Final Fantasy XII (English) Impressions (+ Spoilers)

Last edited by Damien on Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:42 pm; edited 1 time in total

Okay, you'll probably already know my stance on Final Fantasy XII, but stick with this and you may be a little surprised.

The first time I played any form of the game was the demo included in Dragon Quest VIII. I found it dire. The psuedo-action battles just wasn't what I wanted to play.
I then played a fair few hours of the full Japanese game on it's release.
Okay, I did have language barrier problems and got lost a lot, but the basics of battle and stuff were worked out soon enough.
I didn't like the game, infact I'd probably say it was my least favourite main-series Final Fantasy game (thinking back to when I first played each of them rather than what I'd make of them now).

Yesterday I put on the English version of XII expecting to put it down soon after the first save point.
I carried on for 6 hours, and then played some more Shock

Now over ten hours are on the clock in less than a day.
I don't know if it's my current mood but I'm actually finding myself addicted to it

I guess one of my main problems when I first played the game was how different it was from other Final Fantasy games.
Well I first played the demo over a year ago and it's a good six months since the Japanese version was out.
During this time, I think I've become adjusted to knowing that this IS Final Fantasy XII.

Obviously the English language makes the game far more playable for a non-Japanese speaker such as myself.
There are so many NPCs to talk to, and all that was totally lost on me during the Japanese game.

Playing Suikoden V recently is also a big factor I think.
Don't get me wrong, I totally love the game but anybdoy would have to admit that the loading times are abysmal.
The plot progression is also very slow, and the scenes with voice acting are often so short, it's almost pointless them being there.
To go from there to a game that has smooth trasnitions between field exploration and battle and lengthy, well-acted cut scenes that don't keep chopping between voice and plain text sections has obviously helped me appreciate the game's merit a hell of a lot more.

I've also managed to work out the Gambit thingamejig.
Okay, it's just an advanced "this character will do this if you don't command them otherwise" system, but anything that makes it so all my characters will heal and attack and all I have to do is move the analogue stick to transport the party leader to the battles is good in my book.
I'm in a lazy mood, it's a lazy game

All-in-all, I'm rather pleasently surprised with my experiences so far with the English version.
I hope I can stick in to the end to form a final and full opinion of the game.
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Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:09 am Post subject:

ur gay

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:43 am Post subject:

this reminds me i still have to finish FFX-2 Sad

, but since it's not 'mainstream' FF i might just not bother!

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:53 am Post subject:

I had a lot more impressions of the game to post, but I was stuck for time really.
I won't bother posting any more on the game until other people start talking about it.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 5:41 pm Post subject:

I have a game developer on my contact list who couldn't wait to brag.

Look what's on my TV!

I've been getting my impressions from him. He likes it.
He also likes Okami. Maybe I should link him to HKK's review.

He's not used gambits yet. Have you, DJ Damien?

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:35 pm Post subject:

I'm 15 hours in, obviously I have

It makes it so I can play with one hand and put no attention into doing so

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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 5:07 pm Post subject:

I decided to do some power levelling with vaan at the beginning of the game and got to level 24 before I got bored.

Anyway, Vaan kills just about everything with one hit (Gladius = attack rating 45), but I'm getting really annoyed that the game takes so damn long to get anywhere, level wise. I know for a fact that enemies don't start giving out more than 1LP each, even later on in the game, so it's just ridiculous. I've basically just run around levelling and killing everything in the estersands over and over again and I've only collected around 1450LP total.

On the other hand, the voice acting is great. Everyone's voice is done perfectly, there really is nothing to complain about, other than perhaps Vayne's doesn't suit his face, but its barely noticeable since the actual voice acting is done so well.

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:51 am Post subject:

my friend from canada is visiting i'm just watching him play the game because it's terrible.
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Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 7:12 am Post subject:

Well if you get him to just point out to you when the cutscenes kick in, you should be fine. The actual cutscenes are pretty short, the gameplay is LONG and DRAWN OUT and gets REALLY boring REALLY quickly.

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 2:14 pm Post subject:

I think i've played enough bad games recently (including MMORPGS) to be accustomed to the gameplay.
I think 1LP per kill is fair, otherwise you'd end up completing all of the boards way too quickly.
22 hours in now and aroundabout the same level as you said you got to at the start, Garbo Shock

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Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:08 pm Post subject:

I wouldn't call myself a fan of the game, but I'll admit to enjoying it thus far this time round.
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Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:24 pm Post subject:

I went back to my earlier savegame and found a good levelling spot.

Once you get the Gladius weapon, if you have around 1000-1200 hp, you can beat the werewolves in giza Plains fairly easily, and there's a savepoint just nearby. Basically it takes about 2.5 minutes realtime to repeat the whole process, and both werewolves combined gives 4LP and 2412exp, with Vaan alone. Basically, a couple of hours and I got Vaan from level 24 to level 30.

Then I really started the game and when I met Basch, he was level 34

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:55 pm Post subject:

I dunno, it just doesn't feel like Final Fantasy to me. They should have called it something else. In my mind, it's not a real Final Fantasy game with Sakaguchi and Uematsu not on board. I'm looking forward to Blue Dragon.

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:04 pm Post subject:

It has lots of Final Fantasy elements though.
They're not going to rename their international bestselling series just because some people left the team

I'm hoping Blue Dragon will be good too though Shock

Garbo, that's madness. Doing that'd bore the shit out of me.
I'm somewhere near the Level 28 mark and I'm quite far into the game now.
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Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 6:23 pm Post subject:

I'm level 32 at Bhujerba

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 6:36 pm Post subject:

I'm at some place that's really hard, so I need to level or all my nigs just get ganged up on and die

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:50 am Post subject:

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 2:34 am Post subject:

Well I would've kinda liked to be an angsty teenager out to save the world - again! for the 10th time in the last 2 years.
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I hate Nintendo, I love Sony...
WaWard is back in full force.

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 5:05 am Post subject:

AHAUAHUAHUA

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:11 am Post subject:

Vaan is pretty much like Tidus as a character though.
His voice is the only one that's actually annoyed me so far. The rest aren't overly American (or British).
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Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:18 pm Post subject:

vaan is like tidus?

becuz he whines (for good reasons aka basch) he's like tidus?

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject:

How the hell is Vaan like Tidus.

None of the voice actors in this game are annoying, I don't know what you're listening to, seriously. If you're annoyed by Vaan, I don't understand how you even sat through FFX, since Vaan is like 999999999999 toned down and barely even says anything most of the time. He's not even the main character.

Anyway, the only person so far whose VA somewhat bothers me slightly is the Marquis. For some reason he sounds almost Indian, where I think he was trying to be Scottish. It would've been sweet if the people of Bhujerba were Scottish and the people of Rozaria were Irish. I could imagine Al-Cid sounding Irish.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the game up to this point, I'm just past Bhujerba, but I'm starting to remember why I got so sick of the game. The entire Sandsea is just senselessly big, the only reason being for you to farm LP.

At this point I've just recruited Penelo, but I'm already level 34 and everyone has learnt all their mist quickenings, along with all their augments and capable magics up to this point (except gambit slots, which are useless when you don't have the appropriate targets available to you yet anyway). All enemies are level 14, I'm level 34, and just trudging through, exploring picking up treasure chests has taken 2.5 hours and I'm only 80% done with the Ogr-Yensa Sandsea. I haven't even begun the Nam-Yensa Sandsea.

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:06 pm Post subject:

Vaan is annoying compared to the others. He is way overly-American whereas all the others are totally turned down (other than the stupid London accent people).
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Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:28 pm Post subject:

His character is supposed to be a child, and they've made all the naive characters somewhat American accented, I really, REALLY fail to see how that's annoying unless you just have a personal thing against American accents.

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:30 pm Post subject:

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:03 pm Post subject:

So, I need to be toned down, because I have an American accent?
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Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:41 pm Post subject:

Probably

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject:

So my tea needs to be toned down because I let it steep too long?
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Yuka offers you tea and biscuits teatime

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:45 pm Post subject:

If you were in FFXII your voice would probably need to be altered/toned down.

Tea should never touch the water for longer than it takes to recite Psalm 63!
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Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:56 pm Post subject:

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:56 pm Post subject:

haha

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:19 pm Post subject:

Been levelling up to get through the Miriam Shrine or whatever it's called... pretty much all day

I used to have a manager called Miriam. She had lots of facial hair. That name always reminds me of her

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Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 6:54 am Post subject:

Welp, I haven't played any more of the game since my last post, but like..while I'd like to believe that I'll cruise the rest of the way, the problem is, levelling in this game really only affects your HP.

If you wanna own enemies, you still need the best of the best weapons, and I happened to get some attack rating 45 Gladiuses at the very beginning of the game. That's only because the power levelling guide pointed me in that direction.

Otherwise, there's no guide so far that tells me of any elite weapons that I may be able to own much earlier than I'm supposed to, so if I end up just buying my weapons from a weapon shop like a common chump, I'll be doing just as much damage as everyone else, only I have more HP and I'll last longer.

I need a guideeeeeee

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 9:31 am Post subject:

Do you find playing by a guide fun?
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