The PC version is dropping on Feb 1st. That’s earlier than I predicted!
I know the combat of many of Matsuno’s games get a lot of flak (VS comes to mind), but I love them.
A lot of enemy encounters in his games are bullshit and these systems fail to explain themselves but it feels like a triumph to understand and overcome the mechanics themselves, and when you do understand them they can feel pretty satisfying. And they’re equally easy to blow up when you know what you’re doing; there’s nothing like the high of one-shooting enemies in FFT after they’ve kicked you around the entire game.
XII has the overpowered stuff but I’d argue every FF does and without the opaqueness and difficulty it doesn’t have the same impact. I still like the XTB system (is that what they called it?) and I’d like to see someone refine it in the future.
Barring Crimson Shroud, Matsuno has only been a writer for the past decade, but I find his gameplay equally enjoyable and I hope he returns to it in some capacity.
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Gambits have always struck me as pretty comprehensible. The descriptions are literal and you can get through most of the game by having, for each character, a main attack gambit, a couple dedicated to healing and resurrecting, and the rest for dealing with bad status effects. You really only have to switch these up with a few mandatory bosses, if that. Specialized classes made me wonder if the game would be tougher, but it wasn’t, probably because you can purchase most gambits right away. So, fights which once might’ve had you scrambling to make sure everyone was doing the right thing are now more automated. I might prefer the original limitations.
After about a hundred hours the only things I haven’t done are finding Omega and the hundredth trial mode challenge. The latter’s challenge derives a bit from how you’ll be going into it after fighting Omega, who seems nearly impossible unless you have a couple of people casting Reverse. My entire party came out of that Reversed, everyone had low HP, and the judges will use healing items on you, so it seems like I’m kinda fucked no matter how hard I try, and I don’t have the motivation to make ends meet. Feels like a good place to call it quits.
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Whoever wrote the Wiki page on XII’s music was extremely mad that Uematsu wasn’t the main composer. I have no other explanation for why he and his sole contributed track are mentioned this many times.
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I’m finding this just as compelling as I did the first time around, but even with the fast-forward feature it sure is a time sink. (And how did I ever play it without the fast-forward feature?)
I just reached Archadia, and I’m finding that I rarely have to use specific strategies for partiuclar areas or battles. Maybe it’s because I gave each character two jobs and have spent more time grinding than I might have were it not so effortless. I do remember a few bosses giving me a lot more trouble the last time.
I happen to be playing this right after finishing Nier: Automata, with its similar combat automation. It seems like it would be difficult to go back to manual turn-based RPG battles in a game that has a lot of repetitive encounters. (I did just get Earthbound on the Wii U, so that might be my test case.)
Maybe one day I will admit to myself that I’m probably never going to go back and play Vagrant Story again after hitting a wall way back when it was new.
every time this thread gets bumped I always see this guy and crack up
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Zodiark sure was a pain, much more difficult for me than Ultima. I’m glad I beat Ultima when I did, though, as the Excalibur sword from that battle has been very useful. My Basch wields it and mows through a lot of difficult crowds.
I like that on the tougher, optional boss fights I have to pay attention to who I send in when and fine-tune the gambits for the specific situation. For a lot of the game, it felt as if my characters were largely interchangeable with two jobs each.
I had forgotten the rumors of a boss that takes hours to beat. I never saw that one the first time around, but I suppose that I will try to find it this time. I assume that’s hours of autopilot with the right gambits.
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in zodiac age yiazmat took me about 30 mins to beat with some use of fast-forward, the fight has been rebalanced so it doesn’t take hours, like most things reverse and breaks make it pretty trivial
i found zodiark much harder
I acquired the last esper the other night and discovered that the game must have failed to set a flag at some point because the trophy wasn’t triggered.
Since I had a save right before the last one I’d fought (Chaos), I went back and collected that one again. It still didn’t work. But I’m glad it’s broken because I don’t like becoming too conscious of trophies and because I’m at the point where I should probably move on to something else anyway. I still plan to at least attempt the other optional bosses, though.
I like the music in this game, but I almost never think about it when I’m not playing the way I do with some songs from other Final Fantasy games.
I learned yesterday that due to fan demand they reimplemented the Sky Pirate’s Den in the Zodiac Age versions, cementing it as the definitive version of the game.
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http://steamcommunity.com/app/595520/discussions/0/1700541698690214622/
http://steamcommunity.com/app/595520/discussions/0/1700541698690214622/?ctp=12#c1700541698705821949
People are modding different license boards into TZA’s PC release.
e: also, today in benign but funny bugs in pc ports, when playing above 60hz the cutscenes trip over themselves and play the animations/voice at the framerate interval but the cutscenes themselves play for a set length of time so you get people talking over each other and an empty frame for a few seconds. Capped it with rivatuner to fix lol
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i played the ps4 release almost exclusively in 4x so i don’t think i’d notice the nice framerate
still tempted to buy another copy because i’m disgusting consumer trash though
(and this game is really, really good)
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My old video card can’t consistently push 60 even with the SSAO at half-res…
But it looks gorgeous and it’s consistently above 30 which is better than anything the PS2 could do, so
I have mixed feelings about this. The politics text dumps make my eyes glaze over but there is some interesting characterization here. Of course I like the Vagrant Story look to it all. The battle system is boring as fuck when you are alone, so starting out like that might have been a mistake. Maybe should have teased the potential of it in the beginning.
The time-to-rat is dangerously short even for an RPG
The starting town and its NPCs don’t interest me at all. So, after an hour playtime I’m kinda “hmmmm”
It starts slow and gets better, yes?
It starts much slower than the previous few FF’s yes. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10… those put you into an exciting situation from the get-go, while 12 is more of a slow ramp up to adventure!
The combat system doesn’t fully click until you get Fran and Balthier in your party, about 4 to 6 hours in, so stick with it.
I am ready for… adventure! Thanks for the estimate on the time-to-click. That makes it drag a little less. It’s the uncertainty that kills ya. Just like waiting at the dentist’s!
I know. I understand that the change in philosophy at the start can be off-putting
Pretty sure you can reach that spot in just 2 hours if you liberally use the fast forward and skip the cutscenes, but if it’s your first time playing I don’t recommend that!
And yeah the characterization is stellar. Once the game gets going, it gets going for a good while!
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nuclear take: the parallels between the strengths and weaknesses and relative reception of final fantasy 7-8-9-10-12 and metal gear solid 1-2-3-4-5 are downright remarkable considering they were made over vastly different time scales in different eras and different genres
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ok there’s some good stuff here but i’m having trouble with viii/2
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