Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Take my money :O

It puts a 'job system', with 12 potential jobs, in the game that provides some diversity in skillset, equipment options, and stats.

As opposed to the massive singular license board.
Esper slots are used as bridges to more specialization on boards and they're in different points among the boards, so some forethought it necessary if you're trying to min-max.

It uses the normal system for FF12 Progression, however jobs are setup with strict weapon unlocking, spells, and abilities.

Each character has the free will to choose one, but once you decided, it stays.

Aries - White Mage - Focused on Rods and White Magick.
Taurus - Uhlan - Focused on Spears.
Gemini - Machinist - Focused on Guns and Measures.
Cancer - Red Mage - Focused on Maces, and various Magick types, with exclusive access to Arcane Magicks.
Leo - Knight - Focused on Swords and Greatswords.
Virgo - Monk - Focused on Poles and capable of barehanded combat.
Libra - Time Mage - Focused on Crossbows and Time Magicks.
Scorpio - Breaker - Focused on Axes, Hammers and Hand-bombs.
Sagittarius - Archer - Focused on Bows and Technicks.
Capricorn - Black Mage - Focused on Staves and Black Magicks.
Aquarius - Samurai - Focused on Katana.
Pisces - Hunter - Focused on Daggers and Ninja Swords.

Out of the character based stats, each one is strongest at certain jobs.

Oh, well thats interesting. Tbh I have never heard of it, I played the game when it came out on PS2, did everything, put like 600 hours into it, and never played again. Looks like this will be a completely new experience for me.

Honestly, I hate that job system ***. The freedom to wear whatever gear I wanted, and learn any spell as long as I had the LP(and the gear/spell in question) was great.

But the real issue, is that you lock into one job, and can never change it. If they just let me swap out like FFT, np. I'll master every damn one.

Which sucks cause I really like some of the changes they made for International.

Damage cap removal, Fast forward mode, new items, etc.

Still excited though. Gonna play it anyway as long as it eventually comes out for PC though.

I'm pretty sure the IZJS boards are an optional feature. All of the balance changes exist regardless to the best of my knowledge.

Yeah I can definitely see that as a negative, especially if you really don't even want to play with certain characters. My playthrough I had a main team and then the secondary bench squad which I kept around 20 levels behind but had no real desire to ever use them.

Best jobs for each Character:

Honestly those are not far off from where I would put each character, except for Basch, not really sure why he wouldn't be some kind of sword user/brawler type. And Fran, who you would think would be the archer.

This game is enough for me to quit FFXI >.>

Ashe in HD. Mmmmmmmm

Stupid travel times compared to other offline FF's as well.
I only played it once, and it was the earliest English version. I don't really think I'm gonna like the restrictive nature of the Zodiac job system, but whatever.

Screw that! Basch will forever be my tank, Ashe my healer, Vaan my katana wielder, and Balthier my gunner.

Zodiac Job System also came with the Trial Mode, assuming it's in this to. Intended for players who couldn't find a challenge in the game using max characters.

It's a Dungeon Crawler with a 100 floors. It uses all existing tough mobs and bosses, then about 95 floors and above you start fighting Super Bosses.

Super Bosses

Defeating the Trial Mode rewarded you with a New game mode > Weak Mode.

Strong Mode is rewarded for completing the Story which only existed in Zodiac, same for weak mode.

Weak Mode made all your characters level 1 and NEVER level up.

Strong Mode started you off with Level 90 characters.

Nothing carried over however....

His time in prison apparently left him fairly frail. Although it did nothing to his strength.

A lot of the Best at x-class is super min max around having the best reasonable to obtain equipment* to min max stats.

Ashe as Samurai, for example, hit's exactly 99 in MAG and ATT at level 99 and full liscense board with Masamune (A) and the full Genji Armor. Vaan can manage this too, but he'd have something like, 105 ATT if it weren't capped at 99. And those points are better used for a job like Hunter which has less attack bonus' than Samurai.

*Zaitengrate is obscene. Enjoy farming that 0.01% invisible chest. There's also Trago's Tower, a one handed sword with a 0.02% invisible chest. And Gendarme, a shield with a 0.04% invisible chest.

That is the kinda ***I really hope they fkin' change. That kinda drop rate, especially in single player games, annoy me endlessly.

I farmed the Tournesol, took a while but not a huge deal. Didn't farm anything else tho.

It's so low for a reason.

Zeitengrate ATT: 224 | Range: Whatever enemy model visibility range is.

Compared to...

Tournesol ATT: 140

Even so. There are more than enough games with things that are completely OP, generally they aren't literally 1/10,000 chances of being gotten. It's normally a super boss or something of the sort that drops it, not this ***... <_<

Not OP to that degree. And not as early either.

Right after Wraithwalls Tomb, airship travel between cities becomes available iirc. That's when you can start farming for Zeitengrate, if you please.

Eh, however.

It's just gonna come down to a difference of opinion. To me, items that next no one will ever obtain such as this that don't come down to skill differentials, but rather pure luck, are things I don't really think need to exist in games. It just bothers me. I feel like those kinda things should be acquired by skill, not luck, and that luck based items, much like items that cost real money, should be primarily aesthetic.

Like I said though, that's likely gonna just go to opinion.

The story wasn't too bad... It's biggest issue was it was super spaced out, especially if you were doing all the side quests/hunts, so you might have 5-10 hours between things happening.

He does repeatedly, but in the endingThere really is no coherent main character to the game.

I liked the Zodiac version better than the original tbh.

Also my team was
Ashe monk
Balthier shikari
Basch muhlan
Vaan knight
Fran samurai
Penelo white mage

That might be part of the reason why .-.;; I did everything

There's another little thing too in that not all the dialogue has subtitles, usually quieter stuff so if your volume isn't high enough you miss some stuff. Most of it isn't majorly important but it helps the story and characters flow a bit.

Larsa, such a loser, but such a useful guest party member.

Never played this nor Vagrant Story but I was a big fan of Ivalice and FFTactics as well as Akihiko Yoshida's artistic character design. Missed 12 due to 11 but most ppl here seemed to enjoy 12. Maybe I'll get it.

Vagrant story is an all time favorite, and obsession of mine. Try it. It's great.

Mmm, damn I'd love to see a vagrant story remake... assuming they add more than just graphics anyway.

EDIT: Also, anyone notice that in that comparison vid, Vaan's vest was clipping into his arm in the remake version but not in the original?

No, I'm not looking at Vaan's chest, ever.

In more important news it's been announced a remake of this as well to go with the remake of XII!!

I originally stopped playing FFXII because I went like 0/15 on Danjuro, which would take me upwards of 250+ chains to even see pop each time. A bit too much like FFXI for my tastes there.