Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post
Actually, a random number generator used to create dungeons and treasure is not as difficult to implement as you think. Port Island City is probably only a third of the size of Rabanastre and due to the stylized graphics, its hardly taxing on the system. Most of the Personas are actually reused and slightly tweaked models from SMT3 and they use less animation than the ones in their original game since they only use two animations as opposed to SMT3 where they stand on your side and occasionally move a bit to make them not appear static as well as various other minor animations.

I'm not saying P3 isn't huge it easily clocks in as an 80+ hour game but the engine needed to produce that game wouldn't need to be as strong or as sophisticated as XII's. XII also has a randomizer for treasure, needs to generate several models on the map at once and do it as seemlessly as possible. Not mention random spawns and multiple effects since spells and attack animation happen simultaneously. It has to utilize multiple A.I. like P3, and do it all with a world created in painstaking detail. P3 has less to worry about than XII.

Both are truly amazing titles that helped define the PS2 for me but I wouldn't be surprised if XII used the PS2 to its limits.
The thing with P3 is shear volume of everything. As well as 3 sperate AI settings, as well as both RPG and an advanced dating simulator aspects.

True, it probably doesn't take what FF XII did, but my point is P3 was a really poor example for what you were getting at, cause it definately took a lot for that game to run.