FFXII: My Map of The Great Crystal

Posted on November 16, 2013 by admin

“I’ve heard of some people trying to map out the Great Crystal during their XII playthroughs so as not to keep getting lost, but such a task would be long and frustrating and definitely not worth the trouble.”

~ Livvyplaysfinalfantasy during her current insightful FFXII playthrough

Yes, the in-game map is nearly useless. However, notice “A Prama Vikaari” at top. It tells you exactly where you are, if only SOMEONE would make a map…

I love making maps, and I took Livvy’s comment as a challenge. Here’s the fruits of a week’s labor.

I’ve divided my Giruvegan Great Crystal map into two parts, one for the lower levels which you have to traverse for the plot, one for the upper levels that masochists explore for valuable and unique items and prey, including Excalibur, Ultima and Omega (Mark XII). My notes below will help you find all the treasures and understand the naming conventions of the rooms so that they’re not just gibberish.

Continue reading →

Fixing Game Freeze in FF7 Kalm Flashback on PCSXR for Mac

Posted on September 18, 2013 by admin

I ran into a glitch playing Final Fantasy VII on my Mac Playstation emulator. I found a fix!

Cause: The instructions for PCSXR tell us to load a pack of BIOS into the BIOS folder. This is wrong. There should only be one BIOS in there.

Fix:

Create a spare folder on your desktop.
Go to Folder ~/Library/Application Support/PCSXR/Bios
Drag all the BIOS out of that folder into the spare folder on your desktop.
Then select and drag SCPH1001.BIN back into the PCSXR/BIOS folder.

Before fix: FF7 freezes at the end of Sephiroth’s battle with the dragon during the flashback to Cloud’s past, right after this:

After fix: there’s a looong black screen after the battle, then the game pops back to the inn in Kalm:

My other, less-desirable solution was to pick up a saved game file from here shortly after the glitch, but then I’d lose my limits and overleveled party.

I still have a working PS2 and a back-compatible PS3 that plays the game discs. If all else failed, I was just going to go back to the PS3. But emulating on my Mac allows for screencaps.

Final Fantasy VI Gau – Rage Guide / Cheat Sheet

Posted on July 17, 2013 by admin

This isn’t a comprehensive Rage Guide — there’s plenty of those on GameFAQs — but rather, my own quick-and-dirty shopping list to which Rages I wanted and what they do.

Learn Rages by:

Fighting a monster somewhere else
Using Gau’s “Leap” command when encountering that monster on the Veldt

First Set of Rages (after arrival on Veldt):

Using this FFVI walkthrough’ recs plus FFWikia’s complete Rage/Monster guide, I created a shopping list of monsters I wanted to hunt —

Templar, Hazer/Cloud, Over-Mind/Soul, Rhodox/Mu, Stray Cat, Pterodon/Lesser Lopros, Dark Wind, Trillium, M-Tek Armor, Telstar/Satellite, Vaporite/Spritzer, Bomb, Ghost, Marshal/Guard Leader, Areneid/Alacran, Cirpius

— I copied the list to a spare text window, then deleted names as I found them. I wound up skipping a few. (Note: “Rest” for free in bed in Relic shop)

Then I created this handy battle guide for the rages I’d acquired and printed it to have as an in-battle reference. (PS1/GBA names)

Chart of Best Rages for Gau:

* = target all

Final Fantasy III Jobs: A Half-Assed Guide

Posted on March 31, 2013 by admin

I’ve played through Final Fantasy III three times now, so here’s my take on the different job classes with random tips and observations. Mostly, this is just an excuse to share iOS screencaps of all the FFIII jobs. (And while I’m at it, I’m going to plant my party in as many different locations as possible so you can enjoy the scenery. Aren’t I ~~obsessive~~ nice?)

For more thorough info on jobs, I recommend Seferaga’s FFIII FAQ and the nitty-gritty stats info hidden in the job section of Arkfullofsorrow’s FFIII walkthrough.

Freelancer

Don’t you wish we could just leave ’em in these adorbs costumes the whole game? Wait, no, that’s what happens in nearly every game after FFV, so that people complain about “dress up” in X-2 and XIII-2.

Freelancer can use: Level 1 Black Magic/White Magic, most equipment.

Insane stats at high levels make it almost worth leveling up. Almost.