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Jan 14th, 2008 at 02:17:42 - Final Fantasy XII (PS2) |
GAMEPLAY
Again, I was entertained without exactly being immersed. I think this is because the story simply doesn't really progress much over the course of a dungeon, in spite of the sizable amount of gameplay involved. I suppose I'm only really engrossed in an RPG when I play it for an unhealthy amount of time.
While the scenes did not break the game up as much as it did during the prologue, the first puzzle in this session (getting into a treasury past some guards) felt a bit tedious to me. There was no combat involved during it, and having to backtrack and circle around halls made the puzzle take up more time than its fairly low difficulty really merited.
I enjoyed being able to use characters with ranged weapons for the first time, though strategically this was probably a bad idea since enemies appear to target the player character and it's difficult to keep a distance while being pursued. At the end of what I realize now was the first boss battle, I was amused by the return of the usual victory music and poses from previous games. Given the lack of fanfare at defeating all other enemies up to that point, the scene devoted solely to telling me "CONGRATULATIONS!" seemed comical.
DESIGN
Character customization appears to play a major role in this game. Characters have the ability to access weapons or skills from a variety of classes, as opposed to being slotted into roles like "healer" or "swordsman" by the game. The price of the customization seems to be that you have to earn more attributes than usual. Equipment, spells, and extra commands for your allies' AI must be both purchased and licensed. The licensing system, however, applied to so many different abilities that earning any single license did not take very long, so victories are rewarded much more frequently than in games that rely more exclusively on level-ups.
The game does a good job portraying the environments during gameplay. The first city is full of people and large areas, and the plains feel expansive without artificial walls built into it. In the latter case, though, I often found that I had to attend to the map a bit more than I would have liked; just because the 'walls' weren't obvious didn't mean they didn't exist, so what looked like a straight path to an area might contain a number of obstacles like small ditches or plants that constituted walls on the map.
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Jan 13th, 2008 at 21:15:19 - Final Fantasy XII (PS2) |
SUMMARY
Final Fantasy XII, like many RPGs, focuses largely on progressing an in-game story, primarily through combat but also through elements such as exploration. Combat takes place in real-time, with the player issuing commands to a party of characters fighting computer-controlled enemies. Battles are won by obtaining and managing the abilities and "Stats" (attributes controlling aspects such as the amount of damage dealt or received) of the various characters.
GAMEPLAY
While I was entertained by the game, it didn't have a very strong impact on me while I was playing. This was mostly just because of my mood, but the fact that the story hadn't really gotten very far (in spite of some lengthy cutscenes) probably also contributed to this. Also, there's nothing particularly new about the initial plot; while I might assume more twists will come later, there hasn't yet been much that grabbed me as something I haven't seen before. (e.g. The evil empire and the rebellious kid protagonist.)
Still, I enjoyed the main gameplay. The lack of random or turn-based battles meant that there wasn't a whole lot of sitting around waiting for things to happen after the tutorial section. The system of powering up looks interesting, but I haven't gained enough money or experience to do anything particularly novel with it yet.
Overall, the game was fun for me, and I look forward to the next session.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 13th, 2008 at 23:28:42.
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