So the systems keep getting deeper, the gambits keep getting more numerous and complicated, and the marks are starting to get a lot harder. The Ring Wyrm totally handed my ass to me, though I'm just about take down the Gil Snapper. Almost had the bastard the last time and I didn't even have a way to dispel its protect and shell... so I decided to go get a few obvious spells I'd neglected to buy due to lack of funds, and I'll kick its ass this time. But the game's marks can get really challenging. I read a few crazy stories about various things, and the last elite mark that Montblanc will give you (not really a spoiler, but a spoiler if you want to be surprised at the last mark's gimmick) ...
... has 50 million fucking hit points. Fifty. Million. Even with the best attacks in the game, that has to be a fight that's going to last like an hour and a half or something. I mean, I think the game's best attack does 60,000, and that isn't something you're going to be able to pull off that much.
I'm just about to leave Archadia for the labs.
And no I don't have Cuch yet. I don't actually know where he is, although I assume he's hiding just from looking at his picture and such. And I'm fully convinced that one is hiding down there, but last time I went many levels ago it was a little rough for me. Now I should be overequipped to go find whoever is down there. By then I *might* be a little closer to gearing up for Zeromus, but probably not quite. I think I'm going to need the full outfit of group-buff spells before I try that one again.
As for hunts, I'm feeling behind. There are some I feel like I should be finishing, but I'm not quite high enough level. Plus I need money, so I may go out and just hunt bones for a while. I have nearly all of the grimoires now, so I can usually make a good buck wherever I am.
I'm at about 89 & 1/2 now. I think it's going to take me a whole lot longer than 109 to finish everything I've got to go. I really move slow when I find myself immersed in something. I try to savor it. I suspect I'll top this out around 130 - 150, depending. The more breaks I take from a game, and I tend to take a few with a long RPG, the longer I'll take because I always have to remember what it was I was doing when I get back, then just grind for a little while to get back into the flow of things.
EDIT - Just got Cuchulainn! Haha, that was awesome and fun.
Pretty tough at level 40, though I heard some guy claiming that he managed it at 25. Either he's spent way too much of his life playing this game, or he's lying through his teeth. I probably could have taken anothe route to winning, but what I ended up doing was basically sticking in my 3 primary spellcasters and setting them up to use curaga at 50% health. Gave them all black belts to project against Cuch's favorite, Disable. It took freaking forever for them to take him down, and I had to keep a really close eye after they ran out of magic so that I used charge when they were too low to cast any of the spells I needed them to cast, but his Invert spell really helped me out in the war of attrition. Eventually, despite a character being out of magic, Cuch'd use invert, and the character would either get curagaed by a buddy, or die and get resurrected. Either way, they'd have full mana after that! Things went pretty smoothly until the end when he got really tough to damage, and even a couple of decent quickening chains didn't finish him off. But they got him down to a sliver, so I just plugged away for another 5 or 10 minutes and eventually got him. It was just really funny that I managed to exploit his Invert spell, as I figured he'd have some other trick to fuck that up... but he didn't have anything else up his sleeve.
Also, I got my biggest quickening chain yet - 19. Highest I've seen anyone post about was 27, but I think my record previous to this was like 15 or something. I got the Black Hole, the best concurrence, and caused around 32k damage or so. It would have been greater had it not been for the enemy, which was a highly-armored dragon hunt that had about 250k health. That was a fun fight, too. Decoy+Bravery+Protect+Berserk+Bubble+Haste... I think that's like my favorite combo.
The two major threads are merged now (the original bigger thread, and Cobra's offshoot frustration thread which ended up mostly just heading into the same territory as the original after the initial group of posts).
Also, I'm at 129 hours now. 34 hunts down, 6 to go from what's in my roster, and I think there are 2 or 3 more regular hunts available along with another maybe 3 elite hunts. I've unlocked 2/3 of the bestiary items given the bar along the bottom, and I've managed 9 of the rare marks for the Phon Coast hunt club. 13 items unlocked in the Sky Pirate's Den (most recent was the one you get for defeating the Malboro elite mark). I've taken 625,744 steps, I've got 334,309 gil, and I've got a character at 48, three at 49, and two at 51. Currently heading for:
the Ridorana Cataract with Reddas.
Whew. Have also put in about 13 hours or so into Revenant Wings on my DS, and about 2 into Final Fantasy Tactics Advance which I was lucky enough to pick up recently for 20 bucks including the original box and instructions. I'm addicted to these games. XII most of all, but I think my love of that one has migrated a lot of interest over to the other related games. I've yet to finish Vagrant Story, but I'm pretty close now!
I ran into the end of the game unexpectedly last night. It was awesome, but the fact that it ended outright is anticlimactic. No! I want more!
So I headed to Bahamut, which had been an option for like a week before I finally decided to check it out. The last thing I had done was to complete the Shadow Seer quest at the Pharos in Ridoranna. That was hard. Bahamut almost felt like a pushover by comparison. I got some great gear at the Pharos which made things easier, in particular a ribbon, which seems to make you immune to all status ailments. I fought through with Vaan (level 96), Basch (l. 82) and Ashe (l. 78). It became obvious quickly that the lower-level minions (imperials and robots mostly) were never going to stop coming, so I ended up fleeing through the corridors just to ignore them and figure out where to save the game. Well, I never did find a save crystal. I found an elevator, which sent me through to the end. Gabranth was easy, then Vayne was ridiculously easy, and then came The Undying. That freaked me out. It's one of the most impressive-looking bosses I remember. By this point, I'm used to some bosses becoming immune to absolutely everything, and I use those periods to buff up my party. I whacked him until the physical immunity, scourged and flared him until the magick immunity, bubbled up and curaja'd repeatedly after that, then whacked him some more after the immunities lapsed. *Phew* Didn't have to use summoning or quickening, which I suck at still.
I'm considering a cheating playthrough now. I have an Action Replay PS2 disc, and I imagine this game has gotten a thorough hack-code hunt. I'd love to see the whole story retold in a quicker fashion. It was fascinating. I normally want FMVs and other cutscenes to end, but I watched all of FF XII's intently. This looks like a project for a creative soul--to make a complete movie of the game's story using the game, with the minimum amount of gameplay footage required for the whole thing to hold together.
I've completed 40 hunts, and there still remain at least 4 more. I never did complete at least one other side quest, involving a letter to sisters who work on the sky ferries. But now that the game is over, with no save which reflects my beating the game, I'm not sure I want to go tackle that now. Maybe I will.