This topic is for the discussion of my first test run of Final Fantasy 12 for a potential future LP.

At this time, I am just beginning my research and putting together my notes. I've already made a bare template for the order of events in my Task Log. Just from doing that, I'm amazed at how much I still remember from the game. I decided to start by adding all the Rare Games and Hunt Marks to the Task Log. As I add more events and actually play the game again, I'll refine the notes to better organize them for maximum efficiency. This is one game where I really think my enjoyment will greatly benefit from analyzing it to death.

While it is my intention for Final Fantasy 12 to be my next main LP after Final Fantasy 4, I am not officially announcing it yet. First, it's still several months away from now, if I were to LP it then, so I think an announcement is premature. There are also some questions to which I do not know the answer.

First, I do not know when Final Fantasy X HD will be released for the PS3. As of now, I'm going by the assumption that it will not be released by the time I'm done with FF4. That seems very likely, since that's about when the Vita will be released, and it certainly isn't being announced as a launch title. I would like a future Final Fantasy X LP to coincide with the release of FFX HD, so as to generate greater viewer interest.

The other consideration is which version Final Fantasy 12 I will use for the LP. As of now, I would obviously have to say that I would use the original English version. However, I am well aware of the International version of the game with all its changes that seem enticing to me. I'm almost certainly not interested in using an emulator for it, so that would require modding my PS2. I'll have to think about that, but certainly not until I'm at least done testing the English version.

I'll let you guys know when I start researching equipment, abilities, and setting up my party.

Thanks for the discussion.

I couldn't get into this game. This will be a very enjoyable LP for me, then. Looking forward to when the notes start rolling in.

Didn't you start the first test run earlier this year?

...Oh well, still looking forward to it, nonetheless....

No, he was completing the game for the first time.

Hitting the rare marks too? I know you like to show off everything, but gosh, you're really going whole hog on this one. Not that I'd expect anything different. The sheer amount of side stuff in FF12 should make this really interesting to see.

That was him playing it for fun.

Regarding the whole "modding the PS2" topic. SwapMagic really isn't a mod to the system. It's a loader disc that runs in the system without modding, as well as tools to access the disc drive without the system knowing. I think as far as SwapMagic goes that a fliptop is most convenient, but the point is you don't actually replace any of the hardware. Just the outer shell at most.

aaa.... you mean the forum that was up when he played 12 for the first time ? :huh: (well it technically was his second time but he didn't get far on his first one)

Technically, yes. Since about a year ago, I got sufficiently far ahead on my LPs to do "pre-test runs" in place of my usual first test run without notes. The idea was to create save states in advance for future research, so that I would have a few games to choose from, without having to commit to a single game that I didn't know much about.

One thing that I am keenly aware of is how much more I'm going to have to pay attention to detail for this LP. It would be very easy for me to relax and just say "screw it" to a lot of things in this game. I'll make sure to stay vigilant so that doesn't happen.

Will you be going to Nalbina when you get to the estersand to get a early Iron sword which you would probabl have enough money for if you get quite a bit of loot?

You can get Flame Staffs at that point with far less effort.

I think the most difficult thing for you in this LP is gonna be time management
there's so much optional crap to do that organizing it all will be a pain
the side quests will gain you levels and Gil, thus eliminating the need for grinding, but then again it'll thin out the plot progression immensely

I've been thinking about a little something that may make the LP more enjoyable for people who aren't really interested in the gameplay and just want to experience the story and story-relevant battles

make 2 different kinds of episodes for this LP. Story episodes, which contain going through the required areas of the game, and sidequest episodes, which contain all the optional stuff (hunts, optional areas, etc). you could easily keep those separate because both the plot and side quests can be done in bulk

so, you could create 2 separate playlists for the LP. one (Let's Play FF12) contains all the episodes, while the other (Let's Play FF12, storytime) only contains the "story episodes"

I utterly despise this game. Hopefully you guys can change my mind... We shall see.

I know I don't want to create a separate playlist for a single LP. I've done that in the past with poor results. Still, I see what you're saying. I'm just not sure how it would be best to organize it. I'm not really thinking about that at this point. The only time I see that being a major problem would be the end-game stuff, where I could just save it for bonus episodes.

Is there a way to make Sub-Playlists? If not, YouTube needs to get right on it.

I second that.

Pacing is certainly going to be a big issue with this LP. The pacing and implementation of the plot, along with the battle mechanics, play very much like western RPGs. Of course, the concept of the plot is pure jRPG, but it's not overplayed like FFX and FF13.

The issue with making separate playlists is making sure that players following along don't miss something. For example, in my FF7 LP, I got the Sprint Shoes in a bonus episode that I put in a separate playlists. To this day, I still get tons of questions as to how I got them.

You can get Rods too very easily, which aren't as strong as Flame Staves (by 3 points) but stronger than Iron Swords, which would also be useful depending on whether HCBailly abuses Dustia or not.

here's another idea:
use annotations

when you start doing a sidequest segment in an episode, have a annotation pop up that allows uninterested viewers to skip the sidequest portion of the episode

even if certain people skip parts of the episode, you still get the normal amount of views, plus the viewers are more happy and therefor more likely to stick around to the end of the LP even when they aren't interested in the optional stuff, which means more views

That's an idea that could work. I'll worry more about it later, but it's good to brainstorm ideas.

lol yeah like that's gonna happen. HC abusing an exploit that lets you reach lv.20 in the first hour of the game xD (or lv.50 if you spend some more time)

He did it in FF9. He just didn't save it. He can just show it off.

well there's a difference between showing it and abusing it :P

do you know about the Dustia exploit, HC?
I can't remember if it really came up back then

I consider myself a huge FF fan, having beaten every main series game except 3 and 12. However...


I have never played this game. I put it in my PS2 once, but never played it, so I really have no opinion. I imagine I could get used to it with some practice (like FF13) but nonetheless, I am looking forward to a possible LP from Mr. Bailly. He always makes me more inclined to try new games, and I'm sure this will be no exception.

I'm well aware of the Dustia exploit. I would say that it's highly unlikely, but not impossible, that I would use it. I may consider it, if I feel that the time spent on it will save me more time later on grinding or having to kill tons of enemies in every storyline area instead.

I finished adding all the Rare Games to the Task Log. So far, they seem very well spread out. At this point, I simply added their name and location, not their spawning conditions, which I'll do as I play the game. Of course, there's a lot that I don't know now.

- The order of the sub-areas where I find them
- If I am capable of killing them as early as they're available
- If I even have access to them (ie: Lenne Mines)
- How sidequests will interact with them

Obviously, I'll get far more specific once I actually play the game.

It's perhaps the strangest of all Final Fantasy games in that it's probably the game in the series with the least Fantasy in it. It does have a different feel in pretty much every exploit, from story, to graphics/environment, to characters, it's all vastly more different compared to other game in the series. This is a both a good and bad thing overall, of course.

Awesome, I love this game. It's not the most intense one but the world is well made and interesting. And since when you play you barely do anything, watching this LP will be like playing it with your commentary!

I never finished it but I played like 40 or so hours. Looking forward to this one.

there's one aspect of FF12 that I always found radically out of place: the Quickenings
not the way they are implemented or how they work (although that's less than perfect, too), but the way the look
the game never ever makes any attempt to portrait any of the characters as anything more than human and the magic effects are very subtle as well compared to other FF games, yet suddenly some random sewer rat with no training in combat or magic is able to conjure Tornados while another kid with even less experience can STOP TIME and SHATTER REALITY
the fuck?

that's another thing I like about FFX. consistency
the characters are human beings and none of their abilities contradict that. just compare Tidus' Blitz Ace to the giant over the top lightning orgasms that are Maelstrom's Bolt and Pyroclasm

That's true, the FF10 Overdrives really seems like just a super extention of that character's abilities (Tidus and Auron do fancy sword moves, Lulu casts a bunch of spells, etc) while the FF12 ones were really out of nowhere. (Although, as Lionheart was mentioned, I always personally though Blasting Zone was especially over the top when Squall fires his sword laser all the way into outer space.)

I do think the international version is pretty damn awesome. It lets all your characters be unique for a change. Despite what you typically want, in FFXII, your characters end up so similar, it's not t5hat fun, more importantly; it's not fun to watch. I rather have you bringing in and out all your characters because of their classes.

Aside from that, the game is huge! You can usually steal weapons and armours early, rare game, hunts. Side quests/espers.

As for quickenings... they take a long time if you do them right, and you do not need them for any fight in the game, I would suggest ignoring them, except maybe to show them off. (Though, a good quickening chain can take down the optional demon wall in the tomb.)

I always wondered this. I mean they bascailly have the power to level citys with those quickenings. I always pretend that they just summon some "Inner Chi bullcrap" to do all that or it had something to do with the Magicite/Nethicite or something(Which is unlikely since I'm pretty sure you can get Quickenings before you even heard about Nethicite/Magicite)

The part I bolded in your comment I disagree with, but I agree with everything before it. Uniqueness is not a bad thing, especially given the fact that I'm allowed to *choose* the makeup of my team (very important). However, I don't think the opposite is a bad thing either.

Not to mention, a majority of the Final Fantasies are that way. I don't know why FF12 seems to get the most grief over it. Final Fantasies where everyone can do (almost) everything. 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10*, 12, 13*

*In 10, its rather discouraged by the sphere grid layout but still possible, and in 13 it's built into the battle mechanics.

That's probably what I dislike about the series the most. I hate the fact that everyone can do everything, because at that point they have no uniqueness in battle and you basically pick people based on their limit breaks/overdrives/etc. It makes the game much more open to abuse and kind of boring.

In some games, like Final Fantasy 6 for example, I try to purposefully limit who learns magic to the people who seem like they would know it storyline wise (Strago and the three ladies). Or in Final Fantasy 7, I make up a class based on each character and then place certain restrictions on them so I feel I have a reason to swap them in for different reasons. Final Fantasy 5 I usually have Bartz do the strictly melee heavy classes, Faris do any kind of theifish type classes, Lenna do white/blue magic, and Gaulf/Krile become the black mage/summoner. Anything to not make it so I'm walking around with 7 or 8 clones. It's one reason 4 and 9 are up there as my favorites in the series.

There is the advantage of being able to create all kinds of new combinations to experiment with, but it's just so game breaking half the time and the games aren't really super difficult to begin with.

The problem that people don't seem to realize is everything is based on choice. You can choose to limit yourself like you said in FF6 or you can choose to spam and destroy the shit out of everything. The game can be interesting if you choose to do so and in my eyes in NEVER a fault in the game. If you want the game to be interesting, then why are you spamming 1 MP Ultima spells with some doublecasting? For example anyways.

It's the player's problem, not the game IMO.

See, that's just it. Final Fantasy games *are* easy to begin with. So why not give me as many options as I want to make myself obscenely powerful? And what says I have to give up freedom in order to have challenge? Ironically Square had this figured out in FF1. Yes your party is fixed, but its completely determined by the PLAYER, not the game. And the game had a reasonable amount of challenge to it.

EDIT: Also, agree 100% with what Taku said. Also I remember at one point I had set up a "class" system in final Fantasy 7, where each character was assigned a (thematic) set up Materia that they could use. Of course, this added no challenge to the game but it was still fun for a playthrough or two. I may do that again some day.

HCBailly could easily limit or design his characters in any way he wants. He could make someone just use lances with light armor (if he wanted), or limit certain spells/abilities. The problem though, is that by the end of the game, plain ol' Attack is just purely overpowered based on:
1) Auto-haste (either through gambit: haste or an accessory), gambit: bravery, makes end game characters do max damage subject to how fast their turns come
2) Magic and abilities are on a queue timer with other characters and enemies, something that attack is not subject to
So while he could make a black mage character, which would be nice for the early and middle portions of the game, that pure black mage character would be useless in the final stages of the game.

Also, who does he give face time to? Is it worth it to keep everyone around the same level? These are things he'll need to think about.

i would say it plays more like an mmo rather then a western rpg

Good luck HCBailly and everyone else that contributes. There is a lot to learn about this game and it's all a blast. You're probably well on your way, but I just wanted to drop in and mention a few things that I found extremely useful to my experience with the game in case you haven't stumbled across them yet.

The first being Ashe10's "Perfect Game" guide.
http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html...6507&rid=145011
This guide lays out every piece of interesting equipment you can get at its earliest possible point. Obviously for the LP, 95% of this will not be that useful since it's a completely different style of play, but it's still a great source of information, and in general, good knowledge to have. I imagine as you LP, you will get hundreds of comments about some equipment you could get at any given point if you chain and farm for hours. Already having knowledge of those drops/steals/etc may make those comments less annoying, and you could always mention some of them yourself during the LP. It's nice having it all in one place.

Another is JustStep25's 122333 FAQ. This game's low level challenge.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/459841-final-f...-xii/faqs/46465
Some of the strategies and tips in this guide are tremendously clever. It details tanking setups, weapon ideas, extremely clever boss/hunt outlines, you name it. Definitely worth a read if you want some suggestions for strategy that will knock the socks off any casual player of FF12.

Last thing I think I should mention is FFTogether. Easily the single best source of information about this game. ESPECIALLY for IZJS.
http://www.fftogether.com/forum/index.php?board=2.0
Wee187 does a lot of great work here, and I know I've seen him on these forums. If he's still around, I really recommend paying a little extra attention to anything he has to say. He knows this game VERY well. But anyway, FFTogether has a lot of neat stuff. Much of which I doubt you'll implement for an LP, but it's good to browse a few threads and skim the knowledge. If you ever do a test run of IZJS (and I hope that you do), you'll probably use this site more frequently.

Again, best of luck. This is fun stuff.

I think it's good the game gives you a option cause some people love being overpowered and it's still gives you the option to limit yourself so I see no problem.

I seem to always have quite unpopular opinions.

Also, unless I'm reading this wrong you're basically saying since the game is already easy, why not make it laughably easy? if this is the case, why are the developers going "Well, we might as well go all the way with making the game as faceroll as possible" over "Let's actually increase the difficulty" in the first place? It's fine to have the ability to become overpowered in games, but it should be something that's hard and requires a lot of effort to do. In my opinion that's not the case in most Final Fantasy games. As for the whole "Blame the person playing the game for taking advantage of game mechanics" I don't agree with that either. You can't make what is (in my opinion) bad game design and then excuse it by saying "Oh, just handicap yourself to make up for it."

This is what I hate about the direction Elder Scrolls is going. They've developed this whole idea of "Let's just literally throw stuff out of the game instead of improving it" and done things to progressively make the games easier and easier, and the response to this is "Just use mods that increase the game difficulty!" No, I shouldn't have to do that. There's a difference between playing, say, Final Fantasy 7 using no materia and starting equipment for an extreme challenge, and having to handicap yourself just to make them game even a tad challenging.

agreed
that's one of the reasons why I think FF8 was the biggest mind fart Square ever had
^well ... that and that... movie we don't talk about

FF12 isn't that bad in this regard. you CAN make everyone generic by having everyone go to town with close-range weapons, but unlike FF8, that's not the best strategy - especially if you play IZJS :P