10 minute FFXII gameplay vid

[Pendragon]

I highly doubt every single enemy attacks on sight. At the very least from playing the demo I know that the Mandragora's tend to mind their own business unless they are attacked first. Even if all enemies were to attack on sight though, I'd still prefer taking the time to try and negotiate my way around them then have no choice in the matter like with random battles. Admittedly though, it's just a personal preference.

Garbo is it like an MMORPG as far as monsters that usually attack on sight will leave you alone if you're at a high enough level?

[WaWard]

At the risk of being right, the battle system needed change. Not only were the stories being more and more similar between games, the battle system was also stagnant. And we might be getting a decent change in both of those areas with FFXII!

Matsuno for the win!

[HKK]

Final Fantasy was never the best at plots either, so I didn't notice a drop in story quality. Something Matsuno level would really be great though. Thank God for FFXII.

I mean, by far the most standard, normal, and average japanese rpg series. Average as in, it doesn't really do better in either field: story or gameplay. It's above average in quality but it doesn't really excel in any category except production values. It's by far the most balanced rpg series, but I wish they'd step it up a little. Hopefully that happens in FFXII.

[Channel One]

Point taken, Ward.

Basically what I'm trying to say, is that I was satisfied with the old battle system, but I don't mind the change. I just see it as a step sideways, not better, not worse.

I just realised that this game, overall, seems more like a sequel to Vagrant Story than FF. And I considered VS to be the best Square game I ever played, so that's a good thing.

It seems the single-player FF era is over, and I don't mind, because they've given us Vagrant Story II in disguise, and I'm damn happy with that. In fact, I'd say it's goddamn dream come true, because I've prayed for a VS sequel ever since I first played it.

OK, i have to stop rambling and start playing.

[Garbo]

I agree with Golbez, but there are advantages to this system. For one, it's quite a lot of fun and places a shit ton of emphasis on gameplay rather than a more story focussed game in the past..not to say there isn't a heavy in depth story, just that gameplay is now up to par in terms of engagement factor. Advantages include being able to backtrack easily for treasure without random battles. That's awesome.

Except that you have constantly spawning enemies anyway, so it's about the same thing, especiallty since you're just as likely (if not more likely) to be hit trying to run past them as you would be running from random encounters. In fact, I don't know what it is about randomness that makes it innately detestable. So now instead of random you have a ton of haphazardly placed enemies respawning. The only difference here is no blur effect. Besides that, it might as well be random.

No, you are incorrect. The areas are gigantic, and respawning doesn't reoccur if you immediately return to the area. It takes a while, and each area is so big that you won't really have that problem of having so many areas to traverse across with lots of respawning enemies. And this is so much faster. Despite respawned enemies, which are very well spread apart, holding R2 (escape) and just running through the areas allows you to retrace your steps with almost 0 chance of an enemy hitting you at all, and even so, they might get 1 hit in and you're still running away. Point is, backtracking is just so much simpler and faster in this game than with random encounters.

Also, enemies don't attack on sight, you have to get quite close to them, and you can usually run away without them hitting you at all.

To Pendragon: I don't know, I'm only level 6, and I've never played MMOs before.

[Garbo]

Final Fantasy was never the best at plots either, so I didn't notice a drop in story quality. Something Matsuno level would really be great though. Thank God for FFXII.

I mean, by far the most standard, normal, and average japanese rpg series. Average as in, it doesn't really do better in either field: story or gameplay. It's above average in quality but it doesn't really excel in any category except production values. It's by far the most balanced rpg series, but I wish they'd step it up a little. Hopefully that happens in FFXII.

What the shit, Final Fantasy has always had the best, most engaging stories ever in an RPG, I don't know what you're talking about.

[HKK]

Not to me. The stories are oft hit or miss. They may have good stories in some FF's, but not THE BEST. Depends on the FF really.

[WaWard]

Final Fantasy was never the best at plots either, so I didn't notice a drop in story quality. Something Matsuno level would really be great though. Thank God for FFXII.

I mean, by far the most standard, normal, and average japanese rpg series. Average as in, it doesn't really do better in either field: story or gameplay. It's above average in quality but it doesn't really excel in any category except production values. It's by far the most balanced rpg series, but I wish they'd step it up a little. Hopefully that happens in FFXII.

What the shit, Final Fantasy has always had the best, most engaging stories ever in an RPG, I don't know what you're talking about.

What the shit, Final Fantasy sometimes have good, engaging stories for videogames, and they've gotten extremely stale with heroes facing extremely similar crises for the last 4 games, I don't know what you're... oh you're garbo.

[Garbo]

I said RPGs moron

[WaWard]

your point being? If you take a careful look, I was not saying the same thing as you were.

[Damien]

Throwback to when we were first looking at FFXII footage.

[WaWard]

Spicy argument