Summary: The judge and law system. Clan Nutsy. A closer look at my starting party.
Otherworld
-Marche is confused at this bustling foreign marketplace.
-He bumps into a bangaa and panics, calling him a lizard. I guess he hasn’t played FFXII yet.
-A moogle approaches, trying to smooth things over with the angry bangaa. Claims he knows Marche, that Marche is just some country bumpkin who meant no harm.
-The bangaa looks at Marche’s clothes and says he’s dressed like a soldier. He wants to spar. [Note: I keep accidentally writing Ramza and having to delete it.]
-AND THEN A MAGICAL KNIGHT ON AN ARMORED CHOCOBO DROPS IN LIKE “HI GUYS I HEARD YOU NEED A REFEREE” AND NOW I’M FIGHTING
-THE MOOGLE’S NAME IS MONTBLANC BTW NBD
-The bangaa moves up to Montblanc and bops him, getting xp. So the xp gain system is like FFT, where you get xp for taking actions.
MONTBLANC: “There’s the judge, and the laws for today are all set.”
-Again, this feels like FFXII terminology and language – Judge and all that – but I have no idea if it has any relation to the Archadian Empire’s judge system.
-Also: laws?
“The laws today forbid the use of all items, kupo!” Ah. So these are the combat settings. There’ll probably be some “laws” where you can’t use magic, or where defense is doubled, stuff like that.
-Marche has two options: Fight and Battle Tech. Fight attacks, but Battle Tech “softens up enemy defense.” A debuff?
-I head into status to learn a bit more. Marche has five ability slots. Two actions, one reactive, one support, and a new one. The movement ability slot has been replaced with a “combo ability” slot.
-Marche’s current job is soldier. He can also be a thief. He’s mastered Combat Combo, and can work on the support ability of Shieldbearer (use a shield with any job) and First Aid (cure HP and heal statuses).
-He starts out at level three.
-There’s a “wt” (weight?) indicator. Maybe I can get overloaded at a certain point.
-There are also two card stats at the top, one yellow and one red. Both counters are at zero. Not sure what that’s about.
-I see now: Battle Tech is a submenu. I can use First Aid as my only current battle tech.
-One difference from FFT is that taking actions only gives me xp, NOT JP.
-Montblanc just cast blizzard on an enemy and the judge gave him one JP.
LOL – JP is no longer job points as I’d assumed. It’s “judge points!” Montblanc got one because he scored the KO. Killing blow matters here when it didn’t in FFT.
-Judge Points are used for “combos” with other “clan members.” Maybe FFTA is the origin of Clan Centurio. (That’d be depressing, given what we know of Montblanc’s history.)
-The Judge just ran across the screen with his turn. That surprised me. So Judges play some sort of active role in combat. I’ll bet I could even attack one – not that it’d turn out well.
-yay victory! And unlike the first real fight in FFT, I didn’t die six times.
-Post-fight, the bangaa uses a potion to heal up. MISTAKE. Judge Dredd over here blows his whistle. It’s against the law today to use items.
-Laws don’t just forbid actions; they incentivize actions. And if I’m reading this Law screen correctly, it seems like whenever an action is forbidden, it has specific recommended/incentivized actions paired with it.
For example: when I hover over “Rapiers” under forbidden, “Greatswords” pops up as recommended. When I hover over “Shell” as forbidden, “Silence” pops up as recommended.
This is fascinating. My first thought is that I like how it encourages me to build my party with a broad array of skills.
-I’m learning from one of my first mistakes back in FFT, when I tried going into a fight solo because I didn’t know I had a party. I check. I do have a party.
---
Starting Party
-One of the things I immediately love about this party is that it’s not all humans! I complained that FFXII had a rich world and only gave us one non-human party member – and even she was basically a human with bunny parts.
Marche: Our main kid so far. Current job is soldier. Also has the option to be archer, thief, white mage, or black mage.
Just noticed that bravery and faith are no longer stats.
Montblanc: A moogle. A black mage. A BLACK MAGE MOOGLE. He can also be a thief or an animist, which I think is a summoner since Montblanc also has the Call option.
WHOA WHOA WHOA DID SOMEONE SPILL SOME FFIX IN MY FFTA??
“More Info” on Montblanc’s rod shows Fire, Thunder, and Blizzard all seem attached to the weapon.
Neuman: *glares in Seinfeld* Human soldier. I expect him to be the first of my generics. Going to change him to archer for a more diverse party as soon as I get a bow.
-A downside from War of the Lions is that switching jobs simply unequips the party member rather than optimizing their gear in the new job. [Non-rhetorical question: is auto-gear-optimization a thing in FFTA in some hidden menu?]
Matias: A bangaa! A white monk. Sounds fairly similar to a regular monk. Currently has access to “Whirlwind,” that spin attack. Can also become a warrior which is different from soldier somehow.
Leo: Looks also like a bangaa, and an older one at that. A white mage by default with access to beastmaster and black mage.
Milly: What appears to be a human girl. Or… hm, she has big animal ears. I’ll assume she’s a viera. She’s an archer by default. She can also access white mage and… FENCER??
That’s so cool! A rapier job. In FFXI, there was a job called Rune Fencer but that was a magic tank job. Maybe this is something new – aesthetically similar to FFXIV’s red mage but without the magic.
-I’m blown away by the sheer array of jobs to start with. I thought it was going to use FFT’s basic tree structure, starting at either a front or back-line generic job and then working forward. This is different.
---
Next time: I’ll see if I can go back inside Cyril, the starting town. If not, I’ll move towards Sprohm.
Otherworld
-Marche is confused at this bustling foreign marketplace.
-He bumps into a bangaa and panics, calling him a lizard. I guess he hasn’t played FFXII yet.
-A moogle approaches, trying to smooth things over with the angry bangaa. Claims he knows Marche, that Marche is just some country bumpkin who meant no harm.
-The bangaa looks at Marche’s clothes and says he’s dressed like a soldier. He wants to spar. [Note: I keep accidentally writing Ramza and having to delete it.]
-AND THEN A MAGICAL KNIGHT ON AN ARMORED CHOCOBO DROPS IN LIKE “HI GUYS I HEARD YOU NEED A REFEREE” AND NOW I’M FIGHTING
-THE MOOGLE’S NAME IS MONTBLANC BTW NBD
-The bangaa moves up to Montblanc and bops him, getting xp. So the xp gain system is like FFT, where you get xp for taking actions.
MONTBLANC: “There’s the judge, and the laws for today are all set.”
-Again, this feels like FFXII terminology and language – Judge and all that – but I have no idea if it has any relation to the Archadian Empire’s judge system.
-Also: laws?
“The laws today forbid the use of all items, kupo!” Ah. So these are the combat settings. There’ll probably be some “laws” where you can’t use magic, or where defense is doubled, stuff like that.
-Marche has two options: Fight and Battle Tech. Fight attacks, but Battle Tech “softens up enemy defense.” A debuff?
-I head into status to learn a bit more. Marche has five ability slots. Two actions, one reactive, one support, and a new one. The movement ability slot has been replaced with a “combo ability” slot.
-Marche’s current job is soldier. He can also be a thief. He’s mastered Combat Combo, and can work on the support ability of Shieldbearer (use a shield with any job) and First Aid (cure HP and heal statuses).
-He starts out at level three.
-There’s a “wt” (weight?) indicator. Maybe I can get overloaded at a certain point.
-There are also two card stats at the top, one yellow and one red. Both counters are at zero. Not sure what that’s about.
-I see now: Battle Tech is a submenu. I can use First Aid as my only current battle tech.
-One difference from FFT is that taking actions only gives me xp, NOT JP.
-Montblanc just cast blizzard on an enemy and the judge gave him one JP.
LOL – JP is no longer job points as I’d assumed. It’s “judge points!” Montblanc got one because he scored the KO. Killing blow matters here when it didn’t in FFT.
-Judge Points are used for “combos” with other “clan members.” Maybe FFTA is the origin of Clan Centurio. (That’d be depressing, given what we know of Montblanc’s history.)
-The Judge just ran across the screen with his turn. That surprised me. So Judges play some sort of active role in combat. I’ll bet I could even attack one – not that it’d turn out well.
-yay victory! And unlike the first real fight in FFT, I didn’t die six times.
-Post-fight, the bangaa uses a potion to heal up. MISTAKE. Judge Dredd over here blows his whistle. It’s against the law today to use items.
-lolol he pulls out a red card like a soccer referee and magically sends the bangaa to prison.
-I’m loving the hell out of this music btw! It’s so playful and goofy.
-The prison is in Sprohm.
-The judge vanishes in a flash, leaving Marche more confused than ever.
-He thanks Montblanc for the help.
MONTBLANC: “You have seen a bangaa before, yes?”
MARCHE: “Um, yes, well, no. Not a real one at least.”
FFTA already acknowledged FF games within its universe, and he’s seen bangaas. I just checked the release dates, and it looks like FFXII came out three years after FFTA. Maybe he played an early release version, idk. Or maybe he’s just referring to the bangaa he saw when they opened the book.
-We’re in the town of Cyril, in the land of Ivalice. Marche gets excited since he recognizes the town of Ivalice. The snowy place from before was St. Ivalice. But Montblanc insists that it’s the whole country, not a town.
-Marche confirms he saw a bangaa in a computer game.
-And now Marche starts explaining what Final Fantasy is to Montblanc the moogle and my brain exploded.
MARCHE: “Yeah, come to think of it, it’s just like in the game!”
New theory: the magic book somehow transported Marche into the game world. Or wait, no, we saw the entire world transforming, even what Marche couldn’t see. The magic book must have transformed the real world into the game world.
-Yay, Montblanc will stick around and help me out! Permanent moogle party member?
---
Clan Hall
-Montblanc takes Marche into the clan hell. The music here continues to be wonderful.
-Sounds like it’s a clan of bounty hunters. Maybe they can help me get home.
[Later edit: sometimes I may refer to Marche as Marche, and sometimes I may refer to him as “me.”]
-It’s a small clan. Montblanc even lets me name it! Sticking with the default name: Clan Nutsy.
-We switch to an overhead map view. It’s… unusual. I see myself on the map, this town, but other than that it’s a bunch of blank nodes. On its own, this isn’t that abnormal. Plenty of overworld maps don’t show other towns until I travel there.
What’s weird here is that I seem to have control of the symbol for Sprohm on the map, the prison town.
“Place them in a special order to reveal treasures. Try to find the special combinations yourself…”
I get to decide where on the map to put the Sprohm symbol. I can choose where to put the symbol, whether south or north or adjacent or far away.
Do I construct the game’s geography on the fly?
-I’m loving the hell out of this music btw! It’s so playful and goofy.
-The prison is in Sprohm.
-The judge vanishes in a flash, leaving Marche more confused than ever.
-He thanks Montblanc for the help.
MONTBLANC: “You have seen a bangaa before, yes?”
MARCHE: “Um, yes, well, no. Not a real one at least.”
FFTA already acknowledged FF games within its universe, and he’s seen bangaas. I just checked the release dates, and it looks like FFXII came out three years after FFTA. Maybe he played an early release version, idk. Or maybe he’s just referring to the bangaa he saw when they opened the book.
-We’re in the town of Cyril, in the land of Ivalice. Marche gets excited since he recognizes the town of Ivalice. The snowy place from before was St. Ivalice. But Montblanc insists that it’s the whole country, not a town.
-Marche confirms he saw a bangaa in a computer game.
-And now Marche starts explaining what Final Fantasy is to Montblanc the moogle and my brain exploded.
MARCHE: “Yeah, come to think of it, it’s just like in the game!”
New theory: the magic book somehow transported Marche into the game world. Or wait, no, we saw the entire world transforming, even what Marche couldn’t see. The magic book must have transformed the real world into the game world.
-Yay, Montblanc will stick around and help me out! Permanent moogle party member?
---
Clan Hall
-Montblanc takes Marche into the clan hell. The music here continues to be wonderful.
-Sounds like it’s a clan of bounty hunters. Maybe they can help me get home.
[Later edit: sometimes I may refer to Marche as Marche, and sometimes I may refer to him as “me.”]
-It’s a small clan. Montblanc even lets me name it! Sticking with the default name: Clan Nutsy.
-We switch to an overhead map view. It’s… unusual. I see myself on the map, this town, but other than that it’s a bunch of blank nodes. On its own, this isn’t that abnormal. Plenty of overworld maps don’t show other towns until I travel there.
What’s weird here is that I seem to have control of the symbol for Sprohm on the map, the prison town.
“Place them in a special order to reveal treasures. Try to find the special combinations yourself…”
I get to decide where on the map to put the Sprohm symbol. I can choose where to put the symbol, whether south or north or adjacent or far away.
Do I construct the game’s geography on the fly?
-Laws don’t just forbid actions; they incentivize actions. And if I’m reading this Law screen correctly, it seems like whenever an action is forbidden, it has specific recommended/incentivized actions paired with it.
For example: when I hover over “Rapiers” under forbidden, “Greatswords” pops up as recommended. When I hover over “Shell” as forbidden, “Silence” pops up as recommended.
This is fascinating. My first thought is that I like how it encourages me to build my party with a broad array of skills.
-I’m learning from one of my first mistakes back in FFT, when I tried going into a fight solo because I didn’t know I had a party. I check. I do have a party.
---
Starting Party
-One of the things I immediately love about this party is that it’s not all humans! I complained that FFXII had a rich world and only gave us one non-human party member – and even she was basically a human with bunny parts.
Marche: Our main kid so far. Current job is soldier. Also has the option to be archer, thief, white mage, or black mage.
Just noticed that bravery and faith are no longer stats.
Montblanc: A moogle. A black mage. A BLACK MAGE MOOGLE. He can also be a thief or an animist, which I think is a summoner since Montblanc also has the Call option.
WHOA WHOA WHOA DID SOMEONE SPILL SOME FFIX IN MY FFTA??
“More Info” on Montblanc’s rod shows Fire, Thunder, and Blizzard all seem attached to the weapon.
Neuman: *glares in Seinfeld* Human soldier. I expect him to be the first of my generics. Going to change him to archer for a more diverse party as soon as I get a bow.
-A downside from War of the Lions is that switching jobs simply unequips the party member rather than optimizing their gear in the new job. [Non-rhetorical question: is auto-gear-optimization a thing in FFTA in some hidden menu?]
Matias: A bangaa! A white monk. Sounds fairly similar to a regular monk. Currently has access to “Whirlwind,” that spin attack. Can also become a warrior which is different from soldier somehow.
Leo: Looks also like a bangaa, and an older one at that. A white mage by default with access to beastmaster and black mage.
Milly: What appears to be a human girl. Or… hm, she has big animal ears. I’ll assume she’s a viera. She’s an archer by default. She can also access white mage and… FENCER??
That’s so cool! A rapier job. In FFXI, there was a job called Rune Fencer but that was a magic tank job. Maybe this is something new – aesthetically similar to FFXIV’s red mage but without the magic.
-I’m blown away by the sheer array of jobs to start with. I thought it was going to use FFT’s basic tree structure, starting at either a front or back-line generic job and then working forward. This is different.
---
Next time: I’ll see if I can go back inside Cyril, the starting town. If not, I’ll move towards Sprohm.
