Final Fantasy Discovery

Hello! Just gonna go over what I've been working on lately with FFD.

All of the game events in Burmecia (Mysidia, Figaro, etc.) are done now. After all of the events there, the party splits into three groups and takes on their own missions (I went over this in a previous blog). Once the branching mission sequences are completed, the party is reunited back in Figaro and sent to the next country in the game: the lawless desert, Sanubia. There are a few noteworthy locations here, like the Gold Saucer. Your time here will be short at first, progressing to the west into the third nation you'll see: Ivalice.

Not surprisingly, Ivalice is country with strict law enforcement in the form of the Ivalice Judges, which should be familiar to players of the actual FF games set within Ivalice.

What makes Ivalice special in FFD is that random encounters here may sometimes feature a Judge that enforces special rules, just like they did in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. In some battles, magic may be forbidden, or you may not be able to use special abilities like Tools. Judges cannot attack you (unless of course, they deem it acceptable, haha), and they will flee the battle when all other enemies are defeated.

To introduce these special battles to the player (which are active whenever you're in Ivalice terrirtory), I threw in an introductory boss battle against two of the notable Ivalice Judges: Judge Kiros and Judge Ward. Normally, laws are set at the start of a battle and persist until the end, but high-ranking Judges can change the law at will during battle! Kiros and Ward will continually attempt to block the party's ability to fight effectively, making them incredibly dangerous opponents.

Just to give you an idea, the laws that Kiros and Ward can change during the battle are:

- Abilities Outlawed (Cannot use character special abilities like Blessing)
- Magic Outlawed (Cannot use White, Black, Red, or Blue Magic)
- Aeons Outlawed (Cannot summon Aeons)
- Limit Breaks Outlawed (Cannot use or charge Limit Breaks)
- Healing Outlawed (Healing items and abilities have no effect)

They will change the laws every turn, forcing you to change your strategy on the fly! Of course, these are laws, and APPLY TO THE ENEMY AS WELL. There's a whole bunch of other laws that can be changed via Judges during battles within Ivalice, but I'll leave the rest to the players to find.