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Final Fantasy XII U.S. Demo

Posted by Zonk on from the love-the-last-fantasy dept.

Tim Butler writes "1UP has posted a massive blowout on the U.S. demo of Final Fantasy XII that ships with Dragon Quest VIII next week. They're definitely impressed, saying 'This is not the old-school Final Fantasy action you've come to expect -- but the trade-off is a fast-paced, combat-intensive game with a vast, contiguous world and danger on all sides.'"

7 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. androgynously delicious by xenomouse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it just me or are the main characters in each new FF slowing morphing into a single gender?
    (maybe with exception to FFIX, which had a conquistador and a rastafarian it it)

  2. MMORPG-ishness by Spleener12 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The resemblence of the system to an MMORPG is entirely coincidental- MMORPGs happen to have real-time battles on the same screens that the players explore, that's all.

    Remember, the whole reason why RPGs had battle transitions in the first place is because the technology wasn't there for them to make the battles look as pretty as they wanted to on the same screens that the players explored (imagine FF1 if the battles took place on the map screens. Now imagine FF1 if you walked on the map with the same character sprites you had in combat. Get the idea?) It's an abstraction that we don't need anymore, so they got rid of it, since keeping tradition for the sake of tradition is just retarded.

    1. Re:MMORPG-ishness by jeblucas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a point at which "tradition" becomes branding. Everyone that's played a Final Fantasy game knows there's battle transitions. It was for technical reasons before, no it's for branding. If there wasn't this transition, we'd start to compare Final Fantasy to a zillion other games that let you walk around and collect crap and attack wee beasties...and it might come up short. Final Fantasy's characters and stories have been all over the place, so there's no brand continuity there--all they have is the name, some consistant lingo (gil, etc), and certain play characteristics--like battle transitions.

      --
      blarg.
    2. Re:MMORPG-ishness by bateleur · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Branding might be the reason for battle transitions, but it definitely isn't this which stops FF being compared to things. ...because FF does get compared to things constantly. The series is the benchmark against which PS2 RPGs are judged. Many of the individual games in the series are flawed in various ways, but still nothing else really comes close. Love it or hate it, FF almost defines a genre of its own.

  3. Stupid Blurb by Rocketship+Underpant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What the heck is a "massive blowout"? Did 1UP explode? Argh ... let's use words with meaning, Slashdot editors.

    --
    He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
  4. Re:From a Dragon Quest fan by jclast · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why do these HTML articles have more than one page anyway? We're not reading a magazine with physical pages.

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    e2 | LJ
  5. Re:Stopped caring by Reapy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A lot of gamers are very specific in what they like. My wallot is cursed by my enjoyment of them all.

    I loved all the elder scrolls games for their openness and ability to do what you wanted. I actually never followed the main plot in any of those games but clocked many hours to them.

    I also loved final fantasy for its ability to tell me a great story and presnet it very cinimatically for me. In the newer ff's, the cut scenes were a great reward for me when i finally go to one, as I have always enjoyed squares ability to render a good movie.

    The are both two different games, and no one is forcing either of you to buy or read about the other. But nobody is stopping you from sharing your opinions either :) Share on :)