Final Fantasy XII

(Sorry if this thread already exists, I perused the first page of threads and did not find it. Purge this thread if it already does exist, or merge perhaps?)

It had to happen, it's the biggest RPG to date. Have you guys tried this yet?

For those who haven't, just a little hint. It is HELLA BORING at the beginning. Every Final Fantasy starts off with only one or two characters in the beginning but with Final Fantasy XII's new battle system, you just gotta have a full party. But if you have the patience, get through the first hour or two and you should be able to have the authentic experience.

But I'm not saying the game is right for everyone, but it deserves a fair judgment before you label it as stupid (which is what I did, almost like what I did to Kingdom Hearts 2). This is Squeenix's final swan song on the PS2, so a lot of effort was poured into this game.

Any thoughts?

joekido the Second

I'm planning to buy this game tommarrow.

Greg

It had to happen, it's the biggest RPG to date.

I seriously doubt that.

I'm not even a rabid RPG fan so I don't know enough to compare but Dragon Quest 8 DWARVES anything I've ever played. And with reviewers giving FF12 a 45-hour lifespan without finishing the goodies, that can't possibly match DQ8. At 72 hours I began to finish the 'goodies'.

Captain Kuro

I have it but haven't really started yet. I'll have to wait until the end of this school semester before I start it. Which won't be until the middle of December.

Sorry, didn't provide enough context to imply what I meant by biggest. By biggest, I mean the most anticipated? The game has already shipped 1.5 million copies in North America just over a week, Japan selling over 2.4 million copies since March and getting a perfect review from Famitsu (source).

I agree that DW8 has a lot of playtime, and it's a great, great, great RPG. It's just that the Final Fantasy brand in North America is just so ridiculously popular.

BobTheDarkOne

I got it about 5 days ago. And it gets better in the sewer when you get 3 party members. But I haven't had the time to play it for the the ast five days D:

Also Balthier is a fucking badass.

Satsuki

I think we all can agree that Balthier is the best damn character in the game.

Incidentally, in the Japanese version Balthier is voiced by Hiroaki Hirata, aka Sanji. I was worried about how his english voice would come out, but KUDOS to the casting director on this one. Balthier's english voice is ten kinds of amazing. Fran's isn't bad either.

I agree, it's a little hard to get into in the beginning, but once you get a full party it becomes much more enjoyable. I just wish they would let you have four people in your party at a time rather than three. It doesn't seem like you can quite do enough with just three.

Cap'n Carter

I've heard that with the Gambit system you pretty much kill monsters without raising a finger. Sounds boring.

Captain Kuro

I thought maybe that would be the case at first, but after playing the start of the game for awhile, the gambit thing seems like it will end up being kind of helpful.

I had the Gambit system on off for a while but then I had to turn it on because things just got too outta hand. If you can come up with an optimal configuration for training, it's actually quite helpful. When fighting bosses, you're going to take some time to reconfigure your Gambits, because everything changes.

Iuno, I'm having fun with it, even though I'm not too far into the game.

someone told me the fighting skill is the same as FFXI (pc) which is quite hard for me to play, but either way i had a lot of fun with it, even if i just barely started it, i wish i have more time to play :T

oh yeh FFXII: revenant wings will be out on DS too, i read an article about it, i dunno when it'll come out in the US though but im definitely gonna buy it when it comes out :D

Mister_Anbu

This game is absolutely beautiful.

It all comes down to whether you like the system or not I suppose.

New generation players will probably like it more, I started with FFVI,and I have adapted well to the change.

Cr4zy

@Freezerburn:

It had to happen, it's the biggest RPG to date.

Wait till Zelda comes out.

Greg

Wait till Zelda comes out.

Zelda's an action RPG for one, but the other point a reporter made that I strongly agree with is, Zelda is a freaking dedication of one's time to a video game. It's for hardcore gamers (if you're reading these words, chances are you're considered hardcore) but it's the same kickass Zelda it's always been. Will you be able to do way more? Yes, but you're still Link in Hyrule and nobody who hasn't already been won over, isn't likely to start with this massive 72-hour monolith.

Zelda's massively anticipated as an action RPG, but I don't know it it's the most anticipated of all time.

After all, the memory of Ocarina's debut is still fresh in my mind. And that my friends, was a fucking astronomical event.

I think FF12 has been massively anticipated for a totally different reason. Everyone wants to guage how they feel about the control and let's face it, it's been a lot longer between the last real FF than a Zelda.

The wait for my copy in the mail is eating my soul.

Spi D. Erman

I purchased this game about 3 days ago, and it's hella fun. Had nothing to do during the time, so i've been hitting the joysticks pretty hard. I've gotta say that while there is a lot of presetup in the battles with teh gambit system, and such, it's still more of a challenge than any of the other FF games i've played. I've died more times that i'd like to admit when I was really leaning the system, but now that I have it down, there's really no reason to get a game over, not really. There's always a way out of bad situations, and more often then not i've had to run away, becaue there'd be some high level elemental roaming around with the lvl 15-20 monsters. It's crazy, but pretty fun.

Now let me say that the main character is about as Gay a character as I've ever known. Just the way he dressess, and the way he runs reeks of homo. It kind of contradicts the inflections in his voice.

In short, this game plays like Star Wars KotOR only with meal sabres.

The only thing that I don't like is that everyone can do everything, and there are SO many characters with blond hair.

bennyb

-like alot of people have said, main player is pretty metrosexual, but I don't let it bother me

-if ONLY 4kids Sanji has Balthier's American VA. If only.

-Beautiful game, fun system, loving the gambits.

-I wish I didn't have a 10 page paper to write or else i'd be playing this game more, right now.

Kazu-kun

@Freezerburn:

(Sorry if this thread already exists, I perused the first page of threads and did not find it. Purge this thread if it already does exist, or merge perhaps?)

It had to happen, it's the biggest RPG to date. Have you guys tried this yet?

For those who haven't, just a little hint. It is HELLA BORING at the beginning. Every Final Fantasy starts off with only one or two characters in the beginning but with Final Fantasy XII's new battle system, you just gotta have a full party. But if you have the patience, get through the first hour or two and you should be able to have the authentic experience.

But I'm not saying the game is right for everyone, but it deserves a fair judgment before you label it as stupid (which is what I did, almost like what I did to Kingdom Hearts 2). This is Squeenix's final swan song on the PS2, so a lot of effort was poured into this game.

Any thoughts?

I think the only aspect that drew me into this game other than it's graphics, was the fact that it was pretty much a sequel off FFTA. I loved FFTA, so I was pretty happy when I saw montblanc

Cr4zy

@bennyb:

-if ONLY 4kids Sanji has Balthier's American VA. If only.

has to be a little bit deeper in my opinion.

The Dude

My roommate's been playing it. It looks really great. The battle systme is actually pretty efficient, and there's a LOT of parallels with FFVI.

@Mr.Prince:

Wait till Zelda comes out.

Oh dear god, don't remind me. I'm prolly the one out of the three people who didn't think Ocarina of Time was a Jesus in a bottle when it came out. At the time, I was just way too fixiated on A Link to the Past, so iuno.

But Twilight Princess! Everything about it just makes me squeel like a 13-year old schoolgirl. It may be a shallow reason, but I'm loving the T rating Twilight Princess will get. Other things like horseback fighting will definately be one of my favourite things to do. If Twilight Princess battles turn out anything like The Shadow of Colossus fights, then I'm afraid I won't be able to contain this load in my pants.

As for Final Fantasy XII, it draws a lot of similarities. I wasn't sure if Montblanc was the same moogle from FFTA; thanks for the confirmation, Kazu-kun. Summons have taken the name Espers again, and the names of them are completely different. Can anyone tell me if FFT Velius = FFXI Belias?

bennyb

Here's a question for anyone knowledgable on this game: What do the symbols above your characters that you get with alot of chains mean? Sometimes I get green circle, sometimes blue diamond, etc. Some kind of magic enhance maybe?

Captain Kuro

@Freezerburn:

Summons have taken the name Espers again, and the names of them are completely different. Can anyone tell me if FFT Velius = FFXI Belias?

Almost all of them are from Tactics or Tactics Advance. Yes, Belias is Velius. Some of them are bosses from previous FF games.

I'll list the games all the others are from in this spoiler tag (in case people don't want to know the names of the summons):

! Belias = Velius from FFT
Mateus = supposedely a reference to the last boss of FFII; also in FFTA
Shemhazai =
Hasmhal = Hashmalum from FFT
Famfrit = from FFTA; supposedely a reference to Dark Cloud from FFIII (last boss)
Adrammelech = Adramelk from FFT; also in FFTA
Cuchulainn = Queklain from FFT
Chaos = Chaos from FFI (last boss), also Vincent could transform into Chaos in FFVII
Zalera = Zalera from FFT
Zeromus = Zeromus from FFIV (last boss)
Exodus = Exdeath/X-Death from FFV (last boss); also in FFTA as Exodus
Ultima = Altima from FFT; also in FFTA
Zodiark = Zodiac summon from FFT

Really cool I thought. Oh, and although I knew the majority on the list, I had to look up info on the ones that were supposed to be references to bosses from FFII and FFIII. Also, I never got very far in FFTA, so I had to look up info on the summons in it. And I never got the Zodiac summon in FFT either, so I was unsure about it. So don't blame me if some of those are wrong.

Buuhan1

Rented it 2 days ago, 10 hours into it and love it. I'm not gonna read this topic cause of spoilers it might have but I hear theres a lot of bitching about the game.

Dunno how, the battle system is unique and better than turn-base.

@bennyb:

Here's a question for anyone knowledgable on this game: What do the symbols above your characters that you get with alot of chains mean? Sometimes I get green circle, sometimes blue diamond, etc. Some kind of magic enhance maybe?

I thought things beside names were status effects? I thought if you chain a lot, you get spells like Protect casted on you, which explains the blue diamond.

Spi D. Erman

I keep losing myself in the customization of the charcters. The freedom to have them do and be anything is awesome. I do wish that new armor would show up on them cosmetcially (not just the weapons and shields.)

I'm just tired of the gay looking Vaan, with his gay gay run. I don't need to see the swish in his hips lol.

Buccaneer

I haven't played much, but it's really cool so far. Although the battles are a little different than I'd hoped.

Greg

Considering all my hopes and fears…..

Yes....it's very, very different. And it's a very, very different feel...

But....

T^T I JUST CAN'T HATE A GAME THAT HAS THE BRIDGE THEME FOR THE OPENING SREEN T^T

dazze01

At first i thought it would suck, for they changed the battle system, but I was wrong. The battle system made it fun to level up. Comparing to the random battle pop up screen as seen in the past FF's. I enjoy leveling up in this FF in contrast to the rest. Nothing beats FF7…lol..

Greg

Question.

I love stealing.

I assigned my one guy to steal.

He continues to %#^#ing steal when there's nothing left to steal.

Is there anyway to remedy this in the future through gambit purchases? Because it's a real pain in the ass and this is one of the things I was worried about.

Nurlock

I don't think so, so what I usually ended up doing was just assign everyone to steal manually as a first action, which would 9 times out of 10 get what I needed and then started the fight like usual.

Greg

I don't think so, so what I usually ended up doing was just assign everyone to steal manually as a first action

Is this a Gambit of some sort?

Nurlock

No it isn't, sorry if I made it sound like that. That's why I threw in "manually", since to my knowledge there isn't any Gambit like that.

Greg

YAAAAAAAAAARGH!

This is why I was afraid of the game -_-

Oh well, I already like it…but what a friggin' pain in the arse.

joekido the Second

Turn off the gambits or reconfigure it. Oh and this game is two times longer then FF7 and FF9 combined, there are 37 locations and it'll take 100 hours or more to finish the game. There are mor events in this game then FF7. There are some hidden dungeons and there is a boss that have 50 million HP.

If you skip the cutscenes, the story would be short but to keep it long don't skip cutscenes.

There is no romanic in this story, and many people complian that there is lack of character development and story. Just because there's no mushy love story does not mean there's no story and character development.

This game is a mixture of modern and fantasy, you'll find high-advence technology

The story is great, the battle system is fun and better then some annoy random battle system where you run around for 5 seconds and BAM! Your sucked into battle. This game have an realitic system where you can see monsters roaming around and ready to kick your ass.

The characters are likable, Vaan's abs does not bother me(Like Franky's speedos). His abs are ugly in-game but is better in the FMV version.

This game is less cliche and predicatible, it's great as FF7.

ONEinchPUNCH

@joekido:

This game is less cliche and predicatible, it's great as FF7.

That's your opinion.

My opinion is it is no where near as good as FF7

The next guy's opinion could be "No way your all blind!!! FF6 is the greatest"

Then someone will insult the first guy and he'll insult him back and so on

Greg

Turn off the gambits or reconfigure it.

Right, but it's a pain to scroll through each character each time to select what they do. ugh.

But what do you mean by reconfigure? I see that they act in order right? So if I place attack above steal he'll always just attack right?

Plus, to access/change gambits, do I have to open up the main menu or is there a quick menu from the main screen?

Then someone will insult the first guy and he'll insult him back and so on

Or people could put their ego under the carpet and realize that a message board is a place for opinions and doesn't require insults.

rusashi

I'm at the Pharos Lighthouse right now, and I cant bring myself to finish it. I don't know if it was the gameplay, or just because I got bored, but I found the characters incredibly bland. Balthier, who was supposed to be the game's Auron, fell incredibly short. No character quirks, and a pretty cliche story I think.

Maybe the ending would change my mind.

And for my rankings of 3D FFs, I'd have to say

FFX->FFVII->FFIX->FFXII->FFVIII(I really did like this one, but I cant play it that much, because drawing is incredibly monotonous.)

But then again, I liked FFX-2, so my opinion could just fall out the window :]

FlapperPrower

I got the game. It's great so far, but I kinda miss the old battle system.

Greg

Flapper = My opinion

Oh…and the music....I dunno, it's probably just me, but one of the many reasons I never got through Tactics was because the music kept putting me to sleep what with it's incessant harps and flutes and such.

It just doesn't sound like Final Fantasy (albeit the AWESOME intro)

bennyb

For a complete FFn00b such as myself, I am enjoying this game alot. 70+ hours in, I'm pretty close to "hte end", but I intend to do all the hunts so I'm sure I have at least 30-40 hours of game left.

The Gambits system is a double-edged sword Greg; it's great because you can customize it, but it only makes me wish I could customize with MULTIPLE ACTION CLAUSES, such as:

IF MP = < 10 & ALLY = KOed, PHEONIX DOWN

or stuff to that effect. I'm well aware that the order of importance allows this sort of things, to an extent, but only having a dozen gambit slots makes for so much changing of gambits that it's hardly a convenience so much as an annoyance.

Just my rant, overall I love the battle system, I agree it's got an appeal to it, think I'll go slay some monsters now. =D

Greg

but it only makes me wish I could customize with MULTIPLE ACTION CLAUSES

Fucking yes.

If they were going to implement a system like that, for Chrissake at least add one more level!!!!

In this sense I don't get how they can use 12 things besides for healing. Because if 'Target Foe' always takes priority over another action, how are they supposed to do anything else?

I wouldn't mind if it was customized to such a point where you didn't need to navigate the #^#$^#@^ menus every 5 seconds to get things done (At least add a Quick Menu for Gambits!) but it's not….thus pissing away the entire system and making me wish all the more that battles were the way they were.

That is to say, at least stop moving around and have an open menu that doesn't need so much scrolling and tweaking! Otherwise the old system just simply works better.

But yeah…if it can get me to like it despite all that, good game.

Oh, one last complaint. Sorry.

Boss battles suck ass.

You can't see shit because there's so much going on and half the fun of boss battles were looking at a big freaking thing doing stuff.

Sure, the bosses do things, but before you had an indication of some sort of what was happening. Here shit just kinda happens and...although more 'realistic'.....it's just not as cool.

Captain Kuro

Although I still haven't gotten to play much, I have a feeling I'll definitely agree with you about the boss battles.

I'm mostly interested in the setting and story and stuff though. Although it's not really the normal FF "feel", I have always liked the Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics/Vagrant Story/etc. settings.

Greg

The setting is really nice but it makes one wonder….

"Wait...didn't they specifically make FF9 like this because it was going to be the last in the series with such a feel??"

It's nice though. The basic concept I've experienced thus far is somewhere along the lines of 6's feel/technology aaaaaaaaand that's always a good thing.

The story looks like it's being set up for massive twists though.

And I'm loving the ginormous bestiary.

Captain Kuro

Since the story of XII is supposed to be by the FF Tactics/Ogre Battle guy, I would expect some twists. And you know, that guy seems to like his games to have a kind of "historical" feel. Lots of background history and stuff.

Greg

Holy fuck dude. You have no clue. The bestiary is just this massive (massive) collection of totally useless but really cool info.

bennyb

@Greg:

Holy fuck dude. You have no clue. The bestiary is just this massive (massive) collection of totally useless but really cool info.

I haven't even glanced at that thing since early in the game. I wonder if there's any really useful info tucked away in there…

Greg

I haven't even glanced at that thing since early in the game. I wonder if there's any really useful info tucked away in there…

Among other things it gives you hints for item creation via selling.

Okay, dunno how, but I seem to be the opposite of EVERY reviewer out there.

Many reviews I read said that the first few hours are slow but just get better.

I immensely enjoyed the first few hours but slowly but surely not just the Gambit system, but the game itself is killing my soul and joy.

I feel like the dungeons in the game are just too huge and a major (major) part of the game's length has merely to do with long (really long) dungeons. Am I alone on this?

I'm on 23 hours now and I just "kidnapped" the Princess.

It feels like in those 23 hours I've accomplished little since I left Burgheim Pass. Up to that point it was pretty cool but when the game started to feel like all I was doing was running through huge dungeon after dungeon….I dunno. Plus in looking at the strategy guide's length (thank God for that or I'd have opened all those chests!) I appear to be about 1/3 through the story.

Granted this doesn't include side-quests etc. but I mean....at 23 hours most RPGs are in full swing. Yet here I feel like I just got two feet in the water.

In short.....does it get any better and does the game start to focus on more than just running through VERY LARGE maze after VERY LARGE maze? 'Cause dungeons are GREAT....but not when the majority of the game is spent in them.

My seething hatred for the Gambit system that grows each passing day like a festering boil on my testicle will be left for another time.

and I still don't officially 'not like' the game either.

Mister_Anbu

Dude, holy crap. 23 Hours and you only just kidnapped the princess.

Either you accidentally left the game overnight and fell asleep to that music, or you have done far too much exploring.

Don't worry about exploration and stuff, just go through the game. Explore when you get bored or get stuck.

Just for clarification purposes, the kidnapping of the princess is the part where you head to Raithwall's tomb.

I reached that point at about the 10 hour mark, if not earlier.

For the gambit thing, if you don't like it, I guess you might be out of luck. Unless you have all 3 of your characters set to having a gambit on. If you do, turn one of them off and control one guy.

As for your dungeon question, you end up traveling to several tombs. But you can always leave them to do hunts. Overall though, I'd say you exposed to a more vast array of landscapes at the point you are at.

[Possible Spoiler, involves what landscapes I have faced so far]

Desert, Tombs, Caves, Jungles, Mountains, Airships

[End Spoiler]

I haven't tried it yet, but I think you might be able to pull off an effect similar to the old Final Fantasy's if you change it to wait mode and turn off all gambits.

Greg

I super hardcore play really really good RPGs. I reached the second continent in DQ8 when many people had already beaten the jester.

So for example, right now I'm like level 16 and have basically every spell, gambit and technique the game has thrown at me thus far along with a CRAPLOAD of Licenses.

So my dilemna is, by all facets of the imagination, I should be able to kick the crap out of marks and bosses. But I'm finding myself get my ass beat by the post-bill marks.

I beat Niddhog LITERALLY on my last legs. Why? Because holy crap are things fast! I dunno how you're supposed to accomplish anything because the tough enemies move so fast.

In between that you have your other characters doing a ton of gambits you don't want them to do if you take your eyes off 'em for two seconds which requires you to do more tedious menu tweaking and if you remove them, then you have to manually control which would be GREAT if when you input actions, they stuck and every time you hit X it didn't take you to the leader while having to scroll left or right to get to a character.

I guess my point is, there's just so much goddamn tweaking in the game for tough fights, that I personally am less concerned about what I should be doing and strategizing, but just trying with all my might not to die because so much crap is going on at the same time.

Which….has been my fear from the very start.

Of course this is different for everyone. I mean technically this is more 'involved' but how 'involved' do you feel when you're navigating menus back and forth instead of selecting actions and thinking about how to form an attack rather than twitch-gaming.

AGAIN

I like the game.

But since it has gotten SO MUCH praise even from critical fans here, I expected the gambit system to be way better than it really is but it's basically what I originally thought it was.

ATB….three letters that mean so much.

edit: as of 9PM Japan time it's official.

The game is starting to get on my nerves.

I just completed two %#%ING massive and BORING desert dungeons only to be rewarded with!!!!!! another massive dungeon.

Prior to this my opinions were humorously presented critical views.

But now the game is just pissing me off.

And what the hell's with the lack of save points??????

Bump up the difficulty? Okay, uh I can take that….BUT THEN DON'T PUT IN FREAKING ONE-HIT-KILL MONSTERS!!!

Seriously...I don't know how this got so much oral justification from reviewers.

If 13 is like this I WILL drop the series. And although it pains me to say it, I may not finish this one either.

kaemmerite

Greg, I feel glad I am not alone in this. XD;;

It is so frustrating to CONSTANTLY have to go into the Gambit menu every four minutes to change something. I'm sorry, but getting wiped out because I have a Gambit set to "Enemy weak: Ice" and then getting killed by my OWN SPELLS because the enemy puts up Reflect, and my magic user won't stop casting the spell, is bullshit.

Also, combat messages go away WAY too fast. I didn't even KNOW that enemy had cast Reflect because so much crap was going on I never saw the message. It wasn't until I went, "Hey, it's like the spell isn't even hitting him!" that I realized what had happened. THIS SHOULD NOT OCCUR.

By the way, I feel your pain. I spent FOUR HOURS in the freaking Ogir-Yensa Sandsea because I am the kind of guy that has to explore every corner of the dungeon. And also because I had to continually run away from Salamantites or whatever when they started chasing me because I cast a Cure spell.

And by the way, Vahn and Penelo have ZERO character development. Hell, I'd prefer Tidus over Vahn any day. Vahn isn't whiny like Tidus, but at least Tidus DID STUFF. In fact, FFXII seems to have the worst character development of any Final Fantasy game (except the first and third, but that's to be expected). The only one that's developed even remotely decently is Balthier, and his character doesn't even get developed until about 50 hours into the game.

Actually…I've started playing my FFV for GBA a lot more than I've been playing FFXII lately...