Slashdot Mirror
Final Fantasy XII Pushes Envelopes
The anticipation surrounding Final Fantasy XII has resulted in Square/Enix's largest U.S. rollout for a title. Gamespot reports that 1.5 Million units were shipped to the country to meet demand. From the article: "Even if every last one of those copies has been sold, Square Enix still has a ways to go before the game duplicates the success it experienced overseas earlier this year. Final Fantasy XII has already racked up more than 2.4 million sales in Japan since its release there in March of this year." The game is pushing graphical as well as business envelopes; Kikizo has a feature talking with some of the game developers about the game's use of PS2 architecture. Essentially, the team says, FFXII is the best a game will ever look on the PlayStation 2.
I remember much the same thing was said about FF9 on the first Playstation. And indeed, that game was visually stunning. But to be honest, I was a little disappointed in the gameplay. Still a worthwhile game, mind you, but apart from the graphics, it was not the best in the series, IMHO. Now if FFXII can pull off amazing graphics and good gameplay, then not only will I be impressed, I will be overjoyed.
Santa's suicide mission go!
The battle system is like playing a MMORPG, but you are by yourself.
Battles are horribly boring. Auto attack, who in the world decided upon that? Hey, you there, attack those guys! I'll just sit back and heal...
If they had included auto healing as well, the only thing the player would need to do is walk around between way points!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I was looking forward to the game, being a long time Final Fantasy fan. Unfortunately it looks awful on my TV. I have an HDTV and playing the game I keep thinking that this sure is last generation. It's jaggy, and frankly looks bad enough that my roomie's non gaming eyes can even tell it looks kinda bad. I long to be able to slide it into the Xbox360 sitting next to the PS2 and see the game the way it should be displayed. Maybe when I break down and get the PS3 in the next year or so (resold, as I'm not buying a new one from Sony) it will look better.
They are not too bad, a little longer than expected but still in an acceptable range. I've seen longer load times on games like Burnout Revenge... so it's not bad...
Help test the
I recently got a 360 about 6 monthes ago. FFXII came out last month. The only thing I can say about FFXII's graphics is "this is last gen". It really does push the FFXII to a limit, but there's better graphics. By which I mean less jaggies, better looking, or more fluid. It's true FFXII is impressive in it's graphics, but it still suffers from FMV lag. If you watch the FMV and then jump back into the game the game's graphics look poor. FFX had slightly better ways of dealing with this.
Overall FFXII is visually impressive but coming out when it did it's showing just how weak the PS2 is to the next gen systems, and totally invalidating Sony's claim that it could have lasted 10 years. It could only have lasted that if people didn't care about graphics and they do. Early Gamecube games looked on par with some of FFXII's graphics and even first gen 360 games easily smoked it.
That all being said FFXII is an incredible game, and that's coming from a guy who really hasn't liked a Final Fantasy game since FFVI. It breathes new life into the game while retaining the same style setting it always had. If it wasn't for Gears of War, FFXII would be the only thing I'm playing. Both Gears of war and Final Fantasy XII are worthy of all the praise they have gotten as one is the final "great" game. And Gears is one of the first of the new generation.
Gabe from Penny-Arcade has a review of his first 20 hours with the game that I think is spot on.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/show/21973
This game does for Final Fantasy what Resident Evil 4 did for Resident Evil - it reinvents itself and succeeds in surpassing its predecessors in nearly every way.
and I don't see slashdot posting articles about them.
Now, I'm familiar enough with the series that I'm quite likely to buy this game, however looking at the box art it shows that at least in some arenas an extremely underwhelming effort was made to promote this game. Perhaps it's just the local copies I have seen, but the case art seems to be simply a resized image with no blending or filtering. That is to say, looking at it anywhere up close shows pixellated edges and jags.
Perhaps it's only the local copies, but something seems horribly wrong. If it weren't for the fact that these copies are selling on retail shelves, I would think that they were actually rip-offs or black-market cheap copies.
Can anyone else confirm the massive pixellation on the box-art? Certainly when that is the first thing consumers see on shelves one would think a bit more care could have been put into it, but again perhaps these are rushed pre-copies or something like that??
I hope the envelopes are full of cash, and they're being pushed my way. I have a feeling though that they're full of souls, and they are being pushed to sony.
The only issue is that some people really love the gameplay change, while others hate it.
-- jchenx
"Essentially, the team says, FFXII is the best a game will ever look on the PlayStation 2."
That's because Netcraft confirms it, the PS2 is dying.
FF 12 is one of the last games that's going to be released on the Playstation 2. Were that not the case, games would eventually be developed that kick the shit out of FF 12.
In the early days of a console, game developers seem to have no clue. By the end of a console's life, developers know every little trick and performance tweak they can do. There's a reason that as time goes on, a console's games look better and better.
Compare Kessen (Which was in the initial PS2 launch lineup) to Kessen 2. Hell, compare it to a game made today. Kessen was fucking gorgeous when it came out. It looks horribly dated today, even when compared to games on the same console - even when compared to games in the same series!
Right, then. Sorry, everyone, for apotheosizing myself into Master of the Obvious for this post, but it had to be done. I'm by no means a hater of Square (Xenogears FTW!), but I'm no fanboy, and that comment of theirs smacks of a very undeserved "LOL WE R TEH BEST!!!!!!!!!!11111111"
The thing is you have to hit the x button, and navigate every time anyone completes any action to 'try' the old way. So it's significantly a bigger PITA to do it manually.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm seriously not trolling, but I havn't enjoyed square-enix games for quite some time. While I loved FF1,3, and 6, I thought 7 was the downfall of the series, and havn't played anything after 8. Not only that, but I finished Kingdom Hearts II and put 25 hours the latest Dragon Warrior, and honestly thought both were junk. To explain myself, I felt KHII was too much of a buttonmasher and the story was too convoluted (this is coming from someone who enjoyed mulholland drive), and the entire time I played DW I kept thinking to myself "why do I even care? I just want to ditch this poor excuse for a king and go do my own thing".
I actually really want to try this game, as I really enjoyed the earlier final fantasies, but I don't want to put another 25 hours into a game only to be disappointed. So, here are my questions.
1. I understand the battlesystem has been streamlined, which is ok by me. But do the boss battles actually involve some strategy?
2. Is the story engrossing enough so that you actually care what is going on? (for instance, I got bored with oblivion after a few hours, but the story of neverwinter nights 2 is engrossing for me so far).
3. Is your character completely railroaded? I understand j-rpgs are more linear, but sometimes at least the illusion of choice allows me to become more engaged in the story.
I'm a fan of JRPGs in general, and the FF series has generally been solid, though not always great. (Ignoring FFXI because the concept never appealed to me so I can't judge).
I've been playing FFXII a while and am underwhelmed, a few points
-Graphically, beautiful, no complaints really. Well, except no progressive scan support.
-The cities, admittedly, feel like realistic cities, well, except for the MMORPG-style icons popping up everywhere, which are actually kinda annoying. I am never bothered by the notoriously sparse cities in JRPGs, but I do have to concede they could be judged weird (a huge metropolis with maybe 13-17 people you can see is not atypical in JRPGs).
-The battle system is really uninspired. Doing it manually is just not made remotely feasible in the game, and distilling your strategy into fairly hard and fast rules makes for very boring fights. Now admittedly, high rates of random encounters in previous games were monotonous as hell, but the difficult fights were more interesting, and you had the opportunity to contemplate at most any given context the risk of damage and whether heal or attack is good. In XII, the decisions are either done in advance (i.e. if health 50%, heal will happen, no thinking), or else not given a good opportunity to recognize your situation if trying the manual approach. I really liked Chrono Trigger, no random encounters, no separate battle screen, yet a traditional JRPG battle system
-The story. I'm fairly far in, and it remains one of the most boring FF stories ever. Basically there is little depth and it's a fairly cookie cutter high-fantasy story with some Squareisms tossed in (Moogles, Chocobos). It's not the first fairly boring story (FFV was very much along the same lines, and FFVIII was boring to me, but maybe a little more interesting, VI, VII, and X are fairly strong IMO).
-The characters. The characters are all very very flat and lacking depth, similar to the story
-The music. The music is also very ho-hum. FF has a tradition of memorable music, even among other games in the series I wasn't crazy about. FFXII consists of fairly generic background music with some hints of remixes of some of their staple music from the past. I have some FF tracks play on occasion in my car, but nothing from XII appeals.
All in all it feels like they wanted to make a generic western RPG with little story and heavy inspiration from the popular MMORPGs, but done very well graphically.
This is the first single-player FF series title in a long time I think I'll pass on buying.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I bought FFXII Collector's Edition for my fiancee. She doesn't play the games, she just likes the art and videos. I'm probably not going to play it for a while, maybe not until the PS3 comes out.
Does anyone know if FFXII will look better being played on a PS3 than on a PS2?
Given the Lik-Sang shutdown by Sony, I have a fair amount of hatred stored up for them, so I'm still wavering on if I'm going to buy a PS3 or not.
The only envelope I can see being pushed is how effeminate they can make the male characters and not have them mistaken for females.
Too bad the GAMEPLAY and STORY envelopes were pushed to the limit for Square back with FFVI.
Maybe the problem is that the battle system needs dramatically redone. Some suggestions:
1) Instead of making hundreds of repetitive battles against less skilled enemies, why not make fewer battles against more difficult enemies where you are not guaranteed to win every time?
2) Make the battles more like FF Tactics, where you incorporate positioning. Instead of Fire1/Fire2/Fire3 have a mass range fireball vs a controlled stream of fire with the differences being the area of effect. Incorporate flanking attacks, etc.
i haven't played the game, but penny arcade's gabe sez that the battle system changes once you get through a crazy long tutorial phase.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/show/21973//
My feeling is that FFXII is the spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics, which isn't surprising since I believe they were mostly developed and managed by the same teams.
For those of us who happened to love FFT, I'll go out on a limb and say that we are all loving the changes in FFXII. I like how the story is a lot more mature. I wouldn't say it's "boring", just a lot less flamboyent and in-your-face fantasy than some of the other FF games. The music, is a lot like the other FFT titles, which I am digging. The battle system is very non-traditional. There's a huge emphasis on strategy, on setting up your team the right way, rather than emphasizing on the actual actions themselves. Again, very similar to FFT, since that boasted a completely different battle mechanic than the other FF games, yet was also very strategic.
As for the graphics, they're pretty, but that's completely not what makes this game good, for those of us who really like it.
But I can understand that a lot of people don't dig the new direction. Unfortunately, they'll have to wait until the next FF game (assuming it goes back to more traditional J-RPG roots). That, or look into other RPGs and see if they provide what you want.
-- jchenx
I was a bit disappointed by the graphics (especially if you compare it to recent release of Valkyrie profile 2) , but the game play totally makes up for it.
And that's why I am enjoying it so much. I have always hated the random battles of the FF series: walking along in a completely empty area, and then suddenly a monster materializes out of thin air. This new approach makes far more sense to me. If there is a giant monster out there, it makes sense that I can acutally see the thing first.
My way back has been erased.
Unfortunately the article really doesn't say how they pushed the PS2 architecture. Before clicking I was looking forward to an article like this amazing presentation by the SOTC dev team that really goes in depth to how they implemented the amazing effects on the PS2. Instead, we get this about the development, in its entirety: "The graphics were created using the power of the PlayStation 2 fully," Akihiko Yoshida, character designer for Final Fantasy XII, told us. "We believe that this is probably the limit of how beautiful the graphics can get on the PlayStation 2 console.". Is there anything more in depth than this miniscule blurb?
Speaking of which, does this game look better than Shadow of the Colossus? Or does it look about as good but actually has a decent frame rate?
Anyone else find it annoying that TFA talks about how good the game looks and then only has screenshots of the pre-rendered videos or hand drawn art?
Almost all the burnout games are poster children for bad loading times, made worse by the fact that you need to to load between what are essentially 30 second crash scenarios. (Fortunately, the races take longer so the long load times arn't as annoying.)
I can understand it would have been a challenge to program in soft resets (there are alot of game objects in each crash scenario to reset) without doing the easy thing and just reloading the assets off the disc but it would have been worth it. If you want to play the same crash scenario 10 times, you'll spend at least half that time waiting for loading or pushing 'x' to skip the slow and clunky GUI.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I give this game an 'A' for effort.
I have been a diehard fan of the series for several years. I started playing Final Fantasy titles on the SNES when I was kid, and I watched the series have its ups and downs. Looking back on them, I have to say that I started playing the series right around its peak (VI being my favorite title, followed strongly by VII). I liked the other games a lot too, but I could tell that the series was floundering. Each new installment had something great about it, but also something sub-par.
Clearly the series is in its decline. There's nothing wrong with that--12 installments is a good run (not including various other titles stemming on different platforms).
I planned to buy this game long before it came out. I didn't know what it was going to be like, but the closer it got to release, the more I began to suspect that this title was going to be some kind of step up compared to the last few games.
Upon playing it, I was right in many ways; I find this game to be much more engaging and entertaining than X was, and the "fun" factor gave it a definite edge. This game is not spectacular, but it's got firm footing in trying to be the best it can be in spite of having to live up to the greatness of episodes gone by.
If you are a Dream Theater fan, you will probably understand what I mean when I say that Final Fantasy XII is in many ways the Octavarium of FF games. Dream Theater's latest album doesn't seem to offer anything spectacular or amazing, but you end up listening to it forwards and backwards, saying to yourself, "You know, every way I look at it, this is a good album." It has fewer flaws than the others--even the better ones. You can't find anything not to like about it, but you just don't like it as much as your analytic skills say that you should. That's art.
I like this game. A lot. I'm going to keep playing it, but it's not the hallmark of the series. It is a result of much refinement, and its perfection finds it to be definitively imperfect.
Do I recommend it? Yes. It's the kind of game that you can hand to a newbie, and they will get a good feel for what Final Fantasy is all about. Going back to my Octavarium analogy, Dream Theater has said the same thing about their album--that you could give it to someone who has never heard their music and they will get a good all-around feel for what Dream Theater is about.
and it's bunk. Wild Arms 3 pulled off turn based gaming with a strong strategic element. And let's not forget Valkyrie Profile. Then there's Breath of Fire V, who's action point system and insanely tough battles force you to consider each move pretty carefully. The entire Dragon Quest series does a pretty good job of being gameplay driven and rewarding smart playing, but you can (and most do) grind it to death. Hell, the GBA Golden Sun games require extremely careful use of summons to beat bosses. Calling out a summon unbound it from you for a few turns, which lowered your stats. But you'd run out of healing gear before winning if you didn't use summons.
Too many people act like FFXII's combat is some kind of natural progression. That's only true so long as Square abandon's Gameplay Driven RPGs. I'd love to see them go back to Gameplay. FFIX promised that, but all it delivered were retro character designs. By the same token, I don't want a game that's just pointlessly and brutally hard . What I like about RPGs is the freedom you get from taking the game at your own pace. You can grind to make it easy or plow through to make it challenging. Too easy and there's never any reason to delve into the Gameplay (read: Legend of Mana). Too hard, and I just give up (*cough*Saga Frontier*cough*).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I have more affection for some of my non-plot characters in Disgaea ("Noooo, don't hit Margaret with the fireball, she only has 250 hp and is weak against OH YOU BASTARD YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT") than I do for any of the characters in FFXII. Not a single one of which I can name at the moment, incidentally. Vann or something? Vash? Whatever, whinny effeminate boy who is dating forgettable Japanese girl (who wears both the pants and the shirt in that relationship) and fated to rescue princess in distress, who currently hates his guts but we all know that will change. Throw in bunny-rabbit-who-looks-like-Storm, tank-straight-out-of-WoW-raid, and Air Pirate to round out the cast. They're trying to save the dutchy of whocares from the empire of whatever, which they can only do by gathering... what was it, I forget. Probably crystals. Thats generally a safe bet for a FF game, isn't it? I remember they spent some time in a mine. Was I trying to find a crystal? Or was I just trying to find the next cutscene? I don't know.
I notice one of TFAs says there is no main character, which is more or less true -- I was equally bored with all of them. The only time one shows a spark of that old Square spirit is when Air Pirate says, ironically, "I'll tell you who I am: I am the main character of this story!" And for a brief period of perhaps 15 seconds I was thinking "Alright, I have passed the boring prologue, now we are going to get to some ADVENTURE". Nope.
It was about 10 years ago when I played FFVI for the first time, and you can see how low Square has fallen in the plot and memorable character department. Compare Air Pirate Dude with Edgar. The very first time you meet Edgar, he shows more panache than the entire party has in the time I've played FFXII. I remember his lines from a decade ago ("First, I'm captivated by your beauty. Second, I'm dying to know if I'm your type. I suppose your... abilities are a distant third consideration.") FFXII, I swear, its been maybe two months and I would have to wrack my brains to dredge up anything related to the plot or characters. Marle? Marsh? Whoseherface, the princess. I remember her skill readout like it was yesterday (I was aiming for white mage with a sword). Can't remember a thing she ever said.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
It tends to go in trends. FFVII and VIII were high-technology (along with Crisis core and Dirge of Cerberus if you want to count them) whereas IX was back to medieval times with X mostly being medieval (yes, I know the past was modern, but you spent almost no time in that part, the rest was VI level technology). X-2 and XI if you want to count them is back to medieval with XII medieval from what I've heard. So we have: medieval (6 games) -> high technology (2-4 games) -> medieval (3-5 games) -> high technology (1-3 games so far, all set in the XII world)
So it's trends. Eventually I think we'll get to the stage where it alternates from 1 world setting to the next.
Woops, add 1 more to the 2nd medieval, I forgot to include Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
I'm currently playing FFIX and I'm planning on playing FFVIII after that, and then if I'm still into the FFs I'll be playing FFIV and then FFV before completing FFVI.
;) That and brothers who have deleting save games as one of their hobbies). So yeah, I obviously follow the mantra "graphics are teh best."
If I do get sick of the FFs I'll move over to BoF IV before hitting Wild Arms and then Suikoen 1 and 2. Then I might get me some Kartia.
I've got 5 other games on the PSX that I've never completed, and after all these years I do want to complete. And I enjoy every single one of them (school and "teh latest game" often got in the way of finishing them
I agree with you, it's rubbish. While it's nice to have eye-candy (hence the reason I'm playing FFIX and FFVIII first, well that and the gameplay and story), but it won't make or break a game.
I reckon I'll be a few years before I even think about buying any more games. And I've still got a few PSX games on my to-buy list before I even think about moving onto the PS2. Although by all means, to those who need the latest thing, have fun waiting in lines for 9 days. Me? I'll be kicking back in my nice, warm home playing great games with great stories and great gameplay.
I've heard that FFXII is even more linear then FFX with it having quests you have to complete and the map showing you where exactly to go in each quest. Is that the case? Can you shed a bit more light on it?
The gameplay is good, its the story that has suffered though in my opinion. Its the worst story of the series(not better than VIII, but not worse than X-2). It feels rushed and empty compared to the other games. Then there is the ending, which left me with a big 'IS THAT IT?! THATS THE ENDING?! WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE GAME?!?!' FF12 is good in the gameplay department, but dont expect a story better than 10,9,8,7,6,5, or 4. If this game were not a FF game, it would still be praised for gameplay, but lambasted for the story, instead of the overlook which reviewers give it now.
I love to slaughter the english language.
You are spot on in your analysis...after playing FFXII for 3 or 4 hours, I kept saying to myself "You know, this *so* reminds me of that very weapons-and-armor-oriented PS game I played way back in the day...what the hell is it called?"
You answered that nagging question for me. It does indeed have a very similar feel. I had no idea it was made by the same design team, but it totally makes sense.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
I have about 20 hours logged in this game so far, and in my opinion it is the best FF (excluding Final Fantasy Tactics) since FF VI.
I just wanted to comment about the battle system here though.
I get what they were trying to accomplish with the gambit system, but from the comments here it doesn't seem that every does.
The gambit system enables you to come up with a strategy for the entire party. It allows you to automate all the repetitive commands you do *every* fight, while still giving you the freedom to control every action (which is definitely necessary in most boss fights and mark hunts). If I know what I would do in certain situations before hand, why not tell the game what to do in those situations. It makes perfect sense.
After the horrible mess that was FF 8 and FF X, this game really brings back all that I loved about FF. Any long time fan should pick this up, I think you'll be very happy with it.
...Vagrant Fantasy Tactics Advanced XII Online.
You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.
Hooray for bad Engrish on fortune cookies
I find I'm very impressed with the graphics. Not for the big things liek flashy effects and shading/anti aliasing/ect... but it's consistancy. Little touches like seeing the area ahead or the richness and lushness of the enviroments make a bigger difference. I can ignore the jagies but random things in FFX like the terrible design of some of the puzzle rooms. I think it's the effort they put into the little things and not the technical merits that really show in this title.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
George Lucas was responsible for *both* the Empire Strikes Back and Jar Jar Binks. I rest my case.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
That's bullshit. FF XII has the fastest loading times of any disc-based FF game yet. The load times when running between areas are extremely miniscule, as are the ones for loading up the game. The only thing that takes a long time in this game is saving it. Everything else is the fastest it's been since the series left the cartridge format.
Quickenings most definitely do not become obsolete at any point in the game. Just wait until you get your three main characters all three of their quickenings and you start to seriously chain the attacks. I've done upwards of 35,000 damage with quickenings and as my characters become stronger the possibilities just increase.
No, the OP is right. Quickenings soon become a recipe for suicide in most serious battles, because they completely drain your mp. While the damage they put out is enough to end a boss-fight early on in the game, by the time you get into the final 3rd, even a "full" Quickening chain won't take that much off a boss's hp. And then you find yourself stood there with no mp, blinking foolishly.
I don't agree with that at all. Admittedly, I'm only in Archadia right now, but quickenings are still invaluable. Sure you'd be an artard to start the fight that way with your main party...
What I tend to do is start a boss fight with my backup party. I'll launch straight into a quickening chain, taking careful note of how much of a boss' life bar I deplete with the weaker backup party's attack. I'll instantly have everyone use charge, which at 0 mp almost always succeeeds, which will get them back around 50-70 MP to allow them to duke it out with the boss while still casting cure spells and removing status ailments. Eventually, they'll get slaughtered and I'll bring in the real party and start pouring on the punishment. I'll inflict every status ailment they're not immune to, keep esuna and dispell always handy and just pound the boss with hasted melee attacks from characters wearing shell and protect.
And very often, when it seems the boss is ready to mutilate my party faster than I can get my heal spells off, I'll have done enough damage to initiate a quickening chain and decimate a boss that otherwise would have wiped me out. And if that doesn't finish the boss? Everyone uses charge, two characters heal, and the one with the fewest total MP tries to use charge two more times without it failing, allowing me to jump into another quickening chain and hopefully finish off the boss.