Oh yes. Not been too keen on much they’ve pumped out over recent years, but FF12 is totally different. The cast are likeable (even though they don’t necessarily like each other), the battle system is both immediate and full of depth, and plot so far appears well paced and interesting.
There are however two things that really stood out for me, and they aren’t major things at all -
When you go to save, the game will let you know if you are in an area you have to clear before you leave, and advise you to create a separate save. It’s something that far too few games have, when I really feel it should be a given.
Complete customisation of every character. The main character, Vaan, starts out with an unrealistic haircut and a sword, much like every other S-E character. I can however through use of the license board make him a white mage/archer/gunner from about only 4 hours in, giving me complete freedom to tackle enemies however I see fit.
A lot of things I read seem to have an apprehensive attitude toward the battle system, which has struck me as odd, because from what I’ve read the battle system sounds similar to KotOR, which received near universal praise.
Granted, having not had any play experience with FFXII I can’t say I have any first hand experience with how the battle system works. Still I have a hard time imagining it being anything but an improvement over the old ATB (inhale) “hold-a-button-to-execute-attack-throughout-
the-fight-and-then-use-cure-1-as-needed-outside-of-battle” encounters. I say it’s definitely time for Final Fantasy to evolve or die.
Yes, but you have to admit it will still be hard for lucid reviewers to recover from the atrocities that were FF8 and FF10-2, hence their biasedly low score for battle system.
;p
I’m pretty sure reviewers rated FF8 with good scores… Not sure about FFX-2 as I had stopped caring long before that.
By the way, I see Ivalice being mentioned about FF XII, does it take place in the FF Tactics universe? If so, is the story appropriately intricate and dark? What about the art style?
As far as I’m aware (I’m still not 10 hours in yet) the Ivalice in FF12 is not the same Ivalice seen in FF Tactics, although they share common traits such as Judges and the various new races.
The art style is very “Mediterranean” - everything is awash with warm sunshine and the colours are based around pale yellows with vibrant reds, greens and blues. Theres also a lot of intricate texture work too, especially on the armor and character costumes used - metalwork always has some ornate filigree-style design on it. It’s not very cosplay freindly, as there’s a distinct lack of leather and sunglasses
Suprisingly, yes. I wasn’t going to buy it at first, but I was talked into it by a friend who got it about two weeks before I did. I was still half-expecting the usual Square “let’s bombard the player with shiny FMV” but I have to admit I got the game all wrong!
All Final Fantasies are crap. Great graphics, TERRIBLE SCRIPTS, midi-style compositions, and totally stereotypical charcters is a major turn off. How this company and their lackluster games became popular in the first place, I have absolutely no idea. In any case, Square is one of the main reasons why RPGs have NOT evolved, mainly because every other company, even the indie developers, have decided to copy their formula. Such a shame, really.
I can’t stand FF games post-FF6 (although FF9 wasn’t TOO bad), just a load of whiney emo bollocks and cluncky ultra-linear gameplay. The stories are so over-rated it’s untrue! FF8 was UNSPEAKBLY bad!
Have they made any notable improvments to the general shiteness of the FF series?
Yes. I was also tired of the emo boys with troubled pasts. There’s none of that here.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - I’ve disliked FFX and X-2; wasn’t too keen on Kingdom Hearts; found FFXI rather dull after a while and hate angsty emo boys. FFXII is not like those games, at all. If it helps anyone, it’s actually done by the same guy (Matsuno) who did Vagrant Story and FFTactics (I also believe he was part of the Ogre Battle development team too, but I lack the will to check). This is not like any of the older FF games, from the Nintendo or Sony eras.
Sounds good, I’m really surprised by all the praise though. It was being ripped apart in all the previews and then got something stupid like 40/40 in famitsu!
Awesome, FFTactics was an excellent game with one of the best stories around (despite the butchered translation). Vagrant Story was also good though later on it ended up throwing way too many block puzzles at the player, but its story was also great and made you keep going.
It’s just a shame they didn’t keep the same artist (or he didn’t keep the same style?). Final Fantasy Tactics had a great art style and Vagrant Story took that style to an even greater direction by making it darker andmore mature. I think FFXII would have benefited a lot from using it as well.
I loved the art style used in both those games too. If anything, I’d say FF12 is closer to Vagrant Story, but it’s very much it’s own game. There is a bonus feature that you slowly unlock through 12 - it’s a 2D “trophy” room with the characters done in a Tactics style. You earn them by doing different things, such as spending a certain amount of Gil or casting magic X amount of times.
Emo is “hot” to all the little girls just now so expect them to make a come-back at some stage - considering that Females are actually the biggest players of Final Fantasy (according to surveys done in Japan).
As for the “midi-style compositions” as someone else so kindly put - LOL
I couldn’t agree more on that.
I see these people that sit and listen to the FF soundtrack and all I can think is
"Um… why?"
It’s not the fact that they’re synthisized that bugs me, it’s the fact that a good deal of them aren’t very rythmetic… And failry simple in the number of voices used.
(I recall the main FF theme using a maximum of about 2 voices)
ROFL
Oh my God, for a minute there I thought you were about to write "clunky haird-dos"
XD
Uematsu isn’t that great a composer - his melodies are simplistic and the samples used in FF7 are so bad that it grates to listen to it - I genuinely believe the Snes OSTs sound better.
FF12 has only one track written by Uematsu though, and that’s the vocal track. Everything else is done by Masashi Hamauzu, composer of the SaGa Frontier 2 and Unlimited: SaGa soundtracks.
I’ve got no problem with you hating Final Fantasy or anything, because I’m not a fan myself, but I doubt you’ve listened to the FF12 OST.
[quote=“Kimimi”]
FF12 has only one track written by Uematsu though, and that’s the vocal track. Everything else is done by Masashi Hamauzu, composer of the SaGa Frontier 2 and Unlimited: SaGa soundtracks.[/quote]
Actually, FF12’s score was done by Hitoshi Sakimoto. He was the composer for Vagrant Story, as well as co-composer of FFTactics (along with his esteemed colleague Masaharu Iwata, whom he had worked with on Matsuno’s Ogre games).
