Games you can't complete without a guide Final Fantasy XII

Final Fantasy XII

Zodiak spear.

Square Enix, are once again on the list.
While its actually is not practically harder to get Zodiac spear, then Excalibur 2. This one is higher on the list, because its literally impossible to fin  it without a guide. I am sure that you will never get this item without out side influence (if you don't get super lucky coming to that later).

What this game does is that it goes against anything we have ever learned about final fantasy games, or similar games. As with Megaman X3, this has to do with Cognitive science. Most specifically how we as humans learn stuff called  Developmental psychology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_psychology.

By playing Final fantasy games we learn that items are hidden at different places. It can be a chest hidden somewhere, a extra boss to defeat and get a drop or maybe beat the games subgameplay. .

First of the game don't even hide that it exist its nothing like that.

The game uses a Licence board, to unlock characters potential of weapons and magics. At this place you can find the zodiac spear at a corner, so its not hidden that it exist at all.
But the way to get it, its probably the worst idea ever in history of gaming.

The licence board, a pretty nice Grid net character development pattern.

One of these 16 chest is not allowed to be opened. Which is like putting a child in a candy store and leaving him their alone and asking him not to touch anything.
Ok I admit that one is kinda an obvious trap, but this chest.

Is the first chest we will find in the game. It cant really be missed, and as we can see in the image the game screams at us TREASURE!.
I know the build quality its really bad, I for the life of me havent been able to find better images. I had this text written and finished long ago. I was relecuntl to post without having good pics.

Here's the other chest the user cannot open. Of course there is absolute zero feedback etc to that these chest are meaningful. 

The whole idea that a player would not try to open the chest is crazy. The way the user have learned how Final fantasy works and much other role playing games. Are that the best weapon in the game should be hidden at the last part of the games or as a reward from a secret boss. Not found in the middle of the game and to be gained from not opening chest. If anything, if we where to try and find this item in the game would we run around opening every chest.

To top it of the game actually requires the player not to have any character equipped with Diamond armlet.

The effect of Diamond armlet is:

"Chance to obtain rare treasures and more gil from treasure chests"
Yes their is no point not having this item equipped as it should give the us better items or more money from treasure chests.

There is no way a user would find this item in nebula if they haven't read on before hands how to play the game.

And to further confuse people, the weapon can be find be pure luck. In Henne Mines (which of course is a secret place to begin with)

As mentioned earlier the first zodiac spear required not to use Diamond armlet, but with this one we must have Diamond Armlet equipped when you examine a treasure chest. it Appears in a second invisible side room. And it got around a 0.1% to drop the spear, other wise you just get Gil.

Because of this someone would actually find it (given that the game have sold more then 5 million copies, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_2). What this creates is that your friend of an friend will tell you he found it at that place. But if you go and try and find it yourself the chance are then under 0,1%, so I am are betting you wont find it.


The user really have to go and look for outside information for example in a guide to understand how to get it.

This game if any game has a game function to soley sell the game guide. It is also really hard to find most stuff in the game, however that is better as the user can still figure it out. Altought getting Excalibur is done in the same of Zodiac Spear, having a 1%(or lower) drop chance. I actually farmed it and it was.....boring as hell. I basically reloaded a safe file at the closest save location and kept running to it over and over again.