ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
ffxii | archades
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
I finally got to Archades
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
I was having fun talking to all the denizens and only lated discovered it was actually supposed to be a minigame
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
now I have 5 chops
go rimbaud
the chops minigame was one of my favorite parts of this game
go rimbaud
like, that is my exact shit
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
yeah, it's a really neat way to gamify the political intrigue feel.
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
otoh man it's easy to lose track of the plot in this game.
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
the game was like "remember nabudis" and uh, no, I had to think about it.
go rimbaud
in like 2003 i made a game that included a section where you had to talk down every member of an angry mob individually, but the way you answered some people would impact how others reacted to you
go rimbaud
and it reminded me a lot of that
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
and then the twist was that it was all timewasting as part of an even more complicated scheme
go rimbaud
also it's hard to remember nabudis because it happened offscreen some time before the game began
go rimbaud
like nabudis meant a lot to certain characters, and is easy to get mixed up with nalbina, where you actually saw what happened
go rimbaud
but all you get of nabudis is the consequences
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
yeah but also we "just" passed it but that was several maps ago...
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
I do think it's easy to drop the plot especially in this section, with the length of the journey to archades plus all the sidequests/hunts available.
go rimbaud
and everything there was high level enough that you would have turned right around after realizing you made the mistake of passing into a new area
go rimbaud
i wandered into the necrohol my first time through the salikawood and i think i got a game over for it
go rimbaud
like, immediately
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
yeah I ran away quick
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
also, it's easy to get caught up in the balthier/cid arc since that was introduced on the way so that when we get back to ondore and his lies it's like ???
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
what… what was that?
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
I also totally forgot Reddas was even a thing, which is amazing because he wears hot pink pants.
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
And talking to all the villagers in Reddas town is also really interesting! I'm not sure I even bothered on my first playthrough.
go rimbaud
reddas is a cool guy, he knows fashion and everything
Lassarina
Reddas!!!!
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
ikr
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
anyway, there wasn't much actual combat in this part of the game.
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
I switched balthier to my party for the whole of draklor b/c that seemed appropriate, and it was dumb to equip him with guns.
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
I want guns to be good but they're bad.
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
go rimbaud
the state of guns is really sad
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
now that I'm at a breathing point again I'm gonna catch up on hunts and also try to get any of the magicks/technics I missed
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
like regen
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
why don't I have regen…
go rimbaud
apparently it's in giza during the rains
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
really I want balthier to have fft balthier's class…… fft balthier is so good.
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
yeah, I didn't want to wait 2 hours for it to change back.
go rimbaud
what was fft balthier like, i hear you talk him up a lot
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
high speed and can equip everything
go rimbaud
dang
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
so basically the best in final fantasy tactics
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
he has machinist + thief abilities but better and a x2 damage ability
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
he can equip guns but also knight swords…
go rimbaud
so basically you'll never not use him
haravatat.
balthier in fft is mustadio but better
haravatat.
and mustadio is my favorite after Alma so that's saying something
haravatat.
I give balthier guns in ff12 because I like making things harder on myself
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
yeah plus he has a x2 damage attack
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
like, hit 4 times at half damage
haravatat.
plus he just looks so cool
haravatat.
yeah! bring him and cid and it's impossible to lose
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
in addition to all the chemist stuff and upgraded thief abilities… it's absurd.
haravatat.
balthier is op
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
base 4 move too.
haravatat.
but he is the leading man so it stands to reason
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
yeah basically he can equip anything and has the best speed growth plus a way to bypass the damage cap and good everything else, what
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
and since he can equip anything you can auto haste him… it's unfair. he's so much better than cloud.
haravatat.
SO MUCH BETTER
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
he's debatably better than cid. tho, I don't use cid??
haravatat.
he is better than cid, imo
haravatat.
I use cid only in battles I want over quickly, so usually random
go rimbaud
fft cloud also...isn't very good
go rimbaud
unless they changed him in war of the lions
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
no
ᚠᚱᛖᛃᚨ
but you'd expect them to be on a tier but they are not