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CelestialWing's Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
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| [January 27, 2008 03:09:01 AM]
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GAMEPLAY (2)
So, once again starting with the story and characters, the story moves along very nicely and keeps you quite thirsty for more for a good while. This nice pacing and development continues until around the point where you have gotten all your party members permanently...at which time the pace of the story begins to slow exceptionally. This occurs through longer required trekking/battling/exploring segments before the next story development, combined with shorter/less actual events or developments upon reaching the next destination/objective.
The same occurs with the characters, they are each introduced well and given interesting stories and personalities - heightened by the exceptional English voice acting (unfortunately rare, though improving these days) and well-animated movements and mannerisms. Unfortunately, the lack of conversation or interaction with them outside of cutscenes/events begins to hurt their overall memorability a little. Some people may like this lack of text, but it could at least have the optional conversations in town more often. I am still debating to myself whether it would have been better or not to have talk in battles as well. Overall, the slowdown in character and story development in this game, which is completely opposite to the usual increase in most traditional RPGs as one progresses, is what led to my hiatus from the game when something else grabbed my attention. I still want to know what happens at least (meaning the story is still good), it just takes too long to reach the next tidbit.
Luckily, there are other things that keep you interested, if in a different way. Although it means even more time spent before the next story scene (I might forget what's going on here sometimes), one can begin spending lots of time taking on new hunts, exploring optional areas in the ever-widening world, leveling, finding rare items or enemies, customizing their characters with the license board and gambits (both explained below) etc. The game world certainly grows richer with possibilities even as the story slows down. This leads me to the first aspect I wish to discuss in...
DESIGN
I think Square-Enix was trying to make a MMORPG-like experience for a single-person, console game. In this vein, I think they succeeded, especially with the gambit system, which I will discuss later. The expansive, open world full of random chests, rare monsters, and optional discoveries is well-done. Although taste has turned away some who were expecting a traditional RPG from the long line of Final Fantasies, I personally feel the game is a nice change of pace - though I don't want traditional RPGs to die out either. The only part I can criticize is the downgrade of the story pace to molasses-level MMORPG style. Especially with the well-done story objectives system on the map mentioned previously, this was completely unnecessary. You don't have to take EVERYTHING that comes with the territory; especially since it is already lacking the actual social aspect of MMORPGs, it NEEDS character interaction and story development to make up for it. Square-Enix could have taken advantage of both the strengths of the console-style RPG and the strengths of the MMORPG for this single-player RPG to make it brilliant. Instead, it only succeeded in making the MMORPG style of play work in the single-player framework.
This, of course, is an accomplishment in itself however. The main component that makes the MMORPG-style play work with one player is the gambit system, which is a way to "program" your party members on how to react in battle situations. Each "gambit" consists of a condition such as [ally has less than 30% HP] and a reaction to that condition such as [Cure] or [Potion]; these combined would cause that character to cast Cure (or use a Potion) on an ally when that ally is below 30% HP. Then you prioritize which gambits are more important. For example, if you have a healing gambit above an attack enemies gambit, the member will stop fighting to heal the ally; if it's the other way around, the member will fight until all nearby enemies are killed before healing the wounded ally. People complain ridiculously about how the game "plays itself" this way. Well, first of all, who said you had to use them? You can manually input every command if you want. Second of all, you will have to change your gambits for certain enemies and bosses if you want to survive - you cannot rely on them all the time either. Lastly, it adds another aspect of the game to play around with and master; it takes some careful planning to get a great working gambit with the limited slots you have. In my opinion, the gambit system allows you to remove tedious constant commands while keeping you in control of what you want to do manually; it also gives a semi-illusion of having self-acting other party members and being able to give them suggestions over their own actions, thus making the MMORPG feeling more "correct" with a single player.
Okay, I promise this will be shorter. The License Board system is a great way to customize your characters; who cares if it doesn't make sense? When have RPGs made sense? What with levels, every new town having better equipment, monsters dropping money (which this game makes more realistic with selling loot) etc. Remember FF X? With that funky grid and all the spheres? When did that make sense? This is just a new kind of not making sense, so people have to complain about it. Also, yes you can make all the characters the same combat-wise, but you don't HAVE to. People complained about the Sphere Grid being too restrictive in FF X, so Square-Enix made a more customizing friendly "expert" grid in the International Version (these are ironically only in Japan); then when the license grid is perfect for customizing in FF XII, people complain that the characters aren't different enough battle-wise, so the FF XII International Version had a more restrictive system...go figure. The point is, it is great for customizing...take it or leave it. I'll leave the details for the game to explain since my rant was too long already.
Speaking of what the game explains, it does mostly everything in the in-game tutorials except Mist Quickenings...which you must look up in the manual for some reason...and even then is is confusing and takes actual practice to figure out how to do it right. However, overall I advocate reading manuals, and Quickenings aren't all too useful past getting more MP unless you get them early on. That's another nitpick...perhaps because limits and summons were so useful in previous FFs, they have been overly weakened to the point of being almost useless at the later stages of the game. This is due to Quickenings (FF XII version of limits) and summons using massive amounts of MP, which is usually better spent on healing/support since Black (damage) magic has also been weakened in general. This was also changed in the International version, this time to better effect, in my opinion, than the License Board change.
To end on a good note, one can certainly see the game is very well polished. The polygons may be lower than in FF X, but the textures were given the main focus this time by Square-Enix, thus the close-up details in the world and characters are excellent. The game runs smoothly and with a great cinematic quality. Overall, despite some shortcomings, it is still a game to recommend...and worthy of being a Final Fantasy.
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| [January 27, 2008 12:52:44 AM]
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NOTE
Once again, a note by the blogger: I have also been playing this game for a while, this time the starting date is more of an estimate than last time since I'm on a little hiatus from the game. I am still sure of my ability to remember the game and its world since I do intend to return to where I left off. I will once again split my entries based on memories of my initial impressions of the game and then later developments while playing the game. Also, I belatedly realized this is going to be late, but I still intend to do it. If it cannot be used for this assignment, I would ask if it could be used as the next "classics list" assignment for me, please?
SUMMARY
Final Fantasy XII is the latest released entry in the well-known RPG series, and is stand-alone/self-contained like most Final Fantasies. The Battles are more MMORPG style than traditional Final Fantasies (FFs from now on); the battle system is styled after the online FF XI, with many changes of course. You follow the story of many characters in the small nation of Dalmasca, which has its sad history revealed in brilliant glory in the opening moments of the game (I'm NOT going to spoil this). The story develops and changes, of course, as the cast tries to find a way to bring Dalmasca out of the oppressive grip of the Archadian empire. The game supposedly takes place in Ivalice, the same world introduced to series veterans in Final Fantasy Tactics, only many, many years apart.
GAMEPLAY
As previously mentioned, the opening scenes upon starting a new game are brilliant - not to mention the nice start-up sequence with the latest incarnation of the nostalgic FF theme. The recent history of Dalmasca is told in fast, almost too fast (for me), suspenseful cutscenes and you'll barely notice the tutorial in-between for sheer desire to see more. I have to say, this game had one of the best lead-in sequences in the series, if not in RPG history. Shame to say it was a little wasted...
After the glorious start, you'll get to the present...where you're killing rats. I'm not kidding! Whether the contrast was intentional or not, the starting of the "real" game - with good old level one, worst equipment, etc. and more tutorials - was slower than it had to be in my opinion. The starting climb of getting money, fighting and other standard RPG events is more tedious than most, probably because you only have one party member at first. Setting the battle speed higher helps a little, but you'll probably want it back down after you start getting more members/abilities.
Luckily, after some required introduction to the game world, the story gets interesting once again. Also, getting new party members and abilities quickly heightens the speed and variety of battles, lessening the starting strain of building your characters up. Stealing is also less stressful with other party members around to take damage and heal you up, which makes getting loot (which you sell as the primary means of getting money, gil as in most FFs, in this game) easier. Continuing with the story exactly when you want is easily done in FF XII thanks to your next story objective being clearly noted and marked on your detailed area map in the main menu/select button map.
On that note, the game is surprisingly open from the start, even when you only have one party member. If you don't want to continue with the story, there are a few hunts (sidequest bosses basically) already open and you can travel out to many places before you're "required" to. Most people will be stopped or surprised by the fact that you can find monsters that can easily one-hit kill you right at the beginning (one is particularly infamous, but also freaking obvious in my opinion. Yes! I would advise saving before you poke a dinosaur with your dinky sword at level one! If you must satisfy your reckless curiosity, save first!). However, if you are smart/skilled/lucky enough to get around some of these, you can really get around a bit before you reach the real "you're not allowed to go here" barriers. Both these aspects are a little unexpected in traditional RPGs, but definitely more common in MMORPGs.
Continuing on...
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CelestialWing's Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Tuesday 19 December, 2006
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