I also neglected to mention in the last part of our fifth party member, Basch, who's a disgraced soldier blamed for the assassination of Dalmasca's king. The jury's still out on what actually happened, but he is accidentally freed by our heroes. So anyway, so far we've got a bunch of interesting duos -- Aladdin-expy street urchin Vaan, who lost his brother in the war; his best friend Penelo (our eyecatcher here); the smooth-talking gun-slinging sky pirate Balthier; his scantily-clad rabbit-woman sidekick Fran; and disgraced knight-general Basch.
Normally, in these kind of JRPG monster reviews, I make a point to talk about one of the party characters, but Penelo is... there's not much to really talk about her, is there? She sure is a girl-next-door type and the responsible one of the duo she makes up with Vaan. She also kind of leaves the party before Vaan gets arrested alongside Balthier and Fran, so there's really not much to say about her... but apparently she doesn't really do much in the game other than later tag along with Vaan to keep him alive.
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Bomb
- Classification: Fiend
- Genus: Bomb
A Final Fantasy staple, the Bomb in Ivalice is still a floating grinning ghost-thing with little hands, but it's a bit more... elaborate? The 'default' state is actually just a hovering bomb, but as it gets more and more enraged, the classical "fire elemental" body forms around it, with the grinning mouth enveloping the spherical bomb. Ultimately it's a nice compromise between being a nice nod to a classic design, but also incorporating an actual 'bomb' into it.
The lore notes that these Bombs were once an ensorcelled weapon that were used against mages, but have grown wild and are just wandering around. Bombs will react to the presence of magick, causing them to explode and unleash the energies within. This is accurately reflected in-game, because the Bombs are actually completely docile unless you attack them... or if one of your party members casts magick around them, at which point they go all 'anti-magic' and start to attack.
Seeker
- Classification: Avion
- Genus: Steeling
A slightly rarer and stronger version of the Steeling bat-monsters, I like that the Seeker has a soft white down around its wings, and some creepy-looking claw-finger appendages poking out of his wings. Just like their Steeling cousins, Seekers also use echolocation to navigate in the dark, although are also able to use these high-pitched shrieking to discombobulate prey of their sense of direction. Apparently, their white wings are sought-after by certain collectors.
Suriander
- Classification: Beast
- Genus: Toad
The stronger version of the Gigantoad adds another pair of horns, and is called the 'Suriander' -- presumably a portmanteau of Surinam (a type of toad) and 'salamander'. The lore actually points out a detail that existed on the Gigantoad that I simply never noticed until seeing the Suriander flavour text, that their butts have gigantic fish-tails. And this tail allows them to swim through the water despite lacking webbing on their feet. Nice that the writers actually thought of this!
Like many animals with actual horns, the Surianders are noted to use their gigantic horns more for display and intimidation purposes.
Mimic Queen
- Classification: Boss
- Genus: Giant Insect
And the boss of the Barheim Passage is a gigantic Mimic Queen, the size of a large dinosaur. It's basically what I expected from a larger version of the Battery Mimics I've been fighting throughout the dungeon. It's got a couple extra joints on her legs, a much more pronounced abdomen and way more multicoloured light around her 'head' and 'thorax'. She's also got explicit wings, though they look way too flimsy to support her full weight.
The Mimic Queen is surely way too big to pretend to be an urn, though I suppose she could pretend to be like a building pillar? We don't fight her in her capacity as a mimic, which is a bit of a shame, since she's just treated as a giant insect queen monster. She also has a couple of cinematic lightning-blast attacks, but is otherwise kinda just there for the spectacle of beating up a large monster. The mimic Queen can lay 100 eggs within a single day, and can live and remain fertile for hundreds of years... though 'hundreds of young' might be a bit of a hyperbole. Very cool robot bug, but I kinda wished they did more.
Tiny Battery
- Classification: Insect
- Genus: Mimic
And these Tiny Batteries, basically a downsized version of the Battery Mimic model, accompany the Mimic Queen as "adds", to use a MMORPG term. They sure are tiny versions of the queen that can soak up hits and pile on damage. These tiny larvae are apparently wracked with hunger from the moment of their birth, and they continue to look for food until they properly mature... or more likely, die in the protection of their queen.
Apparently, there are some that are born slightly smarter than usual, and it's theorized (but not confirmed) that these 'gifted' mutants would become queens in the future.
Flowering Cactoid
- Classification: Rank I Mark
- Genus: Rare Cactoid
Wraith
- Classification: Rank I Mark
- Genus: Ghost
There's also a fun story for the Wraith, too, which sets it apart from the 'monster is menacing civilian' excuse plot for the previous marks. The Wraith is the 'coalescence of lingering regrets' of people who perished during an accident during the construction of Garamsythe Waterway... that, or the results of the rats killed by Vaan, which the NPC that gave this quest offhandedly mentioned, but this explanation is unlikely. The lore explains that the death of the workers in the Waterway causes the Wraith to often haunt children, due to the fact that the dead people were mostly fathers who had regrets about seeing their children. And, indeed, the reason the bounty got posted in the first place was because a Seeq child has locked himself in his house after being haunted by this thing.
Ripe Rampager
- Classification: Plant
- Genus: Mandragora
And this is a 'rare game', which is a mechanic in Final Fantasy XII that is apparently very frustrating. I'll list the creatures as I find them, and I don't intend to 100% this game. I think I'll have post-script page at the end listing all the monsters I never encountered. Rare games are extremely, well, rare. Some like this guy here just has a small chance to spawn, but others have some rather esoteric methods to get them to spawn.
Anyway, Ripe Rampager here is apparently a 'mandragora' adapted to life in the desert, and shares the same 'skeleton' as the Rogue Tomato. The Ripe Rampager looks a bit more like a turnip, only he's got two glowing eyes and what appears to be a face... and some kind of a leather cloak that covers up its lower mouth and upper 'body'? It still has funny chicken-legs. I do like the general look.
This design apparently became iconic in FFXI, and is reused for this game. It's still a very serviceable 'fantasy plant tiny person' design, and you could see this stand alongside races like the Korok, Deku Scrubs, Aranara and other fantasy plant-sprite people... but I still think the Rogue Tomato is a cuter design than this, sorry.
Slaven
- Classification: Giant
- Genus: Slaven
Okay, so this big lumbering beast walks through some parts of the desert, and I had initially thought that it's one of those 'don't fuck with this thing' enemies like the Wild Saurian. It's actually not that bad, though! The Slaven is an interesting design. It's like a giant lumbering dinosaur, reminding me of a discount version of the Long Gui from FFXIII, but... it's got a giant crocodile head, column-like elephantine feet, and... not much else. It's got a tortoiseshell hump or something, but that's it. That's all there is to this thing's body. It's such a weird creature, and the game even classifies it as a 'giant' instead of a 'beast'. Weird!
Apparently the Slaven (literally 'slave' in the original Japanese) used to be a giant beast of burden in the past, but now we're in the age of airships and whatnot, causing Slavens to call by the wayside... but this also caused a lot of the art of Slaven-rearing to be lost, and most Slaven are feral and unable to be trained. Pretty weird creature, I like it. A bunch of these show up in the Lhusu Mines that I visit in the sky-city of Bhujerba.
Ba'Gamman and His Henchmen
This guy's been kind of chasing down one of our main characters, Balthier, ever since Rabanastre. The plot of FFXII is very loosely inspired by Star Wars, and Ba'Gamman is a rough analogue of the bounty hunters in that setting -- though it's a bit more clear in this setting why the Empire's Judges need to hire mercenaries when they're so powerful... to basically get around the politics of the world and keep their hands clean of interference in other countries. Ba'Gamman is part of the Bangaa race, who are basically stocky lizard-people. Not a whole ton to say since they're pretty basic as far as lizard-people go, though they do have tassel-like 'hair'. Or are those ears? I do like that, just like the Seeq, the Bangaa are introduced as perfectly nice citizens in Rabanastre. In fact, Vaan's caretaker prior to his adventure is an elderly Bangaa.
Ba'Gamman attacks out party with four goons, Rinok, Gijuk and Bwagi, though only the big boss himself has this hilariously over-the-top giant weapon that I can describe as... a buzzsaw spear? He latches the staff and the chainsaw-ring together into a hilarious, impractical anime weapon, and I love him the more for it.
More Imperials!
The game's bestiary don't even register any of these guys in their own segment, considering every single one of them under the same 'Imperial' category. But the next area is the Dreadnought Leviathan, which carries a bunch of additional enemies -- in addition to the Imperial Swordsman and Imperial Magus we've seen in the tutorial, there are also Imperial Hoplites (stronger swordsmen), Imperial Gunners (self-explanatory), Judges (pictured here, and basically have a different set of cool armour) and Mastiff (reskins of the wolf model with spiffy military armour). Again, never had much to say about humanoid enemies.
Judge Ghis
No, not Judge Geese, but Judge Ghis. One of the five named Judges that serves as the primary antagonists of the game, Ghis sure has a cool golden helmet with horns, a sword, and probably the most distinctive aspect of his design -- that weird fan-spike thing that he's holding. It's not quite a traditional war-fan, more like a stabbing weapon whose handle is really souped up to look like a wacky anime weapon. And we love our wacky anime weapons here. In combat, he can combine the sword with his fan-dagger into a longer weapon.
I could probably say a lot more about his character, but this is just an early meeting with the character who presumably will be hounding our party for a while to come. Not much to say, again, about humanoid enemies.
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Unfortunately, this is going to be the last Final Fantasy XII monster review for a while. I enjoy the setting and the story enough, but I wasn't really feeling the gameplay and just didn't haev time to really get used to it. Things has been quite busy and I just didn't quite have the time to really properly play this game as I thought I would.
I will no doubt finish the game at some point, but probably not this year. Sorry!
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