i'm always of the mind that FFXII is a very unique RPG. there are a lot of weird systems and ways to accomplish things i haven't really seen before. sometimes they're cool and fun, sometimes they're along the lines of "items that unlock new loot can only be obtained by repeatedly talking to merchants a couple dozen times". i also learned about how the Zodiac Spear is obtained in the original version and if you know you know, and if you know it means you looked up a guide and kicked yourself for not doing so earlier

finished knocking out all 30 non-hunt hunt club hunts. i had a good chill time aside from a few that were annoying to get to and/or to get them to spawn, as well as this freak Disma who was the only really difficult one to beat. i ended up getting a biiig big big limit break chain that finished him off after which i violently hollered and fist pumped around my apartment for a minute. was the first time i had to slow down and focus on switching out gear and gambits mid-fight

yea i'm the rare kind of gamer who will fell all the rare game what of it.. i'mma be real i couldn't get a handle on how the rewards for this thing worked, handing out loot from rare game to different guys in specific quantities unlocks specific prizes and also specific gear i can then buy or whatever. i kept reloading my save and testing different outcomes and i ended up going with the Ribbon as a prize, plus the ability to buuuuy

one half of the missable Gilgamesh set i missed! so false alarm turns out Basch has the only job in my party who can even use Genji equipment so getting two would've been pointless. from what i could gather everything else that's possible as a reward is obtainable in some other way they're just really rare and annoying, but i'm a rare and annoying gamer so it's okay with me

getting info on the best rewards to choose was hard because of changes made in the remaster. on the main menu there's Trial Mode which here is its own separate thing, but in the Zodiac Age version rewards from it can be transferred to the main game, making a lot of rare items muuuch easier to get, so people would recommend forgoing rewards that are easy to obtain from there. while i'm here pointing out how i'm playing a more difficult version of the game than most people i want to also mention characters can only have one license board, instead of two which effectively makes them twice as powerful. and summons are way weaker, also there's no quick or autosave, also the map sucks

yesterday told tales of courageousness; of how the strongest of wills can ultimately triumph against the most formidable foe. stories of how i loved (murder) and lost (half my money buying gloves) on an epic journey of heroicism (getting big numbers in a video game). today you will hear the tale of me giving myself carpal tunnel for no good reason

there's a racing minigame in Balfonheim with one hundred levels of barely-increasing difficulty. it's not fun and the rewards aren't very good. i can't imagine they intended anyone other than the rarest of gamers to actually complete all 100 levels. the only reason i went all the way was for a retroachievement, in a set made by crazy people who went overboard and loaded it with tons of unnecessary missable achievements i've already missed at this point

pressing X moves the left foot forward and O moves the right. it's the control scheme of a Mario Party minigame where i'd be piloting a machine of some sorts, except i'm just running on my feet normally as i have been, and quite possibly slower than usual. the difficulty is in managing to trip over the little guy and then dealing with the wrist pain

dude hasn't even seen me press L1 yet

no. 1 cloaca back with more final fantasy. the current facets of progress have been hunts, sidequests and summons, and i've just kind of been hopping between them whenever one gives me too much trouble. i definitely messed up with unlocking summons early on when i didn't fully understand how the license board worked, pretty sure i allocated one to Vaan that unlocked zero (0) new things for him. just saw a square with a powerful looking guy on it and said ooh hell yea

switched lanes again after making zero (0) progress beating Zeromus. had a vendetta against him since taking a teeny tiny wrong turn whilst trying to do something else and suddenly i was trapped in a large death room where i can't use magic, long after my last save, with my gambits that rely very heavily on using magic. later found out i'd accidentally given Balthier the necklace that reverses the effects of restorative items, instead of the one that enhances them. actually sounds like a super useful item if used properly. unfortunately did not have on the necklace that reverses me being stupid

i really thought i could get through all the basic side stuff in this game without a walkthrough. i have three gigantic FFXIV lore tomes on my shelf but here's betting the strategy guide for XII is even bigger. not that i would've needed it for this quest – the one where i find bottles of liquor all around Bhujerba and sell each of them to someone who was more often than not standing three, maybe four steps away from it

well it happened, i irreversibly ruined my save as i always worried i would. i accidentally, at some point, picked up an item that lets me understand what cockatrices are saying, and learned they talk like this. not much competition for the spot of no. 1 cloaca. went all around the world rounding up these guys, which also turned out to be the only reason to fully complete Archades Alien Chop Quest. anyway now the real not-hunt-or-hunt-club hunt begins

i was going to write, you know i really like the bazaar "crafting" system in this game. just dump a bunch of loot into shops and eventually new gear will be made from it that i can buy, but then i found out that oh it's totally not that simple. every now and then i sell almost all of everything in my inventory leaving just 1 of each item, but turns out i do have to sell specific amounts depending on what recipe i'm working towards? or certain things reset after buying crafted gear?? all i know for sure is i've definitely wasted a lot of rare loot. in which case it's so awesome there's no way to keep track of what i've sold

i half-learned this in deciding to hunt down the final fantasy weapons. there's a set of some of the best weapons in the game that all spell out FINAL FANTASY (a neat reference to "video games") and i have three so far. it's turning out to be the fourth bail-prone facet of progress because the one i currently want involves rare drops from enemies that are randomly anywhere from level 50 (maybe i can beat it) to 99 (i'm gonna go hunt down summons instead)