Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode Gino, Chris "@zombiepie" -REDACTED- and, Screened/ Giantbomb's own Matt @rorie discuss the opening hours of Final Fantasy XII, true Ape Escape cannon, game guide writing, and the differences between original FFXII and the new Zodiac Age re-release. We go very deep on systems this time! Also, someone please teach ZP about if, else statements!

Final Fantasy by the Dozen: Part One

I think that boy in the picture is Captain Basch.

@clagnaught: Captain Basch of Dalmasca? I thought he was executed!

As someone who once bought a Crystal Pepsi, I can for once agree with ZP’s opinion on a foodstuff. It’s like regular Pepsi watered down with Sprite and isn’t even good as a weird gimmick soda.

Fun fact - Vaan and Penelo were not part of the original script. The game was originally supposed to be focused on Basch and Ashe. However, Squeenix has just released Vagrant Story, a game that had a middle-age protagonist. And that game flopped.

Rather than thinking that maybe it was the issue was game design or the lack of marketing and name recognition for a new IP, the suits at Squeenix decided the issue was clearly the age of the protagonist and therefore more or less forced the FFXII devs to put in younger characters to "appeal to the target audience." The original director took "sick leave" halfway through development because of the issue. Rumor is he was just soft-fired because he really didn't want those characters in the game.

Also - the accents are a combination of (1) nationality and (2) race. All the Dalmascan's use some version of American accented English. The Imperials all use either cockney (low-ranking Imperial soldiers) or received English (nobility). I always found it very consistent. I even found the clunky try at fancy English endearing.

I should go back and finish that PS4 version of Final Fantasy XII, I really like that game a whole hell of a lot. And my Vita version of FFX.

Whenever talk about the Gambit system happens, having to buy gambits always comes up (that and whether automating combat was a good idea or not). You guys talked about having to buy gambits just as you were talking about how it was kinda crazy for Square to implement such a complex system in one of their most popular games. And then one of those weird late night (it's almost 4AM) thoughts struck me - what if they have people buy gambits because the system demands a lot of someone who isn't expecting to have to figure out programming concepts? If someone approaches the gambit system and has a billion options to pick from, they're way more likely to just close it out and try to stick with the system they've already figured out (attack-attack-heal-buff-and so on). But if there's a tiny gate in front of those options and you have to play the game a bit before unlocking them, then those people are more likely to just mess with the handful of options they've got at the very beginning before eventually figuring out why these things are useful, and then eventually going to the shop to buy a handful more to play with, eventually (hopefully) leading to an endgame party with all the gambits and like fifty if-then statements.

If they're extremely cheap, then anyone who has figured out a tactic and wants to implement a gambit for it isn't going to have a problem buying what they need (or drumming up the funds they need, if they're fresh out of cash). They could have gated them by level, but that would just be annoying and grindy. They could have implemented another menu so that you could just buy them anywhere with cash or some other form of currency, but that's yet another options menu in a game that's already drowning in menus that you can (and need) to access at anytime.

...you guys might touch on this later in the podcast, I haven't actually finished listening to it yet, but I'll do that later. I just wanted to post that thought before it escaped me.

(Aside: I've done some toying around with Python and Powershell but don't have much programming experience beyond that. How big do if-then/if-else statements tend to get? Having fifty of them seems unwieldy, it seems like you'd rather build some functions at the top of your program and keep your if-else statements more compact or... something, I don't know, just rambling now).

@justin258: I think there is an argument that the money element is intended as a sort of gate to the gambits and I agree that was likely the idea. However, I'd rather that they just slow roll the system a bit more deliberately than have the money half measure because the middle ground they struck satisfies no one. The gambits cost enough to frustrate people who want every option and scare off beginners, but they don't give you important ones until later in the game anyway. It seems like something that could be tweaked a little more towards experienced players or beginners rather than splitting the baby.

For bigger if/else statements you might use a case or a switch statement instead of if/elses because they are more efficient and are a bit easier to read.