I played the demo; it was pretty mediocre. The cutscenes and such make it look like fun, but the battles were totally whack.

First off, I don't like the idea of not having control over my characters; surely it makes the battles more realtime than they have been, but I found it hard to manage them separately during battle.

The two dungeons available were boring as hell; especially the indoor one. It was such a repetitive environment, once again plagued by monsters. Since the monsters were not fun to fight thanks to the overall mediocre battle system, in some strange way seeing them was more irritating than having to fight them randomly.

And goddamn, why haven't they changed the magic list yet? If I have to endure Fire/Fira/Firaga again I'm going to pull my hair out.

In Penelo's Profile you should change "best friend" to girlfriend" since that's what is stated on th Official Japanese site. Also nice Avator and Sig.

Here is some info on FFXII's Limit Break System (Mist Knacks/Skill) that has come up from FF12.org:
http://finalfantasy12.org/log/000311.php

Translations and Info from GameFAQs.

Some names/translations:

The Limit Breaks can be combed with each other.

Well I wasn't 100% sure. I thought they were together but then alot of the articles and character biographies only had them as best friends rather than a couple.

That's some nice info about the 'Mist Skill' but you might want to spoil code some of it including how many there are in total and their names just to be on the safe side. :)

Done.

^^ Cheers. It's just some are on a total blackout on the game and even little bits of gameplay information might be too spoilerish for them

There's some favorable impressions on the game from 2ch boards that were posted and translated at GameFaqs. Apparently the player has clocked in something like 20 hours so far and reports the following...
*The information deals only with gameplay and nothing is mentioned about the plot but I figured I'd spoil code it anyways.


Credit to khalahaley for the translation and Supremeknight for posting them.

Some of the information above mentions the Save Points and the fact that you can skip FMV sequences.

I guess Dengeki's review is out and while none of the reviewers gave it a perfect 100 griping about "No auto run feature even though areas are huge" and "can't change the camera controls", their overall impression is good. The game still has that FF touch and a strong sense of adventure.

Having played FFXI extensively, I was immediately reminded of it when I first checked out the demo that came with DQVIII (actually I played the FFXII demo before even touching DQVIII, go figure, that's the power of Final Fantasy name for you). It would seem that FFXII is indeed, to a degree, trying to create the idea of the vast world of an mmorpg in a single player game. Combat was similar to using the menu system in FFXI combat, something I didn't often do (since you could use keyboard macros), but nevertheless, reasonably functional.

All in all, I'm glad to see the attempt at change since Square really needed to try to shake things up, I'd gotten to the point where I was wondering how good another FF game could be if it just blatantly copied the same formula again. So change is good, sure, they aren't going as far as say, Xenosaga II with it's complex break system in combat, but hey, it's a change, and the real time nature of the combat will undoutedly provide a different experience as the game goes on (though I'm still wondering a little about how "long boss fights" will work).

The story is another thing that I'm a little unsure of at this point, it certainly looks involved, and perhaps more "grown up" than some of the past FF games which could once again work to it's advantage in terms of change. After games like the Xenosaga series, Square definitely had their work cut out for them in the story category, the teen drama mixed with swords, magic, futuristic technology and summons wasn't going to work this time (well it would have, but it would have made the game seem a little lackluster compared to some recent titles imo).

The characters, appearence wise are the one thing that really haven't changed much at all in comparison to previous FFs imo, although it was nice to see they do have a few "races" established (another key "mmorpg type" element) which is nice to see, one being a little similar to Freyas race from FFIX it would seem. As far as their storylines I haven't read enough to really, really say a whole lot, based on the intro to the demo it sounds like we'll have some interesting backgrounds though, FF characters rarely disappoint in any case.

In the end I'm just as excited as everyone else to try this game but I definitely don't see it as the end all be all of PS2 RPGs. It shows that Square has hopefully realized that it is not invincible and that they, like other companies need to keep coming up with innovative systems, stories and characters to keep people interested, lest the Final Fantasy series be topped by games like Dragon Quest VIII (of course, since Enix is now part of Square, this is sort of strange sounding), and the upcoming Xeno III.

It looks like the new Famitsu out now reviewed FFXII and their score...:drumroll:
10/10/10/10 - 40/40
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/7109/famitsu8se.jpg

:rock:

Dengeki is also believed to of reviewed FFXII and scored it around 95/100.

Holy crap. That's all I have to say. Holy freakin' crap.

FFXII+Vagrant Story= Matsuno FTW! :rock:

So that means FFXII joins other perfect score titles such as LOZ: OoT, Soul Calibur, Vagrant Story & LOZ: Wind Waker. It'll be interesting to read their writeup and get Dengeki's final score.

Thank God. I honestly would've been very disappointed if this game got anything less than a perfect 10 after such a long development time. I really hope Square USA makes an official announcement soon.

They probably won't announce anything until E3 especially with the release of Kingdom Hearts 2 and Advent Children within 2 months.

Fingers crossed we get it on or before August 1st.

Guys, what the fuck are you guys cheering about? Square-Enix is made of nothing but moneybags, which is exactly what they shipped to Famistu in exchange for that BS score. [/hater]

Damn, a perfect 10 from Fammy and 95/100 from Dengeki? GAF must be shitting Potion turds right about now. Anyway, this is just going to make staying away from spoilers that much harder now that this is out there.

Heh. Of course Famitsu's scores are garbage but it's hard not to smile at the thought of it getting a perfect score and joining the few Famitsu has awarded perfect scores in the past.

Yeah, GAF dropped potion turds and then some. :p

Still, maybe a few moneybags were passed around since this was wholly unexpected. I was thinking maybe a 32 or 35, not an perfect score. Damn, I can see myself now, running around several maps in the most profitable loop, tearing enemies open and picking up trade items to get ridiculous sums of gil.

I don't think the moneybags flow that often to Famitsu anymore especially after their Dirge of Cerberus score.

I never expected a perfect score either to be honest. I figured 39 tops on par with DQVIII & KH2 but not 40/40. The wait is going to be unbearable...:(

Well, apparently SE was a bitch and sent the review copy of Dirge quite a while after it went to retail and the hilariously shitty 7 x 4 score they gave the game must've been their revenge.

Still there's questions that I'd like to get answered, like how long does it take for enemies to respawn, or do you just leave the area and come back and how exactly do you move across the map.

Is there an artbook of any kind available for this? From what I've managed to scrape up, there seems like a ton of material for one.

Don't forget Nintendogs!Maybe?

Well, I said maybe because IIRC, they also gave Vagrant Story 40/40 and Matsuno and Sakimoto were behind that one too, no?

BTW, in bad news, apparently Matsuno no longer works at Square-Enix thanks to his sickness that knocked him out of production for a good bit and pissed off his bosses in the process. Man, this could be the last Matsuno FF.

40/40 is a bit overexaggerating... even if it is the most anticipated game of 2006, it still must have at least one or two problems that prevent it from getting a perfect score... but oh well... if they can give Samurai Warriors 2 a 36 or something, there's no reason not to give it a 40 to FFXII.

That's a shame but understandable. Ultimately FFXII may of been too ambitious and while it looks like the new direction and change has paid off, Matsuno has suffered a great deal as a result. At least his legacy at SE will live on and his final title seems to be leaving a lasting impression. :)

Not sure about the "respawning" question but the Dengeki review mentions that if use "Escape" or run away from battles the monsters will still be there. In terms of the map...World Map you mean? It's pretty much like FFXI or DQVIII. When it comes to using an airship it'll be like FFX, IE an overview of the world map and then point and clicking to the destination you wish to go to.

Artbook wise...I know there was the "World Preview" book just released that's around 112 pages and details the gameplay and battle system, characters and more. I'm not sure if there's any artwork in it but I'd like to know myself. Play-Asia has it in stock for only $9.90:
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-...n-70-17tj.html

I've got some artwork and various scans including some of the promotional booklet that was handed at last July's SE Party. No doubt posted in the last FFXII thread but I can post them again if necessary.

No game worthy of a 40/40 has characters looking like the ones in FFXII.

The scores are in for Dengeki PS2 - 90・95・90・90
http://finalfantasy12.org/log/000317.php

It's not actually a review but rather their first impressions since it seems only 1 of the 4 "reviewers" actually managed to complete the game and did so in around 100 hours while another reviewer was over 51 hours into the game and still nowhere near finishing.

Woohoo. Usually I don't care about game reviews, but I'll be shameless for this one.

:heavens part:

FFXII looks like a legit 40/40 game to me.
Sure, Square's close relationship with Famitsu might have played a small part, but FFXII just seems like such a high quality, perfect game that it deserves such a perfect score.
This could very possibly be the best FF since FFVII. (I loved FFVIII and IX myself, but from the looks of things I could easily end up loving FFXII even more)

Here's a translation of the cross review for FFXII from Famitsu:
Translation courtesy of palf91 at GameFaqs.

I'm going to see if I can pick up one of those "Potion" drinks tomorrow since there's a store in downtown Ann Arbor that deals in anime, manga etc as well as Japanese confectionary and drinks.