Final Fantasy XII

[Archuka]

Originally Posted by PEDOS_GRANDE

The demo played very much like FFXI, which isnt a bad thing. The battle mechanics are not what made FFXI sucktastically unbearable.

You mean there are things like enmity and skill chains in FFXII?

[ImperialPanda]

Originally Posted by Archuka

You mean there are things like enmity and skill chains in FFXII?

1) Your three party members all run around on the screen. Two follows party leader.
2) No random battle/battle screen. Your characters run up to monster and start auto-attacking a la FFXI.
3) Buffs obviously aren't limited by battle count or whatnot; on timers.
4) Summons stay out.

That's all I can remember about it when it comes to being similar to FFXI. Everything else is typical to all FFs.

Regarding Famitsu... well I think this will be good. But from the direction FFX was going I don't think FFXII's going to be great. Still, a FF is a FF.

[deathbygirl]

Appears the launch of this long-expected title will be in a day or two in Japan. Anyone care to fill everyone else on the details of zero hour? Sounds like this week of March is a busy one, in terms of animation and the game industry alike.

Any other comments on Angela Aki? I've listened to "Kiss Me Good-Bye", "Kokoro no Senshi", and the Symphonic Arrangement (titled "Hope"), and I must restate... The producers at Square-Enix know how to do their homework and nail the musical scores. As for Aki, her voice is captivating, amazing, wonderful... etc. Judging from the PV of "Kiss Me Good-Bye", the story will be of epic proportions. It's been a long time since I felt so captivated by the potential of the Final Fantasy series, but it seems like the title will pay off great dividends.

[Bastion]

It did not appeal to me when I played the demo.. Maybe because I despise demos. ~_~; I will buy it anyway.

[Corn]

Heres a really impressive video of the game called "Hope"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U7ulTKFE1Q



I think it looks amazing mates and I can't wait to play it. I think it will be one of the best FFs. Just the fact that it got 40/40 in famitsu... wow. That's really big.

[Kaka]

the video is too impressive lol

I should get it after my finals end in april........>_>;

[Iron Maw]

Good Quality Download of the Opening and Intro:
http://www.ffxii.us/news/031606.php

Airship Designs:
http://www.ffxii.us/airships.php

Detailed Impressions

From Gaming-Age

Minior Spoilers,

Originally Posted by Troidal

2 hours into the game, barely scratched the surface...

* The prologue/intro is amazing. The battles are like watching a mix of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Pretty fast paced too. Events happen one after the other, so not many long dialogues.

* Once you are able to move your character, the city feels big enough. There's a lot of people which you can't talk to and just standing there, but it gives you a sense that you're in a city. I like how there is an icon on top of NPCs you can talk to.

* Treasure chests, doors you can enter, anything you can interact with also have an icon. I don't know what other games do this, but I've seen it in Grandia III which I thought was a cool feature. Props to FFXII for using the same feature.

* The license board (to learn spells, equip new weapons/armor, etc) looks overwhelming at first, but like the Materia system in 7 and Sphere board in 10, it looks straightforward once you know how it works. However, I am being careful as to how I should raise my characters - might want a FAQ for this personally ^^;

* Battles feel like KOTOR and FFXI. I haven't figured everything out, but so far seems strightforward. The color of their gauge shows if you are strong enough to beat it, now this is pretty useful.

Spoiler:

The first DO NOT FIGHT enemy would probably be the dinosaur once you go out the city. One hit, bam, you die

* Not much complains for voice-overs so far...except Panero :-)

Overall so far, it doesn't feel like the traditional Final Fantasy, but I like the atmosphere so far. It's probably apparent with the previews you guys watched, not to sound like a broken record but...I'd say the architecture and mech design feel very much like Star Wars Ep 1-3...with characters coming from Vagrant Story.

Its still a long way, so its a very initial impression. Hope to add more in coming days....

Originally Posted by Srider

Ok, I've played the hell out of it for most of today. Here goes my initial thoughts.

(I'll skip some of the details as to not spoil it for anyone. I'll just touch on the stuff that are already known.)

The game begins with probably the most action packed, visually stimulating intro in any Final Fantasy game. What surprised me even more is how sharp everything looks, maybe it's due to playing on vga display, but the video, the characters, textures, all look really sharp and colorful. Simply from the first few minutes you will be able to notice the amount of work that went into this game. The character models, their faces, their clothing, the texture, everything is overwhelmingly amazing. Right after the intro you go into the game, and immediately you will be introduced to the new splinter cell styled navigation system in FF12, which is basically straight from FF11. You can rotate the camera all around you, it's fast, responsive, and so far I haven't ran into any camera problems at all. The 3rd person camera combined with the fact that every area in the game is connected really conveys the feeling that you are in the world of Final Fantasy. It's a great feeling really, you won't be able to put this game down once you start.

The actual game starts you off as

Spoiler:

Vann in Rabanastre

. The town is full of people, and as Troidal said, the game does an amazing job conveying the sense of a real city. There are areas where it's more crowded than others, which is a nice touch conveying the sense of different parts of the city like the market, the central square, city gates, etc. In many of the areas you will see more than 10 NPC's at once. Amazing feat that Square has done and keeping everything nice and smooth. I will also mention that the sound is equally impressive. Even in the intro, at the first few minutes, you can hears the clanking of sword clashes, the sound of the armor colliding as different characters walk, etc. All crystal sharp, and superbly combine with the animation and the amazing graphics to really give the sense of tangible objects in the game. This game is a treat both in graphics and sound. The only complaints I have about the game's technical merits is the loading and sometimes fairly bland environments. I am being very very picky here, the loading is probably about 2.5 seconds and environment wise, it's not bad at all. I'll clarify what I mean.

The environments are big. The first city spans multiple areas and multiple floors. Imagine sizes close to FF11 cities. The world map is comprised of cities and interconnecting regions. Each region is comprised of several areas. Each area or dungeon being the size of what you saw in the demo. Some of the areas I visited include a

Spoiler:

desert and dry plains

, and they are pretty looking and wide open. The dungeons are basically intersecting hallways and stairs for the most part, and this is where I feel it's a little bland, but it's not a big deal since you will be worrying about the battles anyways.

Here is the good part. I love this new battle system. Gambit takes aways the monotony of mashing attack and otherwise boring fights with lesser enemies. You might think the game is too easy with the AI controlling the characters, and I'll now explain why you are wrong. Each of the areas I've visited so far host a variety of different types of monsters of varying difficulties. Like what Troidal said the

Spoiler:

first world map area you visit contains a freaking dinosaur

. You can not simply run around and just let the AI attack, cause you will aggro too many enemies and make your life much harder. There are also times when the game throws groups of enemies at you, if you don't do a bit of micromanagement or set the Gambit options, you will be pretty confused at all the stuff going on. I'll say it again, Gambit is good, it makes the game more fun rather than taking it away. If you start playing the game and you don't think Gambit is important, wait till you get to the first big boss fight, or just try playing the game in ATB mode. It's very very easy to die if you are not micromanaging.

Character development is very streamlined and I'm sure you all know about licenses now. It really forces you to vary the way you develop each character because of the way it's laid out. I won't go into this since it's been done more than enough times.

Story wise, I'm not in noob land anymore, but there are alot of things going on in the story, and alot of characters. I definitely love the more serious tone and the political intrigue of the plot. Voice acting is superb imo, much better overall compared to FF10. To talk about this further would be more spoilers, so I'll stop here.

To sum it up, this is probably going to end up being my favorite Final Fantasy game. The mmo style gameplay (for a lack of better description) really gives you the sense of being in an open world and the sense of adventure. I do get a star wars vibe from this game

Spoiler:

especially the first time you meet a judge

. I simply can't wait to start playing this again tomorrow.

[Daniel E.]

Thanks for the links Iron Maw.

I was able to get the first video but never managed to get the second one (intro).

So, just in case anyone else has troubles getting the videos; Here's a second option to download them:

http://playsyde.com/news_2656_en.html

They have both BitTorrent and direct download methods available.

[ImperialPanda]

Well FFXII is certainly getting plenty of glowing impressions/reviews.

I'm glad I'm not as into gaming as a few years ago; otherwise the wait until november/december would suck. =P

Couple things tho: Licence idea sucks. Stupid to make an additional pointless requirement; sounds like additional grind-fodder.

Barter item drop instead of gold drop is nothing new. Heard of Xenosaga I? It essentially does the same thing as dropping gold anyways, except you have to go through the extra trouble of selling the barter items. I suppose there's some tiny "immersion" factor here.

[aikming]

FFXII US version probably in November... wish I can play the JP one. Have to wait for so long.

[Danj]

Originally Posted by aikming

FFXII US version probably in November... wish I can play the JP one. Have to wait for so long.

Actually, I heard that the president of Squenix leaked to Famitsu that it's coming to the US in summer and Europe in autumn. So it probably won't be that long. Also I can see it's likely they'd want to get it out before PS3 so that it doesn't get eclipsed by the PS3 hype.

[Archuka]

Originally Posted by Danj

Actually, I heard that the president of Squenix leaked to Famitsu that it's coming to the US in summer and Europe in autumn. So it probably won't be that long. Also I can see it's likely they'd want to get it out before PS3 so that it doesn't get eclipsed by the PS3 hype.

Us Europeans get shafted once again. =/

All that licensing and dubbing crap is so stupid. I wish they could just translate the text and be done with it.

[Danj]

Originally Posted by Archuka

Us Europeans get shafted once again. =/

All that licensing and dubbing crap is so stupid. I wish they could just translate the text and be done with it.

Unfortunately, because SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, without whose approval you cannot publish a PS2 game in Europe) have a policy of disallowing Japanese audio, they can't do that. I do wish they'd release English-language versions more quickly though, I'm sure that the vast majority of non-UK Europeans would be happy to put up with an English-language version if it meant they'd get it a few months earlier.

[Archuka]

Originally Posted by Danj

Unfortunately, because SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, without whose approval you cannot publish a PS2 game in Europe) have a policy of disallowing Japanese audio, they can't do that. I do wish they'd release English-language versions more quickly though, I'm sure that the vast majority of non-UK Europeans would be happy to put up with an English-language version if it meant they'd get it a few months earlier.

What? You mean including Japanese audio even as an option is against their policy? Who the hell came up with that?

I always wondered why the European release of Disgaea didn't have Japanese audio like the US version.

[Varion]

Originally Posted by Danj

Unfortunately, because SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, without whose approval you cannot publish a PS2 game in Europe) have a policy of disallowing Japanese audio, they can't do that. I do wish they'd release English-language versions more quickly though, I'm sure that the vast majority of non-UK Europeans would be happy to put up with an English-language version if it meant they'd get it a few months earlier.

Well that would explain why Nippon Ichi games lose it... but not why it was left in the .hack games. Odd that. Not that a game like FF12 would have the option anyway, much as I wish it would.

Well, this topic's taken me from 'meh' to 'preorder'. Nice going

[Danj]

Originally Posted by Valdra

Well that would explain why Nippon Ichi games lose it

Yeah - in fact, that's how I came by the information. I emailed Koei (the UK publisher of Nippon Ichi games like Disgaea) why the Japanese language option had been removed when it was present on the US release, and they told me that it was a policy of SCEE.

Originally Posted by Valdra

... but not why it was left in the .hack games. Odd that.

As I recall, in the EU version of .hack you had to complete the game once in order to enable the option, whereas in the US version it was available from the start. I can only assume that Bandai had sufficient clout with SCEE to allow them to do this.

Originally Posted by Valdra

Not that a game like FF12 would have the option anyway, much as I wish it would.

Well, this topic's taken me from 'meh' to 'preorder'. Nice going

For those who are interested, there's some more detailed impressions and information posted by various people on Gaming-Age Forums.

[Danj]

Originally Posted by Archuka

What? You mean including Japanese audio even as an option is against their policy? Who the hell came up with that?

I have no idea who came up with it... David Reeves, president of SCEE, is the person I'd point my finger at, but I don't know whether it was actually his fault.

[Danj]

(argh, sorry, seems it was a double post after all)

[Benoit]

Us Europeans get shafted once again. =/

Blame those countries who want to get the games in their own language. It's always been a problem.

I'm sure that the vast majority of non-UK Europeans would be happy to put up with an English-language version if it meant they'd get it a few months earlier

You'd think that, wouldn't you? Not true. Just look at Shenmue. Especially French people bitch that the game only had English voices, even though they did get French subtitles! Those people need to be beaten with a stick.

[Danj]

Originally Posted by Benoit

You'd think that, wouldn't you? Not true. Just look at Shenmue. Especially French people bitch that the game only had English voices, even though they did get French subtitles! Those people need to be beaten with a stick.

Well, the French are the exception to the rule. They're fiercely opposed to any sort of Anglicising of their culture. I'm reasonably sure that other European countries are not nearly so fanatical about it