Halloween the U.S. Release Date for FFXII

Along with trick or treat candy, gamers can look forward to Final Fantasy XII finally launching here in the states on October 31st. 1up has the story: "What better way to enjoy left over Halloween candy than by digging into an epic RPG adventure? Additionally, Square Enix will be releasing a Collector's Edition for $59.99 via EB Games and GameStop websites and retail stores featuring special packaging and a bonus DVD with Japanese and American trailers, developer interviews, an art gallery and featurettes on the Final Fantasy series. "

Comments

I might actually get this one

[ClamIAm]

The thing that's usually turned me off from FF games (and other series, like Dragon Quest) is all the random battles. The new battle system in FF 12 certainly has its detractors, but I think it's a good thing. Maybe I'll rent it first...

there's not a lot of hype about this

[cascino]

but trust me, it's a GREAT game. i've played through the japanese import, and it's brilliant. combat, storyline, pacing, environments, battles... all well done. it's not dumbed-down like many of the recent games have been either. if you have liked any of the previous ff games (especially those prior to the playstation era) it's worth checking this out. i personally loved it.

Re:there's not a lot of hype about this

[cascino]

Okay I realize you have already made up your mind at this point, but I hope you can read my comments below and see why things may not be exactly as they seem.

There's a reason there's not a lot of hype about this. They released a demo with DragonQuest 8.
We've played it. It sucked.

Yes the demo is a piece of shit. I should've prefaced my comments by saying that I too hated the demo. I came into FFXII with very low expectations for playability. Trust me there's simply no comparison between that and the final version.

About the only thing worse than being placed on the strict rails that Final Fantasy games always enforce is having the battles stuck on rails too. The characters play the game for you - there was an article on Slashdot a while back about that when the Japanese version was released.

But what you're overlooking is that the battle system has been redesigned to fit a paradigm completely different from the traditional FF battle system. In old games, your characters would line up on one side and the enemies on the other and you would choose the commands they'd execute. This is no longer: the player is now completely responsible for every action and movement of all characters during battle. FFXII plays like an MMORPG - without the online component. Each character requires the same amount of attention and thought and interaction as a single character does in a traditional MMORPG. The amount of control added to the battle system means that there needs to be some way to step back and not micromanage every character's actions, especially when they often are repetitive.

What Square did was to invent a system of "if...then" statements that are extensively customizeable to allow the player complete control over the party. These rules can be changed on the fly and take the tedium out of playing a game with as much control as FFXII. I would think the addition of a "programming language" of sorts into which battles can be streamlined would appeal to the average /.'er and FF fan.

Give the final game a shot... rent it or something... because I know that your concerns will be alleviated. FFXII is one of the most foreward-thinking FF games released, and it's mostly in part due to its battle system which is as innovative as it is fun to play. There's a reason Famitsu gave it a perfect score, and most industry magazines/websites have given it high scores as well. I say from experience that it's among my 2 or 3 favorite FF titles (FFVI will always remain highest on my list, but that's another story...).

Re:there's not a lot of hype about this

[KDR_11k]

But what you're overlooking is that the battle system has been redesigned to fit a paradigm completely different from the traditional FF battle system. In old games, your characters would line up on one side and the enemies on the other and you would choose the commands they'd execute. This is no longer: the player is now completely responsible for every action and movement of all characters during battle. FFXII plays like an MMORPG - without the online component. Each character requires the same amount of attention and thought and interaction as a single character does in a traditional MMORPG. The amount of control added to the battle system means that there needs to be some way to step back and not micromanage every character's actions, especially when they often are repetitive.

In other words it's like Baldur's Gate and its ilk in that respect.

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[ReverendLoki]

There have been 11 other ones

I see a comment like this in just about every FF thread anymore. It's the stock response for someone who doesn't care for the FF series and wants to make a witty remark on /. I'll repeat what I said in the last one:

Like most things, there's actually a reason and a story why they name a seemingly unending series "Final". Wikipedia has a nice summation, which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_fantasy#Overvie w

Or, for those who don't feel like following a link:

Square Co., Ltd. first entered the Japanese video game industry in the mid 1980s, developing a variety of simple RPGs for Nintendo's Famicom Disk System (FDS), a disk-based peripheral for the Family Computer (also known as the "Famicom," and known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System). By 1987, declining interest in the FDS had placed Square on the verge of bankruptcy. At approximately the same time, Square designer Hironobu Sakaguchi began work on an ambitious new fantasy role playing game for the cartridge-based Famicom, inspired in part by Enix's popular Dragon Quest (known to some in the United States as Dragon Warrior). (At the time, Enix and Square were separate companies; they did not merge until about 17 years later.) Sakaguchi had plans to retire after the completion of the project so he named it Final Fantasy because it was his final game, although it was also going to be Square's final game. In fact, it's commonly believed that the game was named Final Fantasy because of Square and not Sakaguchi, although Sakaguchi himself has confirmed it was named because of his plans for retirement. Either way, Final Fantasy turned out to be far from being Square's or Sakaguchi's last game. Final Fantasy reversed Square's lagging fortunes, and became their flagship franchise.

Re:It should come with some older ones too

[SuperMog2002]

6 for GBA has already been announced and is due out by the end of this year. No word on 7, yet.

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[7Prime]

Not half as bad as Xenogears though, where you literally go from "Do you want to Save?" to "Do you want to Save?" without ever being in control of the game!

God I wanted to like that game, but the story becomes ludicrus, you realize that the only "character developments" are sudden and unrealistic, and the second disk mostly consists of 6 hours of watching characters sitting in an arm chair TELLING YOU THE STORY: "And then we went through this cool dungeon, and then we fought the boss, and then we went to this town, and then we were betrayed by X, and then we fought him." I know it was a rush job, but I wanted to throw the game at the wall. Xenosaga (the first one) and FFX don't even begin to compare, and I thought those games were cutscene heavy.

My favorite story revolving around the game is that my friend (who had already played the game) was watching me go through it. There's a scene where the main character and the romantic lead are in the main character's room, talking. This extremely sappy, cringingly over-the-top dialog goes on FOREVER, so after a while, my friend starts saying, "just press the 'fuck button'", "just keep pressing the 'fuck button'" (refering to the action button), at the end of the scene, the screen fades to black, and then fades back in again, and it's the next morning, and you see the female lead in his bed with obviously no clothes on, and the male lead in his boxers. I suddenly yell, "holy shit, you really did mean the 'fuck button'!", and we just started laughing at how rediculusly bad it was. Oooh, sex in a video game, that must make it, ya know, all "adult like". Pleeeease...