Puzzle design in Final Fantasy 12

The general difficulty of the puzzles in FF12 is not hard, but not so easy either. For the people who first time playing this game, all these puzzles require some thinking, like solve the riddle from the hint, talk to people to get something, or even beat the boss to get pass the door, but they are well within the range of human comprehension. What really annoy people is one common point from most of these puzzles --- running from one point to another in a uber huge map.

The puzzle from the hunt of Behemoth King is one example, destroy all monster in both map in order to find Behemoth King is one simple objective but achieve it is another story. Both maps can be classified as medium-large in this game. When players kill almost everything but like 3 monsters in can-be-either-or-both maps, sometimes player can get lucky and find them easily, but with no mini map and heavy mist obstructing player’s view, this task can take player forever.

Fortunately, most of these puzzles or hunts are not that necessary to be solved in the main story line; player can always come back later to solve it. The only puzzle in the main story is the “neon light” section at the top of the Pharos, where player will teleport one light to another in certain order and that order may change depends on how player played that level. There are 5 colors for the neon lights; the combinations of teleport order are already enormous. Plus there are secret passages and several varieties, who ever is first time playing this level without guide can get stuck here for at least 2 hours and level up by 5 for every team members.

This video is the guide of that level and an essential part prior to it: