Final Fantasy XII

[Revolution6000]

That doesn't exactly inform you that an upcoming boss is going to be significantly harder than the trash before it.

[toythatkills]

Ah right, sorry, I misunderstood what you meant!

[Largo]

Does is scream star wars to anyone else?

[Sergeant Syphillis]

Played this for 7 hours straight today, havent spent that long on a game in one sitting for years, suffice to say I think its rather good! Was worried the combat system would be too far removed however I dont think its much different to previous games in the series (so far anyhow), you just get the option to let the computer do a lot more of the work for you. I like the sense of freedom you get from the very begining, its a lot more open from the start than the previous games and the plot seems quite substantial. Im just hoppin there are going to be a few stupidly hard monsters like the weapons from FF7, yet not quite so ridiculously hard to defeat as the secret monsters in FFX international. My only question is why did it have to arrive when i've got assignments round the corner, what with this and zelda, how the hell am I supposed to get a degree?

And no I wont accept any personal responsibilty for ordering it in the first place

[MartyG]

Does is scream star wars to anyone else?

I'm certainly seeing a Han Solo type character in the game - and I suppose there's lots of Tatooine like sand.

I'm still in two minds about this game - I'm not really liking the combat system. For sure the gambit stuff is quite powerful, but I'm finding the battles too unwieldly, and lacking the control I'm use to in FF games - it's just not really gelling with me on that level. I just ran into another enemy that wiped my party out in one hit doing 2000+ HP damage to all members. Given they only have 500, and they also got sleep and silence cast on them, they didn't last more than a few seconds. It's this that's annoying because I want to progress the story, not have to spend hours levelling just to get though, levelling really seems to take forever.

On the other hand, I'm liking the characters and the story so far, and I'm liking the art design and environments - I think these are all very well done.

[AdamJW]

I don't like the lack of an inverted horizontal camera option. I think they'e got it the wrong way round. I much prefer it the other way round. I'm definitely enjoying the game in lots other aspects, apart from the ill conceived voice work without an option to switch them off is just laziness.

I'm probably only griping though because I'm just slightly peeved at having lost eight hours worth of gameplay yesterday because of a faulty memory card. I'd just bought it especially for this game, and to transfer all my other saves. I lost all my Disgaea 2 hours aswell to the faulty card - around 250 of them. Its fair to say I'm a bit gutted about it.

[Largo]

Im stuck at the judge bit too, its ****ing lame and dull, even thro grinding what use is buying license that i dont own the items/spells for anyway - since no mercent previously sold, the system is retarded

[SuperBeatBoy]

it does tell you at the beginning to think first before buying the licenses. because you have to wait till they become available in the shops.

[SunLolly]

That Judge fight was easy, just chained those mist knack things between vaan and bache and some inferno attact happend....4000 damage and he died without touching me =/

Right then....I'm 10 hours in and just past that Judge fight.

This is really strange for me this game.I was really looking forward to it hearing it was the Vagrant Story team behind it.
It doesn't have that "omg i gotta play it some more" feeling with me.The battle system is just so..........boring. I would of thought there would be a hybrid mix of FFT and Vagrant story, but instead of job systems and proper combat chains (chain system in vagrant) I have this dull license board and i am watching my characters killing everything.
Its not much different than the others since you still have to slowly wait for the ATB bar to fill up.
I dunno,the battle system feels like its half done/never got past testing phase.

I'll play through it some more, but if doesn't improve, I think i'll flog it on ebay. It's a shame though cause the presentation in this game is amazing. Voice acting,characters,art direction and music all wasted due to crappy boring gameplay =/

[peo]

Just to give a positive view on this, I'm really enjoying it. I'm only about 4 hours in, but the new battle system seems like a breath of fresh air to me. Sure, it's really not massively different to older FFs once you are actually in a battle, but it's so nice not to have frickin' random encounters - the WHOOSH of the screen transition and then standing around posing after a fight, god it used to get on me tits! Not having all that crap speeds things up nicely.

Story seems interesting, and nothing wrong with the voice acting up to now - particularly like Fran, she sounds a bit like a sexy Bjork or something!

[MartyG]

A lot of reviews have been going on about "no random encounters" - but they're still there it's just disguised. Enemies spawn at random in many sections, and actually avoiding a battle is neigh-on impossible in most cases. If you flee you end up with masses of creatures following you so it's not really that much of an option.

There's little option but to use the gambit system, because trying to micro-manage the combat is difficult due to how the menu and system works. Setting up the gambits then ends up with you just watching the fighting, rather than being that involved in it. It's this I don't really like.

If you can get on with the combat system, you're definitely going to score this game well, if you can't it's going to annoy the hell out of you.

[peo]

What you say is true, but its far less annoying to see an enemy, possibly avoid them if you want to and are able to, or get straight into fighting them - its the time wasted by the fannying about as you move to and from the combat that winds me up in most JRPGs.

You definatly do need to use gambits, but you can override them at anytime, so it is still enjoyably interactive to me - lets face it, setting up the gambits is only the same as instructing the characters during the battle except you do it in advance (or something!).

[MartyG]

To a degree maybe, but you're not actually reacting to what's going on in a battle - you just set up X number of gambits to cater for the eventualities, and you really only need a few:

Main character - attack nearest or attack foe targetting you - other characters attack leader's target.
Heals at 60, 30 and critical
Pheonix Down for the dead
Ailment removal for ailments

Sit back and watch.

[peo]

I'm not that far into it, so I am not sure how detailed you can go with the gambits - for example, I had a battle yesterday where all characters were attacking, but I was over-riding Fran's instructions and making her cast a Fire spell (or technik or magick or whatever they call it) because, obviously, the enemy was vulnerable to it. Can you go so detailed that even things like that can be taken care of in the gambits? e.g. "If enemy susceptible to fire then cast fire spell" etc. etc. until all possibilities are taken care of? Cause that really would remove all need to be involved!

I suppose its all down to taste anyway - turn based fighting is not why I like RPGs, I like the story and adventuring, but I'm sure some people are the opposite.

[MartyG]

Yeah, you get that sort of gambit later in the game.