This isn't my first time playing FF12, I played the import, it didnt grab me at first, but maybe it would have picked up after a while. It didn't. And since I also played the demo I didn't need to keepplaying to know how battles would go with party members.

I gave the English version a second shot, maybe knowing what the hell is going on along with knowing the tutorials may make things more fun, instead I found even more cumbersom systems.

I'm about 15 hours in so far and man this game is awesome, finally got my first summon which is badass as well. Quickenings are like limit breaks in a way and you can link combo them with other character's quickenings. So yeah the game is really cool so far, great story, characters, music, and battle system in my opinion.

lol. I think FFXII torrents were yanked. Just ordered SwapMagic and wanted to test it out on FFXII, since it'd be easy to find. Well... It's not on many torrent sites anymore.

ISOHUNT AWAY~

Gechmir, I have the torrent file (and the seed thing I'm getting it from is still pretty healthy) from the one Shen-lon posted.

so far I have around 10 hours. Its all mostly traveling around and killing monsters and since the enviroments are huge it take a while to get through it.
I'm loving the game I'm not a big fan of the battle system to tell you the truth. It feels like none of the characters have any real individuality becuase of the leveling and learning system. And the fact that you can leave them to fight by themselves most of the time feels like your not really needed.
When I first saw the battle system I thought it was going to dissapoint since I like the old school "break in" battles and then since the game was getting so much hype I thought the battle system wasn't going to be so bad after all. Then I found that I was right the first time ~_~
Its fun at first and very fast paced but it gets to the point where you can just leave your party member to do all the work for you. And the magic doesn't have that bang that the previous games had, the first spells atleast, not sure about the higher ones.

I'm still enjoying the game though, theres alot to keep you busy and the first town is bigger than any other final fantasy's so theres alot of exploration to go around. I still miss Nobuos'smusic :/

That's what the board is for, so you can make each character different. Just cause you have the option to make any character what you want does mean they are all the same, that is only if you do it that way. You given the choice to make each and any character very unique but in your way.

yeah I know that what I'm trying to do so that all of them feel different in a way but the fact is that there are no real unique skills for a character in that board. Atleast the sphere grid in FFX had an area for each character so that you could learn skills that actually belonged to them and later on learn some of the other characters skills but FFXII doesn't have that.

Oh you can, there is something called Quickenings which are like Limit Breaks. Characters can't share them so once Vaan learns Quickening 1 then only he can use that certain one. Plus you can't share the same Summons either they are assigned to 1 character only. So say you have Vaan learn Ifrift summon then no one else can learnt hat summon.

I understand what Shenlon is saying and I agree with it. I've already beaten the game, there isn't really anything different about the characters in the battle system. Mist Breaks or quickenings or whatever they're called, they're cut scene attacks. And about summons, it still doesn't make any character different really. Once you summon your other characters go away anyways and it's the summon and you fighting the monster. I wish there were seperate skills on the board that no one else could learn except that character.

Right,i kinda miss the personal weapons system. Now everyone can equip whatever...it's so...i don't know,it's like saying it doesn't matter which character you use.

About the battlesystem,i love it ,now you have to spend less time in battles. Boem Bam and you level up, BUT i hope in the next ff's there will be a turn based system (not the classic one,it can be "different") because i miss to control all my characters 100% and the magic executions aren't that good in real time.

About the characters....Well they are too damn pretty. For once i like to see manly characters (normal?) and not the "i am the nr one sky pirate but i cut my hair everyweek,do my nails and i am on a diet" type. About the main character "Vaan", well why an orphan again? Come on,!! (don't spoil cuz i'm not THAT far..he could be the future "darth Judge" where he joins the empire XD).

Besides that,it's an incredible game and i'm really enjoying the star wars scene...LOVE IT!

Now back to hunting:p

I'm the first option on the list. I've had the game on pre-order for a few months and I plan to keep it that way -- but goddamnit i wanted to play it NOW. So I will :)

hehe i'm n°3 right now :( and european so game is not gonna be out soon...

still i'm 10hours in the game, i love the battle system, i was really getting tired of the turn based battle, especially the loading times between explore and battle, (you loosed about 5h i guess if you played 100h on older FFs just loading battles)

but i'm having problems with the license board, i have about 400~ LP on each character and no money so i can't really enhance my characters... so hard to get Gils in this game :/

heh, I'm non of those. Sure, it may be on the 31st. But I can see these animes to pass the time.

What I do is steal from every monster I come across. Remember, the only major way you get money is by selling loot.

Plus, why not spend some of those LP on augment squares (HP+50/more potent magic/+1 gambit slot/-10% magic cost/etc...)?

thanks jazzflight, thats what i was thinking of but are you using a gambit for stealing or do you steal manually ?

i havent found the ultimate gambit for stealing yet

i use a gambit "target leader foe > Attack ; foe(any) > steal"

if i put steal before attack, the character will keep stealing on and on, and if put if after attack, he will only steal if i don't order Attack as the leader...

so it's a bit tricky

there should be a gambit like "steal once, then follow leaders target" ^^ but there isn't (yet?)

I always steal manually since I dont really trust the other characters to do it. Plus they get rid of the monsters pretty quickly anyways so I can just blast thru each battle.
I also had around 500+ lp so I just spent it mostly on the magic part of the baord. Gots lots of magic slots, attack power, hp+, and so on. And I got one quickening for three characters all at once, they aren't as unique as I thought since your forced to make it they're indivudual skill instead of actually being their own. Still, they are very powerfull.
I also had a bunch of money from my loot but no armor or accesories that I wanted so what I did was just learn specific weapons for each character and hope I can get them later. Like swords for Vaan, spears/swords for basch etc. I couldn't find any guns on the board though.
Its a gamble but a good way to make them stick to a primary weapon and make them feel different.

H'okay. Gonna test out my Swapmagic on this. A buddy has Berserk and I'll get it from him in a week or so. In the mean time, I need something to try ;D So... In order to get this workin', I just go to Nero and Burn a DVD image of the iso?

I use Dvd decrypter

I know, I wish they had a gambit target that said, "Foe: Has item." so I could put "--> steal" and the character would stop after it's successful.

First, be sure to enable "recall" or whatever in the options instead of "reset" so that you can easily select the same skill over and over in combat without having to move up and down in the menu.

What I do is set everyone up with:

Ally: <60% health -- cure
Foe: Party leader's target -- attack
Foe: closest enemy -- attack

I run around, then when I see an enemy's lifebar from far away, I go into the menu and select steal, Vaan automatically runs toward the enemy. If it fails, I just mash on the X button to go through the same menus. In the meantime, my other party members make quick work of the enemy, and I'm guaranteed not to die since everyone knows cure.

This set-up works at least at the lower levels (1-20).

Hmmmm so far there isn't one boss that has impressed me, from flower dragons to fire horses :s..i hope i get to see some worthy FF bosses.

yeah battle wise, I think FFX had more flashy battles. I just don't feel the intensity on FFXII, although the story is awsome.

after 18 hours,


Oh and also about one of basch's moves.

Reply to Shenlon:

I was mostly traveling and trying to beat the monsters in the clan thingy ~_~

Just a quick blurb of info regarding the PAL release which will see Ubi Soft publishing the game in PAL territories for a Q1 2007 release. The game will also be optimised to 50hz with a seperate French audio language being available marking the first for a FF title.

Bit of nitpicking here, but for all the game's strengths, the usage of a smallcaps font for the dialogue text is a ridiculous decision. The typeface itself is fitting enough, but the caps make reading just a teeny weeny bit more difficult.