The first impression of the other party members, Balthier and Fran, also makes the game much more bearable. There's always a degree of tolerance that I have towards 'generic anime protagonist', but Vaan is just so... so bland. Vaan is a bit more bearable because I'm playing the Japanese dub (where he is voiced by, of all people, Kamen Rider Ixa/Kamen Rider Grease!) but there's only so much that voice-acting can do when Vaan himself just seems like this random thief tossed into a much more interesting political storyline. He's not terrible, I wouldn't go that far. He's got a typical Aladdin 'pickpocket from the streets' vibe to introduce the common man in the setting, but I think it's a testament to how much I'm indifferent towards him that I took so long to get through this prologue of FFXII.
Anyway, monsters!
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Ghost
- Classification: Undead
- Genus: Ghost
Oh, we have undead in this game! The 'Ghost' enemy here is the most basic one, and I am very pleased that it's not just some guy with a spectral filter put over the CG render. No, Ghost here is a full-on monster design and what a fun one! On paper it's still working off of the 'Casper' body design, but the 'tail' and especially the fingers trail off into long, white wispy tendrils. Most striking, though, is the appearance of his upper body. His head trails up like a weird mountain, and there are almost stone-like carvings of eyes running down the head and on the chest. It looks so different and a fair bit more imposing!
The Ghost is also probably the first enemy in the game that actually casts spells. In addition to shooting elemental attacks, the Ghost is able to heal itself, spawn a weaker clone, and cast annoying 'Blind' status ailment.
The lore talks about how in Ivalice, Ghosts are formed when any soul is trapped within a coffin by magic (sorry, magick), and this process happens regardless of how pure or evil the soul previously is. The game doesn't actually treat the Ghost differently from other enemies in how they are killed, but I like the very D&D description in the lore about how one needs to find the casket to properly release the Ghost from this warped form it's turned into, allowing the Ghost to return to its natural form.
Garchimacera
- Classification: Fiend
- Genus: Gargoyle
It's a little flying imp-goblin! I like how his face has such a shit-eating grin. The design of the more ornate wings and the giant flat rabbit ears, coupled with the magic runes running down its head, does kind of set this guy a bit apart from your regular goblin/imp enemies, though these guys are never going to be something that particularly excites me. (This guy shares the name with a different imp-ish enemy from FFXIII).
I do like the backstory given to the Garchimacera, though. Apparently, in the olden days of Ivalice, it was customary to place statues with terrible visages in houses to ward off malady-causing demons. This really does feel like it's a nice reference to many cultures that use protective totems and house deities to protect themselves. And, just like real life, more modern generations end up misconstruing the function of these fierce-looking creatures, thinking the scary-faced statues are themselves demons. This doesn't corrupt the statues themselves, however, which is a nice subversion. But the fear that the humans have towards these statues caused them to manifest in real life, like something out of Chainsaw Man or Jujutsu Kaisen. I like that! It's a nice little origin story.
The Garchimacera is identified as part of the 'gargoyle' family, which I assume is where the 'gar' in its name comes from. It's also got a couple more interesting abilities like a life-draining attack. Note that I'm not going to list every single enemy attack unless it's relevant to the flavour or how annoying an enemy is in-game.
Firemane
- Classification: Boss
- Genus: Flame Spirit
And finally we have the boss of the sewer dungeon, which... is honestly rather random? We don't fight the soldiers chasing us, or a bigger version of the Gigantoads or Garchimaceras lurking in the sewers, or even anything particularly fire-themed. Firemane ("Bushfire" in Japanese) shows up out of nowhere to menace my party at the end of the sewer level. He's a giant fire horse with six fiery tendrils that grow out of his head. The lore explains that the Firemane is a great spirit of fire (so kind of like an elemental?) that became enraged when mankind used fire as a weapon of war instead of as a sacred object. Thus the Firemane manifests to attack humans, menacing the Garamsythe Waterway... and we're still not given a reason why it menaces a sewer system. It does morph into a ball of fire to arrive and later to exit the battle, which is a nice little detail.
The fight and the animations are relatively simple for a fiery horse monster, though I do like the little detail that the arena we fight the Firemane in is partially covered with water, and the Firemane can't use certain attacks to characters standing on the water.
I still really wished we had more context to what this thing is, though. It really just feels like a random fight against this fiery spirit that has nothing to do with either the plot or the current location.
Daguza, Galeedo & Gwitch
Named NPC's don't get an entry in the Clan Primer, apparently. BUt in the prison, Balthier and Vaan fight these three pig-faced bastards without any weapons in a little fight ring. It's a simple fight and they aren't really able to do much but punch. But I'll take this chance to talk about the Seeq race. I almost thought about talking about all the non-human races in the first part, but I thought (rightly!) that there'll be opportunities to talk about them when some of them inevitably become bosses.
In addition to the typical humans and franchise-staple Moogles, Ivalice has a bunch of other races that hang out very prominently in Rabanastre. I actually really, really like this little detail! More often than not it's so easy for these games to segregate the elves into the forests and the orcs are always barbarians. And sure, some games that do something with the racism tropes (like Witcher 3, and World of Warcraft before the writing stagnated) but I really do like the alternative where... these intelligent races are just there, hanging around in towns and treated as regular citizens, no matter if the Seeq race are brutish, muscular piggish dudes. It's not the Seeq's fault that they're ugly by human standards! They're all intelligent humanoids, and really it's just our human sense of aesthetics!
Of course, that doesn't mean that some individuals, like Daguza, Galeedo and Gwitch here, can't act like brutes, but there are also brutish human enemies earlier and a bunch of grumpy but otherwise friendly Seeq and Bangaa (those are the lizard-people).
Mimic
- Classification: Insect
- Genus: Mimic
What? Mimics! Okay, what a fun subversion! Mimics have been chests with fangs and tongues since forever ever since Dungeons & Dragons codified it, but they really should look different to, y'know, 'mimic' other things, right? And the Mimics in Ivalicce are apparently some kind of quasi-technological insects that fold up into mechanical urns on the right, which are what the chests in this part of town look like. It's actually rather bug-like already, right? Like an insect's abdomen with four legs supporting it? The treasure chests will unfurl out to become that four-legged bug-like creature that honestly looks more like a robotic insect than an actual bug.
But the lore specifically notes that the Mimic is properly an 'insectoid', so presumably all the organs of this creature are chitinous, just maybe hard enough to pass off as a metallic or ceramic urn. In a gloriously awesome explanation, the Mimics apparently behave like another iconic D&D monster, the Intellect Devourer. They actually want to prey on brains. And not just any brains, but intelligent brains. And this ambush tactic of pretending to be a treasure urn is, in a way, a method for them to filter for intelligence, allowing them to specifically attract beings that are smart enough to understand that urns equal treasure. It doesn't really translate into anything significant in-game, but I absolutely love that there's an actual stated reason in the settting .
Tiny Mimic
- Classification: Insect
- Genus: Mimic
However, the Mimics perhaps aren't executed the best as far as how they're introduced to us. Only the 'adult' Mimic above can mimic urns, and those don't show up until the second half of the Barheim Passage dungeon. The mimics are actually the main gimmick of the entire dungeon, but it's their swarming and electrical affinity (are they actually robots/mechas, then?) that's highlighted, with the actual titular 'Mimic' part being more of an afterthought. Indeed, for most of the dungeon, you fight these Tiny Mimics, who aren't even able to turn into little urns!
Anyway, Tiny Mimics are just smaller versions of the big mimic. The lore notes that the Mimics actually get smarter as they devour brains, but those in the larval stage like the Tiny Mimic are rather 'vapid and dull', and if they're unable to grow beyond this stage, they remain dumb until the day they die.
Battery Mimic
- Classification: Insect
- Genus: Mimic
Oh, look at that more elaborate body! Look at that nasty drill-like mouth! And are those eyes, those blue patterns on the most proximal part of the legs? The Battery Mimics are the first Mimics you encounter, and they feed on electricity. They feed on it, and then discharge electricity as a combination of defense mechanism and excretory method. These Battery Mimic strains are apparently very short-lived due to how inefficient their feeding methods are.
The Battery Mimics are the primary gimmick of the Barheim Passage dungeon, because any time a Battery Mimic feeds on the electrical supply of the dungeon, the lights start to dim. It's a rush every time your party enters a portion of a map and there are like three or four Battery Mimics spread all over, eating electricity while their smaller counterparts try and swarm you. And if you fail to take out the Battery Mimics in a timely fashion, and lights actually do go out... well, the walking dead arrive! Which are the rest of the monsters here:
Zombie
- Classification: Undead
- Genus: Zombie
First up is a typical, rotten zombie, with raggedy clothing and a delightfully wretched face. A pretty basic zombie, not much to really say about the design.
The lore does note that the Zombies in this setting are pretty basic. An exhumed corpse, enslaved and bound by 'foul magicks'. It's still rotting, and as such exposure to the sun's rays (or, say, the lighting of a mine that our heroes restore by blowing up Battery Mimics) will cause the decay to advance so fast that they crumble to dust.
Skeleton
- Classification: Undead
- Genus: Skeleton
The other very simple undead enemy type is the Skeleton. Do I need to elaborate on skeletons? You've got one inside of you! Again, all these undead only show up if the light goes down, and it's not in the longest and biggest chamber that I missed a Mimic that these bastards start coming out. These guys can also cast magic!
The way that Skeletons are created are a bit different than Zombies or Ghosts. In the lore, Skeletons are created when people who die have many burdens and are unable to relinquish them upon death, literally being 'weighted down' and unable to ascend to heaven. It's pretty thematic to the wretched shambling of skeletons, and a nice difference to the zombies (exhumed corpses enslaved by magicks) and ghosts (magicks affecting burial). The Skeletons will apparently wander, punished by either a greater power or their own guilt, until their very bones are reduced to ash.
Skull Defender
- Classification: Undead
- Genus: Skeleton
Of course there are stronger skeletons, and Skull Defenders are specifically the corpses of fallen warriors or hunters who were slain by their marks. They sure have, uh... weird... nets? Attached to their bones? They also have the remnants of armour. In-game, they have more annoying spells like 'Slow' and 'Dark'. Due to the type of people these guys are born out of, they are usually found in man-made locations like mines.
Specter
- Classification: Undead
- Genus: Ghost
And the final undead that shows up are these Specters. Essentially a palette swap of the 'Ghost' above, but far more deadly. The 'ectoplasm' hands and tail are more vividly different with their lavender shade, and the creepy, cursed-growth body is a creepy, armoured gray. These guys can teleport, and can cast a multitude of different status effects like poison and blind. In fact, a group of these specters and skeletons actually slowly routed my party as I tried to run to the part of the dungeon with a shopkeeper and a healing save-point. And these undead basically game over'd me twice (and a combination of poor 'gambit' usage draining all my potions and phoenix downs), which forced me to reload a save file a bit earlier. Which is why this 'reviewing monsters' segment doesn't have the final boss of the damn mimic tunnel. It's probably a big Mimic.
Anyway, the Specters do have a pretty cool lore bit. They may be a palette swap, but Specters are coalesced and manifested from the shapeless emotion of fear. They are born in places where men feel a lot of fear, like places of great slaughter... such as Rabanastre's prison filled with torture and violence. Being embodiments of fear, Specters are incited to violence at any kind of other emotions. And as humans, we have more emotions other than fear. They attack humans, ripping away all other emotions other than fear. And when all that's left is fear... then all is left of the humans are specters. That's how new specters are born, apparently. Very cool lore.
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