Final Fantasy XII

[toythatkills]

I don't believe it.

Anyone having trouble getting this to work on a chipped machine? My game goes past the Playstation2 logo, then it's black screen and no game. My 360 is messed up too, and now I can't play the PS2 game I've been dying to play for ages. Nothing works!

<cry>

[SuperBeatBoy]

what chip do you have? it runs completely fine on my matrix infinity. you could try backing it up to see if that works.

[toythatkills]

I just got it to work with some obscure pattern of pressing the reset button, hopefully I can do that next time!

[Sane]

Not many people playing this it seems. I received my copy yesterday and played for about an hour so far. First impressions are a bit meh, but it's largely caused by the technical side of things.

The graphics don't look very good. Now this is partly caused by the fact that I've been playing the 360 for months and I suspect also by the fact that I'm playing it on an HDTV (the game doesn't have a 480p option so that doesn't help) but I think also because the game is now fully 3D with a rotating camera. With FF X square used fixed camera points so they could pump everything they had into the parts they knew the player would see, with this game they have to render everything and it doesn't do the game any favours. It's jaggies ahoy and very bad popup on the NPC's (shenmue style), I also noticed seams in the textures and even the fmv seems a little blocky (again, probably due to playing it on an HDTV) and it's boxed for some reason. On top of that the city where you start out doesn't look very impressive. I expect when I've played the game a little longer I won't notice as much but it's a bit of a dissapointment because it's FF and you kind of expect it to be brilliant looking.

The voice acting is quite good so far, it's good to see they put a little more effort in it this time, FF X will always be remembered by me as the game with most horrendous voice acting ever. They seem to have used a lot of british and even scottish (I think) actors which helps preventing the whiney american tone FF X suffered from. It's not all good though, there's a guy holding a speech about 30 minutes into the game who sounds blatantly bored, as if it's almost his lunch break and he's trying to get it done asap. Also the voices sound a little tinny.

The battle system then. Can't comment much about it yet, so far I've only 1 person in my party and I'm not convinced yet, however I've read a lot of good comments about it so I expect that to change once the game picks up the pace. Still, it'll be hard to please me since 'm weird and I like turnbased battling, hell I don't even mind random encounters.

I'm definatly sticking with the game though, eurogamer gave it a 10/10 so I'm still expecting a great game.

[jim g]

Not many people playing this it seems. I received my copy yesterday and played for about an hour so far. First impressions are a bit meh, but it's largely caused by the technical side of things.

The graphics don't look very good. Now this is partly caused by the fact that I've been playing the 360 for months and I suspect also by the fact that I'm playing it on an HDTV (the game doesn't have a 480p option so that doesn't help) but I think also because the game is now fully 3D with a rotating camera. With FF X square used fixed camera points so they could pump everything they had into the parts they knew the player would see, with this game they have to render everything and it doesn't do the game any favours. It's jaggies ahoy and very bad popup on the NPC's (shenmue style), I also noticed seams in the textures and even the fmv seems a little blocky (again, probably due to playing it on an HDTV) and it's boxed for some reason. On top of that the city where you start out doesn't look very impressive. I expect when I've played the game a little longer I won't notice as much but it's a bit of a dissapointment because it's FF and you kind of expect it to be brilliant looking.

The voice acting is quite good so far, it's good to see they put a little more effort in it this time, FF X will always be remembered by me as the game with most horrendous voice acting ever. They seem to have used a lot of british and even scottish (I think) actors which helps preventing the whiney american tone FF X suffered from. It's not all good though, there's a guy holding a speech about 30 minutes into the game who sounds blatantly bored, as if it's almost his lunch break and he's trying to get it done asap. Also the voices sound a little tinny.

The battle system then. Can't comment much about it yet, so far I've only 1 person in my party and I'm not convinced yet, however I've read a lot of good comments about it so I expect that to change once the game picks up the pace. Still, it'll be hard to please me since 'm weird and I like turnbased battling, hell I don't even mind random encounters.

I'm definatly sticking with the game though, eurogamer gave it a 10/10 so I'm still expecting a great game.

I know the feeling about the graphics, most PS2 games look **** on HDTV unless you have component and the game is progessive. Try it on a CRT if you can, it will look much better.

[Concrete donkey]

I was only was able to play this for a little over an hour last night, but so far first impressions are defiantly better than that I had with the demo. This doesn?t surprise me as I wasn?t all impressed with FFX?s demo, but loved the game. At first I feared the game would be unrecognisable as a Final Fantasy title, and the open fmv?s supported those fears, but once I got into playing the game, those fears were alleviated. I Still need to play this more to give a proper impression, but very optimistic. I like the levelling up system, and looks to offer a lot of customization and the combat is not as radical as I felt it was in the demo. Hopefully will post more later.

[Revolution6000]

Got it this morning, loving it, voice acting seems to be pretty impressive so far, graphics are fine.

[AdamJW]

I got mine this morning and although the voice acting impressed, still the thought crossed my mind about why has the oppressive race all got English voices and wondered why it is that the English are always seen as the bad guys in the US. I thought that was a bit hollywood and was a bit nonplussed by it - myself.

Well impressed with the game though, but just not the English being potrayed as the bad guys yet again. Hopefully it will explain it all a bit better later on.

[Hartley Hare]

Loving this, the movies are stunning and the game so far is just drawing me in hour by hour, time to burn the midnight oil again, doubt it will come close to Dragon Quest 8 mind bit if it's half as good, the 360 will be rather dusty, gears of war or not !!!

[Sabreman]

To be fair, plenty of the heroic characters are also voiced by British actors. I think it's purely a case of getting and using available talent than anything insidious. Furthermore, the notion of 'English' bad guys doesn't really apply seeing as it's a completely fantastical setting.

[AdamJW]

The oppressive race just seem to all have cod English accents thats all. I didn't say they were meant to be English. Its just how we 'sometimes' get potrayed by Hollywood and plenty of other parts of American media (fantasy settings or otherwise) as always being the bad guy - we're not really.

Fantastical or not it does carry some influence in the real world though and particularly in the young and easily led. Even if it is unintentional its only an observation though, so I've probably read into it too much, but just keep listening and you'll hear the ones in power all seem to have this range of cod English accents probably from the same pool of actors.

It just seemed too co-incidental to me as not to be delibrate. Its quite funny in a way though. You're right we do sometimes play the good guys - like Yangus in DQVIII, but In my experience that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

[Jusatsushi]

I know what you mean about the voices Adam, they should have got the DQVIII team on the case for the localisation.

I'm enjoying the game, but is it only me pissed off immensely by having to unlock what you can equip on the skill grid? Why can't I wear this cap I just bought...? Oh, it requires me to kill 20 wolves first.

[Zanza]

Are you guys still in the city? I hit the main story (

->Open Spoiler<-

entering the palace

) and have been dragged around on pretty much a linear path for the last few hours. Do I get to return to the freedom of the city, or was the beggining the only chance?

[SuperBeatBoy]

no, its pretty open with what you want to do after that. when you finally enter outside is where it really begins.

[Ikse]

Considering it was Matsuno originally at the helm with this and one of his past games was Vagrant Story, a very 'old english' dialogue style game, it is not surprising he went with this approach with FFXII, especially since it has a very Vagrant Story feel to it aswell, coupled with the fact its based in Ivalice too.

I dunno, i think the localisation is well done