Final Fantasy 12 IHOP - I Dick Around All Day Long

[xyzzysqrl]

LAST TIME: The game realized I was getting bored with politics and RAIDERS RIDING SHARKS appeared. Also, Balthier developed a machine to imitate other people's voices which will surely never be seen again. He did that just to screw with the party, really.


When we last left our party, they were tromping across abandoned oil platforms towards a treasure-tomb. This'll take a while, folks, but thanks to the MAGIC OF TEXT it will take way less time for you than for me. Along the way, delightful moments happen such as:

- Unleashing an entire limit-break bar worth of Quickenings for the ENTIRE PARTY into a wyvern, only to have it fall over and die at once. Oops, I thought that was the boss I was supposed to find. My bad. For future reference I should check the "Nam-Yensa" sandsea for that.
- Finding a "Musk Stick". ... oh yeah, that's what I want. A smelly stick. Selling that.
- Stabbing an entire tribal population of sharkriders. Stabbystab. I'm sorry, we can't control Ashe when she's in the depths of a murderous frenzy.
- Stabbing so many things VOSSLER levels up. What the hell? Vossler, you are not a real party member. How did you do that?
- Speaking of stabbing, Ashe graduates from "Assassin Dagger" to "Gladius", which is almost twice as strong as anything else the party has. She is currently shoulder-to-shoulder with Balthier, wrestling for Leading Man Status.

After a couple hours of this, we make our way to the Nam-Yensa Sandsea. Nam. I never thought I'd be back in-- Wait I've never been here.

Just inside the area, a moogle tells me all about the doomy doom that is befalling the place, kupo. It's so bad even the local tribes have asked for help and they never do that. Apparently some big monster is out there! Oh no! I'll make room on my calendar, but I do have ALL THIS STABBING to do. We'll see if I can fit it in.

As it happens, the big monster is like -right there-, so I do in fact stab it. It was a giant turtle, because... why am I fighting SO MANY TURTLES? They are not inherently evil. They're TURTLES.

These are the mysteries of life.

Because the little tribal dude asked for help outside the tribe, though, he is going to be executed. Curiously, none of the actual PARTY step in to speak for him, but a passing moogle does, kupo, and he makes a decent argument. ...And then the guy is executed anyway and they all leave. What the -hell-, man. The "treasure" I was promised turns out to be a handful of berries, which is totally a thing in the desert. Just... damn. Jerks.

I was almost starting to feel bad about genociding them too. *awkward* Now I dunno what to feel.

grinding grinding grinding
aaaaaall winter long
grinding grinding grinding
it keeps the party strong
aaaaaall winter long
(To the tune of: This.)

I manage to make something called a "Megabomb" spawn by accident, and beat it! That seems worth making note of. (There is not much to talk about when wandering from place to place.)

That "Wyvern Lord" also spawns! Penelo puts it straight to sleep mid-attack animation, and the rest of the party dumps all the damage ever into it while it's snoozing. Fight won without even going into panic mode.

Guys, this might become just a straight plot blog if the combat keeps being this much of a push-over. "AND THEN I WON AND WON AGAIN" is boring.

Anyway, the save point right next to the exit to the tomb is a teleporter, so I pop back to town and turn in the contract on that Wyvern Lord. This opens up three MORE contracts:

1. The Marilith, a rare serpent. The bartender at a pub wants to squeeze wine out of it. Apparently this is a thriving industry. Man, I don't want to eat or drink anything in Ivalice. That just seems WEIRD. Why would you drink snake squeezings? Anyway, that's down in the Zertinan Caverns, which... maybe I can get through, if Penelo spams magic for me. Hmmm. Let's come back to this one.
2. A dude called "Balzac" wants to tell me about his "Ring Wyrm". This just sounds like a practical joke. I'll check it out later.
3. A moogle fellow dropped his white creamy dessert down the sewer, kupo! It turned into the horrible "White Mousse" monster, a deadly murderous OH COME ON SERIOUSLY?

So. For the first time, I open this up to a vote! Totally not to cover that I spent ALL DAY grinding! Not at all!

Do I:
Do one of the hunts? Which one? All of them?
Or progress the plot and come back to these later?


THE CHOICES ARE YOURS, AND YOURS ALONE.

Comments

[bossgoji.livejournal.com]

Do the White Mousse. Prepare to be surprised.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Mouuuuusse.

[read-alicia.livejournal.com]

Lecherous mousse is lecherous.

[kiruppert.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, any time you can kill a famous historical french novelist you should do so. It's like meeting Buddha on the road.

On the other hand. Giant mutant dessert monster! It sounds horrifying and delicious.

[relee.livejournal.com]

You're steadily getting close to the point of absolute choice where I flailed and stopped playing FF12. Have you beaten it before? I wouldn't have thought there was a game you'd rock and I'd flail. XD

[xyzzysqrl]

I have always stopped LONG before this point.

And thanks for the low estimation there.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Well way to go!

Sorry if I was rude. I was iffy about saying that and I guess I made the wrong judgement call.

[read-alicia.livejournal.com]

My issue was that the hunts absolutely kill the story pacing. They require so much time, gambit adjustment, and preparation, that when you do decide to get on track with the main storyline, you've forgotten why you're going anywhere and what you're doing, outside of the usual "we must continue down the narrow narrative path corridor" motivation (which consequently became the main plot motivation for FF13... so it seems that the game designers came away with the wrong lessons from this game as well).

Also, Gideon Emery (Balthier) is my favorite voice actor ever next to Jennifer Hale, and I would listen to him read his grocery list. Just like i would with Christopher Eccleston. (And you know Bioware hired Gideon for Dragon Age 2 based on his FF12 performance - and don't me started on how Bethesda wasted him as background soldiers in Skyrim.)

[xyzzysqrl]

That sort of thing always tends to happen in RPGs. Either they're tuned so you need to do all the optional content to stand a chance, or they're tuned so when you do the optional content you shoot miles ahead of the plot.

I've learned to live with it.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Some of the hunt monsters are ridiculously high level compared to where you are in the game, too, but they give you access to a series of areas with monsters each more powerful than the last where you can powerlevel like fourty levels past the point you're at in the story. That's where I fell off the rails.

All of the real FF guys left Square and now they're making other games with names that are synnonmymous with Final Fantasy. Or so I understand.

[read-alicia.livejournal.com]

My third time through FF12, I used the Dustia trick to power-level my party to 30. The advantage of this was that I could do pretty much anything I wanted for the rest of the story, whenever I wanted, without having to worry about doing any more grinding. I enjoyed that freedom and flexibility, playing it more like an adventure game than a MMO.

[rowyn]

... so you're not just making that up about the mousse.

[xyzzysqrl]

I have learned when talking about video games that making stuff up is often dull next to NOT making stuff up.