hazina
Knightly Guardian
Meow
Posts: 174
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Post by hazina on Oct 31, 2006 12:15:54 GMT -5
Is out today!!! Happy halloween! Except I pre ordered the special edition on amazon and I'm stuck waiting for it in the mail... /cries But hopefully it'll get here by the end of the week. I'm a little worried though as I was just on the official FF12 site and read how the game starts and.... It's begins just like FF9! O.O I didn't like 9 very much, but basically this little poor pirate wannabe boy sneaks into the castle to avenge his brother's death (not to steal), and instead runs into the princess who wants to run away... Hmmmm deja vue? But the exciting thing is the world seems to be very sprawling with different races, the moogles are a bunny/tarutaru mix who specialize in mechanics. There's the Viera who are tall bunny like humanoids, they live in a forest which they refer to as Her, and if one of their kind ever leaves the forest they are never allowed to return. They are also lizard men, noble creatures that live closely with humes, they are very strong but have no magical ability. They are also a pig like race, they are mostly selfish and obsessed with gold, gems and general treasure. Most of them are thieves, highway men and the like. Like a lot of FF's this one has of mix of fantasy and sci-fi, the avatars are called Espers and I don't believe I've seen any of the usual avatars, no Ifrit, Shiva, Leviathan ect... They look like a blend of the traditonal avatars and *gasp* Weapons, the summons just went techno ^^ They are no classes in this game. No warrior, no black mage ect. You have to earn 'licenses' that you take to trade in and learn new magicks and techicks, which will determine what abilities you'll earn and which kind weapon and armor you can equip. Of course on top of all that the battle system has been revamped, reminds me a bit of Star Ocean. Anyway I'm pretty excited, who else is going to play it?
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Post by Jemini Jem on Oct 31, 2006 13:13:22 GMT -5
Kenji is buying this game for me at the end of the week....or is suppose to be. I don't know if I want it now.
Let me just state, I didn't do research on this one! I just blindly said I wanted it because I liked most of the others.
The reason I'm not so sure about wanting it now is this, sounds like a real-time tactics. No joke, didn't like those, soooo I think i'll just ask him to buy me fear....or some random DS game instead.
Either way hope it fun for people who like that sort of thing, and Happy Halloween.
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hazina
Knightly Guardian
Meow
Posts: 174
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Post by hazina on Oct 31, 2006 14:54:03 GMT -5
Ooh Jemi don't lose hope! You don't have to use the new battle system, I should have stated that it's an option only, you can still use the turn based system if you prefer.
FF12 has some really good ratings and is said to be one of the best, not sure if that's warranted yet but I'll let you know ^^ I was listening to a podcast yesterday and one of the reviewers said the quests were really, really good.
I have a demo disc so I've played a tiny bit of it already and it's a lot of fun, the only big difference really is that there's no more 'instanced' battles, you don't just walk and bam get transported to the fighting place with the mob there. The mobs are right there and you can either avoid them or battle them. None of that 'encounters' stuff... In that sense it's like FF11.
Of course I'll know more when I actually get it.
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Post by taru on Oct 31, 2006 15:24:44 GMT -5
I'm picking it up today ;D
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Post by Jemini Jem on Oct 31, 2006 15:37:41 GMT -5
Ooh Jemi don't lose hope! You don't have to use the new battle system, I should have stated that it's an option only, you can still use the turn based system if you prefer. FF12 has some really good ratings and is said to be one of the best, not sure if that's warranted yet but I'll let you know ^^ I was listening to a podcast yesterday and one of the reviewers said the quests were really, really good. I have a demo disc so I've played a tiny bit of it already and it's a lot of fun, the only big difference really is that there's no more 'instanced' battles, you don't just walk and bam get transported to the fighting place with the mob there. The mobs are right there and you can either avoid them or battle them. None of that 'encounters' stuff... In that sense it's like FF11. Of course I'll know more when I actually get it. No BIG MISUNDERSTABDING I'm still going to try it, cause if I don't buy it/get it as a gift, Kenji will, so if anything I'll get a few hours of back seat play time. I just don't want to get it now right away before I have some more serious consideration. Because no joke all those races were pulled from tactics advance, and the odd "job"/skill system is kind of a revamped new take on the tactics system......
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Post by taru on Oct 31, 2006 17:19:38 GMT -5
same world name too. Ivalace. I just got home w/ it. Bout to try it *drools*
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Post by Chadness on Nov 1, 2006 7:24:25 GMT -5
Except I pre ordered the special edition on amazon and I'm stuck waiting for it in the mail... /cries But hopefully it'll get here by the end of the week. I'm a little worried though as I was just on the official FF12 site and read how the game starts and.... It's begins just like FF9! O.O I didn't like 9 very much, but basically this little poor pirate wannabe boy sneaks into the castle to avenge his brother's death (not to steal), and instead runs into the princess who wants to run away... Hmmmm deja vue? Negative. Probably a misunderstanding on story points. Here's how it starts, as I'm roughly 10 hours into the game now. SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Archadia has invaded Dalmasca after a rather long and bloody struggle that was supposed to end in relative peace, but Captain Basch(sp?) had branded Dalmasca's king a traitor for wanting peace with their enemy and apparently murdered him in cold blood, right before the eyes of Vaan's brother (Vaan is one of our main characters). Princess Ashe, who's husband was also there on that final, fateful night and was killed, ended up taking her own life because she was so distraught over his death and the following occupation. Two years later we meet Vaan, who's a somewhat of a self-proclaimed "thief". We're introduced to his life and his friends and this Bangaa who keeps an eye out on him and some other orphans. When he hears about a ceremony that's happening around town and a feast that his Bangaa friend is throwing in the castle, he decides to sneak in to steal as much as he can, since this may be a good opportunity and he has an inside "contact". (Yes, he sneaks in to steal something, that's a plot point that is openly said before the fact.) There he runs into two other main characters (Balthier and Fran) and joins up with them to escape the castle without being caught once the Archadian guards get onto them. While in the waterways below the city running for their lives, they meet up and save Ashe, who is actually very alive and (from what I can deduce now) is part of an underground resistance movement against Archadian occupation. She joins the party briefly to fight a boss battle and some random trash mobs. Once the whole party is captured, she is taken away seperately and the other three are thrown in prison. Then the next couple hours of dungeon crawling are spent escaping and returning to Rambastre (the capital city of Dalmasca). This is where I am right now and its about 9 hours into the game. Starts off very different than FFIX and under way different circumstances and intentions. In FFIX, as far as I recall, there was no intention to do anything in the castle besides put on a performance on their theater ship at the beginning and Zidane was thrust into it when the princess asked him to get her out of the castle. In FFXII the princess is on her own and it stays that way, she only joins the party because of a common threat at the time and the whole intent of Vaan was to break into the castle and steal something, because he's part of the "lower class" of the city and doesn't have much money. As for the new battle system, it reminds me a lot of Star Ocean, but at its basic, isn't much different when you have it set on "Wait" mode. The enemies are on the world map, and if you're familiar with aggro, linking and hate management from FFXI, you'll have an idea of how things work here. Its very difficult to altogether avoid many of the mobs because of this, and they will follow you for quite a while (unlike Star Ocean). You do openly control your characters in an action-esque way during battle, but when you command them to attack they do automatically move around and attack the mob without your intervention, unlike the Star Ocean battle system. The "Licence Board" is just a "Sphere Grid" on sterroids and the new "Gambit" system takes a bit to get used to, but helps a lot due to the nature of the battles in this game and the multiple things you have to manage at once. So far I'm really enjoying it and everything I've heard about how good it is is true. Its also, from what I can tell right now, a lot more challenging than previous games...the boss fights so far have been very difficult, actually. So, good game so far.
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Post by Goero on Nov 1, 2006 9:05:29 GMT -5
Nay! you knave! in FFIX the whole plan WAS to kidnap Garnet, however she wanted to be kidnapped to find out what was wrong with her mother dearest. The performers were hired by Garnets Uncle to kidnap her and bring her to his kingdom for her own safety until they figured out what was wrong with her mother.
Anyways.. i was in a rage last night. My mother preordered XII for me and had set it up to be delivered to me! however.. Best Buy uses the CRAPPIEST delivery system.. starts with UPS.. gets to a regional office.. where it is handed over to the Postal service.. and we all know how the Postal Service works!. essentially.. i was lookin at the order and where it was located.. on the 30th my box containing my game made its way to Paulsboro, NJ. which is about 2 and a half hours away. interestingly enough.. it didn't move at all yesterday.. just sat there.. 2 and a half hours away.... /em twitchs
If i do not get it today im calling Best Buy AND the Postal Service.. this is rediculous! STOP FREAKING TEASIN ME!
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Post by Chadness on Nov 1, 2006 9:42:33 GMT -5
Oh, that's right. >_< Its been so long I forgot about that. Well, still, my point stands, its nothing like the plot of the first few hours of FFXII. There might be some vague similarities in plot points about a thief boy going into a castle and somehow, through some means, meeting a princess, but that's about it.
FFXII is also not a love story in the traditional sense, its more about political intreague, allies and enemies, rebellion, death and how to deal with it and the themes surrounding those topics. More mature themes, IMO.
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hazina
Knightly Guardian
Meow
Posts: 174
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Post by hazina on Nov 1, 2006 12:54:20 GMT -5
Negative. Probably a misunderstanding on story points. Here's how it starts, as I'm roughly 10 hours into the game now. It's hard to misunderstand something I haven't seen ;D I pulled that info from the description on FF12.com I also haven't read your post as I don't want to know what actually happens, but this is from the offical site: "As war looms on the horizon, the mighty Archadian Empire begins a campaing to subjugate it's neighbors. The small kingdom of Dalmasca shares their fate, and it is here that our tale begins. Two years after the fall of Dalmasca, the citizens are whithout guidance and direction. In the capital city of Rabanastre, the people gather and await the appointment of the new consul from Archadia. To Vaan a young man living on the streets of Rabanastre, the Empire is a hated enemy who took the life of his brother, the only family he had left. In an effort to exact revenge, Vaan hatches a plot to break into the palace and steal from the occupying Emperials. In the events that follow, Vaan gets more than he bargained for when he runs into Princess Ashe, sole surviving heir to the Dalmascan throne. Together, the two will embark on an incredible journey through Ivalice, tracing the mysteries behind the Archadian Empire's invasion. The choices they make will dtermine the very fate of the world." Okay so he did go in there to steal.. More mature themes that's great to hear. As for the rest being from Advance that's a bit disapointing in the sense that they could have made something completely new, but I guess they're keeping that for FF13 and it's new Crystal series >.> On the other hand I don't play portables so to me it's all new ^^
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Post by taru on Nov 1, 2006 13:14:26 GMT -5
Im about an hour into the game and I havent run into any princess yet >.> but I am about to go into the castle <.< so meh haha
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Post by Chadness on Nov 1, 2006 15:57:15 GMT -5
You sort of "meet" the princess in your escape from the castle, but you technically don't meet her until a bit later. You'll understand what I mean when it happens. The boss battles in this game are rather difficult, I just had two near-death boss battle experiences. I survived them both, but had to use a ton of potions.
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Post by taru on Nov 1, 2006 17:18:53 GMT -5
why is Vaan a stupid thf -_-
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hazina
Knightly Guardian
Meow
Posts: 174
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Post by hazina on Nov 1, 2006 19:42:00 GMT -5
I found a cute picture of a moogle I can't wait!!!!! I need this game now! I think I might get my butt to wal mart and see if there's any copies left and then cancel my order with amazon.ca as they even haven't shipped it yet!!! Grrr..
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Post by Goero on Nov 1, 2006 19:56:14 GMT -5
I AM BOMBING THE BUILDINGS FOR UPS AND THE US POSTAL SERVICES!! RIGHT FREAKING NOW!
THERE IS NO REASON FOR THIS TO CONTINUE!!!
-.-
those jerks are playing with me.. PLAYING WITH ME!
ok.. so Paulsboro, NJ is about 2.5 hours SOUTH of Hackettstown...
Jersey City is an hour and 8 minutes to the EAST of New Jersey..
Take a wild stab where my game is now -.-
IT DOES NOT TAKE 4 FREAKING DAYS TO DELIVER A GAME THAT I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR FOR 10 FREAKING MONTHS!
-.-
Best buy is getting a nasty gram soon >.> and maybe a letter bomb too >.>
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Post by taru on Nov 1, 2006 21:20:45 GMT -5
Moogle ; ;
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Post by Chadness on Nov 2, 2006 0:29:25 GMT -5
In addition to what I said earlier, this game is REALLY hard. I mean seriously. Until you get your full party together where you can switch out party members and get some AOE cures going, its is insanely difficult. The main reason I think is because all the mobs that you're fighting at any given time have the same "hate" list. You can't put one or two of your party on one target and have the 3rd distract another target or two, because they will all be attacking the same person who is on the top of their threat meter. You can see it switch too. If you have a gambit set to cure and it goes off near the start of the fight, the mobs will all switch aggro from your controlling character (which usually enters battle first and gets aggro first) to the healer almost immediately. This makes it very difficult to get of heals and even potions before they are killed. And, if you do manage to get it off, you'll have to do it repeatedly to get them back up to full health. Secondly, your MP pool sucks for the amount of healing you have to do early on. If you have one person designated as your "main" healer (mine was Fran in the early hours of them game, but is now a Penelo/Fran combo), they'll have a cure gambit set up above every thing else and all they do is cure and if its a rather involved fight with 2 or more mobs, they will be completely out of MP by the end of the fight. And it takes forever to regen MP by running around (about 1 MP every 5 seconds). So, when you engage the next pack of mobs, you have no healing unless you do it manually on one of your other party members who doesn't have a cure gambit set above attacking. THAT BEING SAID...around the time you get your WHOLE party together you should be getting the level 3 and 4 white magic spells, which include Cura and Raise. Cura is an AOE heal that heals your entire party for about three times the amount as Cure does on a single target, however it costs three times the mana and your mana pool can still only support two, maybe three of those casts per fight. It is seeming to get easier at this point to manage the party and keep their health up (this is about 10-12 hours into the game when you're searching for the Dusk Shard), but the mobs come in packs of 4-6 also, and its hard to keep everything at bay, especially when you have healers throwing down huge heals pulling aggro. I know I can manage the gambits better, and I think that's the key to making the fights a little less tedious, so I continue to work on that. I think my main party is starting to look like Ashe, Bashe and Penelo or either switch out Bashe for Fran (casting black magic) or maybe Vaan. I like Balthier as a character, but I don't like him in battle too much. I love the way Ashe looks with a katana like she had in the demo a few months back, so I'm hoping I can find something along those lines.
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hazina
Knightly Guardian
Meow
Posts: 174
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Post by hazina on Nov 2, 2006 11:42:16 GMT -5
Muah ha ha! I got the game I played it for 23 minutes only ; ; I'm at the part where you go out to kill your first 'beastie'. So far I really love this game, I haven't experienced real combat yet so I don't know how hard it is, but the story has me in it's grip, I love the political intrigue which is only going to get more mystical as the story goes on I'm guessing ^^
I'm really hoping they don't do a love story too as usual, though Vaan bears a striking resemblance to Ashe's hubby buuuut I'm hoping that's just similar character design >.>
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Post by Chadness on Nov 2, 2006 12:00:24 GMT -5
I think the "love story" that we'll see is going to be more of the connection she still has with her husband, even after his death...and what that union meant for her and her country. I don't think there will be anything going on between Vaan and Ashe.
I do like the spunky princess though, a lot different from Yuna and Garnet in the past couple games. Kind of reminds me of Rinoa's attitude in FFVIII.
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Post by taru on Nov 2, 2006 14:43:15 GMT -5
Always a love story <.<; I just wanna see more stuff blow up
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