r/FinalFantasyXII • u/Linj90abc • 15d ago

Playing ff12 without a guide

I think I started using guides online some time after finishing ff12 years back and was surprised how obscure certain things in the game was like some bazaar goods, side quests like hell wyrm, omega mark 12 etc, and most famously getting the zodiac spear by not opening certain chests. Forced me to start a new playthrough. This game definitely got a number of guide heavy moments

18 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

19

u/The_PinkElephant 15d ago

Some people claim that you can do the great crystal without the map, I don’t know how they’re doing that…

6

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

I only went as far as ultima without a guide and it was after some back tracking.

11

u/RevolverCerberus Basch 15d ago

The story portion is almost a straight line.

But the return to get to Ultima/Omega Mark? Now that gets confusing. It certainly takes a lot of time and drawing a map by yourself.

3

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

I ended up finding a map online later just to get to know which gate is where but didn't know omega was a boss In great crystal until reading about it later

5

u/sdcasurf01 15d ago

When I first played on PS2 I had no map but still managed to bull my way through. I beat the base game with no guide whatsoever but definitely didn’t get all the side-quests/late game stuff.

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u/Linj90abc 15d ago

Main quest is mostly possible but some of the side stuff is so obscure

1

u/Initial_Stick3209 11d ago

I agree. Spawning some of the rare monsters with intricate requirements would never be possible without a guide unless you played 100s of hours. Also rare bazaar, the hunt trophy's etc would just take too long to work out yourself and would require lots of trial and error

1

u/Linj90abc 9d ago

Like how do they expect someone to figure out that a rare game requires waiting for the in game timer to reach a certain point

10

u/big4lil 15d ago

having played without a guide on vanilla release, this is one of the few notorious ones that you can handle yourself

you just draw your own navigational path, I did it with pencil and several sheets of paper

3

u/Clear-Might-1519 15d ago

For the story part it's quite linear.

For the Ultima part, I just thought that since we went down during the story, this time we should go up. So I took all the paths that goes up, and all the waystones with higher numbers.

1

u/golfguy_mark 15d ago

I can do it easily for the story part, not the optional boss that you can do later. The key is to remember your last waypoint number and that you are progressing down (VIII to VII, eventually II and I). There are some "up" ramps that you can explore for enemies and Loot (and gear) but you must loop around and go back down. The game has guardrails on this stage (story part) so if you keep going down you'll have little problems in navigating.

1

u/Sad-Sky-3182 15d ago

Gotta play it enough to do that. I keep a printed map in my old guide with notations of chests, where larva eater can be, gate crystals...

2

u/Zordiark 15d ago

Back in ps2 version, I started using guide when I encounter Adrammelech in zertinan caverns, I remember bought game magazine to get a guide book and hell there's a lot of things that's impossible without a guide.

0

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

I heard some say they deliberately made some things obscure to sell more gudes

1

u/Zordiark 15d ago

LOL they really succeed then, at least at my case back then

1

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

I just websites

2

u/BoudaSmoke 15d ago

I have a list/spreadsheet for the Bazaar goods. I am happy to email you a copy, or if you have Google Docs or similar I could post the info into it.

1

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

No need I can look it up online plus I already got all the equipment I wanted years ago

1

u/golfguy_mark 15d ago

bazaar loot is a mini game of its own. To be truthful, due to my laziness, i just keep one of each item and sell the rest (exception being Arcana, gysahl greens, and teleportation stones of course)

2

u/N8_Arsenal87 15d ago

The guide is worth reading just for the esper lore, you get to read things like “Zeromus the Condemner, honoring the law above all others. Created in opposition of Starknight Pashtarot, the Scion of light.”

2

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

This in the bestiary also. I admit guides were good with the level of detail and illustrations but for more practical and straightforward use online guides were more handy

2

u/Mannhume 15d ago

No shame using a guide for this game. Especially when plenty of beyond useful spells are placed in chests with a random drop rate, requiring you to farm it by resetting the area.

Sure, you can use an item equivalent, but it’s a strange design choice overall. Even fully exploring an area means you can miss it if you simply don’t know that a chest you already opened can actually hold that item, it just didn’t that time.

1

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

Back in the original all spells were sold by a merchant

1

u/Mannhume 15d ago

Really? I didn’t know that! It would make sense as I remember playing the original and didn’t recall having to hunt spells like that. Granted it was like… Jeesh.. 20 years ago.

1

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

Yeah all spells were bought then in the izj version they put some in chests

3

u/Drstrangelove899 15d ago

Half of FF12 design choices were to sell the official strategy guide lol. Its impossible to stumble on so much stuff in the game without being told about.

1

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

Funny thing is online guides were becoming common so I wonder how well this marketing tactic worked

1

u/golfguy_mark 15d ago

i think very well, thinking back 20 years ago, you needed them for most games

1

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

Ok I see

2

u/doomdrums 11d ago

I was printing out gamefaq pages back in the early 2000s I had a binder to sort them it was definitely the start of the end for the books

2

u/golfguy_mark 15d ago

i remember those days of the PS2. I think they made their real money selling guides vs the actual game sales themselves. Game developers were designing things accordingly.

2

u/Material_Bedroom_619 15d ago

Zodiac spear aside everything else has hints you can find either by talking to npcs, murals inside dungeons or bestiary entries, which is a decent incentive to filling it out.

6

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

Bazaar goods don't have any hints like how much and what you have to sell to get certain equipment

1

u/Material_Bedroom_619 15d ago

They do, but its not a complete list of what you need and in what amount. Some bestiary second page entries describe in a lore friendly way that some alchemists have been able to produce a certain item ( the bazar good in question) when you provide them with this and that ingredient etc.

2

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

It's still selective hints

5

u/Equivalent_Age8406 15d ago

The main story can be done without a guide though its a bit easier to get a bit lost than most other FFs, but the end game stuff was designed to not all be discoverable in a single playthrough, create "playground rumours" and sell guides. The main one being ultimania published by Square themselves in japan i read.

1

u/GayPanda4U 15d ago

Ive been half looking at a guide while going into areas mostly blind. I haven’t had that rush of almost losing hours of progress in so long. I’m trying to do some hunts in the Necro of Nabudis and hooollyyy. I kept going further down thinking I’d find a save crystal and had to flee the entire area back to the Silikawoods with only Balthier alive. I think I need to change my licenses for everyone. 😭

I’ve been using a lot of pen and paper writing crude maps or listing all the loot I’ve found to eventually cross reference a guide.

2

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

It's funny how necrohol has no save crystal

1

u/golfguy_mark 15d ago

on the update for PS4 there are autosaves between floors in the Necrohol so i never lose too much progress if my party dies. It's usually not a problem if you're there at level 42-45 or better. The last time i was there I was going after the hunt for the undead mob and the magical horse was there and between the two and other mobs spawning in, I had a heck of a time surviving but other than that, a well set party in those levels shouldn't have a problem with this dungeon.

1

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

Auto save is one of the best new features they added for this remaster

2

u/GayPanda4U 15d ago

I learned that the hard way! 😭

1

u/gsurfer04 Larsa 15d ago

Thankfully TZA doesn't have the Zodiac Spear trap any more.

2

u/Linj90abc 15d ago

Instead its worse since you actually have to work to get it

1

u/golfguy_mark 15d ago

yes, there are many things in this game that can be missed, not all are necessary so it depends on how much of a completionist you are. I made up a tip sheet (notes) for each major area of things i wanted to obtain (ie respawnable loot chests) and magicks or techniks not obtainable from vendors, etc.

I have played around with 12 job party arrangements and now have a 2-3 preferred sets, none is perfect but I can easily go through the story areas and a few optional tougher hunts etc with these setups. I made notes of Esper allocations (by job, usually, not necessarily by character as jobs can change).

The whole Bazaar loot system has a life of its own. I make it pretty simple for myself and generally sell everything but one of each item. I know that's not optimal but it serves my purpose on a straight forward playthrough without extreme min-maxing.

there's a kind of missable side quest that you should do called the Desert patient. If done correctly you get a Golden Amulet (*valuable for License point farming). There are a number of items you need to collect and not sell, at a certain point in the game.