Halloween the U.S. Release Date for FFXII 50
Along with trick or treat candy, gamers can look forward to Final Fantasy XII finally launching here in the states on October 31st. 1up has the story: "What better way to enjoy left over Halloween candy than by digging into an epic RPG adventure? Additionally, Square Enix will be releasing a Collector's Edition for $59.99 via EB Games and GameStop websites and retail stores featuring special packaging and a bonus DVD with Japanese and American trailers, developer interviews, an art gallery and featurettes on the Final Fantasy series. "
there's not a lot of hype about this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it? (Score:5, Informative)
I see a comment like this in just about every FF thread anymore. It's the stock response for someone who doesn't care for the FF series and wants to make a witty remark on /. I'll repeat what I said in the last one:
Like most things, there's actually a reason and a story why they name a seemingly unending series "Final". Wikipedia has a nice summation, which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_fantasy#Overvie w [wikipedia.org]
Or, for those who don't feel like following a link:
Re:there's not a lot of hype about this (Score:5, Informative)
There's a reason there's not a lot of hype about this. They released a demo with DragonQuest 8.
We've played it. It sucked.
Yes the demo is a piece of shit. I should've prefaced my comments by saying that I too hated the demo. I came into FFXII with very low expectations for playability. Trust me there's simply no comparison between that and the final version.
About the only thing worse than being placed on the strict rails that Final Fantasy games always enforce is having the battles stuck on rails too. The characters play the game for you - there was an article on Slashdot a while back about that when the Japanese version was released.
But what you're overlooking is that the battle system has been redesigned to fit a paradigm completely different from the traditional FF battle system. In old games, your characters would line up on one side and the enemies on the other and you would choose the commands they'd execute. This is no longer: the player is now completely responsible for every action and movement of all characters during battle. FFXII plays like an MMORPG - without the online component. Each character requires the same amount of attention and thought and interaction as a single character does in a traditional MMORPG. The amount of control added to the battle system means that there needs to be some way to step back and not micromanage every character's actions, especially when they often are repetitive.
What Square did was to invent a system of "if...then" statements that are extensively customizeable to allow the player complete control over the party. These rules can be changed on the fly and take the tedium out of playing a game with as much control as FFXII. I would think the addition of a "programming language" of sorts into which battles can be streamlined would appeal to the average
Give the final game a shot... rent it or something... because I know that your concerns will be alleviated. FFXII is one of the most foreward-thinking FF games released, and it's mostly in part due to its battle system which is as innovative as it is fun to play. There's a reason Famitsu gave it a perfect score, and most industry magazines/websites have given it high scores as well. I say from experience that it's among my 2 or 3 favorite FF titles (FFVI will always remain highest on my list, but that's another story...).
Re:It should come with some older ones too (Score:2, Informative)