FF12 first impressions

[Dopples]

Re: FF12 first impressions

What's the highest quickening chain anyone has gotten? For me, it was 18 (I almost pulled off about nine lvl 3 chains too), againest Judge Bergen. Lowest was 2

[Icemage]

Re: FF12 first impressions

What's the highest quickening chain anyone has gotten? For me, it was 18 (I almost pulled off about nine lvl 3 chains too), againest Judge Bergen. Lowest was 2

I got 21 chain once, and I've gotten a few 18+. Definitely helps a bit to have everyone at max MP with 3 bars, since you're guaranteed to have at least a few rounds at the start with little or no time loss.

Funny thing is, I got the 21 hit combo starting with just a single bar of MP on one character (don't remember which battle it was, but it was one of the optional espers).


Icemage

[Jei]

Re: FF12 first impressions

7-8 was the highest for me. I don't use it that often tho.

[Cometgreen]

Re: FF12 first impressions

Whew, just spent the afternoon smacking down Gilgamesh. The first fight was cake, at lvl 49/47, and I got both Genji pieces. The second fight, though, was crazy. I went in with 50 phoenix downs, and had used them all when he was at 1/3 health. I was just going to give up then, but luckily he started to cast his spells instead of straight out attacking (I can't imagine winning with even levels, considering how often he does disable). I somehow survived, and got the entire Genji set. Took about an hour for the second fight, but it was worth it. Definitely a high light of the game, and it was great to hear his theme song again.

I also got my highest Quickening chain, at 12. I think I have the hang of it now.

[Icemage]

Re: FF12 first impressions

There's a trick to getting high Quickening chains and strong Concurrences.

Stare at the lower right corner of the screen and ignore the visuals in the middle of the screen. The 3 lines representing your 3 party members will be one of the following:
- Level 1 Quickening O
- Level 2 Quickening O O
- Level 3 Quickening O O O
- Mist Charge

If you don't have enough Mist to activate the level of Quickening shown, then that line is grayed out, and that character cannot perform anything this round.

If you can, then any Mist marker bubbles will be lit up.

So how does this help you? Right as each animation starts, stare the the corner. Search immediately for WHITE text, then quickly count the number of bright orange Mist bubbles that are lit. The more bubbles, the higher the Quickening level that character can perform.

If you want long chains for maximum damage against a single target, this is the order of preference for which character to activate:
(1) White line, NO bubbles. This indicates a Mist Charge, which will reset that character to their current maximum Mist charges for this chain.
(2) White line, ONE bubble.
(3) White line, TWO bubbles.
(4) White line, THREE bubbles.
If no lines appear in white, immediately tap R2 to shuffle the results and try again. Repeat until you see something turn up in white.

This lets you conserve the most amount of Mist charge while performing the most combination hits.

IF you're going for the stronger Quickenings (because you need a strong area attack, or because you're trying to score that elusive Black Hole Concurrence which requires 4xLv1 + 4xLv2 + 4xLv3), then invert the order of preference - select Mist Charge, then 3, then 2, then 1, in that order.

In all cases, if you score a Mist Charge, keep tapping that same button again because no matter what comes up you should have enough Mist to activate it once you have all Quickenings for every character.

You have a total of 4.00 seconds to complete your Quickening chain. Each time the slot machine lines for each character appears, the timer starts ticking down, so it is imperative to waste as little time as possible once that timer starts ticking - you have a brief second before the timer starts while the text first gets onscreen - make your decision and start tapping the button of choice. Also note that shuffling the results with R2 takes about 1/5 of a second before the results stabilize so having good reflexes helps a lot.

The Quickening chain ends when your 4 seconds of elapsed time are up, and your Concurrence is calculated based off of the best combination of level 1/2/3 Quickenings that you did.

I can consistently get at least to chain 6 even with only a single bubble of Mist Charge at the start, and very often am able to get to chain 15 or better using this method.


Icemage

[silentsteel]

Re: FF12 first impressions

I rented the game last week, and I got to ablut lvl 13~ and not very far, when I decided to start over. I now have not even gone into the palace yet and I'm already lvl 19 with plans to get to 25-30 before I go on. Uber great guide on GameFaqs lol, look up Powerleveling if you want to follow it =p Takes like 8-10 hours though... But it works ^^b

Oh, & Question Dopples, what's your avie from?

[Dopples]

Re: FF12 first impressions

My avatar is Senel Coolidge from Tales of Legendia for the PS2. Fun game, go pick it up if you like Action RPGs

[Aeni]

Re: FF12 first impressions

Turn off your magic gambits while you're near arcana (bombs, elementals, etc.). Just as in FFXI, they won't aggro you as long as you don't use magic near them. If you have to heal someone, set a Potion gambit instead.


Icemage

This is what happens when you haven't played FFXI in 4 months

So yeah, I'm actually doing great in FFXII now. Thanks Icemage. I now pull mobs to a camp and watch my link/aggro and I'm careful with the magic casting.

... do undead aggro to blood loss in this game as well? >.>

[eticket109]

Re: FF12 first impressions

I got Black Hole for the first time last night. I did it on the Bergan fight when he was already at about 10%. >.> Yeah, it was probably overkill.

[Cometgreen]

Re: FF12 first impressions

Well I just played through to the ending. I didn't want to finish it just yet, as I still have the last two marks left (killed Behemoth King while I took my final exam - thank you, gambits), as well as a bunch of espers to fight, but I'm leaving my PS2 for a few weeks and wanted to see how it ends before I go.

Not really any spoilers, but just to be safe

Overall, although it's a fantastic game (especially in terms of content) and very fun to play, I really think the characterization was a disappointment. I think they spent too much time focusing on an interesting political story and didn't spend much time fleshing out the characters. Each character more or less has one aspect to them that gets revealed and explained really quickly. I like the message it conveyed, and how it stressed the importance of friendship and working together, but I feel like I barely know anything about Vaan, and I actually know Gabranth/Noah better than Basch. There are a few subtle touches to the relationships, but it's not enough. I know a lot of people probably don't care too much, but the stories and characters have always been my favorite aspect of Final Fantasy. And with such strong voice actors and dialogue, it was a disappointment to approach the end of the game and realize this installment did not live up to some of the others.

It was also one of the weakest endings of the series. Balthier's contribution was a nice touch, but why another pop song? I love you Uematsu, but why did that have to be your one contribution to this game? It didn't fit in at all with the rest of the game. It also would have been really nice to see what is up with all the side characters (Al-Cid promised us we'd see him again!). The sappy love stories of the last few games may have gotten annoying, but they still resulted in some of the best game endings around.

Lastly, for anyone else who sat through the credits... was that Cid holding a baby Balthier near the end of the slideshow? I'd love to have a print of that sketch.

And congrats eticket on getting Black Hole. Any time I get great luck with Mist Charges, I happen to be in a rush to finish up a fight.

[Skoal]

Re: FF12 first impressions

I stopped using Quickenings since they either waste all of my mp and do squat for damage, or they do so much damage the fight is over in a few seconds.

I did manage to get the Zodiac Spear the other day. Vaan was level 39 while everyone else was around 31-32. I just ran, turned off gambits, and switched party members when all were dead. I could find a nice little spot to raise and cure everyone on the way to the chest and back. Very fun. Only problem is the spear does way too much damage and looks silly. I guess I could stop using it, but I think back to all of the times I was worried is I opened the wrong chests or not.

[Caspian]

Re: FF12 first impressions

Curious if anyone has bought the Grimoires, which seem the most useful, and how effective they are (i.e. how long to make back our 20k+).

[Skoal]

Re: FF12 first impressions

I bought the one for slimes or whatever, and I have yet to get anything but pebbles.

[Jei]

Re: FF12 first impressions

I got all grimmoires. I didn't really monitor the change in drops tho.
Making money is easy once you read that wood with rabbit town. Just keep zoning in and out and chaining only Ceourl over and over and you'll get 99 pelts in less than 20 minutes which sell for a lot of gil.

[Icemage]

Re: FF12 first impressions

As I recall, you need all the Grimoires to access the last one, which forces all enemies to drop Arcana. Without that, you can't get some of the Bazaar items to ever appear due to insufficient Arcana drops to sell.

Once you get about halfway through the game, money is dead simple to make - enough to make 20K seem like a pittance.


Icemage