Another 5 hours of gameplay and I feel like I've entered a totally different world! I am now 11 hours into the game. The first day I played at midnight for 2 hours and then the rest 3h another on another late night run.

Its seems like "late night" is the best time to do anything now.. be it playing games or sitting and writing this thing.. everything else just doesnt seem to get finished by near mid-night now a days. So, lets get on to the juicy details!

The first DUNGEON!

My First marathon session (6h) ended with me getting back all my stuff at the Nalbina prison. I just saved and stopped at that point.. and it happened to be a good time to stop too! soon after continuing from that point I found that... BASCH IS ALIVE!!! Also.. someone who looks JUST LIKE.. BALTHIER.. is supposed to be Basch's twin brother and impersonated him. The whole explanation of the events sounds crazy, but the fact that even I believed that it was actually Basch who killed the king makes the story feel much more immersive!

Later I escaped to the dungeon along with Basch as a guest in my part and started the "great escape"

*The Great Escape

I spent atleast 30minutes sitting and changing all my gambits and equips, getting licenses and buying stuff from the merchant at the entrance gate of the dungeon that leads to the exit.

After preparing well and everything, I found out there is this battery level and that things will reduce it. I thought I will have to open many gates but it turned out to be only TWO :P I found the flans and batteries quite hard to defeat.. they were quite large in number. But luckily all the "ally <30% = cure" gambits that everyone had helped in not dieing.

Although, the practically naked, flank punching Basch got KO'ed in the beginning and that was the first time in life I got to use... 'Tuft of PHEONIX DOWN" ooh yeah! I only heard of it till now.. but finally got to use the thing :P

The only problem I had was during the opening of the last gate, when the power went down to 40% something and there were many skeletons, zombies running towards (makes no sense) Instead of wasting time and fighting everything I just Ran away.. rather FLED from the fights to safety. Which was the best decision IMO.

*The Second Boss Fight!

Late in the night... around 2 AM I came to the final boss fight.. I wasnt too sleepy, but it was apparent my brain was not at its best.. It took a LOT of time for me to BEAT the boss.. I succeeded to beat the boss, Queen MIMIC, in my First try itself.. but had to use 4 Phoenix Downs! That was too much I felt! also.. at the end there was only 1 alive.

So after beating the Boss.. I just shut the PS2 down, without saving, and left for bed.

*The Boss fight for the Second time!

This time I was ready, I knew how the Boss worked.. so I first sat for 5 minutes and adjusted all my Gambits accordingly. Now I went around beating the small mimic's first, all the three were focusing on the Queen.

The whole boss fight was done in under 5 minutes! No Phoenix downs, no nothing.. the gambits helped me beat the thing flawlessly. was quite happy with my performance, felt 1337 :P

The Great Eastersand Journey

*Finished in FIVE-TY minutes

Now I was left on the "Eastersand" Place and had to go back to Rabanaster. All those Orange Wolves were so easy to beat, they were dieing with just one shot from me and one from an Ally. So I took the liberty of killing EVERYONE of them, haha.. good for earning LPs and EXPs!

I then went to this Beach type place and there was this small village that thing had this "Teleporting stone" I saw that and I realized that I could just end the "huge journey" just now as I had 3 Teleport stones with me.

I used it and voila! *cutscene* However, I didnt feel I did the right thing.. it felt a bit like cheating.. also I thought that something interesting might happen if I walk and go via the "intended path"

So I saved in another file and then returned to the old teleport save stone and I took the advantage of my awesome party and traveled each and every small part of the Eastersand. I saw the Nalbina Fortress , Went through ALL the connecting paths, even t0 Giza plains :P

After exploring the whole Eastersand and NOT screwing around with the "friendly" dinosaur. I ended up reaching Rabanster in 50 minutes. This journey took me 10x longer than before.. BUT now I had LOTS of items gained a lot fo experience and had that inner peace feeling that I Explored EVERY corner possible :D

Hard Head Hunting

*Roaming and Talking..

When I was in Nalbina Fortress I saw the Hunting board and noticed the new hunt for "Thraxen" . When I returned to Rabanaster, instead of searching for Penelo I first went to the Tavern and talked to the person for the HUNT. Then I went and roamed all of the City SEARCHING for Penelo.. I even saw the whole Bazaar for the first time. I went to the Aerodrome and talked to each and everyone in there. All that was again about an HOUR or so... all that roaming and talking, I somehow do it like a bot.. no feelings that I am wasting time.

The Moogles with their teleporters and that dude asking me "Whats in it for them?" made me think the moogles have some kind of super secret plan where they steal all the brain data or get energy whenever someone teleports.. I mean, really What's in it for them?

Where were we? yeah.. So, lastly, I went to Old man Creepy-face and followed his orders to the rebellion's HQ and somehow, now I started TRUSTING Basch.. just because.. I dont know... because he said Sorry many times I guess.

Then I learnt what happened to Penelo and Now I had to go to the aerodrome to meet Balthier and life BURBURLand or whatever it was :P I thought it was a good time to finish the hunt because Westersand was just there right beside me.

*The Biiig Wolf

So I saved and went to westersand. this was the first time I entered the place so I got that Panning intro type thing, which reminds me of Zelda OOT. The Huge Wolf was there just beside me.. somehow I was the only one in the party (Basch and other were not being shown)"

But I easily managed to beat the thing.. I first cast a "Protect" on me and then a "Slow"on the huge wolf and the rest was a peace of cake. I was on top of the worrrld!

I had lots of monnies so I visited each and every shop and then went to the clan place and talked to the Clan leader and OMG he Showered Money and stuff at me. It was awesome.. one for beating each boss (even the FLANs were a boss? lol)

*The Big COCK

I learnt of two new hunts realized one was in Burburland and the other was in Giza plains.. so decided I would do the giza plains one before I go to burburland. I went to Giza plains.. accepted the hunt and then saved and started to the North bank.

After getting the habit of killing all animals, due the eastersand journey, I killed everyone in the North bank expecting the cock to pop-up but it didnt. So, I went to the South bank and killed everything there too and when I returned.

I saw this huge Harvest moon type Cock running towards me and it had protect on it.. and before I knew it.. I WAS DEAD!! and then it asked me to "select party members" at this point I realised that I actually had to select the part members first to make them appear! (I was thinking they were not there because all were waiting at the aerodrome)

But soon.. GAME OVER! I was like :o I mean.. I was killing everything with ease and winning everything BUT died so easily with this cock.. I was not understanding AT ALL!

*The nth Encounter with Big Cocks

I then continued and went on trying again and again to kill the huge Cock and its progeny but even after 5 times of clearing north bank and then dieing I was NOT ABLE to beat the thing.. I dont get!

The thing is Immune to my spells, its really fast.. all chicks gang up on my party.. I cant run too far away either.

I did notice some of the chicks getting lowered in health sometimes though.. but NO IDEA. I was very disappointed and left the place totally demoralised.

Is there no way I can beat them??

I guess I will have to learn some new tricks or something.. or maybe they are weak when it rains? any tips?

Off to BurBurLand!

All I know is that its Bursomething and its a SKY ISLAND! something like Skypea from One Piece? oooh yeah! As soon as I landed there.. I noticed someone say "Bhadra" it sounded very Indian to me.. and then later I talked to a guide and she said...

"SVAGATAM"

and then I was like "OMGOMGOMG that IS an indian language" Then I saw that soldiers were called "Sainkahs" which is the equivalent of soldiers in Telugu/kannada

*The Indian Language Comparator

Now I was frantically talking to people just so that I could get more Italicised words to observe and find out which Indian language they were using.

One kid says 'Ambah and tatah" Amabah means "mother" but tatah means "Grand Father" either they made up their own mixutre of things or the kid was actually talking about his mom and grandpa being worried.

Also one lady said "kastam" which means "trouble"

Now the thing was I had to find out which language it actually was.. coz if it were only "sainik" it would be Hindi but its  "sainikah" so that means its either "Telugu" or "Kannada" ,Kastam also supports the aforementioned findings.

After seeing all this I just decided to turn the Ps2 off and sleep a happy sleep (it was 2 AM now anyways). The next day, the searching began.

My father knows a LOT of languages (Eng, french,Hindi,tel, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, marathi etc etc) so I got everything confirmed and filtered it down to Telugu or Kannada.

Telugu is my mother tongue so I felt a bit WOW seeing words from my language being used in a game that too something like FINAL FANTASY!!

I then talked to my Kannada speaking friend from karnataka and asked him the same questions.. I just had to check if "Bhadra" means something like "dude/pal/friend" because the game people were using it like that in the game.

But in kannada too.. just like in Telugu.. Bhadram is used when someone wants someone to "be careful"

Hence I clearly state here

"Obviously no Indian worked on this game"

anyhoo, Both me and my kannada friend were happy that our respective language was being used in the game! And with that I conclude this ER write-up.

E3 is coming and I guess everyone, like you.. is geared up for it! Have a nice day! Enjoy this song that has Bhadra and many other words that I heard in FF. One of my old time favourites. Listen the whole thing you will LOVE it i'm sure!

So, today was the big day! The day when I finally started playing my first ever FINAL FANTASY game! Boy was a good experience! Played for 6 hours straight!

First let me tell you the reason for my poorly drawn images :P I was actually looking for some wallapers and screens so that I could use them in the blog posts so that things would be more colourful and interesting for people to read, but rather than finding correct images, I found a lot of.. SPOILERs. So I decided that rather than using my PS skills I would use my (long forgotten) drawing skills and try and make the things interesting. Hope these things dont have a negative effect :P Thats the best I can do right now :?

*Lets get it started!

I started the game and there was this like HEAVENLY harp music and pegions flying.. first time I saw pegions like that in a non John Woo thing.. or did he some hand in this? I dont know, it wasnt a buildup for a fight so I guess not :P  After seeing the nice intro I started the game and it started with another.. cutscene! Good thing I am a MGS type of person.. these things are no problem for me and I acutally like cutscenes building up the story.

After all the Happiness to sadness thing and with the young dude dieing (the first scene where the couple is parading itself implied that someone is going to die :P ) there was now a text based narrated thing going on.

I could make no sense at first, "Dalmasca" "Archadia" "Rabanester" etc etc.. so many names and everything was greek and latin (literally too I guess :P ). After readign through the thing slowly and carefully I was read the last line "The Lady killed herself" I was like "Whaaaa?!?" I didnt see that coming.. I never saw such a character (beautiful young female character) commit suicide before.. its usually "She suffered torcher after the death" etc etc and she is like this really sad character... well, I guess they've done that in one of those other 11 FFs :P

*The Sword slashing begins!

Basch: "How old are you boy?"
Reks:  "Seventeen Sir"

Well, that was pretty young for someone fighting a war, and the way Basch says "Huh... so YOUNG" felt kinda creepy :?

This part turned out to be a tutorial level, I didnt quite get the system at first, because I was under the impression that it is turn based type and not live action type.. but it seems it added some movement freedom to the combat.

I dont get it though.. I mean, when I know someone is "readying an attack" I try to run away but even from a long distance, something like "ram" and other which dont actually CONNECT , damage me. I wonder whats the use of allowing me to run around when I am going to get hit anyways. Can someone clarify? Does it reduce the HP taken out when we are far away?

Also, the character randomly blocks the attack, there is no technique to it, not like Mario RPG style button timing.(btw my bro played that not me :P) From my observations I am able to tell that it only blocks if the other attacks when your attack meter is full? Not sure though.

*The REAL Story beings

In a somewhat KH2 way (but not 6hours long) the thing ended with it being nothing but a training level. Some new characters were introduced. Obviously VAAN is the hero of the story (now he is also 17! I guess 17 is the new 18 or something), there are a bunch of other kids also introduced, most of them with very confusing voice and names which dont tell if its a he or a she.

Also, the character is not "Teenage EMO Dude with a huge sword" I was like :O So.. all those people in the comments(of various news blogs)  actually EXXAGERATE the fact when they show hate on something? Wow!

I spent most of the time in the first 2hours just talking to all those NPCs. I have this crazy stupid habit of tallking to EACH and EVERYBODY I can talk to and exhausting all dialogue options ,if they exist. Thats why most of the time was just randomly walking around talking to people, giving a KID 1 gil for some random info (who I guess, if the story spans N years will turn out to have some important role in some not so important part of the game)

Then I get out of the place to do some Rogue tomato hunting (reference to some other FF?) I see that I FORGOT to talk to somedude that actually mattered! There was this person asking me someone from the inside gave me something.. but I was like Whaaaa??

All this talking and one small miss to make it all.. worthless :( I cant go back or anything either, as the first save was after coming out, and even if I started the game again, I would take care that I talk to EVERYONE, because theres a small thing inside me that tells "Something super secret will happen if you talk to everyone!" :|

So, I just left it like that and then went on with my business.

*The Parade and Underground

A nice turn of events when that Vayne dude talked like an awesome person, I too was surprised hearing it.. but how Penelo was talking really made me feel how much hatred the kids have in their head.

So many of the questions all the kids were asking in the underground location felt so obvious to me but they were going on thinking in the negative direction.. well, I guess thats a good representation of war orphans.

I spent another two or so hours just roaming around and talking to everyone I found and then purposefully NOT going to the old dudes house so that I could see and find a secret before leaving that will help me maybe.

Nope.. there was none.. none that I remember.. but one thing is for sure.. They've got a lot of "Tresure" just lying around everywhere in the underground location. Wonder how no one before me even thought of opening those baskets :P

The old dude was NOT what I thought he would look like..I thought he would be a cuddly.... rotund, talking creature or something (seeing that he is a hit among kids) but he turned out to some really creepy old dude, with creepy expressions and spoken in YODISH (the language of YODAH)

He told me to go throught South Gate, but soemone told me to get the map from the Clan Moogle in central plaza. So I searched for the nearest staris, went to the southern plaza, found the dude and took the map.. and then went back down the stairs and THEN took the south gate.. only to realize IT'S A FRIGGIN SHORTCUT!!

Ahh.. when will I learn :|

*This is NOT MGS!

There was this part where I had to sneak past guard and holla at them so that I can do this small puzzle thing.. I spent around 15 minutes before even trying to holla at them, thinking that I would get a game over if something was done wrong and had to start all over again.

I felt like being in MGS again and was trying to be as careful as possible.. but WOW, the guards are so stupid that some of them dont even move if I am two feet away from them and shout like a madman :| I dont know how those people didnt see me running around like a 9 year old, shouting at guards all the while making this really crazy tappity tap sound when I walk (crazy armours!)

I will still play like this though.. dont know when it will turn into MGS and have to be extra careful..

*GAMBIT!! (Cards not included)

Fast forward a bit and then I meet one of the awesomest character I've seen in recent times! its BALTHIER! His dialogues and voice are just awesome.. it makes you play with a relaxed mind when he is ar0und (same effects that changing from Nero to Dante has in DMC4)

Oh, and then I was introduced to the Gambit system, which I felt was really nice and was very detailed! Those stupid people even added a dimension of difficulty by making those ACTIONS as collectibles.. talking about "breaking the fourth wall". The game does a lot of it actually. "Dont forget to press X to do that!"  "We will keep attacking unless you say otherwise!" lol.

The best thing I learnt in my 80 hours of Kingdom hearts experience is that "Curaga Aeraga combo is the answer to life" I practically NEVER died in the game just because I had shortcuts for them. Similarly, the first thing I did was give that Rabbit Lady (Fran?) the first priority action to "cure <70%" and "attack leader target" She was basically running around curing everyone  and shooting with her almost useless bow and arrow when everyone was fine :P (When her MP was low, I would cure anyone thats critical, manually, then her MP comes back.. its like... MAGIC!)

This came in really hany, because I completed the whole dungeon thing, till the FireHorse thing without using a single potion! (or an elixir for magic or any item as a matter of fact, other than eye drops (that I got for free :P ))

The License Points thing is also pretty good, I went out to the easterland and killed lots of cactus just so that I could have LP to use cure and a better sword.. which came in VERY VERY handy. Talk about being prepared 8) I feel  like I've already done this :P

Also, the Gambit system made me say to myself

"This is going from a turn based thing to something like a dungeon crawler with some added features"

Gameplay wise, I dont see much difference between this japanese RPG and the Western RPGs/ Dungeon crawlers.. although I am VERY thankful  that it doesnt have some nonsense like "item carrying limit" and other things  that... Fallout 3 has. (just played a few hours of that thing) I mean if you want to be cool and all by saying "I limit things because its REALISTIC" first see that you are being quite unrealistic with me having to carry these many guns, armour the size of a machine and all this huge amount of monnies and still be a walking talking man. Stupid hypocrytics xP But yeah, I do get how some people like being realistic atleast to SOME degree rather than no degree (OMGz How can you carry more than 2 guns?! thats so unrealisticz)

*Pirates! Bounty Hunters? JUDGES?.... ONE PIECE? :O

I literally pooped in my pants seeing all these similarities to One piece in the thing.. I mean first of all.. I LOVE pirates (MI, one piece and what not) and seeing that this game just doesnt use pirates as a throw off, really got me excited. I mean it has the same structure as one piece!

You've got your Pirates, the Marines (Imperials), the Shichibukai/high order marines (Judges?), the Bounty hunters and everything! I didnt get to see anything more though.. I wonder how the main conflict of Pirates and Imperials is handled... Hope its as exciting and deep as One piece is! (You dont know it if you thinks its only superficial!)

Also, this thing has Archadia and that other place which are fighting for supremacy.. so this is going have more complications in it.. rather than just Marines and Pirates. Also, it feels a bit like "Nausicca and the Valley of the Wind" you know.. with the "A peaceful nation trapped between two waring super powers"

Ah..thats a lot of expectations! I wonder how this turns out.

What's FF12's One piece I wonder...

End of.. ENTRY 1!

Phew! That was really something eh? the word count says its crossed 2000.. I wonder how huge it actually is when you read it.. Haha...I told you have this habit of writing without knowing how huge things are... well I wonder if anyone actually read the whole thing.. or maybe skims through it :P If  try harder, maybe I can throw in a few easter eggs in between, in the next entry. :lol:

I've played many games, but somehow.. in all these 18years of gaming, I never managed to sit down and play one whole final fantasy, I've not played a "jRPG" either. The only experience I've had with em is Kingdom Hearts, which many consider to be a "action adventure game" more than a "RPG'. After a lot of asking around, friends suggested that I make "FF XII" (out of choices I had) the first RPG I play.

As evident from my latest status update , I'm in Vacation land and this is the place where I get to just disconnect from everything and sit down and play some games!1! and do crazy stuff, you know.. like marathons. I'm planning on sitting for ATLEAST 5 hours everyday and try to complete it before my vacation ends (till July 1st). The only thing I know is that its around 70 whole hours long, lets just hope my meandering ways dont stretch it!

I am posting this in the OT board just so that, you know, its just not me who is reading this stuff :P I'll try and sell myself here and tell you why you might be interested in checking out my posts.

• This is my first JRPG

  
  This means that I will probably have all these moments where I will be like "Why is everything so slow" and other gameplay remarks that maybe the rpg lovers out here might clear it up. Also, you can maybe see a bit of your own first experience in it :P

• I love Anime

  
  As much as I love games, I've also seen bazillion anime's out there. One of the main reasons I wanted to sit and play was that I thought "jRPGs should be ask interesting as Anime, its the same thing if you remove the gameplay, right?" Also, I think a really long, conclusive story based experience with the same set of stereotypes that animes have should be more satisfying than a 10+ year experience that never ends. 

• Stupid commentaries

  
  Also, I will be making all those "I've seen this in that anime" "This is sooo formulaic" and such comments, like the ones found in the Matirx 10th ann BluRay (Critic's audio stream) but ofcourse.. will try to make it more fun and interesting than the "Scenes with fires should be Baaannned' that they had in that thing :P
  

• I never take the right path

  
  I have this habit of never traversing through the intended path, first. When I am left with the camera facing one way after a cutscene, I always go to the other direction first and then go to the intended path. This usually leaves me wasting time trying to get impossible things done.

• I'm an Indian!

  
  Ah, the minority card! well, I am not selling myself just by saying that I am from a different country than most people or anything like that. All I know is that this thing has a good amount of references to Hindu Mythology and other stuff like that. I've heard that Shiva is supposed to be in these... he's a summon, and a she and a BIKE? INFIDEL!! Well, I dont know anything for sure, and I wont be going all N'gai and saying "Obviously, No Indian worked on this game". But I will surely have SOMETHING to say about those. So you get to hear how that Indian dude felt about calling Gods out to help everynow and then.. maybe something like a Greek dude feeling awesome that he can summon the powers of Zeus and Titans in various God of war games :P

Well, thats how I am going to.. WRITE this stuff.. yeah, sorry if you expected this "endurance run" to be something like the infamous endurance we have here at Giantbomb. Also, I am pretty sure half of you reading might not make it to the end of every post..I have this tendency of effortlessly reaching char limits. I dont know if its my typing speed or my continuously rambling mind, but it just happens like that.

I will be writing on from tomorrow after every play session.. lets see how this experiment goes, I wil be linking all future posts to the FF XII board. I mean this thing is not even half of what you have to read through when you play the game right? Shouldnt be a problem I guess :D

Here's to hoping that I can actually make myself decide on a plan and do things accordingly!

I recently watched Knocked up.. and really liked it! But there was one thing that kept me thinking all throughout the movie.. whenever I saw this dude.. the way he talked, looked and everything reminded me of

Dont know how many others also feel the same.

However.. then, after watching the movie, it got me thinking..the people/events in the movie can be related to whats happened at GB too!

JeffG and Pals, love the gaming industry (movie industry in movie), they play a lot of games, and wanted to create their own site.. soo.. they get started on making the site. Where they just do what they like most, play some games and talk about them.

There is also the part that a similar site (Wikipedia) already exists :P (MrSkin in Movie) but here, however, it doesnt matter, as there is more it than just filling pages of things with "The Truth"

Then, I thought some more!

This made me realize that the number of people in the movie and site (writing peeps) are same too! so maybe lets see who can be mapped to who

yes, yes... perfect choice IMO :D Then there was the choice for the other two.. I thought Jason's character suited Vinny very much, so the remaining person had to be snide :P

Now the set is complete! Here you can see the GiantBomb team having a mature discussions :D

With all that thinking done.. then I was thinking about "Who should be the Lead actress" Its obvious that it isnt someone who is already at Giantbomb (not only because theres no female, that I know of, on Giantbomb, but also because.. the heroine didnt work on their site :P )

This had to be someone who was in the "Same industry" ,beautiful, got to meet a many famous people, and was more of the serious type. So then.. I thought again, I came to the conclusion that it would be best to leave it upto the community to fill that gap and enjoy having their own fantasy team :P Its open to you to think up of someone that would fit perfectly.

Also, make up your own similarities between the movie and giantbomb if you can... (maybe someone can even photoshop the group Image? :O )

Oh, and ofcourse.. I am not saying this to hurt anyone's feelings or anything.. just throwing stuff around, dont want to anger anyone mentioned. (and ofcourse, also not suggesting that the thing that happens in the "central plot" of the movie, actually happens :| )

I won't say it but it rhymes with shmashmawsome!

Well.., I just finished watching more than 2hrs worth of giant bomb videos.. all of which, were on my HDD.. Yeeaaaaah!

My internet is just 256k and am mostly on Linux  so streaming those (700k = any quality for some reason)  videos is not a good option.. I just queue them up, download and then watch them whenever free( Like I was today :P ).

Seeing that I use a workaround to do this, I thought I would mention it here, helping, maybe, other Giantbombers like myself.

Its simple actually, I just use this VideoDownload Helper Addon for Firefox, which automatically detects a streaming video being played and gives you the source file's location for download (it also converts them, if you want) I pair it with Flashgot, another addon, using which I direct the download to a Download Manager of my choice and download away :D

The good thing is that, it supports resume.. so if  electricty goes off (like, those bazillion times in a day it does, here) you wont have to restart those usually huge size video files! Also, I can shutdown after download, etc etc.

Of course, this MIGHT be bad for the Giantbomb servers because it increases load etc.. but.. hmm.. I am not sharing this info to overload the servers or anything, just so that others like me can get the videos in an easier fashion.

Soo.. hope this helps!

Gotta sleep.. been watching so many videos, 3 AM now.... just the other day Ryan Davis appeared in my dreams xD He was introducing OTS style vidcast's debut episode.. and then... alarm rang :/

EDIT!

Incase you want to get the videos converted to any other format, no worries! The addon converts videos into ipod formats and others too! Heres is tw pics which will give a better idea about the process :D