Final Fantasy XII dated

Memnoch

Originally Posted by carter001
Not sure to buy this or God of War 2,last FF game I bought was FFX and to be honest while the graphics were good the voice overs were sh**e and the story wasnt much to write home about either.Had a look on youtube and saw the graphics for FFXII ,especially the espers and quickenings and thought they looked pretty badass.

So you criticised the story as one of the reasons you didn't like FFX, then you complain when I call you out on it?

I do agree about those aspects of FF8 which were a lot of fun, the card game etc, were pretty cool and it was a fun game though having to extract magic was a pain in the but.

But X had a lot of cool stuff in it, blitzball was great as was the monster arena, dark aeons etc. But the story and graphics is where X really stands out, so many breathtaking locations, most of the charecters were cool and had depth to them.

The story also tackled a lot of contemporary themes such as Dogma, the hypocrisy of religion, faith, determination etc. at a much more mature level than most video games. The layers of the story were in themselves more complex and interesting to learn about, along with the strong irony in it's message.

To me RPGs are all about the story, it's the reason why I stopped playing the latest Dragon Quest game half way in, because the story was pants and going no where.

It's also the reason Breath of Fire 3 is such an amazing game.
FF7 also had a pretty kick butt story once you explored all of it, despite my love for 7, maybe x's story was a bit better, I dunno.

But as far as pure gameplay goes, nothing compares to 7. The materia and ATB system were the best, and provided for so much fun, exploration and combination. THe minigames and gold saucer were great. The use of chocobo's and their importance to the game added a lot to the game. The battle arena was also fun and the limit breaks were just kick ass.

I mean the first time you got omni slash and used it, was just too cool for words.

Definately 7 is one of the most complete games in terms of depth, fun, originality and gameplay and that's why it was the runaway success it was, I don't know if square enix can ever make a game that can draw me in like that again, but FFX came close.

I'm looking forward to starting XII next week. Supposedly XIII goes back to an ATB system which to me is very good news. I really wish they would make another game with the materia system some day.

Cina

Cannot believe all the criticism you guys are giving this game. I'm loving it so far and I'm about 10 hours in. At first I really didn't like the MMORPG style battle system, but once you get a full group of characters and gambits and more abilities etc, it gets great.
It looks beautiful for a PS2 game, they've really drilled everything out of the console and of course, the FMV sequences are stunning. The story seems good so far, hard to figure out who is who at first because they just constantly introduce new characters for the first while but it seems to be coming together nicely now. Oh and I doubt anyone can argue that the voice acting is of a far, far better standard than the woeful voice acting in FFX!

super_furry

I think it's the best FF game I've played since VII and is a stunning return to form. It's got an excellant politically charged plot and a battle system that really shakes up the conventions of Japanese RPGs. After the major let downs of FFX and FFX-2, it's exactly the kick up the arse that the stale series needed.

kawaii

Is there a world map? That was one of the reasons for my discontent with FFX. FF - World map = .0001

And are the characters any good? Must be better than X anyway...

Retr0gamer

Not exactly a world map but it isn't linear. Each area is separated by big expanses of combat areas.

As for characters they are alright. Not as interesting as the characters in FFX for me and there is too much angsty teenager going on in a few of them but there are some really good ones.

kawaii

once it's not linear like X I'm sure it's good.

I actually hated most characters in X (Except Rikku and maybe Lulu.). Once there are no Tidus' again. He was the worst character ever.

What about antagonists? On a scale of Seymour to Sephiroth where does this one come?

Retr0gamer

kawaii wrote:

once it's not linear like X I'm sure it's good.

I actually hated most characters in X (Except Rikku and maybe Lulu.). Once there are no Tidus' again. He was the worst character ever.

What about antagonists? On a scale of Seymour to Sephiroth where does this one come?

Vann wears a vest that is as camp as a row of tents and is a little annoying like tidus. Bad guys are decent. They are more realistic and most are politicians. It's very like Suikoden were there is no clear bad guy and nobody is entirely evil which is much more believable. However there's nothing there to challenge Suikoden 2's Luka Blight. They are however much better than the one dimensional moaner Sephiroth.

carter001

I bought it,and I'm fairly near the end,so far I'm very impressed.ATB was a great system for it's time but in the case where you made an incorrect decision it could cost you a battle,Active Dimension Battle however allows the player to input special commands and magic at any time(ie)you can change your mind ...althought some may argue that both systems still require a time metre to fill in order to perform an action,which may ultimately lead to death if the enemy gets a devastating attack in before you do,I still prefer the latter...

Just a few observations,the quickenings are really cool when you watch them the first few times but the fact that you have to sit throught the animations can be a pain in the arse,I wish they included a default setting like on FFX(if I'm not mistaken)where by you can cut down on the animation and just show the damage inflicted later...on a plus the Characters may string together Quickenings into large combo attacks, called Mist Chains

The gambit system is extremely well thought out,it took me an hour or so to get to grips with it but once I did it really added to the whole battle experience,it's nice to be to able to assign one character to heal your other characters if their health drops below < 60 % without having to constantly check their health,you can assign lots of actions for each character using the gambit system..

story is intriguing so far and some of the locations are breathtaking.

I can definitely see why square spent so much time producing this game and it really paid off,here's to FFXIII :-)