Final Fantasy XII is the latest installment in the Final Fantasy series. We've really lost count of Square-Enix's hits since every game with the Square logo on has been a success lately. Join Vaan in his quest to overthrow the empire that conquered his homeland, Dalmasca. You might have already checked out the review, so I'll spare you the small talk. Let's get materialistic and start wondering about the cash. “How to make money?” - one of man's greatest questions. “How to level up?” - a gamer's greatest question. The answers are below and be sure to check out the cheats for the other Final Fantasy titles.

Make gil quickly

You need Lente's Tear so you can enter through the magic barriers in the Golmore Jungle. Head south in the Golmore Jungle until you get into Feywood. Once you get into Feywood, you will be in “The Feywood / Walk of Flitting Rifts ". There are two south exits; you will want to take the west one, which is “The Feywood / Walk of Dancing Shadow ". Head all the way south and then to the east, and go to the next area, which is a 'safe zone' with a blue save point crystal. This map is called: “The Feywood / Antiquity's End ".

When you passed through the southern part of "Walk of Dancing Shadow", you probably killed a few of the Mirrorknights. These are the guys that you will be chaining. Locate and get a general sense of where they are, and what you will be doing is circling the southern part of this map killing all the Mirrorknights. I prefer to do a clockwise run, starting at the bottom of the map and going around. Below are the spoils:

Mirrorknights - CHAIN x 95

Windslicer Pinion x 99 = 113,652 GIL
Mirror Scale x 7 = 13,664 GIL
Wind Crystal x 46 = 7,360 GIL
Aries Gem x 3 = 450 GIL
Mirror Mail x 19 = 76,950 GIL

TOTAL: 212, 076 GIL

Total time: 23 minutes

Your time may vary, since my guys are at level 68, but when I originally posted this I was only level 50, which is good enough to kill these guys. I have two warriors equip gambits:

Self -> Haste
Self -> Bravery
Self -> Berserk

and I control manually the 3rd party member. I also have everyone equipped with the 'Cat-ear Hood' accessory which you will get later in the game from the Bazaar, to make things go even quicker. There are many expensive things you may want to buy with the GIL, including all the Monographs, the Canopic Jar, Armor and Items for all your characters, expensive Spells, etc. One important use for the GIL later on is the 'Throw GIL' technique, which becomes very useful for some particular boss battles.

Another thing you might want to buy from the Bazaar is the ' Nihopalaoa ‘, which reverses effects of items, such as potions. Niho + Phoenix Down = Instant Death, on any ally, but that also includes enemies. It won't work on bosses or marks, though, but Remedy works just as well if you filled up a lot of the Remedy skills on the License board, you can inflict all sorts of negative conditions on bosses. There are probably other places where you can make lots of money, but after getting Lente's Tear, this is one of the best.

You do not need to be level 50 to do this, I was level 50 when I did this, so it will take longer than 20 minutes to make 200,000 gil. I am not having a hard time doing it at level 30, but you have to watch out for reflect! The Nihopalaoa really speeds things up as well.

You can get all the best weapons in Pharos, if you want to:

Some names to think about:
Excalibur
Saggaterius
Fomalhaut
Masamune
Staff of the Magi
Deathbringer (always fun to 1hit-KO enemies)
Zodiac Spear
Tournesol

Level up quickly

Mirrorknights in the Feywood are very good. They are worth a fair amount of EXP and once you get the Mirrormail that they drop, you can equip it and bounce the spells they try to cast! Naturally, this requires that your various gambits are item based versus magicks. The loot that you can score from Mirrorknights sells for big cash too. Mirror Scales, Windslicer Pinions etc...you can really bank some cash. Once you get to about 60 and have some confidence in your gambits, you can visit the Nabreus Deadlands and chain Dead Bones in the Fog Mutters up to Overlooking Eternity. These goons are worth 1500 apiece and it is very easy to run a chain of 45 to 50 at a stretch. With embroidered tippets, this is a Good Thing.

Another good leveling up place is in Nabreus Deadland in the hidden path with the skeletons until you reach at least level 65-70.Then go to the Henne mines in fork number 5, hit the switch then and around 25 abysteels will fall from the sky (3000exp each).

If you’re not strong enough, they will kill you in a sec so equip demon shield and main gauche for a 74% evade chance and you'll need two magicks: sleepga and curaja.

Set those gambits:

1 . foe : undead sleepga
2 . foe : undead curaja
3 . self : faith
4 . ally: any hastega
5 . ally : KO arise
6 . ally : any protectga

In about 2 minutes you'll get embroidered tippets 6000 X 20-25 each round for a cool 120000 - 150000 exp per 2-3minutes.

Another cool way of leveling up

You don't need to touch your controller and make sure by the way to have the upgrade on the grid that allows you to inflict damage with magic and have the MP regenerating so you'll have infinite MP. I went from level 8 to level 25 in the Leviathan. I was too low to fight Judge Ghis so I took the time to level up. Right after you save Ashe, save and exit 2 screens. The guards keep coming and if you're very low, Vosller will be of great help. When they stop coming (you can chain 80 kills easily), go back to the save point and repeat. If you have a good gambit setup, you can let them fight by themselves. Just go do your stuff and come back in an hour. You will also get a lot of LP. So after a couple of hours of fight, I was able to buy all the quickenings from the license board and also most of the augments (HP up, Battle Lore etc.).

A little further in the game, you can do the Witter Tree quest in Giza. This will open a passage to a small island with the Silicon Tortoise. It will give you 1300+ Exp point per kill (divided between your characters if more than one joins the fight). You can go solo and level your best characters or go in with your best party (they will each get approximately 450 Exp). Don't forget to steal from them also. They give an item (can't remember the name) worth a couple of hundred gils.