Insecurity in Final Fantasy XII
One thing I’ve noticed that Final Fantasy XII does that most other games don’t is that it cultivates a healthy sense of insecurity. For instance, the first outdoor battle area in the game is the Estersand. I spent about thirty minutes walking around, trying out the new combat, and killing some mobile cactuses, wolves, and even a Rogue Tomato for loot and experience points. And then I run into a 20-foot-high T-Rex. “He’s in the newbie area,” I think. “No way would they throw something at you you couldn’t handle.” So I attack it. Big mistake. With one hit it smashes me to a pulp, erasing all of my thirty minutes of exploration. I have to restart from the last save point.
Despite being annoyed at the wasted time, this incident really did teach me a big lesson about the game. This is a game not afraid to use death as a teaching method. It won’t guide you along all the time, only offering situations that you can handle. Part of the game is making your own decisions, that is, knowing when to run and when to fight, and especially, what you can handle and what you can’t. In hindsight the T-Rex should’ve been incredibly obvious, but I was stuck in this silly pampered mindset that games use rigid borders to determine what you can and cannot do.
Final Fantasy XII is still a highly linear game, but the game world is not constrained by artificial borders. A lot of the higher-lever areas can be gotten into, you just can’t survive in them for more than a few seconds because the monsters there are 20 or 30 levels above you. Some examples would be the huge glowing ball of energy in the Nam-Yendsa Sandsea, the slimes in Zertinian Caverns, the frogs in Garamscythe Waterway, and the beasts in Golmore Jungle. It always keeps you on your toes when entering a new area — “Hrmmm, am I supposed to be here?” Often enough, you’ll take a huge, unexpected hit from a high level monster, and you turn into full-on panic mode, fleeing for the nearest zone boundary.
This game just isn’t safe. And I love it.
February 3rd, 2007 at 16:31
Yeah FF12 is amazing. Careful with those elementals. Thundaga has a longer range than you might think.
TIP: enemies with life bars that appear as green are usually way too hard for you to fight. Yellow life bars means difficult, and red means managable.
February 3rd, 2007 at 16:41
Haha, wow, I never even realized the part about the color of the life bars. I just used Libra, and if Libra didn’t work, I’d take an experimental thwack at the baddie, ready to run like hell.
I take it you’re a student at UMCP?
February 4th, 2007 at 02:01
yeah
February 18th, 2007 at 08:00
Actually, it’s the color of the creatures’ names, not the life bars. A green life bar means that the creature is currently friendly, and an orange life bar means that it will attack.
PS: What is with those espers? They are very weak upon summoning, and it just is not worth it due to the massive amounts of MP the summonings use up.
February 18th, 2007 at 13:04
I don’t really bother with the espers or quickenings too much. I just like cold hard strategic combat. Speaking of which, I haven’t had game over in a boss battle yet, but every single one has been so ridiculously close (like one character with 100 HP remaining with the whole rest of my party KOed). I’m actually burning through the good items (like elixirs) every time I need them rather than saving them up for the endgame and not ending up using them like I did in previous Final Fantasies.
This game is very fun, it’s just taking soooo long to get through. I’m at 36 hours played right now and I just crossed the Mosphorian Highwastes.