it. If I were to shorten this all up, I'd just say "Go get the game right now!" (I'd highly suggest the original PS1 version over the PSP version. PSP has lots of improvements but also has random slowdowns.) Time to continue!
     For the next couple hours, I did a bunch of random battles to gain some levels and change around my army's job setup. When you are first given control, you start off with a small army made of your main character, Ramza, as well as six random beginning units with four Squires and two Chemists. My first goal is to get everybody to learn the ability JP Boost from the Squire job. It's probably the most useful Support ability in the game. All it does is simply boost the Job Points you get, but it's a large enough boost that you can Master jobs four or five times faster. On top of that, I plan to abuse easy Job Points by constantly using items and buffing abilities when I get them. Getting lots of Job Points and abilities can really help out with the rest of the game. With that in place, I start working to change around my group's setup. I figure at least two Knights, two Archers, a White Mage, and a Black Mage.
     I spent about five hours doing this, and then I figured it was time to move right along. Also figured I should make the post slightly more exciting than "I fought random battles for like 9 hours." It'll probably still turn out close to that, but it won't be entirely that! With my training done, it was time to move onward to the Siedge Wield. (...What? It used to be just the woods.) My current team ended up being Ramza as a Squire, a Knight, two Squires, two Chemists, and an Archer. I'm more focused on getting things Mastered than fancy job choices it seems. My team was about Level 7 across the board though, so it shouldn't be too hard for this next part. It's just a group of monsters I have to fight, but it's a decent selection here: two Bombs, three goblins, and a wild cat. It was funny because my two Guest members (Delita and Argath) were only Level 3, but the enemies were all up on my level of around 6 and 7. Delita went down almost immediately, but Argath survived with Potions. I wiped out the monsters like they were never there!
     From here, I did a bit more training and actually switched my jobs around. I ended up with Ramza as a Knight, two Knights, an Archer, two Black Mages, and a White Mage. With everybody being around Level 8, this battle is going to be silly amounts of easy. Onward...to Dorter! For the story battles, you have to choose Ramza, so for this battle, I had two Knights, a White Mage, and a Black Mage. Before the battle gets going though, I am shown a small scene of two men speaking. One of them is specially designed, so he's obviously the more important one. He's questioning the other man about the location of someone called Wiegraf and where they put the Marquis. After being put at sword point, the other man reveals the location to be the desert at a place known as The Sand Rat's Sietch. The group begins to approach so the nameless VIP runs off. Delita seems to recognize the man who ran away as someone he saw after the war, but we don't have time to figure out who right now. TO ARMS!
     For this battle, I'm fighting six enemy units composed of two Knights, two Black Mages, and three Archers. Of course, they're only level 4, so I shouldn't have much trouble with them. Just as the battle starts, Delita says he remembered the man as being named Wiegraf. Apparently he was the commander of some group called the Dead Men during the war. They were composed of peasants and such. As it turns out, this makes him the commander of the Corpse Brigade. Oh well! Let's battle on. As I already said, this was pretty much a pushover battle. However, they didn't go down without some fight, and that is proof enough that this game is not to be taken lightly. If I had just come straight here, I would have been completely screwed.
     This game pretty much just requires that you put in a lot of training and random encounters before you fully play the story through. However, unlike some games, training and random encounters can be fun. That, and I really like to build my army as I like. The full customization of your units allows you to create whatever teamup you'd like. It's a good thing. Anyways, I quickly shot through most of the enemy units while my two Guests focused on one unit. One fell, but Guests can't truly die like my characters, so who cares. The other one managed to take down ONE enemy unit. I was able to fully annihilate the other six units even though I mostly toyed with them to get extra experience and job points. With their defeat, I was rewarded a nice pile of Gil and a couple items. Then, it was time for a scene.
     Ramza, Delita, and Argath are in some random building and dealing with one of the enemy units. They're trying to get information out of the guy. They want him to reveal where the Marquis is being kept. Argath is the one trying to get the info, and he beats the guy around a little. Ramza tells him to stop, but the guy has something to say. He talks about how the nobles are all the same. The men gave their lives for the Kingdom, and when the war ended, they turned them out into the streets. He asks what makes the nobles so different? Birth and blood? What difference does that make? Argath points out that they kidnapped the Marquis, but the guy says that the Marquis's kidnapping wasn't Wiegraf's plan. The man claims Wiegraf wouldn't hold a man for ransom.
     Ramza asks who would kidnap him then. The man finally mentions the name Gustav. Delita identifies Gustav as a lieutenant commander in the Dead Men. Argath sees this as the Corpse Brigade still at fault, but the man claims they're trying to end aristocracy rather than become it like Gustav plans. They just want to be treated equal with honor and such. Argath hits him again and asks what he could possibly know about honor. Ramza puts his foot down and tells Argath to stop it. Then Argath asks where Gustav is, and I hear the same place as where the Marquis is supposed to be, the Sand Rat's Sietch. Delita steps in again to explain what this is. Apparently sand rats are unique to a desert north of Dorter known as Zeklaus Desert. Ramza asks if there are anymore towns in that direction, and Delita says not anymore. Argath is confused, but Ramza explains that a sietch is a Sand Rat's burrow, so they seem to figure the man is referring to a hideout in the desert. So...time to move on!
     After some more training! Yeaaah, I'm bad like that. Unlike previous games, the training and battles seem like more fun since results tend to actually show. I also want to get my team more organized and set up as I'd like. At this point, I'm already rounding 9 hours of gameplay though, and I'd like to cover a bit more story before I finish up. So it's time for the Sand Rat's Sietch! TO THE ZEKLAUS DESERT! As we arrive, there are a group of Corpse Brigade guys in a broken down house that's probably their hideout. They are talking about the Order (Order of the Northern Sky. That's what our group is supposed to be based from.) and how they are coming to mess them up. One asks what they should do, and it seems they're considering running. It also seems like they aren't in favor of Wiegraf leading them anymore, but Gustav's name comes up as at least promising them quite a bit of money. It stops at that point though because they spot us just outside. BATTLE TIME!
     This battle is made up of three Knights, two Archers, and two Monks. Basically, you're almost always outnumbered in this game. Thus, another reason you need to fully prepare beforehand with more than enough training. Even with their vast numbers though, they didn't stand a chance. Before it was all said and done, I actually killed one of the Guest members (Argath) so that he wouldn't kill the last guy. I could have killed all of the enemies in like 3 turns with my Black Mage alone. The damage one of them can do is ridiculous! I blasted away the main group in no time, and then I just fiddled about with the last one to farm up extra job points. I didn't spend too much longer though because I should try to get a bit further. With the last one taken down, we were going to infiltrate this little base and look for the Marquis.
     Next scene up, and it's the Wiegraf guy from before, and he seems to be facing off with Gustav. Gustav is in disagreement with Wiegraf's revolution it seems. He says that dreams don't exactly produce food or shelter. Wiegraf says he doesn't see beyond to what is really going on. Wiegraf sees that the crown is faltering and needs to be lead back onto the path. Gustav charges at Wiegraf with his sword, but Wiegraf simply dodges and impales him with his own sword. As that finishes, the trio walks in and sees Wiegraf. He tells them that the Marquis is unharmed, and that we may take him back to Eagrose. Ramza asks why he would simply give the Marquis back, and Wiegraf says that the abduction was poorly done and that it didn't serve the ends he wants. He simply asks that we let him walk free in exchange. Argath disagrees with this, but Delita and Ramza give in for the Marquis's sake. Wiegraf runs off as the group goes around to the Marquis. Argath wants to chase after him, but Delita stops him. He tells Argath that the Corpse Brigade is finished and there's no point fighting more. Time to head back to Eagrose!

BATTLE TIME!

     I got into a few battles before heading completely back, but I hurried on after that. Really wanting to wrap this on up and give some thoughts on it. A fun side effect of all these random battles is that my amount of Gil just begins to SKYROCKET! After so long, money starts to never been an issue ever. It helps if you don't have a massive army to have to equip, but even then, I can generally get by so easily without having to farm up money. I love it so much. Anyways, back to Eagrose Castle! We arrive there, and then it's straight up to a scene.
     Dycedarg is yelling at the group for abandoning the castle and running off into the desert. Ramza is silent at first, and Delita tries to take the blame. Ramza steps forward though and tells Delita not to lie on his behalf. Dycedarg tells Ramza that he shouldn't have ignored the laws and went off like he did. As a knight, it is their solemn duty to adhere to the rules, and being a Beoulve, it is their burden to be an example to them all. He asks if he intends to live up to the name or drag it through the dirt. At this point, a man comes in and tells Dycedarg that he's made his point. The more important part here isn't the how but the what. He seems to be impressed with our rescue of the Marquis, and I have no idea who he is. The characters all bowed to him upon his entrance though...He goes on to add that young men are generally in haste to do great things, and that we aren't unlike themselves when they were younger. (With the remake, they improved the dialogue with a more old-style pattern of talking. Using nicer/fancier words and making it sound more...regal I guess? It's not bad, but it seems overly fluttery at times if you ask me.)
     The man is finally introduced as Duke Larg, and he tells Dycedarg that Ramza's ability is lost on castle walls. Dycedarg takes this in mind and permits us to take part in the final stage of it all. The plan is to make a large number of coordinated strikes on several of the Corpse Brigade dens. We get to lead one of these assaults. Ramza thanks his brother, and the trio leave. Of course, as they leave, the two continue to speak about what sounds like dirty business. Something about things going awry, but our rescuing the Marquis puts them in a good position. It is made mention that the King is nearing death, and they need to make their move soon. So...yeah! Sneaky Royalty business is at work. Well, time to move right along with the story.
     I've actually already passed the ten hour point at this part, but I've considered moving on and beating the first Chapter of the game. It's not that much longer, and I think it'd be worth it to give a good glimpse of the story...Although my review of the story is fairly shorthand. In truth, I think I just want to play more of the game. I hit up "Outfitter" (store) and upgrade all of my equipment before moving on. With all the extra battles, I have more than enough to cover the bill and even some money left over. After that, I head out for a few more battles. After a couple battles, I figure it's time to move right along and straight to the Brigands' Den. The objective here is to wipe out this group of Corpse Brigade, but I have a feeling there will be more to it.
     The first thing I see upon entering is a female Knight named Milleuda. She's talking with the a group there and telling them that their contact is lost. She fears that they are lost as well. One of them asks how she could say such a thing. They haven't even fought yet! A second one chimes in to say that they nobles must answer to what they've caused. Milleuda says it shouldn't have been like this, but her brother was too soft and indecisive. They don't get to talk any longer though because we have approached the field of battle. Argath says he will repay us for our help with the Marquis by aiding us now. The goal for this battle is to simply defeat the Milleuda person, but she isn't alone of course.
     Apart from her (a Knight), I have to fight two White Mages and three Thieves. We're around four levels higher than them, but they put up quite a fight. One of the White Mages had black magic, and she was making fairly good use of it. For my team, Ramza lead as a Knight and was followed by a White Mage, a Black Mage, and a Monk. Monks in this game are basically just super awesome and insanely cheap to use! (I mean actual cost-wise.) They're powerful but require no weapons, and they have some incredible special abilities that don't use MP.  I'd say they might possibly be one of the most useful units in the game, and they're pretty invaluable early on since they are easy to get and cheap to use. Anyways, back to the battle at hand.
     The thieves had some strong attacks, but they didn't come with much health to back that up. I blasted two of them with pretty much my Black Mage alone. As usual, I was kinda mean in beating the crap out of them. I wiped out all of the units except Milleuda, and then I just messed around for a bit before finishing her off. With her defeat, the battle is over and proceeded by a scene. Milleuda isn't too happy with us and wishes we'd just finish her off. Ramza asks why she thinks they're so bad. Argath yells at us to kill her now! She fought as a Corpse and we should make her one now. He goes off to say she's a traitor and an enemy. The world has no place for such wretches and claim her life as forfeit. (Again, all the fancy talk.) He believes if we let her live now, she'll simply come back to kill us later. He's not necessarily WRONG about that thought, but he's being overly harsh.
     Finally, Delita chimes in and says that he just doesn't feel she is the enemy. He tells Argath that she's no more chattel than either of them. Of course, not killing her ends up pissing her off. She says something about a Pox on Beoulves and on his pity to her. She walks away at this, and Ramza wonders if they've done the right thing here. The scene wraps up, and then I'm shown what is currently going on at Eagrose. Apparently, the shit has gone down. There's a lot I could say here, but I'll try to wrap it up quickly. The Corpse Brigade struck out at the castle directly, and they kidnapped Tietra (Delita's sister). They managed to kill a few of the guards before running off with her though. Dycedarg was badly hurt during this as well. So...I'll assume that's my next destination.
     And so I head directly there most directly. Once there, I learn that Dycedarg will be fine, but he's glad to hear our part of the mission went well. He tells Ramza to rest because Zalbag will be leading an army to head off the remains of the Corpse Brigade. Ramza asks about Tietra, and Dycedarg says they're doing what they can to ensure her safety. He says it comes first here. The scene then moves to outside where Ramza is talking with Delita. Delita is determined to find his sister, but Ramza asks him to see reason. We don't even know WHERE to find her. Delita finally sees reason, but then Argath comes out to say his piece. He doesn't see a reason why Dycedarg would waste time to save a "common maid". Delita isn't too happy to hear that of course, and he ends up punching Argath. Argath tells Ramza that he's wasting his time with the "common man" and that he can't be like those of nobel-ness as they are. Ramza says he believes in Delita though, but Delita ends up leaving in anger. Ramza tells Argath to leave now and never return. Argath does go, but he says that Dycedarg told him the location of the enemies' base. It's Ziekden Fortress, and we don't stand a chance unless we take it from the rear.
     I figure to do a bit of training before heading on, but I'm quickly thrown into a scene as I leave Eagrose. It's a lovely animated cutscene! It's Ramza and Delita talking. Not important at all really, but they talk briefly. End scene. A few more battles, and then it's onward to the final part of this chapter. That's right! I've ended up extending this post to last until the end of the first chapter. I could have honestly been finished with the chapter by the time ten hours were up, but I just like battling and enhancing my team. I end up changing my team a little bit before I move on. Before it's all said and done, my team lineup now includes a Summoner and a Thief. I'm almost constantly changing the team setup. I was hoping to Master stuff before changing most of them, but Master status takes more time than I should put in for a "quick play then review" post. This post is probably going to end up being like double what I originally planned. Oh well!
     When it's finally time to go, I head North and up into Lenalian Plateau. The first of three last story battles for Chapter 1. We enter the plateau, and here comes Milleuda with a group of more soldiers. It seems they are trying to run, but we have blocked their path out. One of her fellow soldiers suggests that they lower their weapons and surrender. Milleuda tells her that she'd rather die with honor in battle than in a prison. As for the objective, I just have to slay Milleuda again. She comes with three Knights (including herself), two Black Mages, and a Time Mage. When Delita's turn comes up, he begs with Milleuda to release his sister. Milleuda and co don't realize that Delita and Tietra aren't nobles, and they both got caught up in all this. She goes off into a thing about nobles constantly taking from the lowborn and not giving them anything for it. She's...not a happy person, and the battle continues.

Scene in Mid-Battle (iPhone version I believe)

     I've extended this Chapter more than enough, so I rush in and just attack, attack, attack! It went well enough...until I lost a party member. I mentioned it earlier, but I'll restate it. When a party member falls in battle, you have three rounds to revive them. If you don't, they permanently die and turn into a crystal. The enemy units do this as well, but they can also turn into chests with items. It's possible to pick up crystals to heal yourself OR learn abilities that the fallen unit had. However, I wasn't up for losing one of my units at this point, so I went ahead and reset the game. I reloaded the file and tried the battle again. This time, I charged right in and killed Milleuda. I didn't necessarily have trouble the first time, but the group of Mages kept blasting people from afar and weakening them up for their Knights. It worked quite well for them. Either way, I charged through the second time and finished the battle quickly.
     During the battle, Ramza had asked Milleuda why they were doing this. He didn't seem to understand how they had been wronged, and Milleuda told him. It might not have necessarily been him, but the nobles in general are where her hatred stems from. They've mistreated the lowly people, and she won't stand for it. With the battle's end, she falls for the last time. Delita stands off to the side and wonders what he has become. (She saw and thought he was a noble or whatever.) This game has quite a bit of depth for the overall story, but I think I'm more in it for the gameplay honestly. I just love the fully customization. Enough of that though, I'll talk more about this when I quickly review it near the end. Time for the next battle at Fovoham Windflats!
     I head over and into the scene. Wiegraf is talking with his men and asks why they kidnapped the girl (Tietra). One of them responds and says that they had to take a hostage to escape. Wiegraf asks why they didn't release her once they got away then and if they're going crazy like Gustav. The man confirms they aren't crazy, but the girl is a Beoulve (or so they think). He say their numbers are dwindled, and they are surrounded on all sides by the Order. Nothing else could possibly buy their freedom like her hostage status could. Wiegraf sees that they mean to run then, but where would they go? He feels that if they run now, the nobles will win once again like they always have. He wants their children to have a better future than they have had in the past and shouldn't suffer because of them. He goes into a bit of metaphors after that, but the biggest thing is...the sacrificing. Then the Order shows up, and Wiegraf heads outside to hold us off. He tells them to leave the girl here and make for their fort at Ziekden. The men plan to go through with the plan, but they're probably not leaving Tietra behind.
     Come outside, and our group is facing Wiegraf. He's mad at us because...we killed Milleuda. Turns out, she is his sister. (I think it mentioned this several times before.) He plans to take revenge on those who killed her, and the battle begins. The goal here is just to take down Wiegraf. He comes with a Knight, two Monks, and a Chocobo. He's a specialty class called White Knight. The game lovingly has some specialty classes that only specific named NPCs have. It's kinda a bummer, but there are some cool special classes out there. Anyways, the battle moves right along and I manage to put the boot to Wiegraf. However, he feels that now is not the time or place for him to fall, so he ends up retreating. Before he does though, he gives Ramza something to think about...as well as most of the plot behind the story.
     During the battle, Wiegraf tells Ramza that there is a plot afoot behind all of this. That plot is being put on by two people labelled as the Black and White Lions. They're two potential figures to take over the crown when the King leaves the picture. It seems that Ramza's brothers may be involved in all of this, and he even claims that his brother Dycedarg was directly involved in the Marquis's kidnapping earlier on. Ramza doesn't believe it, but Wiegraf tells him to judge them for himself. Wiegraf believes that those in royalty need to be replaced and some such. There's a lot that was said here, but I did my best to wrap it up. Ramza and Delita enter the windmill here, but of course, Tietra isn't here. Ramza tells Delita we need to hurry to Ziekden Fortress to save her. Delita asks him why this is all happening to him. /end scene
     Time to head to the fortress and finish up this post! Let's go. I show up, and the worst has come to pass. One of the Corpse Brigade is holding Tietra hostage. Argath and Zalbaag are there as well. The man warns them that he'll kill her if they don't stop. Despite Tietra's position as hostage, Zalbaag tells Argath nothing has changed and has him fire. Argath fires an arrow off, and Tietra...is dead. He fires at the soldier as well, but the soldiers manages to crawl into the fort. Delita is distraught to see this, and Ramza can't believe what his brothers have done. Battle begin! Three Knights, Argath the Archer, and two Black Mages. When Ramza's turn comes, he asks Argath why he did it. Argath answers that it was simply his brother's orders.
     He asks Ramza if he would have had them offer up their honor in exchange for the life of a common wench. Ramza says that it's Delita's sister! Argath points out that Ramza needs to realize that they are different from the common people. The common people don't belong here and adds that if they weren't, Tietra wouldn't be dead now. There is a lot of back and forth between the group. Delita is pretty angry overall too, and he plans to fight Ramza once Argath is gone. Why? Basically, Delita seems to blame Ramza for all of this although it's not directly his fault. Argath claims that Ramza is a Beoulve like his family, and that being who they are, they've always been the shield for the highborn. He, Ramza, uses people and blah blah blah. There be a lot of stuff thrown around, and it's all morality and such at stake. It's an interesting story, but it's hard to want to type it all. You're better off experiencing it for yourself.
     Despite my enhanced levels and more powerful people, I get fairly shafted in this battle. I lose a person at one point and have to reset...AGAIN. I don't have any people with Items although I really should. A small complaint here would be that the Raise spell literally has a percentage to hit, so it's possible for it to miss when you revive people. I cast it three times on a character, and it kept freakin' missing. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have had to reset. On my second try, I finally managed to beat him. It was a fairly tough battle overall. The mages had fairly strong magic, and the Knights weren't any pushover. Argath wasn't too bad really, but I wanted to eliminate the rest of them before going for him. For my team, I used my Monk, a Knight, Ramza as a Knight, and a Black Mage. (First time I used a White Mage, but that proved pointless so I swapped out for more power.) With Argath's defeat, I'm treated to another lovely cutscene! (Seriously, these cutscenes are just...so amazingly animated. It's an off-style of animation and looks fantastic.)
     Delita went up to get Tietra on the fortress, but then the place starts to blow. The guy they shot from before went inside the fortress. He warned them it was full of powder, and it seems he made sure that he was going out with a bang. The place began to blow, and Ramza believes Delita to be dead...But as we know from the very beginning, he very much isn't. After that, I'm allowed to save my game and enter back into the current time.
     Ramza is with the group of Sellswords, but the Princess's royal guard (or whatever) is going to give chase to rescue her. The sellswords aren't interested since they weren't paid for that, but Ramza asks that he can go with them. He has to know if that was truly Delita...and thus begins Chapter 2: The Manipulative and The Subservient. Unfortunately, at the same time, I have to put an end to this post. I ended up extending it by like five hours, and I still have to throw up a quick Pros & Cons list before it's truly done. Don't get me wrong! I really enjoy the game, and I'd actually prefer to keep on playing on. I honestly probably will, but I won't be typing up about it. SO! QUICK REVIEW TIME!

     I already described how the game plays and such before, so this will mostly just be Opinionfest 2013. Final Fantasy Tactics - The War of the Lions is a very fun tactical RPG done in the Final Fantasy style. It was the first in the Ivalice Alliance series of games. (Released before they even created that label though.) It offers a vast and rich world of Final Fantasy-ness. There's more than enough to do, and you can easily waste a hundred hours in the game without trying. I could go on and on here, but I'll organize it into Pros & Cons for ease.

PROS

1. Fun and easy to learn tactical RPG.
2. Lots of customization as far as characters and jobs go.
3. Deep and complex story with interesting characters.
4. Challenging gameplay without being overly complex like certain other tactical RPGs. (Namely Disgaea is what I'm talking about here)
5. The remake has some very interesting-looking cutscenes.

CONS

1. Being a tactical RPG, it's really not for everybody.
2. The game can be very difficult and borderline impossible if you don't prepare. Sometimes it is difficult regardless of preparations.
3. Not a TRUE con, but the remake tends to have slowdowns that the original didn't have...But why?
4. The story can be off-putting for those used to the more traditional Final Fantasy storyline that occurs in most of the titles. 
5. Special Guest jobs should be made available to everybody. Even if I have to unlock them...COME ON!
6. Sometimes the in-game number dynamics (Not really the right term) seem to do weird things like some attacks doing half the damage they said. It's probably supposed to, but I still find it weird.

If I were to summon it all up, it's a great game, but it isn't for everybody. I'd still highly recommend it, and I'd say go for the PSone version over the PSP remake. I had an enjoyable break from the numbered series, but it's time for me to go back! Starting in May, I will begin the end of my long journey. Final Fantasy XIII, I am coming for you!


Ending Point - Beginning of Chapter 2 at Orbonne Monastery.
Current Party -

• Ramza - Level 14 / Knight (Level 7) with Mettle (Ramza's Squire command)
• Reynard - Level 14 / Thief (Level 3) with Fundaments (Squire)
• Cyriac - Level 14 / Summoner (Level 4) with Time Magicks 
• Baderon - Level 14 / Monk (Level 5) with Arts of War (Knight)
• Arlette - Level 14 / White Mage (Level 7) with Fundaments
• Fridgia - Level 15 / Black Mage (Level 6) with Items
• Glenda - Level 14 / Knight (Level 6) with Fundaments
• Ladd - Level 8 / Squire (Level 1) with Black Magick
• Alicia - Level 8 / Knight (Level 3) with Items
• Lavian - Level 8 / Knight (Level 3) with Items

Guest Members -

• Gaffgarion - Level 10 / Fell Knight Level 1 with Black Magicks
• Agrias - Level 10 / Holy Knight Level 1 with Black Magicks

Goals Accomplished - Played through the first Chapter of Final Fantasy Tactics - The War of the Lions.
Next Goals - Start Final Fantasy XIII. Try to not waste more time on the awesomeness of Tactics.

SIDE NOTE! I'd like to mention briefly that I borrowed any and all images of this post from Final Fantasy Wiki, and in turn, those were borrowed to display freely or whathaveyou from Final Fantasy Tactics OR the remake Final Fantasy Tactics - The War of the Lions. Either way, they aren't mine in any way beyond simply displaying them to show stuffs off.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

News Post!

It's been some time since I made a post, and I figured I should explain why.
Also I made like four posts in a row, so I felt I should try to liven the blog up since it's been like eight days.

First off, I've been slowly working on my ten hour post of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. I'd have it done faster, but I've been playing a couple other games at the same time. (FYI, It's Injustice: Gods Among Us and Fire Emblem Awakening.) I should have my ten hour play of Final Fantasy Tactics done this week, and then I'll be starting Final Fantasy XIII by the end of April/beginning of May.

Secondly, the "Call of the Night" is being slowly but surely worked on. I can really only write when inspiration hits me, and I'm sort of drawing a blank. I've also decided to increase the number of chapters from seven to eight. The reason? I was going to try and shoehorn too much into Chapter 2, so I'm planning to split up what was Chapter 2 into Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. I'll edit the page for Call of the Night to reflect this soon enough. Either way, I figure at least a week or more before I finish Chapter 2.

As far as the future goes, once I finish Final Fantasy XIII (guessing around 2-3 months for that), I'll briefly play XIII-2 and then follow up with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Then, when I finally have all of that done, I'll finally start on Dragon Quest. I plan to play the Game Boy/Game Boy Color remakes of the first three on an emulator (I own real copies.) so that I can take screenshots as I play through the game. I'm hoping it will add to the overall post experience. Who knows! It couldn't possibly make them worse...Right?

That....That's all I got really. Thanks for reading, and look forward to Final Fantasy Tactics post soon.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Final Fantasy XII - Final Thoughts

As usual, I'll be going over my stats and review of my latest Final Fantasy conquest in...

Final Fantasy XII - Final Thoughts

Unlike previous titles, this Final Fantasy has quite a few stats for it. I'll include everything I can think of and describe some of the ones that aren't self-explanatory.

Game Stats
Time Played - 82 Hours
Rank - Riskbreaker (Ranks were earned through by your overall points and number of Marks defeated.)
Overall Points - 365,023 (I'm not 100% sure, but I think you get points for all sorts of things during the game. The main thing that rewards points are enemy kills though.)
Party Levels

• Vaan - Level 46
• Balthier - Level 46
• Fran - Level 46
• Basch - Level 46
• Ashe - Level 46
• Penelo - Level 46

Marks Defeated - 22 of 45 (Includes Elite Marks)
Secret Espers Obtained - 1 of 8 (On top of the Espers gained through the story, there are eight other Espers you can get. Of those, I only ran into Adrammalech.)

That's it for the game stats, and so now we move on into the biggest and most important part of the review...the review! For this time around, I'll be focusing on the usual of Gameplay, Story, and Characters, but graphics will only get a mention. For now, look forward to a fun-filled review of adventure, laughter, and a very concerned Final Fantasy fan. To begin, I'll start with the gameplay.

Final Fantasy XII introduces a new style of gameplay to the Final Fantasy series. There are some recognized elements here and there, but they've abandoned the Active Time Battle system for a sort of live action system know as "Active Battle Dimensions", or ADB. Basically, instead of getting into random encounters and switch off to a personal battlefield, you encounter and fight all the enemies on the field as you explore. This changes things a bit, and it offers up quite a different type of Final Fantasy playing. As far as the ADB goes, I'm pretty split on it. It's a decent blend of both turn-based and live-action battles without really throwing out one or the other.

My journey through the game showed two things about combat...1. It's more about buffs and statuses than anything else. 2. If you don't refer to step one, then you'll have to spend a lot more time leveling. Thankfully, buffs can be set to Gambits so you might never have to waste your time with them! But once I got enough Gambits, the combat turned into "let the game play itself". I only interrupted here and there because my Gambit settings weren't perfect. Honestly, with the Gambit system, the game almost plays itself. There were times I just put the controller down and let it handle itself. Apart from Marks and Bosses, most of the enemies weren't too much of a bother.

I will admit that XII is definitely harder than pretty much all previous Final Fantasy titles. However, the difficulty tends to jip you more than challenge you. Is the big bad guy almost dead? Well now he casts Renew, and his health is completely refilled. WORST GAMEPLAY MECHANIC EVER. Seriously, it's a big pile of crap when you take forever to knock an enemy down in health only for it to return to full in 3 seconds. I could go on about this for a while, but I won't. Quickenings take up the spot for this title's super moves. They're pretty useful and can be combo'd for amazing amounts of damage. However, you burn up all your MP doing a high powered Quickening combo, and this just ends badly. At the same time, you are trading your MP for a big style attack, so that generally evens out.

Then there is the leveling and License Board. Thankfully, they put back the idea of character levels after X's sillyness of the Sphere Grid growth. The License Board has an essence of Sphere Grid in it, but it's done in a better way...to a point. License Points are gained and spent on your character to gain them new abilities, new spells, attribute bonuses, weapon proficiencies, and armor proficiencies. The system works well enough, and it allows for full customization of every character. Unfortunately, specialization seems almost completely pointless. If you do enough training, you gain enough LP to buy all the skills always. This gives your characters all the spells, all the proficiencies and so forth. Meaning...the License Board is basically pointless.

The worst part of all this, is all of that was only mild complaints. If I had one TRUE complaint for this game, it would be loot. Loot just angers me in so many ways. In previous titles, every battle would drop gil. However, for FFXII with its MMO style, you don't get gil from most enemies. Instead, they have a chance of dropping loot. On top of that chance, it's possible that the loot you get isn't worth the effort you put into getting it. The alternative to this is the "Poach" ability, but then you trade any XP or LP you'd have gotten for loot only. It's not a good trade. All the need for loot is reflected through constant rising cost of equipment. I was too often met with the choice of "continue with old crap" or "spend an hour or more getting loot for new stuff". I often chose the second option, and I'm pretty sure that's why I spent so much time delaying the game. If they had simply made loot just a LITTLE easier to get, I'd have been okay with it.

Now to summarize all of my rambling into a few sentences...The gameplay is new and fresh for Final Fantasy. It combines some of the best features of both ideas, but it tends to fall out with little problems. Gambits make the game play itself. Stupid, stupid game design with half the Marks having the spell "Renew" on hand. Customization is vast, but specialization is pointless since you can give everyone everything. Above all, loot should have either been worth more or dropped more often. I shouldn't have to spend like half of my in-game time just trying to scrap up enough money to buy the current item sets. Gameplay gets a pass, but at the same time, I'll never, ever play Final Fantasy XII ever again ever.

Before I move on, I'd like to give the graphics their mention. For a PS2 game, it looks fairly good. The cutscenes were generally really good. The character designs reminded me more of Final Fantasy 8 characters than anything. It wasn't really anything new, but it was the right look and feel for the game. That's all I've got to say. Let's jump into story and characters now!

The further along the path Final Fantasy titles get...The more likely that the story is a horrific mixture of the older games in the series. For Final Fantasy XII, it's not really free from this. The beginning is all "there is a nation invading other nations because it's all war-liking", and that story quickly shifts around as the nation does get taken over because of shady business. (FF4 sorta) Cloaked in all of that is royalty dying and a great man being framed. Fast forward a couple years, the people are under "Imperial" rule, and now I'm looking at a couple of war orphans. Somehow, these orphans become integral to the plot to overthrow this Empire. (Final Fantasy 2 some?) They join up with a ragtag pirate and his sexy bunny compadre. Then they meet the framed soldier and the 'dead' Princess who turns out isn't dead.

They're all determined to work together and defeat the Empire, but then there starts being stuff about all powerful crystals and how the Empire wants to use them for power and try to make their own (Kinda a mix of FF4 and FF6 really). This evolves into a big deal over crystals. You investigate that and don't really learn much, but the Empire has all sorts of back-stabbyness going down. Emperor is about to die, but then his son kills him. Then you move on to learn that the crystals are actually gifts from god-like beings who have been ruling over time since forever ago. (I feel like FF9 just got sprinkled in right there...You know! The last minute 'crystals are super important to the plot now' twist.) You destroy the super crystal and stop the god-like beings. But then the Emperor's evil son, who killed him, was able to create/find a massive airship that's the size of a city and power it up without anybody finding it. Your group goes in single-handedly and destroys the ship without actually doing anything directly to the ship really. /end story

Why did I spout all of that? Just seemed right if you asked me. That's a summary of the story. I didn't really love the story at any point, but when the game ended, I was satisfied with the ending of it all. It's not the most original or new story, but at the same time, who does make anything super original/new anymore? It's good for what it is, but it doesn't really blow previous stories out of the water. I also don't get why Final Fantasy games need to have a last minute and huge critical plot point. It's usually shovelled in at the very final point. My favorite Final Fantasy (FF9) does this probably the worst. I don't want a last minute shoehorn of massive plot details. Why? Because by the time I get them, who cares anymore? When it is THAT last minute, it's honestly not needed. So I find the story acceptable but not my favorite. I'm going to wrap it up soon, but before that, we need to investigate the characters.

Ah Final Fantasy XII! You've taken a more fantasy-esque style to your characters and setting. Everything has to have a long and fancy name to it. Remember the lovely Tchitia Uplands? Or maybe that Dalmasca Westersand with the word "West" cleverly worked into it. I make fun of the names, but they really aren't that bad...unless we start talking about the people. Seriously. I was always annoyed when characters like spouted out this ridiculous lengthy name. Just gimme a first and last name...but I digress.

Overall, the characters were interesting at times, but then not much happened to some. Vaan seemed like a bad Tidus clone. Penelo was really only there to have another young character with Vaan. Fran was the sexy-indian-bunny girl with her knowledge that was always there to answer random things or her "indian" ways where she was all spirit-y. Basch just never felt like anything special. He was Ashe's guard and didn't have much beyond that. Balthier and Ashe are the best two characters of your group. Balthier was quite charming (supposed to be of course), and his backstory was quite interesting and nicely interlaced with the rest of it. It's sad that Cid was a bad guy, but he actually made an interesting bad guy while remaining a science-y type as always. I didn't really enjoy Ashe at first, but she starts to grow on you as things go. She's not the strongest character there, but I feel she stands above the others in a lot of ways. Basically, the main cast is 2 for 6.

Apart from them, you go through a large number of VIP NPCs and random NPCs that only get one part but nothing more. It's fun when you get this random guy who seems important, but then he disappears completely forever. I liked a lot of the Judges with their different attitudes and such, but you don't get much of them apart from the boss fights and brief spots in scenes. You could have easily made a game about the Judges if you ask me. Also, the longest strung out thing in the game (IMO) was the "Who is this Basch doppelganger " They suggest it at a point here and there, but I didn't pick up on it. Then near the very end, Gabranth just yells out "THAT GUY IS MY BROTHER!" Maybe I was supposed to catch the hint mid-game, but I never did. Long story short, the most interesting NPCs the game has to offer don't get enough time on screen.

Now we discuss the villain/villains. Final Fantasy XII doesn't really have any one strong villain. You go all throughout and deal with multiple villains. It's mostly the faceless entity called the Empire. Apart from that, you get to face off with countless villains throughout. There's the Judges, Vayne Solidor, random monsters who get in your way, and the Occurian briefly somewhat. Vayne takes the reins as the main and top tier villain, but he really doesn't get much airtime overall. His villainy is pretty much summarized as "killed his father to become Emperor and then attempted to destroy stuff with giant air fortress". It's evil, but it's not really "Final Fantasy villain" evil. I preferred the Judges to Vayne in most cases, so I'll let the game have the pass for them.

Overall, the characters are very much pick and choose. As usual, you'll probably have your favorites here and there, but I feel like only a few truly shine through as interesting characters. I've said it all, and it's time for a final wrap up before I close this post.

The gameplay is an advancement for Final Fantasy, but there are flaws here and there. Customization is pointless if you can get everything, and you end up spending more time trying to earn money than anything else. The story isn't the most creative story in the series, but I felt a decent sense of satisfaction when it was all said and done. The characters are composed of a cast of mostly uninteresting people while two or three take the front lines. It might come down to personal opinions in the end, but I feel like the overall rating of the characters is "okay".

To be fully honest, I spent so much time on the game that most of me wanted to finish it just to finish it. I was bored so often that I had a hard time pushing through, and only a handful of moments sustained my interest into continuing my play. It was more challenging than previous titles, but I skipped probably more than half of the side stuff in favor of finishing it. That's not a good sign if you ask me. If you were to ask me if you should play it or not, I would probably answer "No, there are better Final Fantasy games out there. Only play it if you are truly, truly interested in playing it. Otherwise, it isn't worth the time, effort, or money."

And that's all for my review. Pardon the disorganized aspect of it, but I had to really focus on not making this a big "I hate this game"-fest. I feel like I was fair in my judgement, but it just doesn't have the same spark as previous titles. Anyways, my initial journey of all the numbered Final Fantasies is coming to an end soon! All I lack is Final Fantasy XIII, and the goal will be complete. However, before I move on to XIII, I'm going to do a ten hour review of Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (the PSP remake). It's a great game, and it'll give me a small breather before I jump on XIII.

As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you look forward to more coming soon!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Call of the Night - Extras

These are just a couple pictures of the world of Lendinbar.
The story starts in Mesnonia, the capital city of the country, Unitropia. However, the story takes place all throughout the continent of Sovereign.
Although it will mostly be at soon-to-be-thought-up landmarks.
I have a friend making a picture of what Noldor Spellfury looks like, but you don't have to accept that picture unless you want to.

EDIT - Just an FYI, these pictures are very outdated, so they aren't 100% accurate to the current world look.

Day 83

Game - Final Fantasy XII, Day 83
Hours Played/Hours Total - 21 hrs / 82 hrs
Starting Point - Balfonheim Port
Current Goal - Head through the Feywood and reach Giruvegan to get Cid and nethicite.

What Happened - Must...keep pushing through FFXII. I feel that I'm almost there, and I demand that I finish it soon! I CAN DO IT! That's enough of that for now. Despite the over dramitization of all that, I've been struggling pretty hard to keep focused on this Final Fantasy. I don't enjoy it as much as previous ones, and the biggest problem is I keep getting pulled away by new games. (If you're curious, it was Fire Emblem Awakening on the 3DS and BioShock Infinite.) I keep saying this, but I need to put this game into high gear and finish it up! WISH ME LUCK!
     Where we left off, a lot of stuff just happened, but that's mostly irrelevant. I'm needing to head back to the Golmore Jungle and proceed towards the Feywood. I'll cross that into Giruvegan to get Cid and something about nethicite there. I was helped by a Sky Pirate by the name of Reddas, and he helped us and gave us info for what needed to be done. From there, I'm torn between what I should do. In all honesty, I should spend some time getting my loot factor up so I can (YET AGAIN) upgrade everybody's equipment, but on the other hand, I'm really ready to finish this game up. I even looked up a story summary to kinda figure out where I am. I won't spoil it, but I'm still lacking probably anywhere from ten to twenty hours to finish it up. Maybe less if I really push it and hope for luckyness. ANYWAYS! Let's go go go!
     I've got a new area to explore, so let's start there. I'll probably work my way towards a few unfinished Marks before moving on of course. I head off into the wilderness of the CEROBI STEPPE! I spend about an hour or so in the Steppe earning some loot. The first area was probably the best for this since enemies seemed to keep respawning, and they were easy enough for me to beat. Seems I'm a bit behind in levels, so I'll get to make those up here soon enough. I did go far enough in to meet with one of the new Mark makers. She needed to beat some giant bird monster to get her stuff back, and she was joining us for the Mark. I ran up to it...and immediately regretted my decision. Most of my characters are still below 2000 HP, and it was able to do almost that per hit. I ran away from the beast and decided to attempt it later.
     I head back down the Steppe and back into Balfonheim. From here, it's time for a Mark montage! I say montage, but it's only a few Marks. I call it montage because I'll really only mention the Mark name and beating it or not. First and foremost on the list is one of the oldest Marks I have, the Ring Wyrm! I head back to the Dalmasca Westersand to fight and end this beast. It's a stupid long fight for such an old Mark. Quickenings didn't do much either, so I just had to physical it out. With its defeat, I point my Mark montage towards the Zertinian Caverns. I gotta beat up a snake here so that a guy can make booze out of it. With my new amount of levels, I can actually deal with the enemies here. Before, I met with these enemies, who are in the higher 30 levels, and I couldn't really do anything. Now I'm all powerful! (Sorta.) If you remember from waaay back there, I ran into a strange area with a scene and a boss. It's time to beat this monster jerk! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The first half of this battle was pretty crazy but felt quite beatable. The giant monstrosity here is known as Adrammalech, and he's able to summon up zombies to aid him. Even if you beat the zombies, they just come back, but they also have to be dealt with or things go bad. So I beat the zombies quickly and start working on him. He's a flying boss so my current team of Basch, Penelo, and Ashe can't hit him physically. I had to resort to magic for the first half of his bar. Once I got past that though, the game decided to say "screw you Daniel", and he made himself immune to magic. I ended up resorting to Quickenings to try and finish him off. That worked, but then he still had a small portion of health left. What's worse is that the game won't let you swap out team members while they are targets. Thus, I was stuck with the team currently out. I had to end up turning off their Gambits and letting them sit there and die so I can switch. Once they all died, I finally swapped in my other team of Vaan, Balthier, and Fran. With their ranged weapons, they should be able to hit. I was finally doing some damage, but it kept SLIGHTLY healing and kept itself from dying. I broke down and threw another Quickening Combo its way. Finally, the best was defeated! And as it turns out, the boss was actually an Esper! I acquired Adrammalech, the Wroth. Well that's done, but now I need to go back to hunting that snake Mark.
     I ran all over the place and couldn't find the thing. I did find a secret passageway that connected to a random area of the cave, but that didn't get me anything worth my time. Tired of the manual search, I hit up a guide to find the beast. As it turns out, you find the thing near the front, but it also doesn't jump out at you immediately. You have to go to a specific spot near the front (a southern tip of what looks like a c), and then you have to wait in that spot for like a minute or two. When I say wait, I mean remain motionless, turn off the Gambits, and walk away wait. When I came back, the snake was out and ready to fight! Overall, not a very hard battle, but the last half of it was made entirely of "I parry all of your attacks". I had to break down and throw a Quickening at the darn thing, and it only had 2000 HP left! With the snake gone, it's time to head for the next mark...in Salikawoods!
     Before that though, I head out for more training and looting. While doing this, I try to start implementing more status effects into my fighting. I realize it's a bit late since I'm nearing the end, but I'm realizing now that Final Fantasy XII is pretty status effect driven. They want you to use them like there is no tomorrow, but even with a renewed effort to try them out, I just can't justify wasting the time for them in most battles. Most small enemies are too easy to need status effects, or I end up killing them before I could even get them poisoned or whatever. On the other hand, I feel like a lot of bosses are immune to the more obvious status effects, so I don't feel like wasting the time or effort trying to apply them. Oh well! Time to move on to more Marks. I finish up the looting and training and finally head to Salikawoods.
     I teleport over and head for wherever the Braegh is. It's some sort of horse monster located in Salikawoods. To get to it though, I'll have to deal with an old enemy...KING BOMB! BOSS BATTLE TIME! Despite my trouble last time, the King Bomb can't do anything to beat me this time. I quickly beat his face all over the place. I'd like to say that it felt good beating the big jerk. With his defeat, I was able to cross into the rest of Salikawoods. In the back part, I only had to search briefly to locate the evil horse. It's an evil ELECTRIC horse! This Mark was pretty old too, and I was able to easily beat the thing with zero trouble. With the Braegh dead, I decide to explore some of the other areas opened up here. The first one I stumble across and discover is the Necrohol of Nabudis.
     Upon entering, I get a little scene of the group talking about the place. Basically, they just discuss that Nabudis was destroyed because of a mysterious event that we now know was the Midlight Shard. Much like the Dawn Shard when it destroyed the Leviathan, it exploded and destroyed everything in its path. It also released a bunch of Mist, and that means incredibly strong monsters here. I scoffed at the line, but I quickly found out they weren't lying. The first group of monsters I met almost killed me on the spot, and I had to run away. I immediately ran back to the Salikawoods. From here, I explored for a bit, killed some monsters, and happened upon ANOTHER new location...the Nabreus Deadlands. Unfortunately, that place isn't an option either. The enemies are several levels above me, and I don't stand any chance against them. They're like five or six levels above me...so time to leave! I find the Gateway Crystal in Salikawoods and teleport to the Sochen Cave Palace.
     It's more Mark time! Here in this cave, there's a big turtle with the label "dead" on it. That's because I'm about to kill it. I locate the turtle known as Darksteel and quickly defeat the beast. Pretty easy Mark overall, and it really only took time because of lots of health. From there, I immediately teleport out to the Giza Plains to deal with the Gil Snapper, another turtle monster. Unfortunately, it's another Mark that you can't just directly approach. I had to run all about the Giza Plains and try to knock down all the trees to make a path to the Gil Snapper. Then once I was able to get to the area, I had to keep going back and forth from that area because it only appears during heavy storming. When the beast finally appeared, I was ready for it! On top of that, I had help from a member of the Clan to help me. (Clan Centurio. That group I joined but which has no impact on anything really.) Even without his help, the Gil Snapper would have been easy. Mark Vanquished.
     Next on the list is the White Mousse in the Garamsythe Waterway of Rabanastre. The Garamsythe Waterway looks like a pretty confusing maze of paths, but I actually found my way around really easy. The White Mousse is just a fancy white Flan monster. Well, it wasn't too fancy when I beat it! Another Mark vanquished. I am just taking down these Marks left and right. Of course, most of the ones I'm dealing with are easy ones that I've put off to play more of the main story. Anyways, I thought about doing a few more Marks, but I'm ready to move on. My next goal is an area called the Feywood that's supposed to be near the Golmore Jungle. So...TO THE GOLMORE JUNGLE!
     I teleport to the Golmore Jungle and quickly run through there. Taking the only unknown path leads me straight to THE FEYWOOD! It's a spooky ghost forest all covered in Mist. The enemies aren't too tough, but they aren't pushovers either. I quickly run through the forest and find myself in...a random part of Henne Mines. Yeah, I seemed to have missed the real path through the forest and ended up here instead. I turned around and started looking around the Feywoods. It took me a while before I realized that I had walked right past it. Nearby the save point, there's a path that's not listed as an entrance/exit on the map, but it's actually the correct way to go. It's hidden...sorta. I went up to it and small scene! The group is being halted by the heavy Mist blocking their path, but then Ashe sees Mr. Rasler at the edge of it. Suddenly, the Mist dissipates  and the group is able to pass. We move right along into BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Oh no! It's a giant plant monster called Rafflesia. With some guide advice, I fully buffed my party before entering into the battle. I used Bubble (doubles your HP to double the max), Protect, Shell, Regen, and Haste. The first fun fact about this battle was the fun and strange field that constantly drains your MP. Even with these conditions, it was a pretty easy boss. Since my MP was going, I decided to throw out a Quickening and eliminate it all with one go. That only took about a quarter of its HP though, so I had to just physically attack it from there. Even after it called in Malboro helpers, I just kept my focus on the main target. Boss defeated! And now we can continue onward into the rest of the Feywoods.
     This new area of the Feywoods comes with new enemies. Unfortunately, one of those enemies was a rare enemy who was incredibly powerful. That one enemy alone almost killed off my entire party. I managed to beat it after some very hard battling. After that, I didn't encounter any more real trouble with the enemies here. The next few areas came along with a fancy puzzle to keep me from continuing. Basically, there are a number of shrines scattered throughout each area. You go to the first shrine, observe the emblem, and it gives a little saying. It says something about the true path being lit by an illusion. Basically, you look around the shrine with the camera and look through the doorways. One of them lights up with the illusion of a forest, and that leads you to the next shrine in line or the exit. If you don't do that, going to the exit of the area just magicks you back to the entrance. The first area of shrines lead me to a second area of shrines, but the second group of shrines lead me to a large gate. The gate wouldn't open if I touched it, but an inscription said something about opening only for the Gigas. I had to actually summon Belias the Gigas to open the gate for me. When I tried to open the door again, Belias took over and opened the gate with magic. With the gate opened, I could finally go to the next area.
     In the next area, I'm treated to a scene and the knowledge of finally being in The Ancient City of Giruvegan! Ashe says something about this being the city on the edge of time. Fran comments that the Mist is quite thick here, but she won't be going crazy like on the Leviathan because this Mist feels "cooled". She also says something about the sense of a shadow like the one from before. Balthier figures she means like Venar, and goes on to say that we should wait here since Cid isn't here yet. Penelo asks why we aren't going inside, and Balthier tells her that we don't want to go twisted like Cid does. Ashe is all of a sudden distracted again because Rasler is back. His ghostly form walks off, and she follows after him. The group is all "What?", and Vaan simply says that "She can see him. Let's follow her." Nobody questions this, so we head right on through.
     There's a Gate Crystal nearby, so I teleport back to town to buy supplies. I sell all of my recently acquired loot and end up with over 60,000 Gil! Woo! Then it's gone in no time. It wasn't even enough to fully upgrade everybody, but whatever, I'm moving right on with the game. I teleport back to Giruvegan and then continue through this ancient city. A nearby warp machine takes me across the way and to another platform for BOSS BATTLE TIME! A nearby statue changes into a large monster with a huge blade. The boss wouldn't have been very challenging if it wasn't for the flawed hit system. It was doing combos of like five to eight hits in a row. That fact alone allowed him to kill off a party member here and there. It delayed the battle by like five or ten minutes because he kept doing it, and I kept wasting time to revive people. Finally managed to beat it, but I wasn't very happy with the overall battle. Anyways, with its defeat, it changed back into a statue and opened up another warp point. I take that and am teleported to a massive underground dungeon with monsters all about.
     This place is pretty big, and I'm having to slowly climb down through hordes of fairly rough monsters. The only "puzzle" of this place is lowering the various barriers to get around the place. I also have to find random hidden paths to continue from one area to another. It looks like thin air, but if you walk on it, it lights up as a giant green glowing magical path. The first one was easy enough to find and took me down down down...into a scene! The characters are walking along this giant glowing path when they look to the center of this massive place and spot the insanely huge crystal. There's really not much said here, but Vaan seems overly excited for the unknown for sure. I continue along and come to a save point! Then I move right along.
     This next spot is a big area with a ton of staircases and small spots, but there aren't any enemies. I spent a lot of time walking around and trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go. I finally happen upon another invisible pathway, and it makes itself visible when I find it. I take the platform out into the giant chasm of an area and right into another BOSS BATTLE TIME! The group is standing in the middle of the unknown, and suddenly a dragon flies down to fight us. Oh no! I can't use techniques for this battle! Whatever shall I do? /end sarcasm Despite this horrific disablement, I'm able to push through this battle. It's just a generic boss battle with a dragon. The dragon was all like "RAWR!", but I just felt kinda meh about the entire thing. I make some heavy use of Bubble and Curaja, but the dragon doesn't really have anything special up its sleeves. With its defeat, the dragon ends up backing and falling off the magical platform. This leads to a big CONGRATULATIONS! Another warp point appears, and we jump on it and straight into the inside the massive crystal inside this dungeon.
     Dear lord, I'm now in a very unfun part of this dungeon. There's not really any kind of map, and looking at the menu map just shows a picture of a giant crystal. Basically, we're inside the giant crystal we spotted before. The first thing that hits me is...I get a little lost. I didn't really pay attention to which paths I took as I adventured through here. I seemed to go the right direction though because I'm soon hit with a scene. Ashe sees this giant glowing spot in the background and wonders if this is all nethicite. She goes on to say that there's enough here to...And is immediately cut off by Fran. Fran chimes in with "enough here to destroy ALL of Ivalice if you wanted". Ashe doesn't find this thought very comforting though, and we move along. Another warp point appears ahead, and it takes us straight into a random room. Oh noes! Another BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The first thing this battle says to me is....This monster is another Esper. The Esper battles kinda just have this certain look and feel that makes me feel like it is a new Esper. This strange Esper is some sort of combination between a woman and a horse, but it's not your typical person-horse combo like most centaurs. I'm not quite sure how to describe it...Anyways, even with some of the more powerful spells like Shock and Flare, the Esper didn't have anything to really give it an edge. With the battle's end, I'm congratulated and rewarded the Esper Shemhazai, the Whisperer. Past the boss area lies another warp point with a fun message. It says that it's the only way to go beyond this place, but I ignore that and touch it to move on. ANOTHER SCENE!
     Ashe is suddenly by herself, and a strange being starts talking with her. The being identifies itself as an Occuria and tells her that she has been chosen. Then it's all WOOOO! and suddenly, Ashe is surrounded by a whole group of the strange ghost figures. They look a lot like the ones from before and the one identified as Venat. They start talking with her about who they are and what is going on. There's a lot said here, so I'm going to try and shorten it a bit. They know that she desires power, and they plan to grant it to her. They tell her that the source of the nethicite is a large crystal known as the Sun-Cryst. King Raithwell was given the Sword of Kings and told about the Sun-Cryst as well. He used the Sword of Kings to cut off three shards of the crystal. The shards are the crystals he passed down through his legacies.
     Ashe doesn't know what to think about this, and suddenly they give her a "Treaty Blade" and grant her the right to cut the Sun-Cryst to claim her own shards. They ask her to wield the power of the shards to become a Dynast King and destory Venat. She responds by saying that Venat is an Occurian like them, but they respond quite swiftly that he is a HERETIC! They claim that the nethicite is theirs to give to whomever they choose and no others. Venat helped someone to produce nethicite, and they aren't happy with them at all. They're giving Ashe the Treaty Sword and the right to use the nethicite so that she'll go and destory the Empire. She doesn't know how to respond to this. She might have wanted revenge, but she didn't plan to destroy them utterly.
     The Occuria go on to say that man is short lived in this world and insults them in a couple different ways. The Occuria are everlasting and immortal, and they have chosen people throughout time to help mold the world. They've passed their judgement on countless peoples so that Ivalice could forever endure. They believe they are the stewards of history to keep it going on the course they deem right. Their chosen person is their hand in the real world to help guide it. The hand also chooses who is to live and destroy any others. They tell Ashe that she is their chosen. They order her to take her revenge against those who stole her kingdom and fulfill her role as a savior. The Occuria disappear at this point...and then the rest of the group walks in.
     They wonder what was up with the Occuria and what gives them the right to tell her what to do. Fran asks Ashe if she'll truly take her revenge like they asked. Ashe isn't sure how to respond, and Basch lets her know that they couldn't see the Occura, but they could hear them speak. He goes on to say that the Occuria may believe themselves to be gods, but everyone is their own person and free to choose their destiny. Basch might like like the Empire, but he's against her destroying it in revenge. They should pay for their actions, but utter destruction is too much. Suddenly, the group realizes Cid isn't here, and Balthier knows what happened.
     Cid baited them into coming to Giruvegan. He wanted Ashe to get the stone and meet with the Occuria. Penelo asks how this would help since them having the stone would be bad for the Empire. Balthier figures that Cid just wants to see what happens when nethicite collides. Regardless, Ashe tells the group that she will search out for this Sun-Cryst. The group turns to go, but Balthier has one last thing to add. He tells her that "Hhistory is built by our hands" and adds that it is a favorite line of Cid's. Balthier doesn't believe Cid would stand by and let the Occuria shape all of history. Scene jump!
     Now it's Larsa and Vayne in Archadia. Also Gabranth and Cid are there. Larsa is begging Vayne to give Dalmasca back to Ashe to avoid a war. Vayne thinks Ashe is determined for war though and desires it above all else. She won't rest until her revenge is taken. Larsa belives he is just misreading her because he feels Ashe would shun war before embracing it. Vayne then looks over to Gabranth and asks that he judge her in his place. He is to decide whether she wants war or peace, and if it comes to war, he asks that Gabranth takes care of her. Larsa doesn't seem very happy with this, but he believes that Gabranth will see what he sees in Ashe and won't kill her. Gabranth and Larsa then head off.
     Cid comes over from the corner and starts talking with Vayne. He comments on how Larsa is such a nice kid and can't believe how he is Vayne's brother. Vayne simply responds that he is how he should be. Cid suddenly talks with the invisible Venat who informs him that "they've taken the bait", and that Ashe has been given her Treaty Blade by the Occuria. Vayne comments that they've chosen their scribe to write history and believes that she'll be adding fresh nethicite to her power. Cid laughs at this and believes that the nethicite to be simply trinkets best left for study. Vayne adds that they've conquered TWO kingdoms so that he could study these "trinkets". Cid says he's grateful for the sacrifice because manufactured nethicite is just so amazing. Cid starts talking with Venat again, but there isn't much worth mentioning. They do suggest that they have an ace for taking back the "reins of history" from the Occuria. From here, there's a bit more said, but let's just move on.
     The group is about to head on, but they aren't quite sure where to look. The Occuria did give her a clue about where to find it. Something about a lost time on a distant shore. Vaan brings up that Reddas mentioned something about following another lead, and that they should go ask him about that. Balthier doesn't really want to be in Reddas's debt, but Vaan simply asks who Balthier can trust if not his own kind? I guess that's enough for everybody else though. Time to leave this awful place. Unfortunately, I missed the quick teleport out of here and instead took the long way out. It's not that tough of a dungeon, so it wasn't that bad really. It helped me get some extra loot out of the journey at least. There were a few annoying enemies, but nothing I couldn't handle. When I finally hit the Gate Crystal, I teleported back to Balfonheim and sold all my loot. I made 90,000 Gil! Unfortunately, it was pretty much all gone once I bought all the newest magic available.
     Before moving on, I figured to tackle another Mark or two. For this time, I decided to revisit the Cerobi Steppe and fight the giant bird monster known as Vyreen. Somebody's got to help that viera get her stuff back. I quickly made it up and to the bird monster for Mark battle time! The battle started off pretty well too. I was all buff-ed up and ready to beat the monster. I got pretty far into its health, and it was nearly dead when it did the most annoying thing ever. Rather than just heal itself normally, the giant jerk began to run around the area and just avoid me. I tried running after it, but the thing was able to run crazy fast. It was fast enough to run halfway across the map and heal up some before I caught up. Thanks to this little bit, it was able to avoid me for several minutes before finally coming back to fight. When it came back, it was suddenly like three or four times harder. All of this not because of its moves or abilities, but because the stupid thing could just run really fast. I managed to beat the thing after blasting it with a pile of Quickenings. Enough of this! I head into town, sell the loot, buy new armor and such, and then move on with the story.
     I head into Balfonheim and meet up with Reddas. As I walk into his house, it seems that something has most definitely gone down. He's ordering people all about to take care of something. He tells us that a problem came up. He sent off a bunch of boats to search a far off coast. When they approached the foreign coast, the Mist was incredibly thick and started to cause problems. He sent boats because he knew airships would have problems, but he didn't expect trouble for boats. After explaining all of that, he asks Ashe how Giruvegan went, but he can already tell from her face that it wasn't much of a success. Reddas also seemed to know that Cid was lying about going there. Ashe confirms this but thinks that we know what he truly intends. They go on to explain that the deifacted nethicite is simply shards taken from a much larger source known as the Sun-Cryst. The group believes that the Sword of Kings can be used to break the source, and this would stop the Midlight Shard from working at all! They're unsure about what would happen to manufactured nethicite though. As Ashe finishes up with that explanation, Balthier adds in that they could use the Treaty Blade to cut off a new shard of nethicite and use that to fight the Empire's nethicite. With that said, Balthier gives them his opinion on the nethicite. He says we should pick it up and throw it away for good.
     After all this talk-ary, Vaan comes in (thankfully) and gets the group back on topic. He says we have to find the Sun-Cryst regardless of what we do with it, so let's just forget about this for now and find the thing. Vaan then asks Reddas about the hint they were given of its location. "A tower on a distant shore across a distant sea." Lucky for us, Reddas immediately recognizes that description as the Naldoan Sea, the Ridorana Cataract, and the Pharos Lighthouse. That's where he sent his fleet to and where they ran into all the trouble. Basch is already convinced that this is the place from the saying. It seems to all match up, and the strong Mist is most likely from the Sun-Cryst.
     Balthier asks how they'll get there because the seas in that area are "Jagd". The game has never truly explained how their air travel works, but now that we're just a few hours from the game being over, I can make some assumptions from this conversation. Jagd is some sort of special type of stone/air/something or other that keeps airships from working properly. Lucky for us, Reddas has a solution for this. He gives Balthier a special skystone that he believes should resist the Jagd. (Again! It's suggested that the skystone is how airships work.) Balthier sees the stone and assumes it is another stolen good from Draklor Laboratories. Of course, the bigger question here is the one he asks...Why didn't Reddas use it in his ship? Reddas explains that the stone won't work with his airship, but he believes Balthier's Strahl will work with it. So! It looks like we are ready to go. As the group turns to head out, Reddas asks Ashe if he can accompany us. Ashe isn't opposed but asks why he's given us so much help. His only answer to this is the Nabudis Deadlands. They ask if that is his homeland, and he answers no but it's a memory burned forever in his heart. REDDAS JOINS THE PARTY AS A GUEST!
     We head out of Reddas's house/mansion/whatever, and I learn that I finally have control of Balthier's airship, the Strahl! The game's explanation was that it was being repaired all of this time. All the way back from when it was damaged that one time during the Leviathan business. The Strahl opens up the ability to move all around Ivalice without having to make copious use of Teleport Stones between the Gate Crystals. I can't go anywhere on the map, but I can head to most of the major locations. Before heading off to the Ridorana Cataract, I figure to attempt another Mark. I figure I can handle one of the harder Marks now, and I also have a guest member to help out. So, why not?
     The Mark I have in mind is another dragon known as the Lindwyrm. This one was another Mark on the list of "Marks with special conditions". Basically, you have to go to a specific area at a certain time when the conditions are juuuust right. You have to approach this random area of the Tchita Uplands when it's rainy but not HEAVY rain. Yeah, I'm just loving these. Anyways, I find the dragon and engage battle! It's your typical Mark battle where it was honestly more annoying to find it than to fight it. Really was just a long battle simply because the thign had a lot of health. I had basically no trouble fighting it, and with its defeat, that meant another Mark Vanquished. After this huge time waste, I decided I didn't want to waste anymore time and made my way to the final dungeon! (I know this because of the guide.) ONWARD! TO THE RIDORANA CATARACT AND THAT LIGHTHOUSE PLACE!
     After I take off to head for said place, I'm treated to a lovely cutscene of the Strahl flying over an ocean. Then there's a huuuuge tower on a random bit of land above said ocean. At the edge of the lighthouse is like...a waterfall but with the ocean? I'm confused sorta, but it looks all nice and pretty. So glossing past that, the tower is just freakin' massive, and of course, we have to park at the very bottom of the tower. I can already tell this isn't going to be a short trip up the tower. (Also the guide warned that this is easily a several hour dungeon WITH the guide help.) With the end of the cutscene, we shift into a regular scene of the group looking at the tower from the bottom. Almost can't see the top of it...Ashe is still contemplating what action she should take. She doesn't know whether to destroy the Sun-Cryst or use it to get her revenge. She says this outloud of course, and Reddas warns her that revenge will only end in her own woe. That part of the group heads on, but Balthier stops Vaan briefly to say something to him. He tells Vaan that if something goes bad for him (Balthier), he wants Vaan to take the Strahl for him. Vaan doesn't know how to take this, and Balthier simply adds that he's the leading man and might have to do something heroic before this is done. Enough talking, let's go get that Sun-Cryst!
     This area is littered with some pretty tough enemies. I'd also like to add that almost every area since like the Salikawoods has had SOME form of Malboro. I'm not saying they aren't good for a challenge, but it would be nice to see a little more variety. Either way, I don't get too far on this area around the Lighthouse before we come right up to the big building itself. There's the door...but oh no! It's a giant zombie dragon! BOSS BATTLE TIME! The first of the last round of bosses is a big ol' zombie dragon called Hydro. I don't know why you'd name a zombie-fied dragon Hydro, but I'm not a game designer. Either way, there wasn't much of a fight to be had here. I didn't have any real trouble with the guy until he was struggling with the throws of undeath death. Even then, the big guy went down with not much effort on my part. With his demise, we approach the big door to the big tower for a scene.
     As the group approaches this big door, Vaan notices some interesting writing at the side. The writing is quite old though, so only Fran can read it of course. As she reads it off, I'll summarize it in the worst way possible. "Dear person chose by Occuria with your fancy sword, This tower is very tall. There are monsters in here, so I'm just warning you that it is dangerous. Also there are tests in the tower to test your worthyness, and there 'watchers' or whatever. Yours truly, King Raithwell." Basically, the Dynast-King left a message for any others that the Occuria might send. It's a warning to those who would come after him. Fran feels the message is definitely for Ashe, and that there might be something she can understand of this message that the others can't. There was a part about "cutting the truth path", but I don't get it right now. I figure we'll get it eventually, but let's handle that problem when it comes. Ashe approaches the big ol' door, and it magically opens up just for her. Let's move on into the FIRST ASCENT! HORIZON OF FIRST LIGHT!
     This dungeon is so big that different parts of it are technically considered different dungeons stacked on top of one another. I see it that way because there are different Ascents coming up, and they each have their own map to find, different enemies, and all that. The areas of this dungeon are littered with pillars with glowing words upon them. It's all written in the sort of "old style speech you can't directly understand" dialect. It's all hints, clues, suggestions, and assorted messages about climbing this tower. Basically, I'm not going to get to just stroll to the top. I don't feel like deciphering all of these pillars, so I'll just hit up the guide. The first step is to go around, beat enemies, and collect Black Orbs when they drop them. The first floor is just a giant circle with enemies on the outside ring, so I run around the exterior and collect a pile of Black Orbs. After that, I hit the inner ring of the circle and place one of the orbs into a pedestal  With the pedestal activated, it does a little fancy scene and talks about the first seal being broken. Now I have to go around and activate the other two pedestals around this area. I didn't realize that they were all around, or I would have activated them as I was going...
     A short while later, I've activated the other two pedestals, and now the seal to some door is gone, so I may continue on! I find the door that's been "unsealed" and enter inside. This transport the group to a weird illusion world. I walk around a bit and eventually run into a giant rock...that transforms into a weird turtle rock monster! BOSS BATTLE TIME! It's the rock turtle Pandaemonium! It's all tough with its rock defense and such. This battle goes pretty well for a while, but then the boss pulls one of FFXII's fun "screw you" moves. When he hits about the halfway point on his HP, he puts up a barrier where he can't be hurt by magical or physical attacks. Thus, for the next several minutes, I have to sit there and just wait it out. I can't hurt it in any way, so I have to just sit there and take it from the turtle. I don't know whose idea this was, but it's getting thrown on the list of ideas known as "Bad game design". When the period of suck is done, I take a few more minutes to eliminate the turtle. With the turtle down, the illusion world fades, and we're back in the room from before.
     As the room comes into view, I get a message telling me that gateway is now open. There was a deactivated warp device at the front of the dungeon, so I figure it should work now. I head to it, hit the warp switch, and now...I'm on the tenth floor. Now I'm presented with just a bunch of stairs and pathways to climb up. What's the catch? I have to defeat specific green glowing monsters. With their defeat, pieces of magical bridges appear and eventually materialize into actual bridges. Most of these monsters are just along the path, but I do have to search out one here and there. As I'm moving upward, the game throws a wrench in the easyness of the path by adding red versions of the monsters. You have to avoid killing those, or the magical bridge resets. If that resets, you have to go and kill all the green ones again. This sounds pretty simple right? Just kill only the green ones, but the problem here is you have a guest member who runs soley on AI telling it to "Kill everything". That means the stupid idiot will go and attack ANYTHING that isn't friendly. I had to keep telling Reddas to retreat, or he'd kill off the red ones. Despite this minor setback, I'm able to climb up quite a bit with some speed. I make it all the way to floor fifty before I hit another save.
     Just a small ways beyond the save, there's some closed doors, and beyond one of those doors is another illusion world with...Yeah, it's more BOSS BATTLE TIME! This time, I'm in a marsh-y area, and a giant fish jumps out to fight. This could have been a very challenging and interesting battle, if I didn't know the secret. It's almost like a recipe! Take one giant monster fish named Slyt. Cover in Oil (the status effect), and fry him with Fire. Repeat lovingly until the fish dies in like two or three minutes at most. Each hit of Firaga was doing nearly 7000 damage, so I had no trouble with the guy. With his defeat, the illusion is gone, and we're free to continue our climb upwards through another warp device. We teleport up and into the SECOND ASCENT! REACH OF DIAMOND LAW!
     The puzzle for this area is less of a puzzle and more of a "choose your hinderance" game. There are four pillars around the area, and each one asks you to sacrifice something to continue. You can choose between losing your physical attacks, your magic, your items, or the mini-map in the top right corner. That's a pretty tough choice. I had to think about it before I could choose what to lose. In the end, I gave up the mini-map because it's the stupidest hinderance choice. Seriously, you can still pause the game with select and have access to a map. So it's less of a hinderance and more of a "slight delay". That's the gimmick for the first half of the second ascent. Seriously, why would you give up your magic or attacks? Is it to challenge yourself? Because it just seems like a bad decision. I make my way up a group of floors before finding myself in front of another door. Guess what? It's another illusion world with ANOTHER BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     For this round, I'm fighting a giant white tiger man with a big sword. His name is Fenrir, and he was a huge disappointment for a boss. It was more of a difficulty enemy than a boss honestly. He doesn't have a lot of health, and he only really does physical attacks. Sure, he comes with the stat boosts Haste and Bravery, but those can be dispelled quickly enough. Beyond that, he just combo'd his attacks at times. This gave him some umph behind his attacks, but it really wasn't anything to worry about beyond that. I beat him, the illusion goes away, and we're allowed to continue up this lighthouse.
     In the next area, it's a replica of the initial area. There are the four sacrifice pedestals from before, but now I have to hit the same one as before to gain back what I lost. Woo! Mini map retrieved. With everything back in place, I'm given an elevator that lets me move up a SINGLE FLOOR! YEAAAAAH! (Floor 66 to Floor 67) I save my game on this floor and hit up another warp point. Now I'm on THIRD ASCENT! METE OF DESTINY! This area comes with word puzzles about choosing the correct warp forward among a group of different colored warp stone sigils. Getting one wrong simply resets the area, but if I mess TWO up, I'll be punished for it. Of course, I have a guide behind me, so I'm not too worried about the punishment. No point extending this post, so I'll just list the colored sigil order. The order goes Black sigil, Green sigil, Red sigil, the color you sacrificed earlier (Pink for me), and Clear sigil. This takes you to an elevator, and that elevator takes me up to floor 90. Once there, we step off the elevator right into a BOSS BATTLE!
     It's a strange lion-man creature with weird arms. They look like airplane wings almost. Oh well! We're going to take this beast man DOWN. This battle had a couple of blargh moments that have to be solved with very precise strategies. You have to float everybody to avoid the boss's Quakeja spell that he eventually casts. That's not so bad really, and it didn't even do that much damage if I messed it up. However, the real problem was that he liked to inflict the Disease status. I didn't know what it did before, but I learned quite quickly. If a character with Disease is knocked out, they are revived with only ONE HP. You can't cure the status through death either, you have to cure it with the spell Cleanse or the item Vaccine. I had to deal with the status quite a bit and revive a few members several times. Beyond that, there's not much more to mention. With his defeat, I found out that airplane-arm lion man was another Esper. Thus I gained Hashmal, Bringer of Order.
     From here on, it's a pretty calm trip up the rest of the tower. There's a small scene with the group talking though. Fran comments on how the din of Mist grows thicker, and she believes we are finally nearing the Sun-Cryst. Penelo is curious if Ashe will truly take her revenge against the Empire. She knows how hard it is to lose someone precious, but Penelo knows there is nothing you can do to bring them back. (Because Pheonix Downs and Life spells don't work on non-party members.) Reddas replies to this by saying that the past can be as bad as iron shackles, and he wonders if Ashe will truly cut the path. After that, it's a save crystal, a warp device, and right into another scene. We're finally face-to-face with the Sun-Cryst! Ashe is still quite unsure of what she wishes to do, but she's contemplating it all out loud right now. She holds both swords in hand (Sword of Kings and Treaty Blade) and has to choose which to use. Suddenly, Rasler appears in front of the crystal, and now everybody can see him. As she looks at him, she feels like he is asking her to take the stone and get revenge, but she realizes now that she doesn't want revenge. Just as she's saying that, a surprise guest appears from nowhere.
     Oh noes! It's Judge Gabranth! He admits to pretending to be Basch and killing her father. He demands she stand up for her people and country and take revenge. There's a whole bit that goes down here, and it's pretty lengthy. It's mostly just angry-ness and revenge talk. Gabranth goes to strike at one of the party members, but Reddas cuts in and blocks him. Reddas talks about a Judge who was present at Nabudis. How this Judge took the Midlight Shard and used it, and that was how Nabudis was wiped out. The Judge was told by Cid to find out the true power of the shard, and if you guessed, then yes, that Judge, known as Judge Zecht, was Reddas! (Dun dun duuuuun!) Gabranth pushes Reddas off to the side and tells Ashe that she has sworn revenge and states that the dead deserve it. Blah blah blah, the past can't be changed and what have you. Ashe looks again at the image of Rasler and slashes through it. She realizes now that it can't possibly be him, and it turns out that the Occuria were leading her around all this time.
     The Occuria reminds her that she was chosen to fix history. Ashe gets angry at this statement and tells them that she isn't their false saint. She slashes through the Rasler image, and it is now gone. She says that Dalmasca has never relied on the power of the Dusk Shard. They resolved to never use it, and that's the Dalmasca she wishes to have back. To make use of the nethicite now would simply betray that. She's decided to destroy the Sun-Cryst and throw it away. Gabranth scoffs at how she claims no need for power. What of the broken kingdom's shame? He yells that the dead demand justice! Vaan yells at him how that is wrong. Nothing can be changed now. He can't help his dead brother because he's gone for good. Ashe stands to say that the past can't be changed with power, and what is done is done. Gabranth asks how she plans to defend the future of her Kingdom without power. Basch steps in and says he will give his all to defend his Queen and his Kingdom both. Gabranth laughs at the statement and asks what good Basch could possibly do. Basch couldn't defend Dalmasca or Landis (their long forgotten, dead, and previous home country). What good is his shattered hope and shield now? BOSS BATTLE TIME! WITH JUDGE GABRANTH!
     What it should really be called is "a big pile of easy nonsense with no difficulty whatsoever". It's four people facing off against one guy who's just throwing out mostly puny attacks. At the halfway point of his health, he yells out at Basch about stuff. Something about how slaying the Kingslayer won't bring back his honor, and he's stained with blood for abandoning his country. Oh who cares anymore! We wallop the guy after that and he goes down. As Gabranth is all "urgh" after his defeat, he adds in something about them leaving their debts unpaid. Then, someone comes in to end all of this judge-y, preachy nonsense. Guess who? It's Cid! He calls Gabranth a disappointment. Cid says that Gabranth shouldn't have simply raised his sword at the Princess. When he did this, he broke his word to Larsa and doesn't deserve to be a sword or shield for him. Cid dismisses Gabranth and moves right along. Gabranth isn't too happy to hear this and lunges forward to strike at Cid. Venat interrupts this little moment and flings Gabranth to the side though.
     Cid comes forward and congratulates Ashe on resisting the Occuria's offer and choosing to end their meddling instead. If they don't rely on the Sun-Cryst shards, that puts the reins of history back in man's hands. He asks that she hold off on destroying the crystal briefly though because he has one last use for it. With Venat's help, he brings forth a big pile of Mist from the thing. Mist starts shooting from the crystal, and Balthier yells at Cid because he realizes what it was all about. Cid has done all of this to try and become a god of some sort. However, we aren't going to just sit here and watch. BOSS BATTLE TIME! Unfortunately for Cid, he's pretty damn weak. We are just beating his face in with no trouble whatsoever. Halfway through, Cid doesn't like where it is going, so he calls in a helper. It seems he also has an Esper, and he summons forth a big metal-y guy he calls Famfrit. When he brings out Famfrit, Cid pulls up a magical and physical barrier to make himsel invulnerable. So...we can't get to him until we defeat this big guy. That's really not too much trouble though. The only thing Famfrit seems to have of any power is the Waterja spell, but that's about it. We quickly beat the big Esper down and re-focus on the half-dead Cid. Smack, smack, boom, ka-pow, and the Cid man is down for good! (Also we get his Esper, Famfrit the Darkening Cloud.)
     Scene time! Cid dies here and fades away into nothingness. Of course, what he did to the Sun-Cryst is still happening, and it is fuming up a storm of Mist. According to those there, it's going to blow soon, and we need to take it down now. Vaan and Ashe each grab one of the swords and attempt to run up to destroy the Sun-Cryst, but they can't reach it because of all the Mist pouring out of it. Reddas comes up and takes the Sword of Kings. He rushes the Sun-Cryst and slices it up...Of course, it blows up regardless, but not without a large cutscene showing off how people from all over can see/sense the explosion. Now it jumps back to the tower, but it's very much missing the top piece. The rest of the group is in the Strahl as it flies away, and Reddas...is dead. I'm given the option to save my game now, and next thing I know, we're back in Balfonheim.
     As we get there, Al-Cid is waiting for us. As it turns out, that wasn't the end of all of this. He informs us that now is the time for essence because we have a war on our hands. He did what he could to delay said war, and everything was going very well. Unfortunately, some of the more devoted war generals went behind his back and straight to the Resistance. On top of that, Al-Cid has learned that several groups of the Resistance went rogue and charged straight at the Empire. He believes they were most like Rozarrian troops placed into the Resistance under the guise of mercenaries. This little act of course brought out a response from the Empire, and now the Marquis has been forced to send his main fleet to counter that. As it turns out, the battleground of all of this is Dalmasca. Balthier figures that Rozarria will use this little battle as an excuse to send in more support with the excuse of defense. From there, war is basically the next step between the two empires.
     It is also believed that Vayne will strike out at both the Resistance and Rozarria when they are all out there. Basch doesn't understand why he'd do this since the Dusk Shard is powerless and no longer an advantage. Unfortunately, Al-Cid informs us that Vayne has many advantages on his side. It seems he is on the higher ground with a little something he woke up...Bahamut, Lord of the Sky. It was reported that a whole lot of Mist was reported near Ridorana when Bahamut awoken. Obviously, the group believes that these two events are linked. It's always possible that they aren't, but this is a game! Two random events are always linked. Balthier believes that this was most likely Cid's doing as well. It was his last big goal, and unfortunately, he accomplished it. The Bahamut is coming to Rabanastre, and it's time for us to take it down. We're all united in taking down a sky fortress although we really don't have a way to do that. Al-Cid heads out at this point to go and hold back the Rozarrian invasion for as long as possible. From here on, all I have left to do is fly to the Bahamut with the Strahl.
     Before I head for the final area, I had a couple of things to do first. I sold all of the loot I just acquired over the last several hours. I had over 100,000 gil! Of course, 70% of that money was gone after I purchased all of the new spells they had in Balfonheim. After that, I went to find out what new Marks came up. Turns out there were like seven new Marks, but that still wasn't really all of them. From what I looked up, there are 45 Marks in the entire game, and I've only tackled a little over 20 of those. Since I can't come back after the Bahamut, I figured maybe I should try to eliminate a few more of those. My patience in this game has really hit its edge, but the completionist part of me wants to complete more of the game. SO! I chose a Mark and went out into the world to deal with it.
     And quickly found out this was a huge mistake. The stupid part is that the Mark itself wasn't that hard, but the conditions around the Mark were ridiculous. The Mark was this large golem in the Nabudis Deadlands, but to get to it, you have to go through a battallion of constantly respawning skeletons. I managed to get the golem's health pretty far down, but then I was stuck on trying to keep everybody alive. On top of death, they were making everybody Blind, so I had to keep curing that as well. In this process, I ended up running out of Phoenix Downs and magic. I had to run away with only one party member left, and then when I tried to recover, I lost that person as well. Game Over. All this taught me was that I had to be stupid amounts of prepared to deal with a simple Mark. With that setback, I decided...Screw it! I'm moving on to the final area. After reloading my game, I went to the Aerodome and flew off towards the Bahamut.
     From here on, it's pretty much just story bits and a couple of boss fights. I'll go into some detail, but I'm not going to be obsessive because this post is long enough as is. As soon as I take off, I'm put to a large cutscene of Rabanastre being overtaken by what appears to be a massive storm with a tornado, but I'm guessing that inside of that storm is the Bahamut. Now it switches over to a scene. It's Vayne and Larsa aboard the massive sky fortress. I'd like to say that this thing doesn't even remotely compare to the other airships. It is like five or six times bigger than even the BIGGEST airship they've shown so far. Anyways, Vayne is on the bridge of the Bahamut, and he's hearing stuff from Venat. (Currently invisible to us.) Larsa is begging with him to let it end since the people have surrendered. Vayne is all "nope" though. The Bahamut opens fire with the main gun, and this destroys a huge mass of the Resistance airships with just the single shot. Back inside the ship, Vayne is explaining how he sees all of this. He believes there is no surrender now. The Resistance will send everything they have, and he will destroy them all.
     Larsa tells him that he is wrong to just slaughter them all, and the people will only hate him more for doing this. Vayne believes that if he pardons them instead, they will simply rise up again. Larsa still believes he is wrong, but Vayne suggests that he back up that statement with the strength to take him down. Then Vayne goes and gives a speech to his crew aboard. He talks about how they are going to start a new beginning and write a new history. They will stop this rebellion and do it for Archadia. Huzzah! And now, we jump into a big battle cutscene! There are airships all around, and they are beginning to launch out and about to attack the Bahamut. However, they don't stand a chance. On top of the Bahamut, the Empire has a fleet of ships as well. This cutscene is mostly just an awesome airship battle. For the moment, it was looking kinda hopeful for the Resistance, but then their main ship moves out of the way, and the Bahamut takes a shot at the Resistance. It just barely misses the Resistance's flag ship, the Garland, and heads past to blow up a whole group of their ships.
     The scene jumps on board the Garland who is preparing to deal with this. Suddenly, the Strahl appears, and Ashe messages them to say they're going in to stop Vayne. Ondore tells her that it isn't her responsibility to do this, but then we randomly hear Larsa contact them to say he's going with her to stop Vayne. Ondore wishes them luck, and we find out the group is a pile of liars. Vaan used some equipment on the Strahl to pretend to be Larsa, and they fly onwards to the Bahamut. There's an epic little cutscene of the Strahl flying all action-like towards the Bahamut. He dodges all sorts of stuff and lands on the Bahamut. The team disembarks, and we find ourselves on the SKY FORTRESS BAHAMUT! The group talks briefly to remind me that our goal is Vayne alone. We don't need or want to fight the whole Empire, so it's suggesting that I just make a mad dash to get him. So let's GO GO GO!
     I have to fight through some Imperial soldiers as I make my way through the Bahamut. As we reach the core of the ship, it's more cutscene time! There are Resistance fighters who manage to get to the Bahamut and fire upon the ship. You gotta give those guys something...They are pretty well prepared. The group renews their determination and moves right along. It seems that the Imperial soldiers are more or less endless, so I just make a run for the central elevator. Just as we make it to the elevator, I'm greeted by an old friend...Judge Gabranth is alive and here somehow. He claims that he still has a job to do, but Basch says he shouldn't just blame himself. Gabranth yells at Basch and tells his brother (Yeah, I didn't connect the dots until last time although the game suggested it a couple times.) that he failed Landis and Dalmasca. How does he hold onto his honor? Basch says that he has succeeded in defending someone important, and that is what matters to him. He asks Gabranth if he hasn't done the same and suggests that Gabranth has done the same for Lord Larsa. Gabranth doesn't seem to care right this moment. His title has been stripped, and the only feeling he harbors now is hatred for his brother. Gabranth asks how Basch goes on with all that has been forsaken, and Basch simply answers that he does what he must. BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Judge Gabranth is back for a second round, but he hasn't really changed any from before. True, he was a little bit harder, but there's still not much to worry about here. Minus a little setback, I managed to beat the guy and get another scene. Basch calls Gabranth by his true name, Noah. Gabranth feels that he doesn't deserve that name anymore, but Basch asks that he live on and earn that name back. The scene ends, and I take the elevator up. That's met with ANOTHER scene! As we reach the top, we find Vayne and Larsa waiting for us. He welcomes us to the Bahamut Sky Fortress and goes off into his dramatic speech. He asks if Ashe is here for vengeance or freedom or whatever. Ashe says she is for herself and just wants to be free. Vayne claims that she can't possibly rule without power, and that Dalmasca shall be coming to an end. He tells Larsa to remember her as a person who would rule but has no power. Larsa finally stands up and says NO! He may lack the power, but he will persist in trying to stop Vayne. We see Gabranth coming to his feet on the elevator, and the battle is now upon us! FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND ONE!
     For this battle, it's just simple Vayne using simple physical attacks. I use Blind on him, and there's not much more to deal with here. At half health, he gives us a little speech and renews himself...not health-wise. Blam blam blam! The fight is now over. It's followed by a scene of Vayne falling to the ground. Larsa rushes over to him, but then something grabs hold of Larsa. It looks like Venat may be involved and like drains the energy from Larsa and to Vayne. Ashe says it is the manufactured nethicite. Suddenly, Vayne is up again, hopped up on magical power, and hulks out. He's all massive and weird looking. Gabranth walks in and joins the fight this time for FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND TWO!
     Hulk Vayne is floating about the place and has a pile of swords floating with him. Each sword has an element and its own health. So before I go for him, I start taking out each sword one by one. This takes a little time because they're flying all over the place, but at the same time, each sword has a specific elemental weakness that I can make use of. Again this isn't too difficult a battle, but I am using all of my usual buffs to keep my characters ahead of the game. (Bubble, Shell, and Protect) I quickly eliminate all his floating sword helpers and then focus on him. Once his health is down halfway, he goes off into another speech. He talks about how he's the new Dynast-King and how mankind's history will now continue without the reins of the gods keeping them in line. The battle continues, but he's just not that hard of a boss. Without his swords helping him, it's just down to him floating about with a physical attack here and there. Sometimes he goes off into a super special scene move, but none of those were really that bad. I had to revive a teammate here and there, but I never really felt the possible pressure of losing. He puts up a magical barrier at one point, but I've mostly been using physical strikes so...no change. Also, on top of this, I have Gabranth helping us as a guest character. I finally deliver the final blow of the battle, and it jumps over to a scene.
     Gabranth charges in for a final blow, but that doesn't seem to cut it. Vayne lets loose an attack that cuts off a huge chunk of Gabranth's judge armor. He knocks Gabranth away and then sends in the giant magical swords to finish the job. Larsa steps in the way though and uses a piece of manufactured nethicite to stop the swords...because they were magically apparently. Vaan picks up one of Gabranth's swords and charges at Vayne. He knocks Vayne back and off the platform. He tries to go in for the final hit, but Venat blocks him from doing that. (This game sure loves the V names.) Venat disappears, and the group gives chase to a running away Vayne. As the group is heading on, Gabranth asks Basch if Larsa was a good master, and Basch tells him yes. Time to follow after Vayne!
     We're now following Vayne on this outside part with a scene. He's struggling to just keep moving and telling Venat that he's failed. Venat says that he hasn't failed at all, and everything has gone quite well. The Sun-Cryst is destroyed, and the "Age of Stones" is finally done. Venat says it will join with him for the final battle and claims that Cid would have been happy to know that history begins anew today. This kicks off into a cutscene where Venat fuses with Vayne, and Venat's power begins to rip the place up. Parts of the ship are pulled up and form with Vayne's body to make a new super metal body with a kind of clockwork look and wings! It's weird for sure but also pretty cool looking. FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND THREE! ULTIMATE FINAL BATTLE!
     This battle takes place on the exterior of the ship against a giant super-armored Vayne with wings and is simply referred to as THE UNDYING. I'm still buff-ed up from the last battle, so the first half goes pretty easy. The first thing I get to see is that this guy apparently gets super special versions of spells. Instead of just -aga spells, he gets PIERCING -aga spells for more damage and cheating. His attacks are fairly powerful here, but most of that is countered with the use of Protect and Shell. I try to keep those going as well as Bubble for doubling health, but he likes to cast Dispelaga and just eliminate those. Thus, I have to REALLY keep after my buffs and keep recasting them. It's a bit bothersome, but it keeps me from having to just constantly focus on healing if I'm buffed. At one point, he threw up a magical barrier to block magic damage, but that didn't really affect anything because I'm mostly using physical strikes. That eventually fades away, but then he throws up a physical barrier. This mostly sucked because I've been exhausting my MP supply on buff spells, so I'm having to replenish MP with items. (It is the end of the game after all.) I'm getting used to throwing what spells I can at him, and I'm mostly using Flare since elemental stuff doesn't seem to work very well on him.
     Things are going pretty well, but then the game decides it is time to throw this into "screw you!" time. He throws up a PERFECT barrier, and now nothing can damage him. Just like the stupid turtle from before, I just have to run around and keep myself alive until the barrier lowers. I struggle through part of this just to keep alive. (Again, I REALLY hate this idea in a game like this. I can take having to use a specific spell or item to help but giving them FULL invulnerability is retarded.) After no telling how long, the barrier finally goes down, and I let the big guy have it. It's all like slash slash, pow pow, blam blam, and FINALLY the Undying has finally died. A cutscene ensues as Vayne is all "GRAAAAAAH", and his clockwork armor just flies apart. The group is happy with their victory, and it's all like "yaaay". Then suddenly, they remember that this massive war is still happening around them. They run back inside the Bahamut and back to the Strahl.
     They're all getting back onboard the Strahl, but they're having a hard time getting it going. They also notice that the giant rings around the Bahamut have stopped. (They're the things keeping it flying apparently.) Balthier starts to head off the ship and tells Vaan to take off as soon as he gets the Strahl going. Balthier and Fran both head off the ship to deal with the Bahamut. Lots of stuff happening at this point. The group takes off with the Strahl, and Basch sends out a message to all the fleet. He tells everybody that he is Gabranth and that a ceasefire has just been signed with Lady Ashe. Larsa also comes on to tell everybody that his brother has fallen in battle, and this makes Larsa the one in command now. He gives the order to everybody to stop now. Then Ashe comes on to further say the same thing, but she also adds this nice heartfelt message about them all being free.
     Everybody does stop firing as all these messages go out, and it seems like it might all really be over. Then all of a sudden it is all "WHOOPS!" The Bahamut is starting to fall out of the sky, and it's going to crash into Rabanastre. Judge Zaargabath contacts the other ships and tells them to get out of the way. He's planning to use the Alexander (Imperial flagship) to ram the Bahamut out of the way. He says that if the Bahamut falls on Rabanastre, there won't be anything left of it. Again, that's not too hard to believe because it's a huge air fortress and probably bigger than the town. The Alexander starts to turn around, but then Balthier sends out a message to everybody. He's still on the Bahamut, and he's working to get it moving. He plans to keep the massive ship from crashing into Rabanastre. Heartfelt moment times! Despite all the ridiculousness and implausibility of it, Balthier gets the Bahamut moving enough to prevent it from crashing into Rabanastre. The Bahamut manages to keep going just enough to crash just outside of the city. We have succeeded!
     The game then continues into a "one year later" epilogue cutscene. Ashe is about to be coronated as the Queen. Basch went with Larsa under the guise of Judge Gabranth. Nobody knew that the real Gabranth died, and since the two looked alike, it pretty much works out. Penelo seems to have adopted a completely different look, but Vaan looks exactly the same. The Strahl was "stolen" back, but Penelo (who is doing the narrative for this) realizes that it isn't really stealing if it was yours in the first place. Balthier leaves them a small gift and Ashe's ring. He claims that he found a greater treasure and doesn't need it now. Vaan seems to have his own airship now, and Penelo and he are going to go exploring now. Everything is good. The game has finally come to its end, and then the ending credits roll. FIN.
     WOOOOOOOOO! It has taken forever, but I've FINALLY completed Final Fantasy XII. I started my journey through this game all the way back in January. That might not seem like that long ago, but I was aiming to beat each title in around a months time, but I ended up extending this one to nearly four months. The only person I can blame is myself, but I've had a lot of fun distractions throughout. Personal life stuff, more new video games coming out, random games I felt like playing instead of FFXII, but all in all, I'm glad I finally finished it. It wasn't my best experience in a FF titles, but it was still worth completing because I did it. I pushed myself and I did it. I'm glad it is finally over! With XII complete, I'm only lacking one more title in the Final Fantasy numbered series. Before I hit XIII though, I plan to do a ten hour play review of Final Fantasy Tactics (the PSP remake). This is so I have a small break before the next one, and because I love Tactics in general. It'll be a fun one! So stay tuned for it!
     As a final note, I'd like to thank anybody who has supported me as I played this. I could also phrase that as "thank you anybody who has heard me complain about it and complain about finishing it for the past couple months". Either way, it is done! I'm never going back. Look forward to a review of this game along with more side posts coming soon. Also the story thing I'm writing! Thanks for reading and STAY TUNED FOR MORE RECURRING FANTASY!

Ending Point - End of the game.
Current Party -

• Vaan - Level 46
• Balthier - Level 46
• Fran - Level 46

Goals Accomplished - Lot of training and looting. Beat a pile of Marks. Made it through the Feywoods and into Giruvegan. Made it to the core of Giruvegan and learned the truth about it all. Made it to the Ridorana Cataract and climbed the Phonsomething Lighthouse. Destroyed the Sun-Cryst and thwarted Cid...or so we thought. Stopped Vayne from destroying everything with the Bahamut. Beat the game.
Next Goals - Take a breather. Do a quick-play of Final Fantasy Tactics and review that. Start Final Fantasy XIII and complete this journey of mine.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~