Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

[Crimson Knight]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Oh my goodness, the Japanese aren't genetically gifted to be more sophisticated game players than us!

I heard they're worse.

[John Mora]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Fanboyism from GameFAQs is what all this complaining is about, and we all know they're 12 year olds who have no idea what the original Final Fantasies were.

I thought the problem in this case were JAPANESE 12 year olds.

[MC Ardle84]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Okay, the Japanese GameFAQs.


About the Fluidity of the battle system, the default speed is always 50% of what you can turn it.

The first thing I do in every Final Fantasy game is go into the Options and crank the battle system to full speed. I bet that would make the game a hell of a lot more fluid than KOTR or Baldur's Gate. (Just a thought.)

[Magus]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

"Difficulty is too high"
Yeah, DEE DE DEEEEs don't like the difficulty, especially if it actually rewards common sense.

...You did not just do Carlos Mencia.

[RPGD]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Apparently, he just did.

[Patryn]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

About the Fluidity of the battle system, the default speed is always 50% of what you can turn it.

The first thing I do in every Final Fantasy game is go into the Options and crank the battle system to full speed. I bet that would make the game a hell of a lot more fluid than KOTR or Baldur's Gate. (Just a thought.)

More fluid than KOTOR I can buy. Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, probably not. It could match it, but not exceed it. If you lay off the space bar and just let the combat flow the battles FLY by (and if you're not prepared, you'll get beat down faster than it takes you to blink) and if you set up the AI patterns correctly it's totally fluid. As it is, half the time before I realized it Jan had half a dozen defensive spells up and was already cranking up a magic missile. I can't tell you the amount of time I blinked and suddenly he's silver and there's like 6 of him in a row.

Just consider that a full round is something like 6-8 seconds in Baldur's Gate, and in a single round I've had people that had 3 1/2 attacks. Compare that to Final Fantasy's pseudo-rounds.

Honestly, my biggest issue with the battle system is that they didn't go far enough. I would have preferred to have been able to stack commands for future rounds.

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Oh my goodness, the Japanese aren't genetically gifted to be more sophisticated game players than us!

I think Glooms had nurture instead of nature in mind. It goes without saying that on this side of the Pacific, "hardcore" gamers are n x100-percent more likely to have tastes in anime and to have taken Japanese culture and language courses. It's at least surprising that there should be an apparent outcry of whiney, casual gamers where the culture is stacked against it. But I don't know that this is the case, since a couple of the complaints are about the game breaking with the series' roots and such (like breaking the time-honored tradition of repeatedly pressing buttons to slog through menus).


I have not played the demo, but it looks like the new system is a smart move and will, in one sense, actually feel strangely familiar. The same events will be happening at the same ratios but without the perfunctory menus and button presses. I always feel stupid playing a RPG whenever I find myself diagnosing that I'm repeating the same simple formulas to win every battle, and it looks like the Gambit system is simply cutting the middleman.


I think any battle system is weak when it fails to do one thing.

Usually a storyline or dungeon or levelling-up process is engaging primarily when it slowly reveals itself, and in the meantime you don't know what it is that you're interacting with. It is mysterious and therefore adventurous. The promise of a game's hidden qualities compels you play on to gradually discover the nature of the game.

Mystery is what Tim Rogers is talking about when he says: "There are monsters in the game that will kill you in one hit if you choose to fight them. For example, the Tyrannosaurus Rex inexplicably located right outside the first town. But this is just an example of why the game is interesting...", and when he is discussing the tricky juggling of information versus secrets in Square Enix's Gambit System public relations.

But in a weak battle system, you already know how the enemies work after three turns, so the process of fighting battles feels more like routine than a gradual discovery of how to overcome obstacles. Routine battles become the hard work you grudgingly have to go through to get to the good stuff (like plot developments, change of scenery, new attacks, etc.).

Therefore, to not feel like routine, battles should then either be mysterious and strategic in themselves (like chess), or else should feel like a fluid part of the revelation of the game as a whole.

I don't know how strategic FFXII's battles will be (FFX's battles were at least a step in the chess direction), but with the Gambit System and non-random battles I think Square-Enix taking a (maybe too cautious) step towards eliminating the vestigial system that has long been at odds with the rest of an RPG.

[Patryn]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

The problem with all that, as far as I can see it, is that the monsters regenerate so damn fast. I hate to keep beating the American RPG drum (god knows that Mora's sick of me talking about it), but part of the reason that those battles are often more strategic is the fact that you're not constantly fighting, but each fight is a challenge (for the most part). Now I know that endless battles have been a staple of the RPG for a while, but I almost wish they had ratcheted up the difficulty of the individual monsters and allowed you to clear out an area rather than suddenly finding that the monsters you just beat have come back after you go a little ways down a hall.

It's not even like that would be breaking new ground. Hell, Chrono Trigger did it, the updated Lunars did it, Grandia does it. You can regen the monsters if you go to a new area, but just regening if you go out of sight......

[BeeZee]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

In the demo, at least, I didn't think the monster regeneration rate was a problem. I honestly ended up fighting a whole lot less than I would have if there were random battles.

[Perversion]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Not like this game is even CLOSE to FFXII, but Ogre Battle, both for SNES and N64, had battles that were fought by themselves depending on placement of characters. The strategy in those games lie in where to place your characters to make the best use of their abilities. And, damn, were they FUN.

[Riotsword]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Agreed. I still haven't beat that game because I can quite get it just right(plus I'm struggling with keeping my characters' Alignment stats high as well as my Reputation).

[Patryn]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

The trick is to just make one super evil team go out and slaughter most of the enemy. Their alignment will go into the toilet, so try to pick evil people (I had two liches and a Princess in the back row, and a Zombie Dragon in the front...60% of the enemy groups went down in a single fight to them). Then have a couple teams made of good people expressly to liberate towns and occasionally fight.

Never, ever, ever take your Lord out to fight except in the early stages.

Your reputation stays high, and as long as you give your good teams just enough experience to level up (if you're desperate bring your evil team up and soften up the enemy then retreat with that team and immediately bring in your good team to finish them off).

[Perversion]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

I think one reason I like RPGM3 so much is I'm all about micro-management. In the Ogre Battle series, and in FFTactics Advance, I generally spend as much time in the character formation/equip screens as I do in actual battle. It's fun for me to outfit my party just perfectly for the upcoming battle. And with all the variables, modes, etc...RPGM is a micro-manager's dream come true!!

[Magus]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Dig this: The guys who worked on Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance worked on Final Fantasy XII.

[DK]

Re: Tim Rogers Defends FFXII

Belie' that, playa!