Final Fantasy Twelve

[Boog]

I am a hopeless RPG addict. I will play through the crappiest of gameplay if I get to see pretty cut scenes and an engaging story for my trouble. This is why I go to you, oh clockwork mansion forums, to get a second opinion on a game before I advise it to a friend of mine. Final Fantasy 12's combat system; does it or does it not suck?

[Sirius Griffon]

That depends on your definition. If you are looking for a typical finalfantasy battle please look elsewhere! Summons come much later in the game, and are a lot harder to get as well. You must have a license to wear certain equipment, even if you own it. Same goes for abilities. Also most abilities, once you have the license, must be bought. Its meaningful but tedious to say the least.

It takes some hands on time to understand the battles, I was into the game a solid hour before I remontely knew what I was doing! But once you do, it can be rewarding. It is just far, FAR more work than one wishes for sometimes.

My best advice would be to rent or borrow it first, and decide from tehre. Its new, its different, and its certainly not for everyone but rewarding when you learn it.

Does this help?

[Reese Tora]

In my opinion, it is full of not-suck.

It's very similar to various MMORPG style interfaces (played FFXI? I hear it's a lot like that)  so long as you make an effort to keep track of your enemies, you don't ahve to do too much work, especially once you have access to the gambit system

if anything, it can be a bity too easy at times, but that may just be me having made myself over-powered for my level by raising extra cash to buy everything as soon as it's available.
(ie: spent lots of AP for learning skills that the equipment isn't even available for yet where I am in game, because I've got nothing better left to spend it on... because I spend a lot of time raising money for stuff I didn't need to buy and therefore have a lot more AP than I should have at my XP level due to taking down the easy to defeat low-level critters.  Also from abuse of the accessory that doubles the AP earned. )

[Sirius Griffon]

Mmmm... that reminds me! You can earn a ton of AP from Clan hunts as welll early in the game, and be working towards a goal in the process.

I have to ask, a double AP accessory? Which one was that? *tilts head*

[Reese Tora]

um... golden necklase thingy... golden armlet? I think it's available when you reach the Viera village, but I'm not entierly sure... it might be from that holy mountain place.

Anyway, it's license is third or fourth from the bottom, second row from the left on the license board, so it's easy tog et it for everyone... I spent so much time comboing courels for their pelts to sell (maxed inventory with pelts between 50 and 70 combo, even without using steal ) that I've almost got every license on the board learned by someone... except for a few of the weapons that have individual licenses that cost 200+ AP.  And I've only got the first sommon, to give you an idea how far I've got.

[Blazehawk]

Well, it's the only FF game that really interested me in MANY years that wasn't a remake or Tactics.    Just my 2 cents.

[Valynth]

Alright, I got the game for my birthday, so naturally I've played it for a good while, now let me talk:

1)  The battle system is now much more stream lined than the overly cluttered and complex battle systems of certain previous games.

2)  To avoid battle all you have to do is walk around/run away from the enemy....  THANK GOD, no more having to wait for that last pesky member of your group to finally dash away or random monsters appearing out of no where.

3)  The monster drops actually make sense!  now you can't simply smack a monster and get money, you have to sell it's loot too.

4)  No more lovey-romantic storyline, pure hardcore politics baby!

5)  Some of the cut-scenes are movie quality, seriously, if for nothing else, get it for the cut-scenes that aren't too long and are friggin gorgeous.

6)  To quote X-Play's Adam Sessler:  "I haven't had such dirty thoughts about bunnies since Bugs Bunny dressed in drag."

7)  Less cyber-punkish and more magik-punkish, finnally, it's coming full circle.

  The mist techs might make it a bit too easy to power level early on(if one is patient.)

9)  WHY THE HECK CAN'T YOU FLY THE DARNED AIR-SHIP!?

[Sirius Griffon]

6)  To quote X-Play's Adam Sessler:  "I haven't had such dirty thoughts about bunnies since Bugs Bunny dressed in drag."

*Falls over laughing* Thats just great.

Now, granted, you will wish Vaan either had a mute button or uhm, randomly grows some intelligence. There will be a few points where you feel you missed something, a skip in story.

Balthier and Fran more than make up for those pitfalls though. Balthier is definitly, ehem, well, I better stop before I get started!

[Boog]

Well, the main character of a FF game being a tad slow on the uptake is par for course, you must admit.

[Fresnor]

One thing I found interesting, once you learned how to do certain things in game, you don't have to touch your control during most battles if you don't want to.  Though that could get a bit boring...

[Sirius Griffon]

Ah, this is sadly true. Vaan just seems a bit more slow than otehrs I guess. I dont know, hit me over the head with a brick but... I kinda liked Zidaine.

Cloud was clueless when it came to himself.

Squall was clueless with people.

Tidus was all around clueless but especially his past.

I could go back a bit furtehr but a lot of folks havent even played those games yet. x-x; But er yes, Zidaine actually seemed to have hits wits about him usually.

[Toric]

I still feel that Vaan's bro from the tutorial should've been the main character.

I personally liked the combat system. Once you get a good system of gambits set up, you can let the AI manage the general fighting while you flit around the characters making minor tweaks to the strategy. Balthier is awesome, he's so Bond-ish it's funny. My only real gripe is the Zodiac Spear. To get this baby you have to resist the RPG-Maniac urge to open every chest in the game, and I never had any inkling that there were chests you weren't allowed to open let alone which specific chests you should not open until my suitemate pointed me to the appropriate FAQ.

But with regards to the combat system, yeah, it's good, since there's so many ways you can customize your party members and set up their combat routines.

[Eibborn]

Eh. I'm still uncertain about it (the battle system). It is something of a departure, which might not be a good thing. I feel, hm, unnecessary when I could probably do just as well by taping a joystick down at a slight angle and walking off. The game plays itself as well as I can.

Also, I find the characters remarkably unengaging, probably because no one is really trying to define themselves in this game, so much as adjust to their situations. I'm a sucker for characters who don't really know who they are. Vivi from Final Fantasy IX is an excellent example of that.

Then again, I am no where near finished the game, so perhaps something occurs later on that I don't know about.

[Destina Faroda]

Welll, I finally got a chance to play this game yesterday and I think the battle system isn't bad, but it would be better if there were a better in-game tutorial about fighting rather than the introduction (much like FFT's introduction confused the heck out of me and turned me off the game completely).  I've been playing for a few hours, although I've purposefully gone on a few hunts rather than progress in the main stroyline.  That Flowering Cactoid nearly killed me, though.

I like the lack auto-attack function to keep attacking physically.  I hate the fact that you can't set this up with other skill.  I also don't like the fact that It's really hard to run away and avoid some enemies.  Those wolves are ferocious!  I don't understand blocking either.  Is it based on stats, timing, or level?

I also don't understand why on some areas, the groups of enemies respawn as soon as you leave the area (the first part of the Estersand) while in other areas, the enemies don't come back once you've killed a lot of them even if you leave the area (the part of the Estersand near that village).

[Toric]

Blocking seems to be based on stats, as is how often your character inflicts multiple hits at once (the latter is also dependent on the weapon, katanas will get 3-5 hit combos much more frequently than, say, axes). The timing of your commands has nothing to do with it.

My suitemate, roommate, and I have found that the monsters in an area reset when you go two areas away from it. You move to one new area, the monsters in the previous area have not reset. You move from this new area into another, and the old one that had not reset previously has reset. I won't be surprised at all if this explanation is overly confusing, so please say so if it is.

[Brunhidden]

in addition if you DONT kill all the enemies you can just wander around the same area and enemies will respawn. theyll be slow at it, but they will respawn even if only other species are left.

I LIKE CHOP-CHOP!

[Nimrods Son]

In my opinion, it is full of not-suck.

It's very similar to various MMORPG style interfaces (played FFXI? I hear it's a lot like that)  so long as you make an effort to keep track of your enemies, you don't ahve to do too much work, especially once you have access to the gambit system

if anything, it can be a bity too easy at times, but that may just be me having made myself over-powered for my level by raising extra cash to buy everything as soon as it's available.
(ie: spent lots of AP for learning skills that the equipment isn't even available for yet where I am in game, because I've got nothing better left to spend it on... because I spend a lot of time raising money for stuff I didn't need to buy and therefore have a lot more AP than I should have at my XP level due to taking down the easy to defeat low-level critters.  Also from abuse of the accessory that doubles the AP earned. )

sounds like a waste of lifetime for me.... it's one the things I really dislike about moder-time videogaming. even Castlevania is full of repetetive levelling and collecting precedures which you can't avoid if you want to have fair game on the enemies and bosses.
For the combat system, I would suggest FF 8.

[ITOS]

I don't know about the battle but I really liked the story and characters.
*points at Ondore in sig*
Well, maybe not Vaan and Penelo. I always got the feeling that Penelo could have been cut out altogether and that Vaan was just there for younger people to associate with...

[Ryudo Lee]

It took me a little while to get the hang of the new battle system, but it really comes alive later on after you've gotten enough licenses.  You can completely customize each and every character in whatever way you want, and as you get more gambits, you can just automate battles completely.  Now when you're higher levels, battles become less and less of a chore.

[Reese Tora]

sounds like a waste of lifetime for me.... it's one the things I really dislike about moder-time videogaming. even Castlevania is full of repetetive levelling and collecting precedures which you can't avoid if you want to have fair game on the enemies and bosses.
For the combat system, I would suggest FF 8.

I wouldn't exactly call it repetative; you could play through the game by only visiting areas as nessesary (making sure to clear them out entierly when you visit them, of course) and do well enough.  Coming from a background of playing various NES and SNES RPG games, it /can/ be too easy to advance.  The fault is in me, not the game.

(As for FF8, don't get me started.  Though it's not as though the combat system varied widly from the system used from FF4 through FF9.)