![]() In an RPG where you get to assign two jobs to each character, much of the fun is always going to come from trying to figure out the optimal combination for everyone.Īfter all, this system would theoretically allow you to enjoy a power fantasy where you get to create insanely powerful characters that can take down the toughest of foes. In the case of The Zodiac Age, there are complaints that having access to two jobs per character makes the game far too easy, and it would appear that Square Enix hasn’t attempted to re-balance the game to make it more challenging with the newly implemented changes.Ĭouple that with the fact that you can reset each character’s jobs and License Boards at almost any time with no cost at all, and you’ve got yourself an essentially consequence-free dual job-based RPG. The problem with dual-classing is that you’ve got the ability to cover a character’s weaknesses, but in doing so, you’re also potentially turning the game into too much of a cakewalk. Now I haven’t actually completed The Zodiac Age myself, but from what I’m to understand, the dual job system hasn’t been completely beneficial to the game’s quality. Their HP will likely suffer, but you’ve got the opportunity to give them some serious utility with the number of spells they’ve got access to. With the dual job system, you can double up on a character’s mage duties by giving them any combination of the Black Mage, White Mage, Time Battlemage, or Red Battlemage jobs. This is a pretty simple example, but other more tantalizing possibilities exist as well. With this job combination, Fran now has access to powerful black magic, and she won’t instantly die if more than two enemies decide to start attacking her. That’s not going to matter too much, though, as I can shore up her weaknesses by giving her a secondary melee job such as the Monk. However, this also means that her HP is considerably lower than the other characters, who have access to more HP nodes due to being assigned a melee-based class. This dual job system is a delicious puzzle to solve because there are so many possibilities to explore, and it’s exciting to think up new strategies and Gambit lists that would the job setup of your current party.įor instance, I’ve got Fran as my Black Mage right now. ![]() ![]() This time, each character gets to take on two jobs, and this creates the compelling dilemma of trying to decide which two jobs would be the best complements to each other, and which ones to choose for which character. In The Zodiac Age, the job system has been expanded even further. This was more in line with the traditional job and classing system we’ve seen in regular Final Fantasy games, where each character had a fixed role with their own strengths and weaknesses. In this version, every character got to pick one job and they were stuck with it for good. In the International version, Square made significant balance changes to account for the new job system. This created the problem of every character being carbon copies of each other by the late-game. In the PS2 version, every character had access to a massive License Board and they all had the potential to learn every skill and ability in the game. Throughout the series’ history, the dual job-based system has only been deeply explored in Final Fantasy X-2, XI, XII, Tactics.Įven within the RPG genre, it’s rare to find games that are designed around characters with more than one job or class, and the ones that immediately come to mind are Bravely Default and the recent Octopath Traveler.įor the past week, I’ve been obsessing over Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, which is actually a vastly different game from its original PS2 release and even the International Zodiac Job System version. Strangely enough, though, the Final Fantasy series rarely ever ventures into the strange, unique realm of dual-classing systems. Most of the time, you’ll have access to a party of characters that fit in a specific archetype: the male Knight, the female White Mage, the spoony Bard, and so on and so forth. ![]() ![]() Final Fantasy fans and lovers of RPGs are no strangers to the famed job system. ![]()
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