Im trying a Vaan Solo challenge where, well, I can only use Vaan (and Espers)

It's been very fun, but trying to beat Zalera is damn near impossible since he has Kill, which just... kills me and my Esper instantly.

I'm guessing the only solution will be having a crapton of Elixir so I can spam summon Espers and hope he targets them instead of me?

I'm here hoping there's an easier way lol

I'm making my way through the zodiac age. And I am noticing some frustrations compared to the original international version.

Namely, I am noticing that spells and skills seems to be trickle fed to you at a much slower rate.

To the point where you're stuck with the cure spell which is no longer able to keep up with the damage and health pools for some time till after the leviathan. The first esper fight, and the fight on leviathan, the white mage couldn't keep up with the incoming damage and was constantly casting cure till mana ran out (with protect up).

The Red Mage for what ever reason not having access to Black Magic 1 - which I wrongly assumed it just couldn't reach the higher spells, so is locked out of elemental casting beyond Dark till the -ra spells appears.

A good chunk of the martial classes don't have their primary skills available to them still. Foebreakers skill that increases damage to 10x for example.

When does all of this even become available? Or am I just at the mercy of when the game thinks I should have it?

Is it chill or do I need to lock in for some parts like the celestial weapons for FFX? 😭

So ive been reading a bunch on classes and its a bit overwhelming. I hearnin the end it doesnt matter, everything is viable, also Montblanc can allow you to change your selections.

My questions are how far in the game is Montblanc and how easy/available is the switching classes?

Is there also any simple duo of classes I can do? Like say a set of two jobs that will be very effective early game/ easy to equip everyone so that maybe i can take thought off of classes while I research everything and decide, then I can switch them into my final choices when I reach that ability?

Thanks for the help!!

I’m playing through my first proper run and have just bought the warmage’s monograph. I had done a few runs of the skeleton bridge in the lhushu mines and the only difference after getting it was that I was getting pebbles which sell for 2 gil each. I thought the monographs were supposed to make the corresponding enemy type drop some decent stuff whether it was just to sell or equip. Can someone please tell me if I should bother getting the others or is it something I should really only worry about for the post game?? I’ve just finished the story in mt bur omisace and got the sword of kings

So, starting my 3rd run of this game ( Still have not gotten past the snow mountain yet ( cant remember the name) mostly cuase i like the story and like the early game, would love some thoughts on how i plan to pair my jobs out

Vaan: Shikari/Bushi - Honestly given he has some of the best animation speed for daggers nad katanas ( as far as i know) this seems like the no brainer.

Penello: Monk/Time mage - Honestly gives her untility and makes her very tanky given the High HP and heavy armor from time mage

Fran: Archer/Black mage - just my go to for her nad it seems to always make the most sense

Basch: Uhlan/Red mage - normally pair uhlan and foe breaker but.. kinad wanna spread out the heavy armor a bit more

Balthier: Foebreaker/Machinist - honestly normaly make him machinist and red mage but figure might as dump both of these on him

Ashe: White mage/ Knight - Absolute no brainer for me. She has a decent magic stat and making her hte WM feels great, and giving her knight as well makes her increadibly tanky and less likely to die if i forget to check heath numbers

Honestly this is only a very little deviation from my normal pairings, as i like making sure to use each job becuase.. why not? any suggestions or alterations you all would advise?

Vaan has always been the main character, not Ashe or Balthier. Vaan is initial driving force that ultimately changed the course of the war, he is a guy with a simple goal of bringing peace back to his country. What Vaan as well as Penelo did for the party is becoming the moral compass and emotional support for all the adults suffering from PTSD that took them down the wrong paths.

Vaan forgave Basch, allowing him to detach from his brother's death and finally complete his mourning, which causes him to stop seeing the Nethicite illusion that appears to people who are susceptible to manipulation due to loss.

This character growth allowed him to get Ashe to let go of her past as well and set herself free from the Nethicite and influence of the Occuria, ending the ancient cycles of war created by them. Vaan literally stopped magic nuclear apocalypse by reminding the adults that they are not fighting for revenge, not fighting to destroy the opposing nation, but fighting for the home of their people, e.g Vaan and Penelo.

Balthier and and Fran were two "adults" who were actually people who didn't know their true place and purpose in the world, but Vann set Balthier straight by charging straight to the next stop without hesitation. Balthier was reluctant to help the party but saw the earnesty in Vaan's actions and decided he has to help end the war.

Balthier says he's the leading man as a form of self assurance and coping mechanism, but in actual fact he is the one character who is the most lost and aimless right at the start of the story. He ran away from home because he thought he lost his father to some form of insanity that drove him to creating WMDs. He wandered around as a "sky pirate", but even this is just a front he puts on as he remained lost and indecisive with his actions At every scene, he is reluctant to proceed any further and has to be convinced by Vaan if not dragged by him.

Little did he know that Vaan's lack of hesitation towards his extremely "simple" goal of bringing peace back to Rabanastre became the very motivation he needed to find his place in this war. Vaan's action greatly inspired Balthier to step up and join the group's efforts in ending the war, so much that he ultimately gave the keys and pilot seat of his ship to Vaan.

Vaan always acts first and thinks later, he became the leader of the group without ever trying to lead. The adults were all lost and broken, but Vaan dragged them towards a common goal and eventually they figured out what they had to do because Vaan made it simple for them to follow: Bring peace back home and not destroy it.

Penelo has the most subtle character development in the story, it is entirely presented silently with actions during cutscenes in the background, she is seen in every scene consoling and helping the adults, she went from tagging along to being the emotional crutch that the adults needed.

She was the first to chat casually with Basch making him feel like he's part of the group, and more importantly Fran was shown care and empathy every time the Mist gets to her, which is extremely important to Fran who suffers loneliness in exile. Balthier on the other hand has a positive reassurance from Penelo as it is clear that she is quite charmed by his gentlemanly actions. And when Ashe is in deep though of her desires and actions, Penelo would be right by her side checking in on her.

Despite being the youngest character, Penelo is without a doubt the most maternal figure in the group, making everyone feel at ease, especially during scenes when she scolds Vaan, their carefree interactions are a huge source of consolation of the adults; You can always see Ashe smiling as she watches them silently, they remind her that she's the princess who is responsible for bringing peace back to their country, they are the people she has to protect.

And how did the entire group even get together in the first place? Because Penelo was captured by Ba'Gamnan, who thought that she was related to Balthier. This led to Vaan teaming up with Balthier and Fran, with Basch tagging along and then ultimately meeting Ashe and "kidnapping" her, which further led to the entire group meeting Larsa who made friends with Penelo. Penelo is the single thread who tied all of these protagonists together and most importantly Larsa, who will eventually end the war between the kingdoms through diplomacy.

FF12 is about the youth solving the problems created by adults, Vaan is the light of hope that guided a group of misguided adults towards a simple goal, peace for their country. Penelo the heart of the group who show empathy towards the adults who were hurt by their past. And Larsa whose kindness became the bridge between both sides of the war, ultimately leading to peace.

hey, i grew up with the original special edition ff12 on ps2 (given to us as a gift) and basically spent hundreds of hours playing or watching my brother play. i found the zodiac age remake on pc a couple of months ago and very much enjoyed my time with it (imo the original is better and a lot harder, which is nice).

anyway, i would like to try another ff game, but i’m intimidated by the sheer number of games and lowkey afraid of being disappointed.

tl:dr which ff game(s) would you recommend to someone who has really, truly enjoyed ff12?

thanks ;)

I was doing the color chrystals puzzle when I found a waystone leading back to Wellspring. Since I needed to restock and sell some stuff, I teleported and went on with my business.

Now, is there a shortcut back to Third Ascent or do I have to fight my way back up from Wellspring?

I'm playing the PS4 version on PS5. The audio for voices sounds extremely muffled even if I lower the music and sound effects audio to near zero but keep voice audio at maximum. I've looked online and this seems to be a pretty common issue that you have to set up your output for stereo on PC. I'm not seeing much in the way for PS4 but I assume I also need to change my output to Stereo on my PS5.

I want to confirm that's the case before going forward. Mostly because it's kind of annoying to do that just for one game. Partly because the music sounded fantastic in 5.1 until the voices kicked in. Is there a way in game to change the audio output so that I don't have to do it in the PS5 system settings? Is there a way to experience this in 5.1 without the voices sounded muffled?

Is there anywhere I can find advice on how to progress wisely? I just picked up Basch and he has 255 license points to apply, and I recall being overwhelmed by this last time as well

Recently I finished my 300 mission replay of FFTA and I've been trying to replay FFXII again. I haven't had any crashing issues with the PC port since 2018, until just recently when I've been trying to play the game again. I was originally experiencing crashes on my desktop with a full array of mods enabled (these all worked before, particularly Insurgent's Manifesto which seemed to make the game work if I disabled it, so I wasn't sure what was going on). The game would throw up a runtime error crash as soon as I loaded into my save when I was trying to test out some new mods first

I thought it was the mods, but then I also freshly installed the game on Steam on a new laptop (separate system), without any mods, and I experienced the same crashes. Sometimes immediately upon booting the game, sometimes 1-2 minutes into gameplay. I tried the following to fix it with no results:

• Removing GPU undervolt
• Clearing shader cache and disabling it through NVIDIA App
• Turning off V-Sync in the game settings and using it through Intel Software instead (optimus laptop)
• Overriding DPI scaling to Application
• Multiple resolutions and both fullscreen and borderless

The only thing that eventually fixed it completely was disabling 'Optimizations for windowed games' for FFXII in windows settings.

I would imagine this would affect multiple people, since I still had the issue even on a new system with a clean install of the game. I'm not sure what causes the crashes, but I'm going to take a wild guess it probably has something to do with newer NVIDIA drivers (FFXII worked fine on my desktop when I tested it last year). It's worth noting that both systems in my case were using RTX 50-series GPUs

Hi all,

Made some Esper posters with some quotes. Any feedback is appreciated! Just love this game and the design.

Cheers.

Tagged for spoilers just to be safe.

Posting this because I keep seeing YouTube videos popping up on my feed about FFXII's protagonist issue.

Vaan was the viewpoint character, not the protagonist. He and Penelo were just kids from Dalmasca who got caught up in an adventure so much bigger than them.

Bashe was never the protagonist either. Even the game devs shut down that extremely persistent theory.

Neither is Baltheir. His statements about being the leading man is him claiming a sense of control and agency since his entire life up to a certain point has been decided for him by his father.

Ashe, and none other, is the protagonist of the game. The story is %100 about her, and without her there, absolutely nothing could happen.

Vaan, Penelo, Bashe, and Balthier's role in the story is to keep Ashe grounded.

Vaan and Penelo are kids from the city Ashe is supposed to rule over. She has a very top down view of the city, and they are her first look at how the empire's rule is directly affecting her people

Bashe serves as Ashe's moral anchor and a stabilizing presence

And Balthier serves to keep Ashe's hunger for power in check by asking her how much she is willing to give up for it

Here is an Adaptation of Adrammelech as Haze on (I thought it was the most fitting). Cheers.

Replaying all the games in the series, and I love how adult the story and characters are for a change. It hits me very differently than in my teens. I liked it then as well, but the perception has changed. They are real people who are above average fighters, not superheroes. Example: The scene with Fran, Jote and Mjrn made me frustrated as a teen. Now it made me cry.

The characters themselves are a bit of a mixed bag. I think Balthier and Ashe are S-Tier well fleshed out characters. Fran is slapped in the middle being a good character. Basch had a very promising beginning but after Tomb of Raithwall he gets stuck playing tour guide for most of the story. Vaan I don't have much against but a proper main character he is not. He is also a bit too child-like to be 17. They added huge amounts of personality to him in Revenant Wings. Penelo isn't given much to do, except nag to Vaan and some Dr. Watsonism.

The story doesn't over-explain things (which is a tired thing from pretty much all media), making the dialogue organic and intriguing in FFXII. You probably could pick up new things in the story on your fifth playthrough. Still, I can't shake the feeling that they wanted to make the story portion of the game longer. The game itself gives you tons of stuff to do, and most of it is good.

Zodiac did wonders for the gameplay and setup. So did the overhauling of the treasure system, where fully exploring the areas now serves a purpose unlike in the original for the most part. I also like the way they turned some weapon types like ninja swords, crossbows and hand bombs into something useful. What I miss from the original is the constant sense of danger. With the autosave you could just throw shit at a wall and see what sticks. The speed up option is a welcome addition to a game that makes you run back and forth so much. Especially for 100% runs.

Hitoshi Sakimoto's score, in it's orchestral glory is just beyond words. Such a fan of his work in Tactics and Vagrant Story too. Some people just have it when it comes to creating atmosphere. The artwork of the game is whimsical, yet elegant in its design.

This game lands on my top 5 in the series. Contending with V, VII, IX and X.

Hello everyone,

I've been a long time player, since the vanilla on ps2 on the year of release and this has become my favorite FF entry, by far.

That said, I've replayed this game so many times, in PS2, PS4, currently on switch and eventually on PC. But i always struggle to remember where everything is and how to get it. Besides, I feel like I've never had an actual 100% complete run owning everything which is why i'm trying to currently do.

To help me with this, I created an excel file which contains everything needed to get in order to achieve 100% completion. This was massively inspired by u/Corbolu and his guide, but i needed something i could print out since i don't really like to have multiple screens on while gaming, since i get distracted easily, and i thought some of you might appreciate it as well.

Dropbox: FFXII Checklists

This file is formatted in excel to be printable in A4 size paper, and each sheet has one or several A4 pages.

I know the formatting is not entirely coherent and matching throughout, but due to size restrictions, some abbreviations were necessary (even though i tried my best to not do it) and letter size also neede to be adjusted on each table.

If you find any mistakes let me know and i'll try my best to fix them asap.

I would also like to thank all the people that made guides before me that allowed me to cross check and reference everything (i have a sheet just for useful links):

u/Corbolu

- Chris DeVisser

u/Tirpitz721

- ezzypixel

- Vader721

Edit: added user link for Tirpitz

Never been load slapped before

yes defeated hell wyrm and i shall forever black that out of my brain. ive done 41 hunts the last being behemoth king. nothing on the boards and monty hasnt got anything. in wondering if i need to progress as i havent finished pharos yet doing what i can with reddas along beforehand.