FFXII My thoughs so far...
Well, I feel that I haven't played enough to write a complete review yet, but here are some thoughts.
The game is pretty good. The story has a lot of info for people to process, but it's presented well, and a lot of the characters are designed pretty well. In short though, two big empires are at war with eachother, and there's a few kingdoms inbetween, and the eastern empire has now occupied those in-between kingoms on their way to the west. Some people died, some people hold grudges, and do stuff to annoy the empire. And they band together to try to save the world, though it's uncertain what it is that must be done.
I can say one thing about the game play, it's pretty sweet. I was never too bothered by random encounters and static menu based combat, but being able to see your enemies in the field is pretty nice too. Though it may seem like real-time combat at first, it's really just an adaptation of the old ATB system. Although you don't have to wait your turn anymore to issue commands, every action has a charge time before it's carried out. You only use the controller to move your lead character around, everything else is done by menu commands.
The game does make a really good attempt at relieving you of a lot of monotony by allowing you to automate a lot of commands to all your party members, including your leader, so you can take a step back, view the situation, and issue specialised orders when needed. This system is called the Gambit system, which allows you to create a list of "gambits" in order of priority. Each gambit has a condition and an action. Such as.. Ally: HP < 50%, Cure. Or Foe: Weakness to Fire, Firaga. Actions become available as you learn them, conditions have to be found or bought at stores, although they have low, low prices. All in all, it is never necessary to spam the attack command, or remind yourself to cast cure spells, the system does this for you now. Also, as said, there is an order of priority, so when you place a healing action at a higher priority than an attack action, the character will always go out of their way to heal someone.
Through the License Board, characters can be customized even more than ever before. This license board pretty much controls everything about your character, what items it can equip, what spells it can cast, and so forth. Although every character has certain starting positions on this board, you can change their direction in a flash and turn a guy with sword and heavy armor into a healer who wears light clothing and wields a staff. The board contists entirely of squares, most of them are empty at first. A few squares are 'active' at first, signifying your character's starting abilities. Around those squares, there are some transparent squares, with new 'licences' for you to earn. This can be a license to wield low-level black magick, a license to use the "steal" command, or a license to wield low-level swords. When you use License Points to purchase a license, that square becomes active, and all squares around it that were blank before become transparent available licenses. Through this, you keep expanding your range of licenses.
Although it's worthy to note that if you unlock "Swords 1", that only allows you to wield two or three lower level swords. In order to use better swords, you need to keep unlocking more Swords licenses. Also, if you unlock the 'steal' license, or the 'white magick 1' license, means you are allowed to use those commands, but only if you have them. You still need to buy those abilities at a shop to be able to use them. This may seem like a hassle at first, but that's the way the system works, and once you get used to it, it won't feel so weird anymore.
There's one other thing I have to say. This game is hard. Early on, you don't have access to the super attacks and super summon things like you're used to. Also, I found that the enemy's levels increase faster than my own. There are simply points in the game where you find that your available equipment and spells are a bit lacking, and you'll find yourself beating the same monsters over and over to get the gold required to buy better things. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, necessarily. It's a very personal thing. I found the number of really difficult RPG's where you have to take time off to get your equipment up to speed really small, I actually counted, like 2 or so in the last three years. It really doesn't feel satisfying when you are pwning the final boss without having to work for it. Now I'm not even halfway, but I really find myself struggling to keep up. Of course, if you dislike struggling, then you will not like this fact. Later on, when you start unlocking Espers and Quickenings (the new kind of Limit Break), things will become slightly easier, but I doubt your quest for better equipment will ever end until, well, the end.
I will not rate this game right now, but I will rate it later. I do wish to say that those skeptics really need to give this game a go. It's not as scary as you people make it out to be.
The game is pretty good. The story has a lot of info for people to process, but it's presented well, and a lot of the characters are designed pretty well. In short though, two big empires are at war with eachother, and there's a few kingdoms inbetween, and the eastern empire has now occupied those in-between kingoms on their way to the west. Some people died, some people hold grudges, and do stuff to annoy the empire. And they band together to try to save the world, though it's uncertain what it is that must be done.
I can say one thing about the game play, it's pretty sweet. I was never too bothered by random encounters and static menu based combat, but being able to see your enemies in the field is pretty nice too. Though it may seem like real-time combat at first, it's really just an adaptation of the old ATB system. Although you don't have to wait your turn anymore to issue commands, every action has a charge time before it's carried out. You only use the controller to move your lead character around, everything else is done by menu commands.
The game does make a really good attempt at relieving you of a lot of monotony by allowing you to automate a lot of commands to all your party members, including your leader, so you can take a step back, view the situation, and issue specialised orders when needed. This system is called the Gambit system, which allows you to create a list of "gambits" in order of priority. Each gambit has a condition and an action. Such as.. Ally: HP < 50%, Cure. Or Foe: Weakness to Fire, Firaga. Actions become available as you learn them, conditions have to be found or bought at stores, although they have low, low prices. All in all, it is never necessary to spam the attack command, or remind yourself to cast cure spells, the system does this for you now. Also, as said, there is an order of priority, so when you place a healing action at a higher priority than an attack action, the character will always go out of their way to heal someone.
Through the License Board, characters can be customized even more than ever before. This license board pretty much controls everything about your character, what items it can equip, what spells it can cast, and so forth. Although every character has certain starting positions on this board, you can change their direction in a flash and turn a guy with sword and heavy armor into a healer who wears light clothing and wields a staff. The board contists entirely of squares, most of them are empty at first. A few squares are 'active' at first, signifying your character's starting abilities. Around those squares, there are some transparent squares, with new 'licences' for you to earn. This can be a license to wield low-level black magick, a license to use the "steal" command, or a license to wield low-level swords. When you use License Points to purchase a license, that square becomes active, and all squares around it that were blank before become transparent available licenses. Through this, you keep expanding your range of licenses.
Although it's worthy to note that if you unlock "Swords 1", that only allows you to wield two or three lower level swords. In order to use better swords, you need to keep unlocking more Swords licenses. Also, if you unlock the 'steal' license, or the 'white magick 1' license, means you are allowed to use those commands, but only if you have them. You still need to buy those abilities at a shop to be able to use them. This may seem like a hassle at first, but that's the way the system works, and once you get used to it, it won't feel so weird anymore.
There's one other thing I have to say. This game is hard. Early on, you don't have access to the super attacks and super summon things like you're used to. Also, I found that the enemy's levels increase faster than my own. There are simply points in the game where you find that your available equipment and spells are a bit lacking, and you'll find yourself beating the same monsters over and over to get the gold required to buy better things. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, necessarily. It's a very personal thing. I found the number of really difficult RPG's where you have to take time off to get your equipment up to speed really small, I actually counted, like 2 or so in the last three years. It really doesn't feel satisfying when you are pwning the final boss without having to work for it. Now I'm not even halfway, but I really find myself struggling to keep up. Of course, if you dislike struggling, then you will not like this fact. Later on, when you start unlocking Espers and Quickenings (the new kind of Limit Break), things will become slightly easier, but I doubt your quest for better equipment will ever end until, well, the end.
I will not rate this game right now, but I will rate it later. I do wish to say that those skeptics really need to give this game a go. It's not as scary as you people make it out to be.