Final Fantasy XII First Mentioned

According to a story over at GamerFeed, Square-Enix has said that Final Fantasy XII will appear at the Tokyo Game Show. No further details are given other than the game will be offline, as opposed to the forthcoming Final Fantasy XI. Apparently this is in response to fan pressure. Sounds good to me, too, since I don't really want to pay a monthly fee to play a Final Fantasy game.

Comments

Release scheduled for this year

[br0ck]

Square Insider also mentioned this today as well as the following rumour:

It was announced earlier that FFXII is slated for the second half of this fiscal year, so perhaps the game is farther along than Square Enix is letting on. As soon as we know more, you'll know more.

What a relief

[slusich]

Good to know that Square isn't abandoning those of us who prefer stand alone to online. When I sit down to play an RPG, the last thing I want to do is deal with real people.

Re:What a relief

[Kethinov]

It's no laughing matter. Making XI an MMORPG was the single worst thing they could have possibly done. The FF series has always been about RPG and RPG alone. Throwing in the psudo RPG qualities that come with MMORPG makes us true FF fans skip number 11 when we count FF games.

Of course Square seems to be kicking themselves in the face lately with FF games. The series reached it's apex with VII. VIII was good but the overcomplicated card system was discouraging and the GF system was lame. IX was too cartoony and the story too lame. X was too much graphics and minimal gameplay and the ending was terrible. X2 was the worst idea Square ever came up with at this point. You never make a sequel to an FF!! And they bottomed out at XI being even worse than a sequel.

Conclusion: let's hope Square has learned from their string of bad games and let's hope XII is a return to what made them great. Oh how I long for another game as good quality as IV, VI, or VII.

Re:What a relief

[cyan]

I'd agree that Final Fantasy XI is in fact a *good* MMORPG, but unfortunately it has very little to offer in the way of being a 'traditional' Final Fantasy. I, too, am in the beta, and I'd encourage everyone to read my journal entry about it at http://slashdot.org/~cyan/journal if they'd like to see my detailed thoughts about it. But, in short:

While the music makes us feel at home, the gameplay seems to follow the traditional "Everquest" style of MMORPG. SquareSoft could've gone for something very unique and different for "Final Fantasy Online", but instead we've got a game that looks like they hired most of the Everquest development team. Instead of experience tables being 'serial' or 'linear' (where you gain levels at relatively the same pace over the course of the game), you're forced to suffer through the 'exponential' system where the experience required to gain a level next is double what it was previously, and experience offered up by monsters is typically half. This, of course, is designed in such a way that you're forced to play longer to actually get to those high levels -- which means more money bucked up to PlayOnline.

Walking around from place to place takes *way* too long (sometimes five minutes or more, just to get across the other side of the city), and combat has become a boring chore instead of exciting like the previous Final Fantasies. Nobody likes to just sit there while your character goes "hrrf!" over and over again as he auto-attacks. Half the fun was managing things via the combat menu system. Then, it took me four levels to obtain another spell.

Of course, this is all notwithstanding the fact that there sqeems to be no solid story at all.. just a bunch of subquests (like in all other MMORPG's) that hint here or there at certain things. And *then* there was a huge problem of nobody wanting to team up with you at all to go out on party adventures, while this may be a symptom of the beta (not enough people), it was rather frustrating and seemed counter-productive to the spirit of the game.

In all honesty, Square has made the same mistake with FFXI as they did with "The Spirits Within", they should've simply called the game "Vana'diel" and left Final Fantasy out of it -- then at least people could've enjoyed it for what it is -- a nice MMORPG but ultimately not a Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy means "Completable in about forty hours, with rapid level progression, lots of treasure and goodies, a well-rounded storyline, and complete control over your party characters." As you can imagine, this isn't it.

Again, it's good as far as MMORPG's go, but bad as far as a Final Fantasy is concerned. I've been playing since Final Fantasy IV was released, and have since had the pleasure of playing all of them (that means I through XI now,) and they've all been relatively the same (which is a good thing!) until FFXI. FFXI broke things pretty badly. Besides, why pay for FFXI when you can just play something along the lines of Neverwinter Nights for free? Sorry Square, my dollars will be better spent somewhere else.

As for those of you complaining about Final Fantasy X, I thought it was actually one of the better ones. It took me the same amount of time to complete as any other Final Fantasy, offered that same amount of satisfying hack-and-slash (perhaps even more -- that monster arena will keep you busy for many, many hours), and the sphere grid system is an insanely great idea. Especially when you get into the late stages of the game where 'customization' of the grid is possible.

But isn't it funny that when there was an initial backlash against FFXI, Square quickly backpedaled and said, "Wait! We've got FFXII and FFX-2 in the works, too! Don't go away :("?

Re:What a relief

[Daetrin]

Gotta disagree with you, Im in the FF XI beta and its pretty solid if MMORPG are your thing. Not a hack job, and definately not just a "mee too" type of game. THe game is pollished to a glossy sheen the like of which I have not seen in any other MMORPG.

Why not branch out? Taking a different approach on one isn't going to hurt too many feelings (i think after #8 it would take a lot of crap to shake off their fan bases)

I just kind of wish they hadn't wasted a number on it. They've done FF:Tactics, FF: Mystic Quest, FF: Legends, and FF:Crystal Chronicles, why not FF:Online?

Instead they've double the amount of time that those of us not interested in MMORPGs have to wait for the next main game.

All in all it's not that big a deal though, since i'm not looking forward to the new games that much anymore. I've kind of given up hope that they'll ever come out with another IV, V, or VI, or another Chrono Trigger. I've got some hope for IX, which i'm halfway through now, but a lot of people have claimed the ending sucks.

Taking a different approach on one isn't going to hurt too many feelings (i think after #8 it would take a lot of crap to shake off their fan bases)

Eh, depends on what you mean by "shake off." I've already stopped buying the games on release and have started picking them up in used bins later.

Re:What a relief

[demi]

X was too much graphics and minimal gameplay and the ending was terrible.

It takes all kinds. FFX was far and away my favorite entry (I liked VII plenty and enjoyed IX too--probably the most beautiful game for the PSX ever).

I just really enjoyed a slightly greater emphasis on puzzles, the tone and atmosphere of the cast and the world. With one exception (a long FMV in the middle of the game) I thought the ratio of cutscenes to play was excellent. I really liked the fact that the main thread of the game (including the final battle) was easier to complete than in previous FFs (call me a wimp if you like). There was plenty of side play to complete if you wanted a challenge.

I loved the switch to turn-based combat--I never liked feeling hurried to make a call. The backstory was incredible, and the plot was excellent. About the only thing I didn't like about it was Blernsball. Or Blitzer. Or whatever it was. But luckily you didn't have to play if you didn't want to.

Re:What a relief

[Rayonic]

Incorrect. Final Fantasy Legend 1-3 were SaGa games. Final Fantasy Adventure was the first in the Seiken Densetsu series.

Seiken Densetsu 2, for the SNES, was brought over and named Secret of Mana.

Seiken Densetsu 3, also for the SNES, was never translated, though a full (and high-quality) fan-translation of the game exists now.

Re:Final Fantasy sucks

[Kapsar]

Square needs to go back to the tried and true methods they were using for FFVII and of those before. VII had quite a bit of CGI's but they were short and you still had the feeling that it was a game, but in X the scenes took you out of the game, and some times interupted the flow of the game. If they go back to quarky characters and interesting plots like they had in the first 7 games, i think they'll be back on top in the world of RPGs.

Seemingly Old Info

[Rahszhul]

I can recall hearing this info long before FFXI was released in Japan. Well, shortly after FFIX was released actually.

It seemed when the news hit my nose about FFXI being an MMORPG, they also released news about what they were planning on for FFXII.

Square has always made each of it's games different from eachother in some way, from changing the magic system, to changing the way battles were fought, or the era the game was set in. So, not releaseing another MMORPG under the Final Fantasy label makes (some) sense to me.

Even though, I guess this is a good confirmation. I'm just sadly waiting for another FF3/6j.

FFXII Information

[devnull17]

There's a bit of information already available on FFXII. For one, it will be produced by Yasumi Matsuno, who headed development on FF Tactics and Vagrant Story. Akihiko Yoshida, also a part of the FFT team, will be FFXII's character designer, displacing Tetsuya Nomura (Character designer for VII, VIII, X and Kingdom Hearts). Hideo Minaba (of FFIX and FFT) will be the art director. Nobuo Uematsu is confirmed to be working on music for FFXII, but I wouldn't be surprised if he weren't the only composer on the project. (FFX had 3; the names of the other two elude me at the moment. The guy who composed for the recent SaGa games was one of them.)

There are a few pieces of preliminary artwork available: a simple poster and a profile of a few of the more prominent members of the development team.

Re:Final Fantasy sucks

[kfx]

All but a very small portion of the cutscenes in FFX are rendered using the game engine, not CG.

Additionally, the only reason that there seem to be so many cutscenes in FFX is because of the voiceovers, etc., which cannot be accelerated. I would be willing to wager that if you compared the amount of pure story dialogue in FFX with that of previous FFs, it wouldn't be vastly different. It just seems that way since you can't skip through it as fast as you can read as in older FFs.

Re:"FINAL Fantasy..."

[Daetrin]

...Twelve!? Sheesh.

</irony>

You obviously weren't paying attention to the "20 Most Embaressing Game Companies" article from awhile back were you?

As the new RPG would be the company's last chance for success, Sakaguchi pessimistically entitled it "Final Fantasy," intending to at least provide his dying venture with a suitably-named grave marker.

Ironically, Final Fantasy sold phenomenally in Japan, outpaced by only a few other top-selling franchises. This gave Square an exciting new lease on life, but also meant their flagship series was burdened with a stupidly inappropriate title as second and third Final Fantasy games were quickly designed and released.[4]
...
[4]Which isn't necessarily an embarrassment in and of itself, since the title really is pretty catchy and surprisingly euphonic for something so Engrishy. And it's not like it has an obtuse and ridiculous subtitle like "The Precusor Legacy" or something. Unfortunately, every human being in the world has looked at the name "Final Fantasy" followed by a roman number and made some hilarious comment about how wacky it is that this is the seventh (or whatever) "final" fantasy. Haw! Hyuck!

It's OK. Everyone is allowed to make this trite, obvious observation aloud exactly once in their lives. If you've yet to take your turn, please take a moment now to fulfill your obligation to nerd "humor." It's OK. For the remainder of this paragraph, nobody will think less of you for it.

However you're a week and a half late to catch in on the "nobody will think less of you for it" clause.

To quote Penny Arcade:

[Chris Mattern]

"Square today unveiled the next game in the legendary Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy: The Next One. The main character -- who might be a man or a woman -- is said to gain levels and employ a weapon of some kind. Rumors of an ultimate confrontation with ancient evil remain uncorroborated."

Chris Mattern