Final Fantasy XII

[Extra Terrestrial]

OH MY GOD!



Extra Terrestrial's first play impressions later in the evening or tomorrow morning sometime. I guess I got this before anyone on this very forum too and that makes me feel a bit more excited, special and nervous. Oh man, to think that Final Fantasy X took me nearly 100 hours to do whereas Final Fantasy XII will take twice as long because it is in Japanese!

Anyway, I think I am playing a very good game.

The introduction/opening movie make Lord of the Rings feel less epic than it should be. The language barrier is big I guess but I manage to, in an extremely basic way, understand the beginning but as soon as I reach the top of the first section where you fight your way up a castle-type environment to open up the menu:

*BANG!*

Hundreds of symbols that mean nothing to me!

So far, so good.

The battle system is actually easy to understand. There is a small gold bar on the side of the screen - beside your characters name - where it has to be full to allow you to attack. You can switch enemies and even plan 2 or 3 actions before the gold bar recharges to attack or whatever command you wish to use.

There is a line that connects you to the enemies where a colour scheme helps you to know which enemy is attacking who therefore you can kill the distracted ones first then finish off the others - great system and has a sense of freedom never achieved in a Final Fantasy game depending on whether you enjoyed the random battles or not.

The graphics are absolutely marvellous, especially the first market-town, which is almost like Shenmue: people walking around doing their own thing and various structures where you can tilt the camera upwards to look at the magnificent scope the game is taking; so much detail and no slowdown to speak of.

Anyway, I will explain in depth later on - I only really started this topic to see if anyone actually owns the game considering it is a very popular and high quality product!

Good job so far Square-Enix.

[Darwock]

Envy... this will probably be the last time I check this topic, seeing as there's still the best part of a year to go before I'll be playing it myself. Not risking *any* spoilers in the meantime. So I'll just say, enjoy it ya lucky bastitch!

[JU!]

Heh no worries about the language barrier mate i got to the last boss on FFX before i could understand any Japanese. It can be done Gonna pick this up when i'm in Japan April 7th look fwd to impressions can i wait til April 13th to play it >< Spose it let's me study more if i don't buy it

[FunkMasterN]

Hey I am currently playing FFXII and have found the transition to the new battle system very easy. This will be my 4th Final Fantasy in Japanese (IX, X, X-2 and now XII) and I think many people will agree that playing the game the way it was originally intended (i.e. in it's native language) is by far the best way to play it; the voice acting is far better and the plot is not lost in translation.

Are there any other players of this new masterpiece?

[segages]

I picked it up before I left Osaka last week but haven't got round to playing it yet. Partly because my DS Lite is taking up my free time and partly because I don't know what to expect... not played an FF in japanese before and I'm by no means fluent so I'm worried about not enjoying it as much as if it were in english - is there alot of spoken audio?

Maybe I'll stick it on tomorrow and see. Don't know if I've got time for a 40-50 hour marathon RPG at the moment though!

[stormbreak]

Argh i want it now, but i don't want to play it without understanding the story!
If i were to play it in Japanese i would understand the plot twists but the not the story >_>

[ExpertKing]

Yep , only 7 hours into the game so far but im hooked.New mechanics look confusing from a spectators point of view , but like you say they are very easy to get into. And it plays perfectly.
The story is pretty reminiscant of Star Wars in my opinion, similar characters and events seem to be popping up.Rebellion lead by the Princess , Bountyhunters , Vann ( aka Luke ) ,the Evil Empire lead by the High Judge etc.Still , thats only the first 7-8 hours so maybe it will provide something unexpected later on.

By the way someone has been translations the story bit by bit , and the progress can be found on gamefaqs if you're interested.

[FunkMasterN]

I'm worried about not enjoying it as much as if it were in english - is there alot of spoken audio?

Yes there is just like in FFX, but as ExpertKing said, there is already a large part of the voice and written text translated on gamefaqs. I am not fluent in Japanese, but with the help of this guide I feel that I have not missed anything from the story.

[Sabreman]

Yep, I'm also playing it while referring to the translation guide for cutscenes, and the gameplay is flowing very smoothly. I just adore everything about this game, I think it's living up to my very high expectations (being a Matsuno fanboy in addition to longing for a shake-up to the FF series). The combat is a joy - especially the boss battles, and on a technical level the game is pretty much flawless. I haven't seen a drop in frame rate or a glitch yet, regardless of what's happening onscreen.

[Briareos]

Sounds amazing!

I'll wait for the American release though, just so I can understand the plot. It's probably going to be a long wait, but I do have Oblivion to keep me busy!

Wouldn't it be great if the western release had an option for Japanese Dialogue with subtitles? We can but dream...

[djtickle]

Sounds amazing!

I'll wait for the American release though, just so I can understand the plot. It's probably going to be a long wait, but I do have Oblivion to keep me busy!

Wouldn't it be great if the western release had an option for Japanese Dialogue with subtitles? We can but dream...

yeah im waiting tooo, but got FF11 to keep me going. In fact i prob dont need any other game ever.... lol

[segages]

Yes there is just like in FFX, but as ExpertKing said, there is already a large part of the voice and written text translated on gamefaqs. I am not fluent in Japanese, but with the help of this guide I feel that I have not missed anything from the story.

Right, I'll fire this up tonight... you've all got me interested. The more spoken audio the better as my listening is better than my reading and I'll hit that story guide to help me along.

[pulsion76]

Currently playing.
Visually the game masters every aspect: architecture, character models, smoothness, dungeons (some of them, even tough simplistic, are definitely more well crafted than coff coff FFX ones coff coff).
The soundtrack is full of ups and downs. Some boss fight features nice tunes, but overall I haven't found any amazing theme yet. In this department too, however, FFXII beats the hell out of FFX. Uematsu may be gone, but after his last works I really don't feel any sadness for his departure.
Storywise the game is, well, pretty much what I expected. Lot of political scheming, lot of hollywood movieness, impressive dialogues and, what's best, a live heart-beating background.
The in-game encyclopedia is chock-full of info about every monster encountered and short essays from "books" that exist only in FFXII world. Non playing characters actually deepen the plot and the background, adding commentary that varies from one another. During the first hours of playing I've met a girl in the rich part of the city who enthusiastically shows "pride" for how much every race is melting-potted in Rabanasta (the first city) while later, during a short walk through the market, I've met a banga (the lizard men) who told that it may seems Rabanasta is an integrated society but racial discrimination still persists.

[Briareos]

Right, since this is winging it's way to me now, I'd though i'd prod the vets who have been playing the jap version all this time. I understand from the way the tile system works, any characters can be taken in any direction (ie towards a healer of a fighter etc). So I was wondering what mixes of class people were using?

[JU!]

Not played that far in yet but i'm going to try and get a good mix. Vaan has healing ability in my game at the moment. Needs to play more infact gonna do that now.