11-21-2005, 11:11 PM
I expect soon there will be swarms of FF12 reviews begining to litter the net, if they havn't allready, stating 'IT SUXX0RS' and 'wHy ca11 it Fanal FaNtasy wen it hav differnt battel sysm?11!!'. Well, opinions are like assholes; everyone has one, so I shall share my thoughts based on the demo.
A propper RPG is made up of 1 part story, 2 parts battle system. A great battle system can make a mediocre story bearable, but often times a good story can do little to save a game with a poor battle system. The first release demo of FF12 has no story, so I cannot offer any details beyond 'metrosexual pirate-wannabe gets caught up in war'. What the demo does have is two simple missions that you can play through using either active or pausing combat.
Your objective, 1 kill things, 2 get key, 3 open door, 4 kill boss.
When you start your mission you are greeted with 3 characters. You control 1 and and computer controls the other 2. Switch on the fly between them, but you quickly learn it does not matter much. Best to stick with someone with a hand to hand weapon...because they are slightly less boring to watch.
The game combat is EXACTLY like FF11, for those who played it. Run arround a open map where you will find no random battles, but instead find free-roaming monsters that fade into view, pacing awkwardly back and forth as they ponder their meaningless existances.
Run up to one, press a button to pop up your command menu, select 'attack', sit back and drink some soda. The computer will take over, doing all the hacking and slashing for you. Just pop open a menu when you want to cast a spell or use an item.
You will quickly see this game's major flaw. Not the battle system but the lackluster heros. In FF11 you could select between a small range of races and classes, but everyone in this game plays like a human Red Mage. The biggest variety comes from selecting if you want a hand to hand fighter or a ranged fighter. Other than that everyone has a few type of magics (white, black, green) and no other skills that set them apart from one another.
If only this game had more colorful characters (ff7/9) each with unique abilites (ff6) and fighting styles, then it could be great. And again, this being a premature demo, may have some of that stuff in the final product.
The only thing the demo had going for it was the summons. For a minute you feel like you have some real power walking beside you. I loved how each step of the Espers made my subwoofer tremble. But once that minute is up, back to blandness.
Unless some major improvements are made, my recomendation would be to rent it and wait for it to hit the 20 dollar bin instead of rushing out to pre-order it.
One last thing I did forget to mention was the graphics, which are beautifully textured and detailed. I pump my ps2 through my high defenition TV card on my pc, and this is one of the few ps2 games that truely looks good in high def.
A propper RPG is made up of 1 part story, 2 parts battle system. A great battle system can make a mediocre story bearable, but often times a good story can do little to save a game with a poor battle system. The first release demo of FF12 has no story, so I cannot offer any details beyond 'metrosexual pirate-wannabe gets caught up in war'. What the demo does have is two simple missions that you can play through using either active or pausing combat.
Your objective, 1 kill things, 2 get key, 3 open door, 4 kill boss.
When you start your mission you are greeted with 3 characters. You control 1 and and computer controls the other 2. Switch on the fly between them, but you quickly learn it does not matter much. Best to stick with someone with a hand to hand weapon...because they are slightly less boring to watch.
The game combat is EXACTLY like FF11, for those who played it. Run arround a open map where you will find no random battles, but instead find free-roaming monsters that fade into view, pacing awkwardly back and forth as they ponder their meaningless existances.
Run up to one, press a button to pop up your command menu, select 'attack', sit back and drink some soda. The computer will take over, doing all the hacking and slashing for you. Just pop open a menu when you want to cast a spell or use an item.
You will quickly see this game's major flaw. Not the battle system but the lackluster heros. In FF11 you could select between a small range of races and classes, but everyone in this game plays like a human Red Mage. The biggest variety comes from selecting if you want a hand to hand fighter or a ranged fighter. Other than that everyone has a few type of magics (white, black, green) and no other skills that set them apart from one another.
If only this game had more colorful characters (ff7/9) each with unique abilites (ff6) and fighting styles, then it could be great. And again, this being a premature demo, may have some of that stuff in the final product.
The only thing the demo had going for it was the summons. For a minute you feel like you have some real power walking beside you. I loved how each step of the Espers made my subwoofer tremble. But once that minute is up, back to blandness.
Unless some major improvements are made, my recomendation would be to rent it and wait for it to hit the 20 dollar bin instead of rushing out to pre-order it.
One last thing I did forget to mention was the graphics, which are beautifully textured and detailed. I pump my ps2 through my high defenition TV card on my pc, and this is one of the few ps2 games that truely looks good in high def.
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