I’m not sure how big of a deal those amulets are now, around level 32 or so I can get to trial mode stage 18 in about… 10 minutes, tops. 5, maybe, and earn about 450LP doing it. 900 for those with the two amulets I have, sure, but I have two amulets to give around as needed without doing this particular quest.
Finally got my copy on the way.
Huh, turns out there’s a “new game -” mode that unlocks after you beat Trial Mode. Awesome, I had no idea! I can totally see playing through a hard mode. I love this friggin’ game.
That is pretty cool. I’ve always heard of New Game Plus, never New Game Minus.
What does it do? Is it just a fancy name for a hard mode? Does anything from your original game carry over?
No idea, just came across a reference in the strategy guide.
Two modes unlock.
Strong Mode - you keep your levels (but nothing else) and play again with a much easier (faster) early game experience (I think to pick up stuff you missed the first game).
Weak Mode - game plays like normal… with one exception. You can never level up past 1. :)
So did they fix the inverted controls?
Yes indeed
Hah, forgot about Grimoires. Passive drop rate improvement, yes please!
- Talk to dude in the bazaar after hunting Texthera or whatever, the super early wolf hunt
- Talk to a weapon merchant 30 times
- Talk to a magick merchant 25 times
- Talk to an armor merchant 15 times
- Check the notice board 20 times
- Check the notice board 40 times
- Talk to any merchant 100 times
- Some ridiculous shit (seriously)
And 20-25k gold apiece to buy them out of the bazaar once you’ve unlocked 'em. Totally worth it, though.
As a side note, the Prima digital guide is a pretty good product. I’m certainly getting my $5 worth out of it.
I’m making great progress through both the story and the side content, but it feels like I’m still missing huge swaths of stuff, which is exciting, too.
I made a little 30 second clip of me tackling one of the mid-game hunts, Antlion!
Well, shit.
After almost 70 hours and completing most of the side quests/hunts/espers and all that jazz, I finally wrapped it up. Better even than I remembered, and this new version is hands down the best way to play. The new Job system… big fan here. I loved it; worked just incredibly well and made the gameplay all the more interesting. Plus the story, and characters, which I loved so well 7 years ago when I last played were even better now than I remembered. Something about the way they speak, they way the story is presented, the dungeons, bosses, all that stuff was just so good.
I’ll definitely revisit this at some point, I’m already thinking of job combinations I want to try now that I know more about the job system (holy shit is it important to have both an archer and a Machinist on two different characters, they are the only ones that get Remedy 3, for example!)! Also, Knights are amazing, and so are Monks. I also wish I’d spread my magic users out more, having a White Mage Time Mage gave Ashe a ton of spell casting options, but left her too depleted to keep up with the buffs and healing/holy spells. If I’d made a Knight/Time Mage and maybe made her a Samurai/White Mage, she could have been good at melee and had plenty for healing, while the Knight/Time mage kept everyone hasted, for example.
Well, maybe a year or two from now I’ll dive in again, but for now, I’ll savor the experience for months to come.
On a related, final note, due to my desire to keep playing in Ivalice, I grabbed a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for the DS (I’ll play it on my 3DS). Should be here tomorrow! :)
Nice! I’m trucking along with my restarted playthrough and similarly loving it.
FFTA2 is excellent. Enjoy!
Thanks! I know I played it back in the day, but I couldn’t remember if I liked it or not. Watching some gameplay videos didn’t help, it’s like a black hole. But my cousin tells me I wouldn’t stop talking about it, so I must have played it. It’s somewhat familiar, I’m sure I’ll really dig getting back into it.
So that’s what I was going to reply yesterday when I saw your post. However, since then (this morning), I went onto Amazon and saw the strategy guide! Hey, cool, $9. I should get that and put it in my collection…wait, why does that look so familiar…?
Because I already freaking own it. I pulled it off my strategy guide shelf at lunch.
So not only did I play this game in 2008, but I got the guide for it and based on it’s wear and tear, used the hell out of it. There is still a Gamestop sticker on it, 7/2/2008 so I know I got it probably right after getting the game, maybe the same day. Wow. Getting old sucks, but on the other hand, it’s going to be like playing it for the first time!
The child is the father of the man.
Also, congratulations on finishing FFXII! I’ve been away a bit and put all gaming on the backburner; now excited to fire it up again!
I was a little off about this - you don’t keep your levels, you are just starting at level … 90. Ninety! So if there was some late game stuff you want to to experience but didn’t want to have to grind up to it, beat the game as fast as you can and start over at level 90 with everyone. You should be able to blow through the main story enough to unlock anything you wanted and from there dive very quickly into the post-game content, like the end-game hunts and such.
Thanks! Enjoy, it’s such a fantastic game. So satisfying.
Oh no! Isn’t Tactics A2 like the first, not really Ivalice but some dream world or something? Maybe i am remembering incorrectly, just know I absolutely hated the GBA Tactics game…nothing like the original. Gameplay was there but the story and setting was pathetically juvenile and not moving in the least.
Go play Vagrant Story, instead! Or the FF12 pseudo sequel, Revenant Wings or something.
Oh, this isn’t that. You are thinking of the GBA game, which was neat but nothing as cool as FFT or FFXII, for sure.
This full on takes place in Ivalice, but the story is centered around a young boy that gets pulled into the world of Ivalice (not an entire group of kids) and the story is mostly his trying to get home (think Neverending Story). However, the narrative takes a back seat (think Doom) as it’s really just about the tactical combat, accepting quests, getting better gear, and making progress through the story and the side content.
Though I have never played Vagrant Story, so maybe I’ll look into that as well. Nor Revenant Wings, but that never looked “fun” to me, maybe I should look closer…?
Yeah, FFTA2 is the Evil Dead 2 to FFTA’s Evil Dead. Kinda the same thing, but refined and just plain better in pretty much every way.
Evil Dead 2 is not a “refined” version of Evil Dead. It’s self-parody. And I mean, it’s fun and has proceeded to define a lot of Raimi’s future “horror” work, but I’ll always prefer the first one because it was actually scary.