Customer Reviews

Final Fantasy XII Signature Series Guide (Bradygames Signature Guides)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Brady Games is notorious for putting together somewhat haphazard game guides, and the FF12 guide is no exception. What we have here is a colossal guide for FF12, featuring almost all of the information that any player needs to complete the game. It includes lists of all of the loot drops in the game, strategies on how to beat all of the optional bosses, and advice on how to build your party so that the license board does not completely perplex you. However, the guide has many inherent flaws, which make it a little less than lovable.

To begin, the guide is chock full of spoiler information. Nowhere in the guide can you go and get the quick and simple advice that you might be seeking for a part of the game. Instead, the writers have chosen to fill almost every part of the walk through up with unnecessary information on the storyline scenes and spoilers that which makes playing the game a little boring. The guide could easily have had 50+ pages taken out of it if the writers had avoided spoiling most of the game's storyline. Instead however, it seems that they have (with Square-Enix' blessing) filled every part of the walk through up with spoiler content in order to add weight to the guide when the weight is superfluous.

Another hindrance on the guide are it's strange typographical errors. Throughout the guide the reader will find instances where references to other pages are turned to question marks. For example, when going over a side quest, the guide says to look to page (???) for more information. This is rather troublesome and it leaves the reader wondering if that page is even in the guide.

The guide also suffers from bad organization. The maps of the dungeons are small and cumbersome, and while playing through an area, players will have to continuously flip back to the page with the map and squint their eyes to find out where the treasure chest they want is located. The guide also fails to mention where some of the "good treasure" drops are in each dungeon and the player will have to refer to the exhaustive bestiary section to find out where the monster they want is located and if they are capable of killing it.

Another lack of organization is the lack of an index. The guide is set up in such a way that in order to know everything, the player will have to start using it when they start the game. If they begin to read it during any other point, they will have to flip back and scrounge around before they might be able to find a piece of information that otherwise could have been found by using an index.

The final blow to the FF12 guide however is the complete lack of explanation of how the treasure chest system works. There are tables however, that break down the frequencies of finding an item, but it requires trial and error before the player will find out exactly how to use the table. A thorough explanation should have been in order to explain this critical aspect of the game.

Despite these numerous errors, the guide still offers much to players who are in need of help for completing the game. It offers great advice on how to defeat all of the bosses (and the previously mentioned optional bosses), it gives the location of every single item, and it has a very pretty presentation, chock full of screen shots and artwork. If a player is seeking this guide, the best advice would be to locate the limited edition version of it, as it comes in a hard cover case and has an extra "art book" that comes with it.

*Update* Another serious flaw with the guide that I didn't realize until I got towards the end of the game was the lousy advise the game guide gives on one of the last dungeons. While this dungeon is indeed optional, it features a few of the best items in the game as well as some of the hardest fights, so boo on Brady Games for not taking the time to explain this dungeon in better detail.

Final Fantasy XII is a very complex game with all treasure box items being random and rare monster appearance. A complete strategy guide is highly recommended. A good example is that one single mistake at the beginning of the game might change the entire probability of occurance down from 100% to 0.1% for certain powerful items, such as the Zodiac Spear. There are also near 400 different monsters, bosses, and enemies data that player should know their strong and weakness in order to defeat them at ease and obtain rare items.

Moreover the maps in FFXII are HUGE, very similar to MMORPG scale, while contains many hidden paths that are NOT shown by pressing SELECT button for the in game maps. A printed collection of maps are very convenient.

The US version FFXII strategy guide is actually a translated and reorganized version from the two Japanese guides: FFXII BATTLE ULTIMANIA & SCENARIO ULTIMANIA. I give the two Japanese guides 5 stars due to their complete data tables for monsters, items, equipment tables and most efficient boss strategies. The US Bradygames guide however, I give 4 stars due to not 100% complete as the Japanese guides. The US Bradygames version is lacking the most efficient strategies in certain boss fight, for example the US version says use QUICKENING (it works for most kind of bosses if player is skillful, so no need to mention everytime in the strategy guide), and the Japanese version actually teaches you to cast certain magic and Gambit combination to against certain boss that player has to defeat it within a time limit (Use ZAP + VIRUS combination, where ZAP can lower the HP continuously (Numerator) and VIRUS is to lower the maximum possible HP (Denominator) of the boss, this combination guarantees the HP of the boss can never be increased nor restored to the initial max. E.g. HP=50000/50000 can be lowered to HP=200/200). There are so many different ways to defeat a boss in FFXII, but QUICKENING is just not the most efficient way against certain boss unless the player is very skillful.

The Bradygames monster table is a lot simpler compare to the Japanese Ultimania. For example, the US version shows the monsters' weakness and strengths but does not show what kind of magics are effective against or Null to them. Morever, the Japanese guides has a collection of monster data with certain probability of dropping or able to be stolen different items, while the US version just lists them out without the degree of rareness.

Apart from those differences, I still think that the US guide is good enough and I highly recommend people to get the collector's edition due to the extra BEAUTIFUL ART BOOK!! Worth every single penny! Exclusive in EB Games/ Gamestop.

--Updated on 11-03-2006--
I think the US version is needed to be a little bit more organized and add more important detail data. For example, if I need to find a map for a certain area, I must need to flip to the page at which the story has that particular section of the map. There is no index table for me to find the maps either. Moreover, I just figured one of the mistakes that the Accessories section for the Diamond Amulet ,which improves the probability of rare items apperarence, has only listed one location : Dalmasca Esterland!!! But there are several other locations where you can obtain it too!!! They are: The Tchita Uplands, and from Bestiary # 169: Mom Bomb with low chance for dropping the item. The locations to obtain this Diamond Amulet is summarized very clearly in the Japanese Ultamania Guides, but this information is scattered around in the Bradygames guide. It is kind of dissapointing to me.

First of all, I must say that this guide is absolutely gorgeous. If nothing else, it is worthwhile for the collectability and the beautiful artwork.

Second, BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO BUY THIS GUIDE be advised that there is a special edition version of this guide. The special edition is more expensive but it includes an artbook (VERY beautiful and detailed), the guide, and a folder to keep them in. The special edition guide has one of six covers featuring a character from the game, but the artbook contains all of the images - so no worries if you don't get the one you want. However, the inside contents of the two guides are EXACTLY THE SAME. Just be aware of that before you decide to buy.

The guide contents themselves pretty standard - the guide first includes a story, character profiles, and even a "relationship flowchart." There is a full explanation of the License Board system including a chart that shows how each character can access the complete board. Other sections include Gambits, Espers & Quickenings, a complete Walkthrough, Hunts, Side Quests, & Secrets, Weapons, Armor, & Accessories, Magicks & Techniques, Items & Sundries, The Bazaar, Marchant Shops, and last but not least, a Bestiary. This guide is great for getting everything in the game, and as I said before, if you're a collector, this is a must have.

I want to start off and say that the guide indeed includes all information you would want. Side quests, hunts, loot, bazaar, walkthrough, bestiary, secrets, etc. Where this guide fails miserably is organizing everything and cluttering the guide with spoilers and useless screenshots. The presentation kind of looks pretty at first, but when you realize there's a bunch of junk you have to sift for information you quickly change your opinion about the guide.

The walkthrough is probably the biggest failure of the guide. It's loaded with spoilers and useless spoiler screenshots that could've been replaced with larger maps or screenshots that help you find where to go. In addition, it fails to tell you when you should do the sidequests. The chance to do some of the sidequests are lost because you're at a point in the game you can't go back. The walkthrough is written in a roundabout way giving more story spoilers than what to do. I found myself having to go back to do something, missing sidequests I can't go back to, spending more time finding what to do because the walkthrough doesn't describe it well. The walkthrough is strictly for you to get through the story and it gives you spoilers. It gets the job done, but it's filled with holes.

The sidequests are all included in the back, so you'll constantly be flipping pages to see if you can do any sidequests yet or so you won't miss any. The sidequest section itself is poorly organized as well. You have sidequests that open up earlier in the game put at the end of the section while the latter sidequests put in the middle of the section. Another irritating thing about it is that in some places the text is extra small requiring you to squint while reading what to do. The guide has the information, but you'll be spending some time looking for it.

Parts of the guide have you referring pages to ???. I'm not sure if it's a print error or the page doesn't exist.

The limited edition of the guide is exactly the same only with an artbook. It's not really a hardcover. If you've seen FFX-2's limited edition guide or Kingdom Hearts 2 limited edition guide, then you know how this limited edition guide looks. The artwork is pretty neat, but nothing spectacular. A lot of blown up shots of the same kind of artwork you'd see in the regular guide.

Should you buy the guide? If you are a collector of Final Fantasy games and guides, then this guide should be a pick up. It's not that bad compared to FFIX's ridiculously horrible guide. It doesn't compare to FFVIII's strategy guide, which in my opinion is the best one so far. If you are the average guide seeker, the guide is still worth the pick up for all the information you want like license board, loot list, weapon, armor, and items list, hunt list and so on.

As near as I can recall, this is the most worthless strategy guide I have ever used. In virtually every instance, I have found it easier and less time consuming to figure out the problem without the guide. For instance, last night I fought a tough fight against one of the hidden espers. But I couldn't find the esper because I didn't know it was an esper. Since the word next to the health meter said BOSS, I therefore looked for a BOSS and couldn't find it. While I was fighting the guy (whose name sounds like a sneeze to me) my girlfriend took up the task of finding the guy. She eventually figured out the guy was an esper, but by then I had already figured out what worked and didn't work, so it was moot.

Yes, this guide is chock full of (probably) every piece of information you could possibly need. However, the guide is poorly organized and finding the information you're looking for is often a more daunting task then trying to solve whatever the issue is in the game.

The worst of it comes from BradyGames being too lazy and sloppy to bother with page headers. Instead, the reader is forced to scan through each and every page of a given section looking for sub-section changes.

For instance, the bestiary is organized by the appropriate section in the game, and the order of those sections seems to be either random, or loosely based on the game time line. While this may seem a perfectly natural method of organization to people making the game (as well as to lazy writers of strategy guides), it is cumbersome and aggravating at times to look for a particular monster in the absence of page headers.

If the book were designed for USERS and not the WRITERS, the bestiary would have been organized ALPHABETICALLY. You see the monster's name in the game, and flip to the page. Quick and easy, right? But alas, that would require more work in writing the book. Okay, fine. So they're too lazy (or too stupid) to alphabetize. Fine. Then the order of the area sections should be alphabetized so you could at least easily flip to the right section before you have to start scanning the page. Nope. No luck there either. Okay, then at there should at least be headers on each page to show you wich area is represented on the particular page. You know, like in a dictionary! Right? Well, no, again. You have to scan every page looking for new section names. It's ridiculous! The whole book is organized like this.

The main walkthrough is fine, provided you are the type to follow the guide all the way through the game (how boring is that?). If you aren't, then you will have problems similar to those described above. Scanning every page looking for a new section. What makes this more difficult is that many of the area names are not easy words that flow off the tongue (maybe it's just me, but names like Bur-Omirsace, Bhujerba, and Tchita don't stand out like, oh, I dunno, say East East Franklin), which is fine, but many people may forget the names of the sections they are looking for and have to keep checking to game (or use a notepad). It's very tedious. But at least the main walkthrough is linear so you have some guidance there.

Such is not the case with the side-quests section. Same as above: no useful organization and no page headers.

Also, throughout the book, the writers cross reference related sections on other pages, but were too lazy to fill in the number. As a result, the references say: (see Page ????). That is incredibly sloppy and unprofessional. Gee thanks for the help guys.

Most of these problems could be manageable if not for another problem, which is this:

NO INDEX!

...and with only the most rudimentarily table of contents, the only way to make effective use of this guide is to turn off the game and read the book for a couple hours (probably making use of several dozen sticky tabs and spoiling the ENTIRE PLOT in the process).

In short, this guide is not a guide at all but dump of information bound together with a $20 price tag. The writers seemed interested in only two things: (i) putting in lots of pretty pictures; and (ii) being able to say "oh look at how much information is in here." Of no concern to them is the ability to make use of the book. Since that is the primary purpose of any GUIDE, this one fails to serve its purpose and is therefore WORTHLESS.

Here is an excerpt of a letter i wrote to brady games about this book. I thought it would be helpful here.

I bought your strategy guide for Final Fantasy Nine, and I was highly dissapointed. I was expecting a strategy guide that had all everything that I'd need to know to complete 100 percent of the game. Instead i've been going through let down after let down when it comes to this book. I'll list my gripes that i have with this book.

1. Not all maps are provided. the most egregious omission is the map of Lusu Mines site three and site 11 and their treasure charts. also missing are maps of the Great Crystal upper level and it's treasure charts.

2. Incomplete listings on how you can obtain weapons and armor. while playing through the game and looking throught the beastiary I frequently find that not all the ways of getting an item are listed under it's listing in the weapons/armor section of the book. this is highly annoying.

3. Where's the loot? I see you've made a rather expansive addition to the loot section of the book [they have a rather pathetic update page on the bradygames website where you can download what i hope is the completed loot list], why is it that you only list the location of highlighted loot? i want a complete chart..

4. When's [insert item here] availible in the shops? there is no indication of what magicks/weapons/techniks etc. are availible in what shops at what time in the game timeline. Is this not important information?

5. My book fell apart. After a couple weeks of use i'm losing lots of pages.
the book is 20 bucks. Can't get a quality binding for that price eh?

6. Side quest vagueness. Not only is the listing of sidequest out of order chronologically, you have clauses like the following example from the "patient in the desert" side quest. "See the ferryman Missing quest on page (???)." Are you kidding? page (???)

7. Rare monster conditions. Ok, you give the conditions for 30 of the rare monsters in the hunt club sidequest. what about the conditions for running into the other 50? I only see they're locations.

8. I think theon concurrences is wrong. I think they're more related to aggregate mist charges spent than the type of number of types of quickinings used. and christ, the example you used to explain concurrences....

Those are the major issues I have with your book. I have minor issues with crossreferencing issues (you list the monsters in each area in the walkthough, why don't you just put the same info as the beastiary in the back? what monster has the most experience to gain, most licence points to gain? where is the best place to level up?)

serioulsy though, this is the worst guide i've ever come across, you know i'm not just flaming all the reasons listed above are valid, and should have been caught somewhere in you QA process.

Thanks Much
Drew.


As a previous reviewer mentioned. since you're going to have to google things anyway you're better off saving the twenty bucks and googling half the stuff. They have a lot of information in the book, and you can use it to finish the game. but the book itself seems unfinished. perhaps this is what happens when you have no competitors.

Forgivable mistakes:
Shoddy editing such as "see page(???)"
Spoilers (I guess they don't bother me as much as other people)

Unforgivable mistakes:
My book started falling apart on the second day. Loose pages constantly fall out.
Tiny fonts on low contrast backgrounds, especially in the Clan Hunt section. I had to use a magnifying glass.
No index.
Incomplete. For example, there is no map of the side quest part of the Great Crystal, and no directions to the treasure chest that has Excalibur in it. You'll need to google that. You may as well save yourself $20 and google everything else, too.

After seeing so many positive reviews about this guide, I ordered it, received it, used it, and became utterly disappointed with it. The few great things about this book that other reviewers have already mentioned aren't enough to make up for the many, many, many little things, and some major things, that ruin this book. This is a long, negative review. If you don't want to read it all then skip to the last paragraph.

Final Fantasy XII is a huge game, so it goes without saying that it deserves a huge guide. So is it a huge guide?

Well, uh, the book is thick? No. It LOOKS thick. In fact that was the first thing I noticed when it first arrived at my doorstep. Held up spine-to-spine next to Bradygames' Final Fantasy X-2 guide, it's about 50% thicker, yet they both contain EXACTLY the same number of pages. But I'm just being stupid. It's not about the number of pages a book has.

Content is much more important. I'll start with the walkthrough. With the exception of the boss strategies, I've come to the conclusion that the walkthrough is mostly completely useless. More than half the walkthrough is pure spoilers -- exposition on what you can expect to see during the games many cut-scenes. I mean, honestly, if I'm playing the game, I'm going to see what's happening, so it's really all just a waste of ink.

As for the boss strategies, they're really not all that spectacular. Some are certainly good. But many are little more than a list of attacks the boss might use. And several are so bad that they can be paraphrased into one simple sentence: "Hang in there." How helpful.

The one good thing about the walkthrough is that it adequately prepares you for obtaining the Zodiac Spear (the strongest weapon in the game), by pointing out the treasure chests you should NOT open AS you get to them. This is something I know many people get frustrated over late in the game, so... Good job, Bradygames, for that.

And, I must say, the maps are outstanding (despite the fact that some of them contain minor incompletions). They're clear, and they show the locations and potential contents (they can change) for every single treasure chest in the game. (Although... The map for the Zertinan Caverns seems to be missing...)

But enough of the walkthrough. FFXII is side-quest heavy, so what of the side-quest section of the guide? There's room for improvement.

Mark hunting is the biggest side-quest in the game, so it naturally deserves, and did receive, more text than any other side-quest. And the strategies for defeating them are mostly good. The problem is that -- and this is a surprisingly HUGE problem -- the text is SO SMALL you can hardly read it! Seven pages of size 6 (at the most!) font, and even worse, black ink on a brown background. I don't know about other gamers, but after spending even a couple minutes staring at a TV screen, I don't appreciate having to readjust my eyes to that extreme to be able to read something. WHY they would do something like that is beyond my understanding. If they wanted to save space, they could've cut back on the plot exposition in the walkthrough. If they HAD the plot exposition because they wanted to stretch the number of pages, then they could've used bigger font here to add several MORE pages. It just doesn't make any sense.

As for the rest of the side-quests, they're pretty good. Except for one, which would have been nice if they had mentioned IN the walkthrough that you have to complete half of it at a certain point in the game, otherwise miss it entirely. But that's just one slip-up for an otherwise nice section of the book.

Then there's the item lists. Not bad, but it fails to tell you where you can find most of the Loot, so you have to search through the Bestiary beast-by-beast to find what you're looking for.

So that's it for the content. But really, all that nitpicking I just did doesn't hold a candle to the book's more serious problem: construction. Aside from the ink that smears from just the slightest moisture on your fingertips... I've only had the book a month and already the pages are falling out. I've had Bradygames' FFX guide for about five years now -- the pages are torn, wrinkled, stained, and the cover's half faded, yet not one single page has ever fallen out. I've had the FFXII guide for a mere month, I've handled it with the utmost care, and it STILL fell apart on me.

I know this is a ridiculously long and negative review, but... Bear in mind that the things mentioned within the many 5-star reviews here are absolutely right, but these are the things they missed, which all add up to a waste of money.

Incredibly poor construction, a walkthrough that's mostly plot exposition, and you can find most of the information in this book, and much more, in various online FAQs and whatnot. But if you get the book, all this information is somewhat organized into a nice, pretty package. And the maps are outstandingly helpful. 2 stars, because it's just not worth $16.49 (the current price). If it drops to closer to $10, then I might bump it up to 3 stars.

It's possible to win Final Fantasy XII in something less than 80 hours. And it's also possible to spend well over 200 hours. The difference is how far you get into the side quests and the various extras that the designers put into the game. The only problem, of course, is that the game itself gives you only the vaguest hints of what is there. It can take forever to push a character's licenses to the point that you discover that there is a special weapon, and then you have to figure out how to get it. If it takes some weird combination of sales to The Bazaar, for instance, then you may never see that weapon.

To put it brazenly, without a guide you may never see half of the game. I have to admit that Square Enix definitely let greed guide them in setting up the game so that it will sell a lot of guides. If the guide had been completely worth it this would irk me less. But the truth is, for all the glorious illustrations and charts, this guide leaves a bit too much out. And many is the time I found what I was looking for way to late to use the information. For all the hype, the Brady guide is very much just another pretty face. It's not bad, but I feel compelled to rate it three stars just because they forced me to buy it.

But you still need a guide to get your money's worth. I wound up using this guide, several on line walkthroughs and even a bulletin board before I honestly felt I had done everything there was to do. This is a big game, and anything that enhances the play experience is worth looking at. This would be a great thing to talk a friend into buying. Then you both will know what not to do to get the Zodiac Spear.

The guide presents nice maps, and the license board poster is very helpful. However, as other buyers said, the guide is a mess when you talk about organization! Besides flipping pages back and forward to find stuff, I realized there are some hunts details missing, and some nice side quests as well! So if you love playing FF series by completing it 100% getting all the items available, secrets and stuff, this guide is not recommended for you. I only used it to check license boards, and check treasure chests table.
There are many free guides in internet available that you can follow to complete this game 100%. Unlike this guide, they tell you WHEN you can already get some nice hunts, a lot better battle strategies, list of spells, armors, weapons and items you can have, how to make nice gil and level up. They tell you WHEN and WHICH side quests are already available. When I tried to follow this official strategy guide I got lost like "hey they dont talk about hunts at all, no side quests no nothing", then I had to GUESS what hunts and quests were available and keep turning pages to check hunt guide at the end of the book, plus when I wanted information about rare monsters, it was faster goin to Google than keep searching this guide bestiary! So hard to find them.
Well, in the end I played the whole game with a free strategy guide, and using the pictures and license board map from this guide , then i could finally play it smooth to reach 100% and i had lots of fun =)