Final Fantasy XII demo impressions

Who comes up with these names?

I just finished the sadistically short Final Fantasy XII that came with my DQ8. After reading so many previews for the game that describe its revamped battle system as being completely different and (shock!) MMORPG-like, I was a little hesitant to start it up. I desperately want this game to be good, as it's being handled by the same team as for my two favorite PS1 games, Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics. Normally I'd have the utmost confidence in them, but the news of the goofy battle system had me concerned. Thankfully, the demo has put all those fears to rest.

First of all, I learned to no longer be afraid of the battle system. While it was intimidating at first, in practice it's not actually too far removed from the Active Time Battle system of previous Final Fantasies. Some early previews made it sound like you controlled only one character with the other two in your party relegated to autopilot mode, but you can actually step in at any time and give commands to them, which they execute as soon as their ATB meter fills. (Sort of the reverse of how things happened under ATB, actually.) The demo makes it clear that in the full version each character's "gambits," or autopilot instructions, will be customizeable. In that way, FF12's battle system is sort of a streamlined ATB. It's very similar to the system in Knights of the Old Republic, although the interface uses the FF menu style, which I much prefer.1 It seems like, once the player gets used to the new system and sets up appropriate gambits, battles will proceed pretty smoothly and at a brisk pace, with the opportunity to pause and insert a cure or blizzaga spell here and there. For the more adventurous type, there's always the active mode, where, as you would expect, monsters keep attacking you as you page through menus to give commands. One advantage of using gambits is that, in active mode, your other two characters will continue to attack as well. I have to admit that when the demo was in active mode it was a lot more frantic and stressful, but maybe I'll get used to it after a few hours' experience. (I did get the hang of Final Fantasy X-2's lightning-speed battles, after all.)

So, what else about the demo? It probably goes without saying, but the visuals are incredible. I expected nothing less (it's a Square game, after all), but FF12 is a quantum leap past FFX (1 and 2). The environments are gorgeous (especially the brightly-lit beach), the characters are detailed and animate fluidly, and the spell animations are presumably jaw-dropping. (I forgot to watch spells going on during battle, but the esper2 I used paused the action to do a typically-elaborate attack animation, and it was unbelievable. I can only assume the regular spells are just as shiny and impressive, if on a smaller scale.)

Lastly, Hitoshi Sakimoto's rich, orchestral score didn't disappoint. The pounding theme played on the beach seemed a little out of place given that I spent a lot of the time ruining the mandragoras' afternoon, but I overlooked that easily. The boss theme was more suitably epic, and I can't wait to hear more. I expect the final game's music to put the previous series' soundtracks to shame, but I'm also completely biased.

There were only three things that were noticeably absent in the demo:

  1. Any idea of the game's major gameplay system (e.g. the sphere grid), but usually stuff like that doesn't show up in a demo, anyway.
  2. A release date, as in month and day. They had the year3 covered, though.
  3. The sadly-underhyped rocket recliner.

1 Also, nobody had any Force Lightning abilities to make the other two party members completely irrelevant.
2 E S P E R S  A R E  B A C K
3 2006 seems like a long way away.

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