License Board

The License board is very much like FFX's sphere grid, only different. The idea is that you have to buy the right to use weapons, equipment, spells and technicks. Most of the character upgrades not done by normal leveling is dealt with on the License Board. But you will have to purchase these rights with License Points. LP are earned by defeating enemies. When you kill a foe you will see the EXP earned adn the LP earned. EXP figures can go pretty high, but for the most part you will only gain a couple of LP from an enemy most of the time.

So once you have gained a fair amount of LP you can select the License Board from the Party Menu and dive into it. There will be illustrations of all your party members individual boards, yes, you need to gain the right to use stuff for EACH individual character. Anyway, from this screen you can get a rough idea of how many licenses you have purchased for your characters. Select one of the party members and you will be taken to his License board where you can see everything you have bought and everything you have yet to buy. You can hit the R2 button to zoom out and see the whole board, much like in FFX. There are two distinct sections, the top board contains the licenses for Magicks, Techniks, accessories and augments. The bottom board is for weapons and armor. All categories work the same way. Once you purchase a license the adjacent squares become active and you can then purchase those Licenses. Normaly, the licenses in a particular category will be in succession, eg. you purchase Swords 1, then you can buy Swords 2, then Swords 3 etc. But this isnt always the case and you may be required to do some searching to find more advanced Licenses.

Remember, you have to own the License AND the item or Technick or spell or whatever to use it. To make buying items easier you can tell if a character has the required License before buying the item by selecting the item and checking the Characters portrait at the top of the screen. If it remains dim, he or she doesnt have the required license, if it lights up he or she does.

So what are the categories? Well, on the top there are Magick Licenses - Black, White, Green, Time and Arcane. Theres Technicks, the lower right of the board, Accessories, upper right, and augments, lower left, which give HP bonuses and extra Gambit slots. On the bottom board there are weapons and armors, weapons on the left half are seperated into their groups - Swords, handbombs etc, and the armors on the right - Light, heavy, mystic and shields.

There are also 18 Mist Licenses and some Esper Licenses. These can be purchased by only ONE character. so think carefully. After purchasing one, it will dissapear from other characters boards. The Esper Licenses wont appear until you have defeated the Esper itself.

There is much more freedom than in FFX's Sphere Grid as there is no linear path for any character to take. Its not very hard to gain large amounts of LP so you will have alot of room to experiment.