Currently Playing: Final Fantasy XII – Part 2

Holy balls. Does this game ever end? It’s like the freaking NeverEnding Story, except this time, the Princess has a name and there isn’t a luck dragon.

Fran, if Jim Henson had been in charge of character design

Right now, I’m crushing through the 60 hour point and if I had to guess, I’d say I'm at the halfway point. Maybe the two-thirds point, but that’s pretty dang optimistic.

Part of the reason I have no idea how far along I am, stems from the plot not really increasing in tension. Oh, sure, political intrigue

Want a sophisticated, complex plot? Don't forget to add a crappy translation to really bring it all together.

can be awesome. I’m a huge fan of political thrillers. But, just because it’s political in nature doesn’t really mean that it’s mature or intellectual, or even good for that matter. If I want a Final Fantasy with some serious political intrigue, backstabbing, plotting, and manipulating, I’ll stick with Tactics (which also happens to be one of the best games of all time).

Anyway, the plot fails to build in tension largely due to the expansiveness of the game. The game gives you five minutes of plot and someone telling you where to go next. Five hours later, I finally get to the designated location, fight through a mine (or something equally generic), then get the next five minutes of plot.

Don’t get me wrong. I love sidequests and having cut my teeth on the original Final Fantasy, I don’t really mind grinding either. But, when I take off to do the available sidequests and it takes in the neighborhood of 5 to 10 hours to complete them. Now that’s bullshit!

Take hunting, for example. I like doing the hunting quests, they pit me against some stronger-than-average monsters and I sometimes get good loot from beating them. It gives a pretty satisfying sense of accomplishment. But, let’s look at the time required to finish each hunt.

First – Go to a bar and look at the bills for available hunts. After selecting one, it will direct you to talk to a specific person, who usually resides on the other side of the continent.

Second – Go talk to the person indicated and accept the hunt. They will give you a fairly obvious hint of where the monster can be found, if not its outright location. Oh, and in case you’ve played through the game before and know where the monster will be found, you still can’t skip this step: the monster won’t even appear until you’ve talked to the poster of the bill.

Third – Find the monster and beat it. Most of the time, this is fairly easy as all the running around and talking to people has a nice added bonus of leveling up your characters, but on rare occasion, there might be a tougher battle.

Fourth – Go back and talk to the person who posted the bill. Seriously!? I have to walk my ass all the way back there just to get my loot? I couldn’t just, I don't know, get it from the monster when it dies? Ridiculous.

Okay, I get it. It’s more realistic this way, kind of like getting loot from monsters instead of money. Yeah, I know a vulture shouldn’t drop a bunch of cash, but it sure beats the hell out of going to a store and spending several minutes selling all the random items I collected during my 30th circumnavigation of Ivalice. All I’m saying is that I would gladly sacrifice a bit of realism for a little bit more time economy.

Like I said, I like doing the side quests and roving all over Ivalice. The problem is that all this filler takes away any tiny bit of tension that the plot is trying to build.

Whatever. Back to it I guess, maybe I'm further along than I think.

Oh, and I totally know that I can teleport from the red save crystals. Doesn't help all that much though.