I did that at first, but it wasn’t good enough. Now I’ve given Balthier and Vaan fire spells and giving it another go. The biggest problem is I don’t have a water spell to cast on the mimics, and the one guy in there doesn’t sell them. Should have bought one earlier in the game.
Ok, remind me how these things work. Can I buy an American copy of the game and play it on my UK Playstation and TV?
200 lightning bolts. 
I never did finish that quest or the last chocobo race.
No. Wrong region, and I’m pretty sure PAL and NTSC are as much functions of the program on the disk as the PS itself.
If I’m wrong on the second part, the first part’s still gonna screw you, though, unless your PS is modded, which if you have to ask that, presumably it’s not.
Yeah, I thought so, but it was worth checking. 
Heh, I sit corrected. It was still an unholy number of lightning bolts. twitch twitch twitch
I don’t get the Chocobo problem, I thought it was fairly easy and didn’t think it was that unfun to do. The lightning bolts, on the other hand, I never bothered trying. Same with the weapons you had to capture tons of enemies for (Auron’s, I think).
And I have to say I hate this liscense system. 6 hours in and I don’t have any of the accessories I can buy liscenses for, despite the fact that they seem very basic.
I’ve been watching my Japanese roommate play the JP version since it came out. I ordered the Collector’s Edition of the game, and the special Collector’s Edition of the game guide.
I haven’t been this happy with a Final Fantasy game since VI (3 US) on the SNES
There aren’t many accessories until a bit later, BabaBooey. You need to concentrate on the lower left part of the top license board, which has augmentation abilities. Don’t waste your LP on the accessories until you have them.
Augment abilities are things like +500 HP, MP recovery on damage dealt and taken, extra HP healing for potions, extra status ailment healing from Remedy items, shorter charge time for turns, and the like. VERY useful. Go get those, and come back to accessories.
I have a modded PS that plays Japanese games, but I still can’t play PAL games. They do play, but they won’t work on my television. If I had a TV that was compatible, it would work, though.
There’s another way to get the Zodiac spear. but it’s like a .1 percent chance of getting it from a random chest. Much harder.
You could always visit the GameFaqs site for free, and find out what ones not to get. They only had guides for the JP version, but the info is still the same, and the messageboards have had info about it for a while.
It’s crummy to not give you ANY hints ingame about it, but at least it isn’t something massively vital.
One issue with this game that kinda miffs me at times is that most treasure chests in the game are random. x percentage of the chest appearing. If it appears, you have x percentage chance of getting money, or an item. Usually the item is a 90 percent chance of crap. At least they respawn, but going back to the same area 800 times to try and get a good item from a specific chest is really tedious.
Those races made me swear off the Final Fantasy series. Two friends of mine were also playing through the game and when, after many hours of attempts, I finally succeeded at the chocobo race they pleaded with me to get them through it. After it was done all I could do is curl up into the fetal position, shake, and say “No more chocobos. No more chocobos.”
That music will haunt me for the rest of my life…
I didn’t even see those. Definitely need to spend some LP points on them (I’ve been saving almost all of them up since I didn’t have the accessories), since after going through the game thus far pretty easily, I’m getting my ass handed to me by the judges on the Leviathan.
Given how many people had similar trauma to mine related to FFX, now I have to ask: is there something as evil as those in FFXII? Because if it is, I can already feel my eye starting to twitch. 
Yeah, I realized that’s the way to go. I was all about unlocking accessories and techniques until I realized that 12 hours into the game and I still didn’t have anything that would actually let me USE those techniques and couldn’t find any accessories. When I got Penelo back, she had something like 500 LP stored up, so I just went down and to the left with those augments. Suddenly she was hitting for like 500!
Nope Empire an xbox 360 which is supposed to be new Romance of the 3 kingdoms .Totally screwed up shooter now.
The final fantasies have never been all that good about unifying game logic with world logic, but this one is worse than usual. I mean, when you go to the sword shop, you give the guy some money and get a sword. When you go to the magic shop, you give the guy some money and get, I don’t know, a tome that teaches everyone a spell. When you go to the gambit shop, you give the guy some money and get what exactly? The knowledge of how to target allies that are asleep? From a gameplay standpoint, having to collect gambits makes sense and works well, but the in-game logic leaves me scratching my head. The license board has this problem too, except worse because the gameplay isn’t that strong either.
I’m definitely enjoying it, though, except for the parts where Vaan and Fran talk.
What?
Game of the year for me, at least until Guitar Hero 2 comes out next week. I’m about 12 hours in and it keeps getting better and better. A few thoughts:
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GREAT story. Much better than Final Fantasy X/X-2 so far, and I liked X’s story a lot (though it got a little complex/bizarre at the end).
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Great storytelling - the cutscenes have all been excellent as well. Great direction, great voice acting, just greatness all around.
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I LOVE the new battle system. :swoon: It seems a little weird at first, but once you figure out how to use it to the fullest, you’ll wonder how you lived with anything else.
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No random battles. Gone is the traditional flip to the battle screen, instead all fights happen there as your party is walking around. You can also “flee” and avoid combat all together. Great when you finish a quest late and want to get to the save point and crash.
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The license board is very cool. I think eventually it’ll be kind of like FFX where everyone gets everything toward the end of the game anyway, but it’s fun specializing everyone for now. I’ve got two teams set up, each with a tank, a support person (damage and casting), and a range person (casting, range damage). Both teams are pretty powerful, so I think I’ve got a good mix going.
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I love the chain system for grinding. As you kill more and more of the same type of mob, your “chain” increases. Eventually it levels up, and your party gets a bonus for the trouble. When you get to the top level (which is like 50 kills I think - but I don’t remember for sure) you get better loot and healing bonuses once in a while as you’re killing. It really speeds up the process.
So overall it’s just greatness all around. If I have to complain about something I can tell you I’m not finding the music as memorable this time around. But it’s still competent so it doesn’t detract from the experience.
Koei made some fun adventure shooters. They were based on the Chinese or Japanese feudal days. They involved regulating a society ,building an army etc. They were strategy RPG combos. Build power slowly and run your civilization.
It seems you cannot rely on past games to even predict the genre. Shooters are easier and cheaper to program. Tyhey will sell you Final Fantasy and you will find it to be nothing like its’ previous games. I have done Final Fantasy for many years. I do not want them to squeeze a quick shooter in to rip off the fan base.