Final Fantasy XII

[Bryan]

New trailer for FFXII from E3. Get what you can out of this small thing. :]
Everybody here knows that I am a die hard Final Fantasy fan, so you all already know what I thought of it.

Simply can't wait.

http://www.ff12.com/trailers/index.html

[Virtua]

Haha, yeah, I wasn't too excited about the past few FF's, but I must admit, I'm feeling positive vibes from this upcoming installment.

[Ishbo]

Wasn't the first few FF's bad I heard.. I do not know.. But yeah..

[Virtua]

Wasn't the first few FF's bad I heard.. I do not know.. But yeah..

I dunno, I think it's all personal pref. and what you grew up playing.

[nevernever]

I HATE FINAL FANTASY

I HATE FINAL FANTASY

That Final Fantasy XXII!!!** Online whatever....

1. Ruined one of my relationships
2. Stole one of my friends from me
3. Forces me to watch my friend gripe about having a friend that she likes who's current girlfriend does nothing but play that stupid game.

I HATE that game.


HATRED.

Hate it.

[Craz]

Meh, FF12 is going to be...another FF.

[CreemyNougat]

The series has sucked since it got put on Playstation.
Every installment has way too much obscure shit you need to do in order to do everything.
It'd be alright if you didn't ABSOLUTELY NEED a freakin' player's guide to figure half of it out.
Seriously, who's going to stand around the lightning fields in FFX dodging strikes three hundred times straight JUST to see if it does something?

[Bryan]

Although I know half of the people in this thread have stated their dismal opinion about the series (as every FF thread I've seen has done), for the people who respect and are interested in the next installment, here's some shots courtesy of IGN.

http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/488/488222/imgs_1.html

[Craz]

Its not that i dont respect FF, its just that all their games are beocmming the same in a sence. The stories seem to be comming out of creative writing class 101 and square enix is banking on everyone buying the games so they can try new things. If the company was banking on FF8 to bring in a lot of cash, do you think they would of tried that magic system? FF12 is going to have a completly different battle system in it, and Square knows that people will buy it because its FF. The comapny is smart in their actions in a business sence, but it gives mixed results for the consumer.

[CreemyNougat]

Yeah, it looks pretty. So what?
The series has been crap lately, quite honestly. I'm not saying this one WILL be; I'm just stating the trend so far.
Until I hear anything about why it's so new and innovative, I'll stick to the safe opinion that it will be crap. C'mon, Square. Prove me wrong.

[Bryan]

Its not that i dont respect FF ... but it gives mixed results for the consumer.
Dude, thank you for the explaination, but wasn't required. Not one Final Fantasy release has failed, and pretty much every one released on the Playstation has become a greatest hit. If you think otherwise, show me the hard proof, not your opinion. My fault I tried to contribue something. I really would like to see you try and do better.

[Craz]

I really would like to see you try and do better.

what do you mean?

[Virtua]

what do you mean?

I think he means, instead of blindly flaming FF, find some factual information to back up said dislikes.

[CreemyNougat]

I'll step up. :D

I'm freakin' tired of the game being structured such that in the third town you visit, there's a rock underneath the fourth bush on the left side that you need to get, but it's only there immediately after you escape from prison, where you ended up because of a betrayal by your trusted friend, and if you wait until after you've raced around on a chocobo to meet up with and join the resistance, you can't do it. But you're on the other side of world after escaping prison, so you have to backtrack to another town and rent a jalopy so that you can travel all the way back to the third one, and you have to enter the town in juuust the correct topwise fashion or else the bush won't be there. If you mess it up, you can't get the rock underneath it, and the rock is actually the Ancient Key that you need to unlock the door to the Ancient Underwater Temple that no one in the game has ever heard of and that isn't even on the map because it's in that weird center area next all four corners of the map, and if you can't get into the Ancient Underwater Temple, your main character can never achieve peace with himself and you can't get his Ultimate Weapon from the Ancient Underwater Temple.
And also, the bush in which you need to search is invisible.

[Valcion]

Wow, way to judge a game that isn't even out yet.
While i'll agree, yes, the games have been crappy lately (Ten sucked, only thing X-2 had going for it was the fanservice, 11's the reason why i don't play mainstream MMORPGs and stick to private servers). But come on, how can you go wrong with FFT:A?

12 could be excellent, it could be bad. Who knows? Still a bit early to judge it, in my opinion.

[Harmonixer]

How can you go wrong with FFT:A? IT'S BROKEN! Moogle Jugglers get a little ability called Smile. They look at somebody, say "It's your turn now!", and get experience for it. Now picture two Moogle jugglers using that on each other over and over. And that's only the first broken feature.

Another would have to be Moogle or Human thieves' "Steal Ability." If another character has an ability that can be learned as either a human or Moogle, you can "steal" that ability, and learn it instantly. In this way, my Marche (Main character) was able to get all Action-abilities for every class without ever being anything other than a thief.

And THAT is how you go wrong with Tactics Advance. Thanks.

.....G'NIGHT EVERYBODY!

[Craz]

Ok, im not blindly blaming FF. While i share the same views as nougat to an extent, its more of the fact that mechanics always change from one FF to the next. 7-8 is a perfect example. The magic system sucked royaly. Hell in 12 they are doing a NEW battle system. Im just sick of changeing gameplay mechanics that dont need ot be chainged.

[Virtua]

Ok, im not blindly blaming FF. While i share the same views as nougat to an extent, its more of the fact that mechanics always change from one FF to the next. 7-8 is a perfect example. The magic system sucked royaly. Hell in 12 they are doing a NEW battle system. Im just sick of changeing gameplay mechanics that dont need ot be chainged.

That's a good point. This is good, we're getting somewhere. But for the other side, I'd have to say, change is good. It brings about inovation, new idea's, new gameplay, not the same old same old. hehe. But to each their own. All good.

[Bryan]

It seems like you think that since they're numbered sequentially, that they should all have the same system, how boring would the game get if you played with the exact same system 12 times. It's a learning process, and if you have any patience or interest in learning it, then more power to you, if not, then it's not the game for you.

I agree with Virtua on this stance, because change is good, the fact that the game developers are being exposed and challenged to come up with new ideas is great for their well-being and the success of the franchise. Craz, you of all people I know should at least respect it.

Why fix something that isn't broken? They're not broken, but don't get caught in the idea that any one Final Fantasy will tie into another. It's the way Final Fantasy has always been, from materia, to the draw system, to espers and sphere grids, it is these differences that make Final Fantasy a long lasting and great series in my view. If you don't like it, don't waste your time with it.

Now can we just agree to disagree in this instance? I don't want to see anymore keystrokes wasted with attacks.

[CreemyNougat]

I'll explain more blatantly what I've been saying, then. :P

I'm not outright saying XII will suck. I'm merely expecting it to, given the trend of late. What I want as a fan is something to harken back to VI...less focus on a single character, more focus on spreading the story out in more ways. Less random crap to get good items, more that you can actually figure out without a player's guide.
And please please PLEASE no more of this mini-game CRAP. FFVII...chocobo racing. Pretty dreary after a while. FFVIII...that DAMN card game. Fun, yeah, but nowhere near possible without the damn player's guide. FFIX...that WORSE damn card game. FFX...Blitzball.............................ew.
And how about not ending all side-quests after Disc 3? Some people like to get to the end of a game, and then waltz around doing what they hadn't, instead of starting a new game to do what they hadn't.
I just want the game to be beatable and conquerable without reading novels worth of FAQs on how to do so.

[Raoh]

I HAVE to speak here... I've been playing this stuff as long as I could bear to, since "Final Fantasy" meant exactly that.

Overall, if you catch me on the street and ask me about FF, I'll end up telling you it blows for the sake of a short answer. There's a bit more to it than that though, mainly that that's just how I personally feel about it, and not that it's fact. I've played every one I could in their orders, and am just disappointed with the way things ended up progressing. I think the downhill slope started with 7, and not for the reasons one would jump to believe. This game was touted as wonderful, and revolutionary, with great new ideas and innovation. This was false. It was actually more of the same than ever. Materia, I happen to think was too similar to Espers to really be considered a "new idea", and everything else was essentially more of the same... battle system and effects, and the whole of the structure of the way you did, well... everything. There was one thing that was new to it all, and that was 3-d... movies... graphical enhancement. This is nothing revolutionary, this is just pretty. The game had substance, but it wasn't any more than anything that came before it, it was just beautiful to look at so it appeared to have more to those who weren't around for its predecessors. The multiplication of side quests for the game also appeared to add "depth", but really just kept the "I HAVE TO HAVE GOD CHARACTERS" ball rolling, imo. They were fun little things from time to time, but overall just ended up being annoying things that one would feel they HAD to do in order to "finish", since just beating the game had become challengeless to do. FF6 had the implementation of side quests done at its best, the whole second half of the game could be considered a side quest of sorts, where your mission in most to all of them was to retireve your scattered characters. This was a bit more crucial to beating a game at all than finding that sword with 939393939^555 ATK that gave your anus haste for the next 3 RPGs you played, and was fun to go about doing since there were a lot of story elements wound into such quests. You of course, didn't HAVE to do this, but if you really feel like taking on Kefka ( :o ) and his Light of Judgement©® with 3 guys, then by all means... do so. You'll be allowed to. FF7 had mere games and god equipment/spells to find, for the most part... there WERE a couple story based sides, but nothing to the extent of the prior game. The game was good... but it could not live up to its hype, nor do I think it could live up to its predecessors based on graphics alone, and I firmly believe that that's what it tried to do.

Now... 8, 9, 10, etc. lots of change here, finally... change IS good to see, I personally just didn't like the changes... I felt 8 discouraged things that fell outside of what they changed things to a bit TOO much... discouraging use of magic in general by forcing junctions to keep your stats useable, sending you on grandiose scavenger hunts to fetch parts for god weapons... it felt to me that outside of GFs, they didn't want you attacking with anything. Unless of course, you fetched everything possible and were god due to questing and insane methods and quantities of levelling (you get a real boost out of not gaining a single one until the 2nd disk and a half... trust me). 9 was good as what the developers intended it to be, a throwback to the older days of FF... obviously it was not recieved well by the newer players who don't like "old simple junk"... the game played well to me but the story lacked a lot, and copped out at the end with Necron just appearing out of nowhere to be the ultimate evil so you can finish it all and get on with your life. Much less interesting than it could have been. The gameplay was homey and familiar for me, but in the end was the same shit again, and while I did love it, it's just that now... the same old shit. Kind of like the way DDR Max meant to start all over, and it ended up backfiring, so did 9 in its attempt to reproduce a classic: it attempted it too closely and paid for it. 10... Sphere Grid was a nice customization idea, but I hated the characters, and I hated the way the game seemed to play YOU rather than the other way around... hell, not even any freeroaming in an overworld... there's a big sense of linearity to the game for a genre that's supposed to be so wide open. The first 2 hours of the game must have had more FMV and movie type stuff than anything, and any actual battle seemed to be a tutorial. Veterans would rather get past this stuff somehow, and there was no option to. In short... bored me to death, and acted like a movie rather than a game. If I wanted that I would have rented The Bouncer... I heard that was a nice short film.

That's that, that's my opinion on just about everything that's new and mainstream Final Fantasy... it's all boiled down to one thing: I've done it all, and my time for really enjoying RPGs is over, I think. Even the ridiculously strategic FFTactics (NOT ADVANCE YOU TWITS) doesn't hold my attention anymore. It all did for a time, and I've played through all those games (excepting 8, which I just couldn't stand after a while). New players should get a kick out of all this stuff, because it's new to them. What they shouldn't be able to do is tout them as the best games of all time just because they're what's good now. The classics will always be so, and some people should learn a bit about where their superior games are rooted. If the oldies sucked so much then Square would have gone out of business when that little gambit they called "Final Fantasy" crashed and burned for trying to play with the big boys. Enjoy what you enjoy, and give everyone else the same luxury to do so.

[Yao]

love you clay

I'm gonna have to try those FFT:A bugs now....hmmm

I don't particularly mind the game, i thought X2 was lame, and i agree that alot of things you would have no idea to do without a guide (See Noug's posts). But it's what is considered the RPG

[Virtua]

love you clay

I'm gonna have to try those FFT:A bugs now....hmmm

I don't particularly mind the game, i thought X2 was lame, and i agree that alot of things you would have no idea to do without a guide (See Noug's posts). But it's what is considered the RPG

Eh, I dunno, I don't think you "need" to know every secret in a game to enjoy it. Isn't that the point of a rpg, to explore, to have fun in a world you know nothing about? I haven't played a rpg for about 5 years, so maybe I'm wrong. I just enjoy getting lost for hours in a game, if I have the time.

[Bryan]

Eh, I dunno, I don't think you "need" to know every secret in a game to enjoy it. Isn't that the point of a rpg, to explore, to have fun in a world you know nothing about? I haven't played a rpg for about 5 years, so maybe I'm wrong. I just enjoy getting lost for hours in a game, if I have the time.
True that my friend. :]

[Raoh]

No, it's not necessary to know absolutely everything... that's the god syndrome that FF suffers from now. Unfortunately, I think people would like to think that they CAN find most everything possible on their own, and it's impossible to do with just any sort of conventional exploration. Dodge lightning bolts 200 times for Lulu's ultimate weapon? No one but a red mage would think to do that on their own.

[CreemyNougat]

The Red Mage wouldn't even have to; he'd GameShark the weapon into existence.

[Virtua]

No, it's not necessary to know absolutely everything... that's the god syndrome that FF suffers from now. Unfortunately, I think people would like to think that they CAN find most everything possible on their own, and it's impossible to do with just any sort of conventional exploration. Dodge lightning bolts 200 times for Lulu's ultimate weapon? No one but a red mage would think to do that on their own.

Ok yeah, when I saw that lightning thing on g4tech tv I was thinking someone at square enix was smoking the crack. So if one desires such a secret, then they too should seek the red mage, for his skill is beyond crack smoking mcgoodness.

[CreemyNougat]

The point is, a role playing game shouldn't be filled with "maybe if I do this a hundred times straight" situations.

[Dr. J]

i mean cmon, u do have to admit that FF VII was good, i thought it was awesome but i didnt play the other ones becuz i wasnt interested, they started to suck

[Bryan]

i mean cmon, u do have to admit that FF VII was good, i thought it was awesome but i didnt play the other ones becuz i wasnt interested, they started to suck
And that is completely your opinion. -_-;;

[Craz]

Anyone have any opinions on the newreal time battle system in 12? Im htinking it might play out like Grandia II for dreamcast.

[enderwiggin]

its probobly gonna be like grandia 2 which im my opinion was a good game

[CreemyNougat]

I've figured out more actual reasons the series has gone downhill.
Ever since VII, a greater and greater emphasis has been put on the MINI-GAMES in Final Fantasy. You don't get special items from exploring...you get them from MINI-GAMES.
If XII lacks that factor, I'll be immensely pleased.

[Dr. J]

And that is completely your opinion. -_-;;



yes it is my opinion, i am sorry for not stating it in the post

[malborro2000]

i definatly can't wait for FF12 sounds and looks like it should be fairly decent

[Harmonixer]

Ever since VII, a greater and greater emphasis has been put on the MINI-GAMES in Final Fantasy. You don't get special items from exploring...you get them from MINI-GAMES.

Technically you could say since VI, since as Clay said, the whole second half of the game could be considered a side quest. But then again, VI kicked major ass...but yea. Mini games aren't always a bad thing, so don't you be steppin. -Snap snap- >O

[CreemyNougat]

Technically you could say since VI, since as Clay said, the whole second half of the game could be considered a side quest. But then again, VI kicked major ass...but yea. Mini games aren't always a bad thing, so don't you be steppin. -Snap snap- >O

I didn't say they were always a bad thing; I said that the series has esssentially started to revolve around them. THAT IS a bad thing.
After playing a good deal of FFX2, I stand by that even more.

[shinigami_2057]

I personally enjoyed FFVII a lot, especially the battle system. Even, as Clay mentioned, if materia wasn't exactly the most "original" concept, it was executed almost perfectly. The only drawback to the ATB system IMO was that once your characters were around Lv. 70-80, magic wasn't even necessary. I could kill Safer Sephiroth with just attacks and command materia (4x cut haste-all mime anyone?).

Even though most of the side-quests and minigames in VII were kinda pointless... you gotta love Chocobo breeding. I was so happy once I got my first S-class gold chocobo XD SUP KNIGHTS OF ROUND.

[DDRFREAKRI]

Yah the clip for FF-12 is awesome!!! This is gonna be a great FF game and the characters look really cool. How long does everyone think till it will get the US PS2??? I would prob be better of buying the FF-12 (JP Import), I already have the Swap Disc Slide Card so that would prob just be easier.