FFXII

[moonwise]

OK, I'm late to the party, but I have FFXII.

Am much enjoying the small resemblances to Vagrant Story, especially Vaan's spellcasting move (though, come to think of it, Squall did the same thing) and the little sparkles surrounding the spellcaster. I have noticed one glaring deficiency, though: NO ASS PANTS. We need a male character with Arseley-brand ass pants.

I'm not very far along in the game yet - don't even have Gambits yet - but it seems from many of you other players out there that Gambits seem to allow you to walk away from the game if you set them right. That's not very exciting. It seems like a complete 180 from FFX-2, where if you were not Button Masher Supreme, the monster would eat you before you got your Super Duper Mega Pretty Pretty Princess Attack off. (Though I am ashamed to admit that I spent a good portion of yesterday working through the FFX-2 Chocobo dungeon.)

Husband asked whether it's hard to go from a game where you have many of the good powerups back down to a game where you're still a rookie, and whether it was more fun to be the rookie. Nah, it's fun to have the powerups.

Comments

[evilbra.livejournal.com]

I have just as much fun battling in FFXII as I did in FFX-2. You don't ever *have* to use gambits, and even with them it isn't always easy. I died a lot early on, especially.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Oh, no complaints about the battle system - so far I've only died once. I like that the game pauses to allow you to select your next action, which is - again - reminiscent of Vagrant Story, and also allows some thought about what you'd like to do. Again, with FFX-2, you had a lot of options, but you didn't always have a lot of time to think about what you might like to do with all those options. I found the Garment Grids frustrating, because you had to pass through nodes to get the good stuff like Flare, and I was usually too busy whomping on the monster (or having it whomp on me) to go through six outfit changes.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

Again, with FFX-2, you had a lot of options, but you didn't always have a lot of time to think about what you might like to do with all those options. I found the Garment Grids frustrating, because you had to pass through nodes to get the good stuff like Flare, and I was usually too busy whomping on the monster (or having it whomp on me) to go through six outfit changes.

I agree. Completely. It's why when I went from X-2 to X, I was happier than a pig in slop. X actually PAUSED to let you roll through the kabillion moves/spells/techniques you spent a billion years acquiring through the Sphere Grid. I wasted three whole game play throughs with X-2, completing the Dresspheres and ended up never using any of the stuff. I button mash every time I play it. I button mash when I play VIII or IX,too.

And I hated the Garment Grids. A total rip off. How in the freaking hell did they expect you to pass through seven different Dresspheres to acquire Flare or Ultima before you were obliterated by whatever you were fighting?! Fucking ridiculous, I say. The only GOOD thing about X-2 was the option to restart the game with all of the stuff you collected in the previous run-through. I was knocking the shit out of stuff with one hit in the first mission because I had items that boosted my Strength +50.

And the Lady Luck Dressphere is one of the four I actually used. Double EXP is what made me max out levels before the third chapter. How many of those Dresspheres did you actually USE, anyway? I only use Lady Luck, Alchemist (which is freaking fantastic for the Angra Mainyu battle in the desert), Berserker and Dark Knight (also invaluable in the AM fight).

[arafel.livejournal.com]

The Garment Grids were one of the worst FF ideas to come along in a while. A lot of people complained about Junctioning in FFXIII, but I rather liked it - it allowed a degree of customization that I haven't found in any of the other games.

Dress Spheres... let's see. I mixed it up a lot, but I tended not to use the Trainer or the Berserker spheres much. Once I got strong enough not to need black magic, the White and Black Mage spheres dropped off the map. And I hardly used the Special spheres at all.

[pantswarrior]

Okay, explanation about the gambits and walking away from the game, because I've had to explain this to three different people since my post about akatonbo levelling up her party while she was asleep, which caused people to misunderstand badly:

Gambits DO NOT let you walk away from the game, at least not if you want to go on doing anything. Gambits are just a series of IF-THEN statements which allow you to make your characters do stuff automatically. IF an enemy is within your range, THEN attack. IF a character gets poisoned, THEN throw an Antidote. IF a party member's HP falls below 30%, THEN cast Curaga. That sort of thing. And you have to buy all the IF parts - like "Ally: Status - Poison" or "Ally: HP < 30%" And although it means that if there's an enemy within range, your character will approach it to attack, it does not mean that it will seek out enemies to kill.

Further, there are a limited number of gambit slots, and you can only get 10 maximum for each character. Not everything you'd need to do on a regular basis can fit in the gambits. So most of the time, you decide "I want this character to be mostly a fighter" or "I want this character to be mostly a healer" and skew the gambits one way or another. You can wander around easy areas and never move your thumb except to use the directional joystick, much as in past RPGs you can wander around easy areas just pushing the same button over and over to "ATTACK". However, boss battles and normal battles in more difficult areas frequently require either changing your gambits around completely, or manually inputting a lot of commands to each individual party member to interrupt their basic set of gambits. (And quite frequently, pausing at the battle menu to go "OMGWTF!!! What just happened and how do I keep that from happening again?!")

So basically, if you walk away from the game, your party will stand there and do nothing, unless an enemy wanders across your path - or, if you have, for instance, an Auto-Haste gambit, someone will cast Haste when it wears off from the last time. In the case I posted about, it was a situation involving an extremely hard to find monster that constantly summons undead in a very small area, and a carefully created set of gambits that caused the party members to attack the summoned undead but not the monster summoning them, and to revive each other when they got Doom cast on them. As far as I know, that's the only place in the game you can walk away and come back to your party members still doing stuff more than a minute or so later. And that's only if they're high enough level and have enough gambits. ;)

I had someone on my friends list post about how they were never going to play the game after reading my post about this, because they like to play their games, not sleep through them! Me too, this is why I don't bother doing stuff like this on my save file. :P At any rate, anyone who can go through the game with only gambits, or even MOSTLY gambits, has almost certainly spent a lot of time becoming overlevelled for whatever area they're in.

[pantswarrior]

*looks at comment after posting* ...Er, I had no idea it was going to be that long. Sorry. o_o

[arafel.livejournal.com]

*timidly* Ass pants?

[pantswarrior]

The Viera sure seem to like them! I know many people who have commented on how much fun it is to watch Fran from behind as she runs through dungeons. (Oddly enough, this includes a gay guy.)

Nothing among the males, though one of Basch's outfits sure has a battle wedgie. More like Hardin's pants than Ashley's.

[lumen.livejournal.com]

Ooh!! I'm looking forward to this game. You're nowhere near as late as we are: FFXII hasn't even been published here yet! It's supposed to hit the stores sometime in February. O joy! :s

[arafel.livejournal.com]

If you liked VS, then I think you'll have fun with this one. :)

[lumen.livejournal.com]

Sounds promising. :D

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

Enjoy the game! :)

Now if only FFXII had had dear old Arseley instead of kiddie Vaan as main character, I would have worn the FFXII pants a long time ago, like I did with VS. Now, it just leaves me hanging. ;)

I don't know why, but I liked Arseley, even with his arrogance and convenient amnesia and assless pants. *^_^*

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I'd get so excited if our friend Arseley showed up, with his ass cheeks hanging out in full splendor. I will say that there are a few older members in your FFXII party besides kiddie Vaan, at least, and the battle system definitely has VS in its pedigree. It's a pity that there was never a VS sequel so that we could see more of Arseley in his super trench coat. :D

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

Yeah, why didn't he wear the trenchcoat earlier in the game? Oh yeah, that was meant for the sequel that never happened. Damn Square cutting the sequel (main game). :)

There were rumors of people spotting an Arseley like person lurking around in the background during the prince's first speech, but that was probably wishful thinking. Doesn't FFXII take place years after VS?

Anyway, VS was such an incredibly good game and had such excellent atmosphere, it'll be hard to beat. Fable had a little of the same feel to it, and Oblivion IV too, before the first person vertigo made me not play it anymore.

[ladyofthesea.livejournal.com]

Pas got FF12, advanced fairly far in it before Guitar Hero 2 came out. I doubt he even realizes he has 12. Add Twilight Princess and his recent trial with WoW, it makes me wonder if he'll ever get back to 12.

I have to say that I'm not really drawn into the story. I don't really care for the characters or what's going on in the world. Hell it doesn't even feel like Ivalice to me. If anything it looks like the designs were taken straight from a visual guide to Star Wars. The opening FMV screamed the victory parade on Naboo. My sister and I were looking for Gungans.

I loved the gameplay in X-2. I could have done without the whole girl power thing but it was still a fun game. I'm currently playing FF3 for the DS. Funny how I keep going backwards as opposed to jumping on the current ones. XD