I picked up a PS4 finally, along with Star Wars Battlefront II and FFXII: The Zodiac Age. Might also get the Mega Man collection and the Star Ocean game later also, but anyway: Anybody play this yet? I went through most of the main game speed-running it before I realized you only have to beat Trial Mode to unlock Weak Mode, so I then just grabbed the best gear I could and went straight to Trial Mode. Very disappointing. I expected Trial Mode to be more of a 'trial' and a challenge you can play through from LV1 but it doesn't work like that unfortunately; it's kind of a joke to be honest. I had 2 deaths on the final stage, but that battle is more cheap than challenging.
The way I see FFXII is thus:
-If you play through the game casually the game is terrible. It doesn't matter what you do or how you set up anything. All the enemies and bosses just give up and you never even have to press any buttons. There's no thought process required to play and in the future trained chickens will be able to beat it. (As soon as @James24 gets here I'm sure he'll agree with me that this game is the penultimate Type A game ever created by a AAA studio.) :P
-If you play this without gaining levels, not using OP abilities, or doing any grinding whatsoever, then the game really becomes truly great - by far much more interesting and superior than any other FF game IMHO. There are a ton of great gameplay mechanics that were overshadowed just because the game was so easy none of it mattered. The idea is simple: By greatly nerfing your party, the game goes from steaming crap-pile to hidden treasure. :)
Anyway, back on topic. Got Weak Mode unlocked so I was trying to figure out a good way to play. Last time I played this game all the way through was in 2010. I did a run around 2013 where I tried (let's see if I can get this right) a LLGCNQNGNGNITNUE run (LLG, No: Quickenings/Espers/Grinding/Glitch/Cheating/ Farming/Ultimate Equipment, Class Restricted, challenge) but died about halfway through after I ran out of money, items, LP, and had mostly terrible equipment. It was a fun try though! However in TZA this could never happen as the beginning of the game is much easier. So.. anyone play Weak Mode on this version yet? It seems like they made this version even easier, so was wondering just how much of a restriction would be needed. Even threw together some quick c++ code to try and generate a unique party:
Code:struct CClasses
{
const char* name;
int w;
};
CClasses classes[12] =
{
{ "Machinist", 2 }, // OP-Tier (LLG)
{ "Shikari", 2 }, //
{ "White Mage", 3 }, // A-Tier
{ "Black Mage", 3 }, //
{ "Red Mage", 4 }, //
{ "Knight", 4 }, // B-Tier
{ "Bushi", 4 }, // C-Tier
{ "Archer", 4 }, //
{ "Uhlan", 4 }, //
{ "Monk", 4 }, //
{ "Time Mage", 3 }, //
{ "Breaker", 2 } // Crap
};
struct FFXII_LLG
{
int maxClasses;
RandomGenerator random;
FFXII_LLG()
{
maxClasses = ARRAY_SIZE(classes);
random.Seed(int(TimeStamp::GetCurrent()) * 'I' * 'Z' * 'J' * 'S');
}
int GetRandomNumber(int lo, int hi)
{
return random.Int(lo, hi);
}
void GenerateList()
{
int totalChance = 0;
RandomShuffle(classes, maxClasses);
for(int i(0); i < maxClasses; ++i)
totalChance += classes[i].w;
for(int j(0); j < 6; )
{
int r = GetRandomNumber(0, totalChance);
int r2 = 0;
for(int i(0); i < maxClasses; ++i)
{
r2 += classes[i].w;
if(r < r2)
{
Log("%02i, %s", classes[i].w, classes[i].name); //Output the character
Swap(classes[i], classes[--maxClasses]);
--i;
++j;
totalChance -= r2;
break;
}
}
}
}
};
