FFXII: some tips if fighting the TZA Archeoavises too early

For some reason, the developers decided these enemies should be even nastier surprises than everything else in the Zertinan Caverns from #FFXII.

Since this early, as soon as you're tasked to go past Giza Plains, you're still weak and lacking in resources no matter how strong you are, it can be a very challenging fight, or if playing casually, potentially impossible until very late.

That being said, there are some ways which can make the battle manageable, from what I tested:

Moving two zones out and back in allow you to reroll these enemies' levels until you get them to a desired point, lowest level being 59 according to the wiki.

As previously said, normal progression may make this fight impossible, so powerleveling is advised. If going too weak, both you will be tickling these bullet sponges, and they will be tickling your characters' bones per bite.

Also about progression, do the mandatory events of Jahara, so you get a guest that has Bubble, which doubles the target's HP. The guest, also having fewer abilities, ends up being more mobile, meaning you can use him as party leader to abuse area transitions (and their auto-saves).

The Archeoavises are also susceptible to Confuse and Blind. The guest spamming Shades of Black will sooner or later trigger blinding spells (as well as doing good damage in-between), or you could have a bow, gun or grenade user equip blinding ammo. The main attacker could use Karkata if you were able to steal from the Trial Mode Flowering Cactoid (rarest steal), the weapon confusing on strike, along with the Hermes Sandals (Bazaar item at this point) for Auto-Haste, to quickly confuse and dish out a lot of damage at the same time.

Further about area transitions, set the battle mode to wait and slowest and lure them to fight by the area's exit, specially useful if they start casting Curse or Dispelga. Curse because one of the debuffs it adds is Disease, which the Serum items are for, but are rare at this point. Dispelga on the other hand, would be because the Archeoavis will be busy casting it while the Karkata attacker goes crazy, and if they dispel you, or the buffs wear off, you can leave the area to recharge and rebuff, while also creating a checkpoint due to auto-save. And if a character gets Disease from Curse, reloading the auto-save if you haven't changed areas since getting debuffed also helps - and enemies don't recover health by moving a single area away (just 2+) or reloading auto-saves where they are accounted for.

Last but not least, and a bit of a general tip, have your healer be a kleptomaniac instead of attacking when not healing or buffing, as the healer doesn't do much damage anyways and you can find the Thief's Cuffs in a nearby area. Vaan or Balthier also have innate Steal, so if you have them as healers, you don't need to waste a second job.

All in all, after the initial scare, it was a fun challenge. =D

The Archer in FFXII TZA is surprisingly strong and resistent

I started playing #FFXII for the Switch, and got curious whether Ulillillia's powerleveling guide could be applied to this version of the game. To my surprise it works, up to the events of the Barheim Passage at least. Some reworking is needed, specially in the beginning, but things like Trial Mode compensate for it.

When you get the Burning Bow, unless you go for the Trial Mode's Flowering Cactoid's rarest steal next, you'll be stuck with the Archer for quite a while since it is the only one that can wield the second strongest weapon at this point, the Bow.

A potential problem of that would be that the Archer can't use immobilize, only either Battlemage jobs can. And the spell is used to ensure survivability when grinding for exp in the Garamsythe Waterway.

But being suspicious of how many generous nodes my Archer was getting, I attempted fo bruteforce my way through the Garamsythe Waterway.

Level 33 Archer with a Burning Bow, Fiery Arrows, whatever good armors I could find in the first 10 stages of Trial Mode. Vaan can survive 1v1 usually at worse on red health, he deals 1200~2000 damage per attack (iirc in the PS2 1200 damage was the upper limit at this point), both Cloying Breath and Bad Breath rarely stick, and I had forgotten to go for the Hermes Sandal's, which after I got, some times Vaan would win at full health.

Also the save point for healing is nearby, autosaves are plentiful with how compact the Waterway is, and fast forward x2 is manageable. So after a quick tactical retreat, Vaan's back for more.

Will probably go for Seitengrat after Bhujerba, and I already can't wait to see the numbers. 🤩

Mystic Quest tip: only red chests are relevant in dungeons

#MysticQuest #FinalFantasy #tip

Stocking outside of dungeons is ideal¹, as dungeons' brown chests give the same consumable items, and you can either rush to a dungeon's relevant/unique stuff, and/or make short trips.

The red chests, however, they contain new weapons, armor and magics, so focusing on them saves having to go through specially annoying enemies only to get measly rewards like 10 bombs / 3 potions / the sort.

¹Only exception where you will want to go to a dungeon is to get is the seed / fruit of magic, as magic can carry you a long way (specially teleport and cure), and afaik the only renewable source of seeds is deep in the Bone Dungeon, in a room a bit off the path at the end of a bone corridor, point F on this map: https://mikesrpgcenter.com/ffmq/maps/bone_dungeon.html

Also as mentioned, teleport is specially useful, both to flee a given dungeon, and to instantly kill normal enemies (great if one of the enemies has nastier attacks).

Hope this helps someone. =)

Playing Mystic Quest and... it's not bad?

Trying to finish it for the #12in12 challenge (finish at least a game per month), and though I'd read people complaining #MysticQuest is a bad #FinalFantasy, I'm positively surprised.

Probably being past 60~70% of the game, other than the shallow story, it's being a fun experience. Hard enough I need to pay attention, but simple enough it doesn't get taxing. Dungeons can be a tad long and winding, but not like FFII's dungeons (I like that game too, but oh god, those dungeons 😩). Regarding the story, a neutral point, but it's simple enough I don't need to pay much attention at least. Magic is pretty useful for once in a RPG, even later on. And I've yet to grow tired of the OST (Alexa, play "Battle Theme" on repeat).

Also the Japanese version has simple enough texts it's simple to interpret. But how does "Rock", "ロック", becomes "Tristam"? Came across the English name and it got me confused. "<.<

Anyways, dunno if it's still officially distributed anywhere, so if not, I think it's worth hunting down cartridge to play! =D

Reloaded a decade-old save, where someone told me he was surprised I beat the game as supposedly I was too underleveled, and testing around with the small materia build I came up with, I think remembered why:

Thundaga iirc I found lying early in the final dungeon, and Osmoga about halfway through (correct me if I'm wrong, going by memory here).

Thundaga is the fastest of the -ga spells I had found, it goes through enemies for a decent chance of chaining attacks, and does a lot of damage. And Osmoga is there because Thundaga drains Zack's MP way too fast.

Also I had equipped Cura and Healing Wave since enemies were hitting like a truck, some HP and magic materias for surviving and damaging, and (I don't remember why) Lucky Stars.

Testing with a few missions, which I totally didn't learn just now how to access, Zack doesn't even flinch before the enemies go down. Also yet to find any enemies immune to thunder.

I have some vague notion of how powerful a certain superboss is in the game, so likely it's not enough for that, but if you're struggling with the main game or some intermediary missions, maybe worth trying that set of materias?

Also no idea how it goes with the Steam remaster.

Hope it can help someone. =)

Just found it, and from what I can tell, it could take an agonizing long while to appear.

The common tip I found about the enemy is to kill everything in 63F of Pharos, go to 64F and immediately return, as apparently it appears specifically in the chamber right before the stairs. But quite a few enemies are buried or out of sight due to how big the area is. Knowing the game enough just to do powerleveling, I'd imagine those enemies are competing with the Avenger in the spawn pool, so the first tip would be to go cycling as many times it takes to kill everything you find, including forcing the ones hidden to come out, and always looking at the minimap for red dots.

Another tip is to always move to 62F/64F as you come across their area transitions, and immediately go back. Since the Avenger has a 40% chance of appearing when you enter 63F, even if there are still enemies competing for spawn, imo it's better to have some chance of spawning it than none at all if you kept just cycling the area. And if you rotate between going to 62F and 64F, you still need to go through the chamber it appears in, so no risk of missing its spawn.

And if you're playing either of the Zodiac versions, or either of the earlier PS2 versions in an emulator, fast forward can help, as looking for the Avenger can get rather repetitive.

And a tip not in the title, if you're going mainly for the story and/or you're not overleveled/overprepared, but in either cases you started the Hunt Club sidequest already, if you see the Avenger, leave only 1~2 characters in your active party and make a run for the stairs behind it, swapping the characters as they die. The stairs lead to 64F, which has a save crystal, and the Avenger hits hard and can spam Ardor, which is AoE and can be pretty nasty on the characters' health, so better safe than sorry and with a broken controller.

Hopefully these tips help someone. =)

Crossposted from https://thebrainbin.org/m/[email protected]/t/1380943

Out of many games, Final Fantasy titles were the least of my expectations to see on GOG. If you know Square Enix, you surely understand.

Anyway, this is a great day for DRM-free. 4 of the FF titles are finally here. Hopefully these are baby steps from Square Enix.

• Final Fantasy III (3D Remake)

• Final Fantasy IV (3D Remake)

• FINAL FANTASY IX

• FINAL FANTASY VIII - REMASTERED

Site: https://www.square-enix.com/ddff/en/

Quick notes from the site and trailer.

• Out 2026
• Mobile only - iOS and Android.
• 10 Characters at launch.
  • Warrior of Light
  • Kain Highwind [IV]
  • Krile Baldesion [V]
  • Terra Branford [VI]
  • Cloud Strife [VII]
  • Rinoa Heartilly [VIII]
  • Zidane Tribal [IX]
  • Lightning [XIII]
  • Gaia [XIV]
  • Prompto Argentum [XV]
• Closed beta is Android only - Sign-up here
• 3 vs 3 Boss Battle - First team to defeat the boss wins.
• Uses a "Bravery" system for battles and sync of attacks with team.
• 4 Seperate roles
  • Ranged
  • Melee
  • Support
  • Agile
• Set in modern day Tokyo, characters have modern world clothing
• Character customisations - hats, etc.
• Has music from previous FF games.
• Will have IAPs
• In development with NHN Playart

A “Team Boss Battle Area” game for iOS/Android…

Free admission and there is merch! :)

We’re almost there. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is out 30th September 2025 and has been long awaited by many of us.

Remember to keep spoilers behind spoilers tags.

Whether you’re a newcomer or an old-hat, I hope you all enjoy the foray to Ivalice!

I'm a massive fan of the original Final Fantasy VII—it's one of those games that defined my childhood. Recently, someone in my retro gaming podcast community voted for me to cover Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, and I've never actually played it myself. I remember it getting a pretty mixed reception back when it released in 2006 because it ditched the classic turn-based RPG formula for something more action-oriented. I watched my brother play bits of it, and it looked like a third-person shooter with Vincent as the star, which felt kinda off at the time. Not sure if I'd love it or hate it.

So, is Dirge a good game overall? What should I know going into it—pros, cons, tips for enjoying it, or any lore connections to the Compilation (like Advent Children or Crisis Core) that make it worthwhile? Does it hold up today, especially after the Remake trilogy?

Also I'm always looking for new guest speakers. If you're interested, feel free to DM me.

Thanks in advance for the insights!

I finished a very enjoyable playthrough from start to VI thanks to Pixel Remasters, and I bought VII-IX on Switch to keep it going. I'm on the first arc in Kalm after leaving Midgard and I am finding it a struggle to get through. This game moves so slow, the story is not at all interesting so far, combat is entirely monotonous, the characters are flat, the controls are clunky, and the cut scenes are excruciatingly long and pointless.

I do not want to play through it for completeness sake, but I also don't want to give up too early.

I feel like I should be enjoying it by now, right? Is there some point in the story where it really takes off? If so, how close am I?