Final Fantasy XII out!

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:05 am

That's right, the 12th installment of Square-Enix's Final Fantasy series has finally hit the shelves of Japan for real!
The release marks the end of an almost five year gap since the last real entry to the series, [google]Final Fantasy X[/google].

Japs have been lining up all over the place to be among the first to play and no doubt doubt some of us will soon have our hands on a Japanese copy of the game.
Expect this thread to contain impressions in the days to come.

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:24 am

Sounded like most everyone had their minds made up about FFXII when the demo came out.

I'd be surprised if opinions change too drastically...

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 12:23 pm

I'm hoping mine do.
The addition of towns and story should help at least a little

Garbo · Post by **Garbo** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:32 pm

Ehh? Thought it wasn't supposed to be out till Thursday. Although the torrent has been uploaded..

Plaztik · Post by **Plaztik** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:29 pm

has it been 6 years already? wow never thought about it that way!

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:31 pm

It was supposed to be ut on the 14th Garbo

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:34 pm

Plaztik wrote:has it been 6 years already? wow never thought about it that way!

Well, it hasn't been 6 since FFX came to the US. Not quite....yet...but by the time it gets here, maybe....actually I don't even think it's five yet....so no.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:53 pm

You know what, I'm mistaking 2001 for 2000 again

I'll go and edit that

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:41 pm

Damien wrote:I'm hoping mine do.
The addition of towns and story should help at least a little

Perhaps, but for those who didn't like the fighting system those will do little to easy the pain. In fact it would likely hurt the story since each fight would make it seem to drag on...

Arashi · Post by **Arashi** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:43 pm

boo I want to play, esp before my interest in videogames die out.

Garbo · Post by **Garbo** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 1:18 pm

i hope this game gets more exciting

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:51 pm

Garbo wrote:i hope this game gets more exciting

Well it can't get any less exciting really, can it?

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:47 pm

It could if they said they changed the battle system to Tetris or That FFXII is really another FFVII spinoff.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:24 pm

Wish me luck

Plaztik · Post by **Plaztik** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:57 pm

in times like these i wish had my ps2 modded...

i wish i had some money for that matter also

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:46 pm

Plaztik wrote:in times like these i wish had my ps2 modded...

i wish i had some money for that matter also

I'm sure you'll be able to make enough money to get your machine chipped before this fucker downloads for me

Garbo · Post by **Garbo** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:24 pm

Well I finished it last night, the exact same torrent, right about when almost everyone else finished. If you have a decent connection it should give you the best speeds possible.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:41 pm

Well I've got a good connection but am getting fucking nothing

Garbo · Post by **Garbo** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:24 am

That's odd. I was getting 58kbs average when it was finished, and when I was dling it, there was 14 seeds, 7500 peers, and everyone was at the same percentage all the time. When I finished, everyone else finished too, so technically you should have like 23094902384 seeds and only a few peers.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:36 am

Plaztik wrote:in times like these i wish had my ps2 modded...

i wish i had some money for that matter also

Undine · Post by **Undine** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:45 am

Lord Golbez wrote:It could if they said they changed the battle system to Tetris or That FFXII is really another FFVII spinoff.

TETRIS RPG!
TETRIS RPG!

Garbo · Post by **Garbo** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:38 am

the japanese is too hard

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 7:14 am

Garbo wrote:That's odd. I was getting 58kbs average when it was finished, and when I was dling it, there was 14 seeds, 7500 peers, and everyone was at the same percentage all the time. When I finished, everyone else finished too, so technically you should have like 23094902384 seeds and only a few peers.

I've never douns torrents to work that way $:\$

Calbrena · Post by **Calbrena** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 8:41 am

Undine wrote:
Lord Golbez wrote:It could if they said they changed the battle system to Tetris or That FFXII is really another FFVII spinoff.
TETRIS RPG!
TETRIS RPG!

PLZ

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:51 am

Seems my computer crashed pretty much as soon as I went out so no progress on the hellishly slow torrent today

This computer crashing business is really really annoying me

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:46 pm

Calbrena wrote:
Undine wrote:
Lord Golbez wrote:It could if they said they changed the battle system to Tetris or That FFXII is really another FFVII spinoff.
TETRIS RPG!
TETRIS RPG!
PLZ

The HATE!

Undine · Post by **Undine** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 3:08 am

Lord Golbez wrote:
Calbrena wrote:
Undine wrote:
Lord Golbez wrote:It could if they said they changed the battle system to Tetris or That FFXII is really another FFVII spinoff.
TETRIS RPG!
TETRIS RPG!
PLZ
The HATE!

No hate

The character classes would be square, long block, L block, backwards L block, T block, S block and Z block and the soundtrack would be done by tatu.

In other words, it would be AWSOME

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:19 am

It'll have Space Dog on the Sountrack too, for sure

Plaztik · Post by **Plaztik** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:35 pm

rofl Tatu

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:37 am

Damien wrote:I'm hoping mine do.

Here's an extremely thorough review that should paint a pretty clear picture of the game for anyone interested.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/review/R98950.html

I've only skimmed through it so far however it seems to have minimal spoilers.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 5:02 pm

I have yet to stick the disc in my PS2 (due to business and a mountain of other games in it's way).
Should do this weekend

JayDubya · Post by **JayDubya** » Mon May 01, 2006 7:34 pm

For what it's worth it got a 40/40 from Famitsu, and they're notorious for being harsh critics.

I'd expect this to be a damn fine game when it comes stateside.

(Note: they also gave a 40/40 to Vagrant Story, by the same director and much of the same development team. If you played and liked VS, then it stands to reason you'll like this as well. If not, then maybe not. I loved VS to death, personally).

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:35 pm

JayDubya wrote:For what it's worth it got a 40/40 from Famitsu, and they're notorious for being harsh critics.

No, they're really not.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:40 pm

I've played a fair bit of the game but am not really liking it

Will reserve my judgement for the American version

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:50 pm

Other than being able to understand the story, what do you expect will differ between the Japanese and American versions of the game that will change your opinion of it?

It's not like there will be significant if any changes to the gameplay...

JayDubya · Post by **JayDubya** » Mon May 01, 2006 10:11 pm

Damien wrote:I've played a fair bit of the game but am not really liking it
Will reserve my judgement for the American version

I guess I'll keep my hope levels down then - I was anticipating great things, but like any other project that was delayed as much as this one was, I've been kind of worried it would drop the ball.

There's some rumors the lead designer (Matsuno, also did FFT and VS) had a nervous breakdown mid-way or somesuch, and that *can't* be good for the final product.

At any rate, I still think this game is going to deliver, but it's going to be fairly divisive, and a lot of FF diehards aren't going to like it (maybe including myself, we'll see). I haven't played the demo or anything yet, just seen gameplay movies, and liked what I've seen so far.

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Mon May 01, 2006 10:51 pm

Damien didn't like Fragrant Story. I don't see why you shouldn't like it if the battle system's anything like the demo (and if the story doesn't suck clit like FFIX).

JayDubya · Post by **JayDubya** » Mon May 01, 2006 11:16 pm

I rather liked FFIX, actually, and mainly because of its story (hodgepodge homage to every previous game that it was). Essentially, it's V and VIII I don't much care for, V having the verdamnt job system and VIII having the worst overall story since FFII introduced the whole "let's have characters with names and personalities and a plot that affects them" thing into the series.

Of course, non of that is here nor there. If the battle system is reminiscent of Vagrant Story, that sounds like a good thing to me, and I guess I'll like the mechanics of the game. The visuals and audio are always good in FF games, so that's a given too. I guess I'm more concerned with the plot / characters.

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » Tue May 02, 2006 7:36 pm

WaWard wrote:I don't see why you shouldn't like it if the battle system's anything like the demo (and if the story doesn't suck clit like FFIX).

Personally, I really enjoyed the story for IX. As far as XII is concerned though I've been trying to avoid finding out about the story as much as possible since I don't want to spoil it for myself, however from the little that I have seen/heard thus far makes me think the story will be pretty throw away.

It'll basically come down to gameplay, this is where XII will fail, at least in America and Europe. While I have little doubt XII will sell well if for no other reasons then all the FF fans who will be curious to try it out, it's obvious there is a huge bias against the whole single player MMORPG feel to it thus eliminating half the people who buy the game from ever giving the gameplay a real chance.

Now take the remaining %50 of the people who come into this game with an open mind and eliminate half of those people (give or take) because they can't wrap their heads around the gambit system. Unfortunately it'll be real easy for those people to be turned off by the gambit system, since from what I've read about it just inputting a command in the wrong order is suicide in an actual fight.

Example: Lets say a player sets a simple two-layer command for the gambit. He/she inputs that a certain character attacks an enemy the leader is focused on and healing any party members who's HP drops below %50. However because of how gambits are set up, when the AI follows through with the first command that was inputted and starts attacking the enemy that the leader is, the gambit follows that command by looping back to the beginning of the true/false statement (that being is the enemy alive) and continuously attacking that enemy until it’s dead. Only after the enemy is dead will it get the chance to follow the next step in the gambit in which case is to heal any party members with low enough health, but at that point the member that needed healing might already be dead.

Obviously this example is a very simple one and the problem itself in this instance is easily remedied (simply change the order of the commands to give priority to healing then attacking), however when you take into consideration the sheer number of options the gambit allows and how precisely they have to be set up, it's obviously going to turn away a lot of people, especially casual gamers.

It'll only be the remaining %25 or so people that come away from XII really loving the game. Which is a shame since so many people complain about how stale Japanese RPG's are nowadays. Now that they're trying something different people just want things to return to the way they were...

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Tue May 02, 2006 7:41 pm

Your example about the gambit system actually makes it sound pretty awesome, at least in the sense that it seems you have a lot of options and thus control over how the AI works. That said, i don't see how Japanese RPGs become less stale by becoming more like American RPGs (yuck).

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » Tue May 02, 2006 7:45 pm

For people who like a lot of control and making their own personal tweaks the gambit system will be nothing short of awesome, sadly to everyone else it'll just be too much work.

As for the whole stale business I do see your point, however I thought for those who've been complaining about how much Japanese RPG's need to change up the tired formula that they'd at least appreciate the attempt to try something different.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue May 02, 2006 7:50 pm

Pendragon wrote:Other than being able to understand the story, what do you expect will differ between the Japanese and American versions of the game that will change your opinion of it?

It's not like there will be significant if any changes to the gameplay...

I'm just hoping that the bits of the story I don't understand make the somewhat dire gameplay worth it.
I'm also still hoping that I'm missing something that will later be explained to me (in English) concerning the battle system.

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Tue May 02, 2006 9:26 pm

Lord Golbez wrote:Your example about the gambit system actually makes it sound pretty awesome, at least in the sense that it seems you have a lot of options and thus control over how the AI works. That said, i don't see how Japanese RPGs become less stale by becoming more like American RPGs (yuck).

You suck.

Joei · Post by **Joei** » Wed May 03, 2006 9:27 am

Spoilar: Ashe is a mean girl.

Chrono_Misjudged · Post by **Chrono_Misjudged** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:02 pm

I will really enjoy FFXII because I think is an unprecedented game in the RPG story. Graphics, Story, Music, etc... they're superb. Changing the subject, Could Anyone tell me the name of the models in which the characters of FFXII are based? I mean, I don't know very much about make Videogames, but if Squall from FFVIII ( let's remind us that it was a game with poor graphics compared to FFXII which its characters seem practically real ) is based in one Model (someone called Gackt), is easy to think that FFXII characters are also based in real models.

Cybernetic Empire · Post by **Cybernetic Empire** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:34 pm

All attractive/awesome FF characters are actually based off of me. Yes even the women!

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:35 pm

Chrono_Misjudged wrote:I will really enjoy FFXII because I think is an unprecedented game in the RPG story. Graphics, Story, Music, etc... they're superb. Changing the subject, Could Anyone tell me the name of the models in which the characters of FFXII are based? I mean, I don't know very much about make Videogames, but if Squall from FFVIII ( let's remind us that it was a game with poor graphics compared to FFXII which its characters seem practically real ) is based in one Model (someone called Gackt), is easy to think that FFXII characters are also based in real models.

Gackt is a recording artist and I'm scared if you think this looks like a real person:

Anyay, as long as you're personally impresses with the graphics.. it seems that's all you care for afterall.

HKK · Post by **HKK** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:44 pm

Damien wrote:
Chrono_Misjudged wrote:I will really enjoy FFXII because I think is an unprecedented game in the RPG story. Graphics, Story, Music, etc... they're superb. Changing the subject, Could Anyone tell me the name of the models in which the characters of FFXII are based? I mean, I don't know very much about make Videogames, but if Squall from FFVIII ( let's remind us that it was a game with poor graphics compared to FFXII which its characters seem practically real ) is based in one Model (someone called Gackt), is easy to think that FFXII characters are also based in real models.
Gackt is a recording artist and I'm scared if you think this looks like a real person:

Using Gackt as a reference point..why not?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:57 pm

Gackt doesn't look like a real person.
Hell, Gackt doesn't look like Gackt most of the time!

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:17 am

Cybernetic Empire wrote:All attractive/awesome FF characters are actually based off of me. Yes even the women!

Do you look like Rinoa? I hope you do!

Square Gamer

Final Fantasy XII out!

Final Fantasy XII out!

I will really enjoy FFXII...or not...

Re: I will really enjoy FFXII...or not...

Re: I will really enjoy FFXII...or not...