I may never play an RPG with random battles again. There's no advantage to them at all.
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I may never play an RPG with random battles again. There's no advantage to them at all.
Final fantasy 12 was innovative, and it still contained lots of final fantasy staples! (Espers, chocobos etc)
FFXII lacked a lot of what made previous games great but then made up for it by the gameplay. I appreciate Square for doing something different and put my faith back into the company.
People who bitch piss me off because its not encouraging developers to go beyond the standard RPG formula.
So you want people to give positive feedback regardless of what they actually think of the game?
They should at least be thankful that Square didn't go back to turn based combat. I'm actually with most people when criticizing everything else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crizpy
Square should bring the story back to the characters and bring a better composer to work on their Final Fantasy games but should keep on trying to innovate the RPG genre.
While I never had a problem with turn based combat, I am very unhappy with the real-time combat in XII. I won't mind if they use real-time combat in all future Final Fantasy games, as long as they fix the problems that XII's system has.Quote:
Originally Posted by DreddzThey should at least be thankful that Square didn't go back to turn based combat. I'm actually with most people when criticizing everything else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crizpy
Square should bring the story back to the characters and bring a better composer to work on their Final Fantasy games but should keep on trying to innovate the RPG genre.
The problem with the argument about FF changing is that its always changing. No game in the series is exactly alike and all bring countless changes that make each special to their fans. FF has always been about change, its the only constant in the series. I mean it took ten games for SE to finally make a direct sequel to a game in the series and even then it was radically different from its counterpart.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crizpy
You would have to define what you feel the core elements of FF are. Even then, due to its changing nature, you won't find many who will agree cause we all have a different opinion of what constitutes as "core elements" in the series.
Final Fantasy 1 - 6 were all on 2D graphics, that's a lot of game titles. So, to turn that into something else (3D graphics) is just blasphemy to all the people who played Final Fantasy.Quote:
Originally Posted by sora_lion_heart
Just because something has been part of the series for a long time, it does not means that it is the best thing for the series. The random battle system is good, I do like it, but I did not miss it while playing XII. The battle system introduced by XII simply runs circles around it and it is a change for the better of the series. I went into some detail about it and it's advantages in an earlier post.
Final Fantasy, at least to me, has always been about innovation, braking new ground, setting new trends, etc. The random battle system has run it's course already, it was good for a while, but there are better options available and I do feel that the series was starting to fall behind in that department in the last couple of installments.
Which problems do you believe it has?Quote:
Originally Posted by Skyblade
I will agree that random battles were probably getting a bit old. But XII still utilizes the ATB battle system. If you look at the battle system (and exclude the gambits of course), the battle system is very similar to the one in VII when in 'Active' mode.
The implementation of the system was also not perfect. I think the gambits were useful, as long as they weren't overused (which some people did, and then complained that the game played itself). But, I also don't believe gambits should be the way forward for the series. A game should be fun, not involve programming moves in (which basically is what gambits are).
My biggest gripe with the battle system was the spell casting. First, I'd have to wait for my ATB bar to fill up. Then I'd have to wait while the spell bar would fill up. Then, I'd have to wait some more while a boss would do a million things before it would cast. But, an item would be used immediately.
The License Board is in my opinion the Sphere Grid v0.5. You still level up normally, but you get to basically move your character in any path from the start of the game. Vaan starts off as a thief, but within a few hours, he can become a spell-casting monk. And Fran starts off with a bow, but from the go, she can become a knight in shining armour.
Agreeably, at the end of X, many abilitites started to merge. But, Yuna played a white mage through most of the game for me, and Lulu a black mage, etc. I couldn't decide at the beginning of the game that Wakka should be a blue mage, and Auron a healer. Also, the license board was so easy to complete, unlike the Sphere Grid. To get a player to have every single ability in X would take forever. Not so in XII.
IMO, the best modern FF battle system was in X. It was a lot more strategic than the one's before, the underlying leveling mechanics required thought (unless one used the Tonberry for massive levelling), and it was fun. I'd have preferred it if they had managed to make it non-random battles, but I still prefer it to XII.
But I don't dislike because of the battle system. I disliked it because the story was unfocused and the characters were uninteresting. When I walk through the entire Sandsea without the story moving forward at all, I am worried. Or when I walk from Mt Bur Omisace to Archades (or whatever the capital is), and there is one piece of dialogue the entire way, I am worried. Both of those "walks" would take most gamers an hour or two. Can you imagine having to wait two hours for the story to move forward in any other Final Fantasy, unless you were delibarately messing about?
I felt that XII didn't have enough, storywise, for it to be compared with any other game in the series. Even X-2. I didn't care much for X-2's story (but who can say they cared much for XII's story), but at least there were plenty of characters to care about, who did speak more than twice (Penelo), and who developed.
I think that FF changing is a good thing. It's nice to not get into a battle every five seconds for a change. Squeenix was just experimenting with new gameplay styles to see how the fans would react before deciding what to do for the next game.
One thing bugs me, however. Just like champagne supernova said, sometimes there would be hours at a time before the story progressed. Then, by the time you got to wherever you were meant to be going, you'd forget why you were there in the first place. But I still think FFXII was a step in the right direction.
Id have to agree with Dr Acula, Oft Id find myself heading to, say Jahara and totally forgetting why I need to go here. It just goes to show How weak and feeble the storyline was.
However, I did think the battle system was great, Its more realistic and for people saying that the monsters was small, well they had to to fit them all in one area. You can't have hulking great monsters 5 times the size of a person in an area the size of a Baseball field.
The music was a bit naff, but it wasn't composed by the great one (You know who he is)
All in all, some aspects are rubbish compared to past games, but it did introduce us new elements need to make the series become fresher and newer.
I noticed that too. And there lies one of the interesting problems - they turned it into like an MMORPG, too much so. Whilst they got rid of random battles, which can work out great (see Chrono Trigger) they still managed to put far too much emphasis on wading through tons and tons of monsters (in extremely bland zones) between fragments of the story.
I prefer fewer but more challenging battles to hacking through seas of monsters. The thing is, for a battle to be challenging it can either require thought, or levels. Levelling up just means wading through easier monsters until the hard ones become easy, so it's all much the same thing. Gambits added some thinking to it, thankfully, but IMO the best thought-based challenges (which is what I prefer) are achieved with turn based combat.
What you're wading through also makes a difference. I thought the monster zones in FFXII were mostly boring as hell, just variations of the same 'maze' theme with a few plains thrown in. Contrast with FFX: there were far too many random battles (every few damn steps!) but every location you went through had its own charm and character. (MMOs are guilty of this too - EQ1 had the 'all zones are special and unique and someone must've put a lot of thought and love into each one' feel whilst EQ2 had the 'bland cookie-cutter zones' feel)
I too felt that the pacing of the game, as far as it's story goes, is not its strongest point. That is very much it's weakness, the flow of the story is bogged down by the large amount of exploring/fighting that one has to do between the different scenes. It is not that the story is weak or uninteresting; it is that it is spread too thin. The game could have been a bit more balanced in that regard. When compared to the pacing of other FFs like VII and X, the pacing of this game feels quite slow and as a consequence, as others have already pointed out, people tend to forget why they are going to wherever it is they are headed.
As far as the locations go, I think that what happens in XII is not that it lacks interesting locations, of these there are many: The Feywood, Giruvegan, The Pharos, Eruyt, Bur-Omisace, Sochen Cave Palace, The Stilshrine of Miram, etc. What happens is that just like the story, they are spread too thin and you must first go through a lot of areas like beaches, forests and wastelands, which don’t have much of a distinctive feature before you get to them. As far as the different cities goes, I found these to be quite interesting and lively, begging you to explore and interact with everything around you. The floating city of Bhujerba in particular reminded me of Zeal’s Palace in Chrono Trigger.
I suppose if you think of the forests and wastelands and such as the "world map" of the old days it's not so bad.
You know what I hated about XII (and to some extent, X)?
No Chocobo Breeding.
One of the best sidequests from the PS1 games, and they felt the need to take them out and replace them with chocobo rentals. Not cool.
Yes, XII simply had no chocobo mini-games, at last X had a couple, such as the race with the champion chocobo in Remien Temple.
Urgh, I hated the chocobo breeding mini games.
I liked the chocobo stuff in VII (the best), XI and X. Although VIII's was rubbish (go figure!)
Yes I liked choco breeding. Infuriating sometimes I admit but It was fun finally getting the gold.
Im agreeing with cloudane, every map was the same old same old it never really excited me, oh god Giza plains was the worst, there was no feel or atmosphere, no in past FF games like in X every object and the scenery was unique, every waterfall and ruin had its own vibe to it.
I felt like this as a test the water game, the developers thought "hmm lets try a open battle system when you aren't constantly breaking out of the environment"
They focused solely on that to see if the fans would like the new change to the game. And then left everything else to the last minute. Thats what I felt.
While I agree to the above start, it's not the only reason why I didn't liked it.
Where were the summons, GF, Aeons, Espers?
The old ones were named after the ships.
And the new ones you needed to find them out by yourself and none were really familiar besides Belias and Maetheus .
So lack of that didn't helped.
It's sad really because some of the character were well drawn and had a fantastic beautiful world, but were completly wasted potential on some more-than-irrelevant story (like the fact that there theifs and pirates) and the pointless final boss.
If it would have had been done by another team and added traditional RPG and Final Fantasy Elements, it would have had been avoided.
Possibility that if you confronted a Esper here is simply because you got lost somewhere and ended up there.
And the action here was bassically non-existing since the game constently pause itself when pressing X, giving you time to plan the next couple of moves and it just stalls somewhere down the line.
Only pansies played in Wait.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperion4444
I agree and disagree, though I feel this comes down to personal taste so arguing this is kind of a moot point. I agree that the system requires a balance approach, and I also agree it shouldn't be the permanent way to go for the franchise. I felt it was an experiment that for the most part went well, and I wouldn't mind seeing the system as a support system in future titles such as programming an auto attack strategy when you're blasting through normal monsters on your way to the boss. You could even have system that allows you to micro-manage minor affects like buffing spells or last minute healing; while normal attacks and magic are still left in the players hands.Quote:
Originally Posted by champagne supernova
I feel the system has many applications, and to be honest I enjoyed planning strategies ahead of time and seeing how they work. Like many RPG battle systems, I felt XII's only really shined during boss battles. Granted for me, it made wading through minor monsters easier, especially since I haven't played an RPG in years where normal monsters required more strategy than hitting X a bunch of times :rolleyes2. For that, I guess I can't fault the system for taking the guess work out of normal monster encounters. Yet I would argue that the system deserved better and normal encounters should have required thought but I've been making this arguments since VI came out.
I always felt it was a broken down version of V's system, while Sphere Grid was a terribly broken down version of IV's system with minor class blending at the end of the game. ;)Quote:
The License Board is in my opinion the Sphere Grid v0.5. You still level up normally, but you get to basically move your character in any path from the start of the game. Vaan starts off as a thief, but within a few hours, he can become a spell-casting monk. And Fran starts off with a bow, but from the go, she can become a knight in shining armor.
I prefer the License board for the exact reason you stated, I liked figuring out who should do what but then, I've always been a fan of the Job Class system so having the ability to control what every characters role in my party was fun. I knew going into the game I would have to figure out what everyone did. I personally liked it but we all have different tastes. For instance, I hate X's system cause most of your party was stuck in their respected roles and customization only occurred at the end of the game when it wasn't really necessary for finishing the story. I always felt Sphere Grid only gave the player the illusion of control and customization, but that is just my opinion.Quote:
Agreeably, at the end of X, many abilitites started to merge. But, Yuna played a white mage through most of the game for me, and Lulu a black mage, etc. I couldn't decide at the beginning of the game that Wakka should be a blue mage, and Auron a healer. Also, the license board was so easy to complete, unlike the Sphere Grid. To get a player to have every single ability in X would take forever. Not so in XII.
I definetly disagree, X suffered from such terribly nerfed difficulty that strategy seemed non-existent. Having each player able to practically 1 hit kill specific monsters made random encounters tedious, especially if you tried to get everyone a turn so they all get exp. The game offered a good system but poor design choices and a nerfed difficulty makes most of its strengths irrelevant for me. The game was terribly easy, probably the easiest in the series.Quote:
IMO, the best modern FF battle system was in X. It was a lot more strategic than the one's before, the underlying leveling mechanics required thought (unless one used the Tonberry for massive leveling), and it was fun. I'd have preferred it if they had managed to make it non-random battles, but I still prefer it to XII.
I agree and disagree once again. While I agree that the main fault with the story was due to pacing issues like you mentioned. I found the story interesting (I love politics) and the cast far more interesting than its predecessors. Next to VI, I've never played an FF where I can honestly say I like the whole cast and their relationships.Quote:
But I don't dislike because of the battle system. I disliked it because the story was unfocused and the characters were uninteresting. When I walk through the entire Sandsea without the story moving forward at all, I am worried. Or when I walk from Mt Bur Omisace to Archades (or whatever the capital is), and there is one piece of dialogue the entire way, I am worried. Both of those "walks" would take most gamers an hour or two. Can you imagine having to wait two hours for the story to move forward in any other Final Fantasy, unless you were deliberately messing about?
Another thing I would like to point out and I really wish I didn't have to bring this game up again but its my poster child for everything wrong in an FF and that's FFX. I actually, enjoyed not tripping over cutscenes every five minutes. XII lets you play it while X is so in-love with its lame and unoriginal story that it refuses to let you play. In XII, though the cutscenes are few and far between, they were at least important and didn't involve pointless cutscenes either trying to convince you the party is deep or giving you the same piece of info over and over again. X's story and pacing treats the player like they are retarded and suffering from terrible bouts of ADHD.
I like Chocobo Breeding as well, but I can't say I care about the game lacking a Chocobo mini-game. VII and IX had fun ones but VIII, X, and X-2 were just terrible. I don't really care for Chocobo's, I prefer moogles. Where was my Mognet minigame? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Balthier Rocks
I liked XII's world, it was more realistic and the open environments actually stressed exploration which had been seriously lacking in the series. I felt the world design was perfect and allowed the player to not only understand the scope of the world. But make it feel more real despite some of the places being supernatural. Granted, I could have done without the Crystal dungeon but overall I felt the enviroments were top notch and blew previous FF worlds out of the water in terms of depth and beauty. :love:Quote:
Im agreeing with cloudane, every map was the same old same old it never really excited me, oh god Giza plains was the worst, there was no feel or atmosphere, no in past FF games like in X every object and the scenery was unique, every waterfall and ruin had its own vibe to it.
This is where I felt XII really did throw an experimental curve ball at the fanbase. Course my opinion is a bit bias considering FFT is my favorite FF and I've always felt summons were overrated and generally useless. I probably used summons more in XII than in previous installments except for IV. I can't say not seeing Ifrit or Shiva bothered me, while the opportunity to use Belias and Zeromus excited me more since they both kicked my ass in the past.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperion4444
I felt the story touched on the characters fairly well. Vaan is more of a street urchin than a master thief. Pickpockets are pretty boring (unless they are Lone Wolf the Pickpocket :cool:) I felt the plot was quite deep. Focusing on kingdoms clashing and one person's internal struggle to decide whether to save her kingdom or get revenge. I feel the human element was much better represented. Fran may have been a bit of a miss but I always felt its odd few RPGs ever further the plot through NPC's like XII did.Quote:
So lack of that didn't helped.
It's sad really because some of the character were well drawn and had a fantastic beautiful world, but were completly wasted potential on some more-than-irrelevant story (like the fact that there theifs and pirates) and the pointless final boss.
If it would have had been done by another team and added traditional RPG and Final Fantasy Elements, it would have had been avoided.
I actually enjoyed looking for the summons like you had to in old-school FFs. As for the battles, did you play in Wait mode? I don't remember that ever happening to me. Hell, I needed my Gambits just keep up half the time with the enemies.Quote:
Possibility that if you confronted a Esper here is simply because you got lost somewhere and ended up there.
And the action here was bassically non-existing since the game constantly pause itself when pressing X, giving you time to plan the next couple of moves and it just stalls somewhere down the line.
I wasn't bemoaning the lack of cutscenes, I was bemoaning the lack of dialogue between main characters (not the NPCs though, that was good). Honestly, in your next playthrough, count how many lines of dialogue there is between Mt. Bur Omisace and Archades.
I'll spare you the trouble. The only meaningful dialogue is as you enter the Phon Coast. And what about the Sandsea (Boredomsea)?
That is truly irritating. By the time I got to Archades, I had completely forgotten the awesome scenes at Mt Bur-Omisace. And that is another issue I have with the game. There are only three moments that make you go WOW! The first is the game's opening, the second is the events at Mt. Bur-Omisace (this includes the events simultaneously occuring in Archades) and the final one, the boss battle at the top of the Pharos. When I play a FF, I want to be WOWED! I want to be amazed. And with XII, I felt that it was good, but not excellent.
Different taste I feel. I don't see the point in senseless dialogue it annoyed me in X when I couldn't walk a couple of feet at Mt. Gagazat without tripping over a pointless dialogue scene that kept telling you the same thing over and over again. It broke up the flow of the plot and the game for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by champagne supernova
XII wowed me, if not just its story and characters but also its world design and battle system. :cool:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Cactuar
I don't agree with that, one of the BEST things final fantasy has is it's ability to change.... the no random battles was one of these changes, and it worked for FF12! - it may not have been better than the other FFs but, lets face it... if we have the same things in every FF it will become boring! don't fualt the developers for actually having the guts to try something new
I've just started playing Lost Odyssey. Whilst I can't attest to the long term storyline yet, my initial impressions are that it's everything FFXII should've been.
Those who played FFXII and found themselves missing the random battles, the deeply involving and emotional storytelling of Sakaguchi and the awesome music of Uematsu would do well to give it a shot.
It's surprising S-E haven't turned around and sued their former employees or something, as it's basically a carbon copy of Final Fantasy, complete with near-identical battle fanfare =P
^lol that would be so funny. SE would be suing people who created the stuff that SE were suing them for copying them.
they were actually given permission to do that game that way.... - hence the "from the creators of final fantasy" crap
I don't like random battles.
I don't like hack&slash battles of FFXII since there's no battle music really going on because battles ends too fast.
I like RPG you touch the monster and engage battle against. Any means of selecting your fights while having battle music.
The only Victory Stance of the FFXII characters were when they defeated bosses.
Aye, thought as much. I don't think they'd have gotten away with it without such permission :) Weird as it may be, even though Sakaguchi created Final Fantasy, the rights belong to the company that you work for when creating material under an employment contract. So without permission, they probably could have gone after them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadowdeathrose
Why have I never heard of this game! I checked it out and now I must have it. I haven't yerned for a game like this in ages!Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloudane
It boggles the mind that there are still people who think random battles are a good thing in any way, shape, or form, and it's sad that there are so many people who think random battles = turn based battles for some reason. I liked Final Fantasy XII's battle system, and I like Final Fantasy X's battle system, but one thing neither of those games should have is random battles. In fact, no game should ever have random battles ever again.
Why not? I like random battles for a reason; it helps me to level faster.
No it doesn't.
I'd actually say it probably takes longer. Battles were much shorter in FFXII. Or at least I found them to be shorter.
Care to elaborate? I leveled in the henne mines and it was pretty fast as it certainly has helped me through the leveling times. Without random battles, I will level slower. Unless I misinterpreted the meaning of 'Random Battles'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roto13
And how annoying would it be if every area had wave after wave after wave of enemies in it, never stopping unless you run away, and every time you got into a fight it would load up a whole new battle screen? Those aren't what I'm talking about (or anyone else, for that matter) when I say random battles. Random battles are when every time you take a step an invisible randomizer decides whether you'll be in a fight or not.
Oh, when I wiped a number of areas, I'll go back and save. After that, I just exited and loaded the game save, there, the spawns in such areas will automatically reset. At least, I think that's faster than walking around and waiting for the monsters to spawn.
Walking around and waiting for monsters to spawn is exactly what grinding with a random battle system is. :P
An area will respawn after you've travelled three areas away from it, I believe; it's referred to as zoning. The trick is, to find a looping path through four or more areas, and just keep moving in an endless cycle. You should never run out of enemies to kill that way.
Oh, I see, sorry.
Hm, I've tried that method but if I do that, I'll find sightly fewer enemies. But if I load the game save instead, I've seen a bigger number of enemies. o.OQuote:
An area will respawn after you've travelled three areas away from it, I believe; it's referred to as zoning. The trick is, to find a looping path through four or more areas, and just keep moving in an endless cycle. You should never run out of enemies to kill that way.
If you exit a zone and return, you get a semi-respawn.
If you exit to 2 zones away and return, you get a full respawn.
I used that quite extensively in the snowy area just past the jungle, as I found that the skeletons gave decent EXP and loot especially if you chain them. Of course, this means you should never hit a save point.
MMORPG style battles are cool, but Final Fantasy should be traditional turn-based battle screen stuff IMO. Otherwise it just ain't Final Fantasy (hence people didn't think much of it). It's like if our admin friends were to replace this messageboard with a video conference - it'd be more advanced, but totally missing the point.
But hey, Final Fantasy isn't itself any more, as the people who made it shine now work for Mistwalker.
I don't mind turn-based battles. I think Final Fantasy X had a fantastic battle system. It's just the system to actually get into those battles should never, ever, ever return in any game ever. :P
I would love to see a retooled version of XII's ADB system return in future installments but I would like to see changes to pacing and animation. My only beef with the MMO elements of the game have to do with farming materials to make the weapons. Beyond that, I can't say I really missed Turn Base combat.
Depending on how XIII utilizes the shift from in-game to battle. We may see turn base again if they can get the game to have seamless transition from exploring to battle a la Chrono Trigger style. I think then it might be safe to say Turn Base has a future unless SE experiments with other games styles like Action RPGs or even a card game based system.
I initially thought that Mistwalker would be great for the reason that you suggest above. However, as far as I've seen, both Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey have not performed as well as any of the main line Final Fantasies. In fact, wasn't Blue Dragon a critical let down?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloudane
I don't know, I haven't played any Mistwalker games (my dad hoards the Xbox). But, I usually agree with the average critical consensus about games.
Depends on who you talk to. Blue Dragon got good reviews, but was chastised for not being an innovative phenomenon that put the JRPG genre on its head. Most people I've talked to say its a pretty good game but it definetly has an old school feel to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by hhr1dluv
Lost Odyssey also got pretty high reviews but once again it was criticized for being "safe" and feeling like a "last gen" game. Despite that, I've never really heard anyone who has played it say anything terribly bad about it. In fact most JRPG fans herald it as an amazing game.
Basically, the way I understand it is this:
Critics: Its good but nothing new. FFXII ftw!
Gamers: These games are really good! Who cares if they are not overly innovative?
Feeling like a 'last gen' game is why I love it :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
I'll never understand those who insist on change for change's sake. It was a winning formula already, and personally, if I wanted to play a MMO style game I'd go play WoW.
You win some you lose some. I didn't like X's system when it came out myself. Overall, I felt XII took alot of good things from MMO's (massive expansive world that is so detailed it almost feels real) but even I admit the game has a few things I don't like (Grinding for materials for the ultimate weapons, respawning treasure chests with random drops to name a few) about the game that it got from MMO's. In XII's case I felt it was fine cause FF has always been about innovation, so I do not see the changes in XII to be bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by CloudaneFeeling like a 'last gen' game is why I love it :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
I'll never understand those who insist on change for change's sake. It was a winning formula already, and personally, if I wanted to play a MMO style game I'd go play WoW.
Yet I do agree that the whining by critics on Mistwalker's games seem rather silly in my opinion. Sakeguchi to me at least has always been a good coordinator of talent. He may not be the best writer or the guy who came up with innovative battle systems, but he had this amazing ability to look at all the pieces and bring them together to make them something truly amazing. :cool:
I don't have any problems with the music, i think most of it is really good.
I didn't really care that there weren't any characters that feelings for eachother.
i do agree with the 4th, i do tend to not undrstand what's going on.
i didn't like all of the character voices though, some just didn't really fit the characters.
i actually like ff12 alot, and i think it's a better final fantasy than 7,8 and 10 since i don't like 7 & 8 and don't really like 10 that much.