I'm totally through with Japanese RPGs. There, I said it. What was once my favorite game genre has been spoiled by a rush of PS2 sequels that tack on a 3, 4 or 5 but keep the same tired battle system, tired storyline and tired presentation of predecessors. Hey look! I just selected a fire spell from a menu that has options for attack, magic and items, and now that guy is casting a fire spell! And he's shouting out a cool catch phrase too! That's never been done before!
Surprisingly, the Japanese RPG with the largest number of them all is the one to do away with many conventions of the genre. From the moment you start play, to at least the six hour mark (that's where I had to stop playing in order to write up these impressions) Final Fantasy XII offers an RPG experience like never before.
The biggest changes FFXII brings to the RPG world, and the FF series itself for that matter, should already be familiar with gamers based in America (well, the ones who were smart enough to pick up Dragon Quest VIII and its FFXII demo, that is). Random battles and distant overhead views are a thing of the past with FFXII, as we've detailed in past previews. You're now thrown right into the action, with full camera control via the right analogue stick and without the awkward transitions to a virtual battle world separate from the main field of play.
The battle system, while a departure from the static menu-based fare of the past, is easy to figure out in the final build of FFXII. The game holds your hand as you start playing, explaining a few basic concepts through a short tutorial section, then letting you get used to the new system first by fighting alone, then by gradually building up a party. You can slow down or speed up the pace of battles (in our new videos, the speed is set to highest) and switch between active and passive modes. Passive mode pauses the action when you bring up your battle command menu.
Micromanaging each character in your party with individual commands probably wouldn't fit too well with FFXII's battle system, but thanks to the "Gambit" system, you won't have to. This powerful AI system lets you assign custom AI routines to each character in your party.
Each AI routine is referred to as a Gambit. A Gambit consists of an action and a target for that action. Actions can make a character use particular items, attacks, magic spells or skills. Targets can be set as enemies or party members and can even be specified with usage conditions. It's possible to set up a Gambit to make a character use a heal potion (the action) only on party members whose life has gone down by 70% (the target). You can also make a character attack (the action) the enemy that's currently engaged with the party leader (the target).
The power of the Gambit system grows along with your characters. As you learn new spells and skills, you gain new actions that can be selected for a Gambit. New target types can be acquired at a Gambit shop in town. You can even increase the number of Gambits held by a character. These can then be ordered, resulting in priority for certain actions. For instance, you can make a character first attack the enemy currently engaging the party leader, then attack the nearest enemy. Each Gambit can be toggled on and off individually from the main menu.
One cool feature of the Gambit system is that you can make even the party leader run under Gambit control. This leaves much of the dirty work of battle up to the AI, allowing you to view overall strategy and select specific actions every now and then.
The Gambit and battle systems offer a refreshing experience for the jaded Japanese RPG gamer, but FFXII goes much further in its attempts at twisting all the old formulas. Enemies don't leave behind gold anymore! You can find gold in treasure chests here and there, but the real way to get cash is to collect treasures, sometimes in treasure chests, sometimes being carried by enemies, and sell them at shops. This system has worked well over the first few hours of the game, and it has the benefit of actually making sense as opposed to having all these monsters running around with bags of gold
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guess this is ANOTHER reason to keep my PS2 heh
The only thing I disliked was constantly having to see those summons, no way to shorten it (I would have shortened the sequences even at the sacrifice of less boosting time...).
I dont know much about the characters, but it will be fun learning about them on my own.
