Daunting, a word that came to mind as I thought about writing this review. I could write pages about what makes this game so good, why it’s a cut above most any other RPG you’ve played (maybe even most any kind of game), but then I figured I’d try my best to keep it short so as not to delay you from getting to the nearest video game retailer to pick up your very own copy. I’ll get to the point, but I need to pay the game service where it deserves.
Story If you’re a fan of the series then you know to expect an epic tale of an unlikely group of heroes trying to prevent certain disaster on a grand scale. The stage is set in the world of Ivalice. The neutral kingdome of Dalmasca is under invasion by the powerful Archadian Empire. One for peace, the King of Dalmasca agrees to sign a treaty of occupation in trade of the war’s end. Dalmasca’s King is assassinated and taken over by Archadian forces. Two years past, you are introduced to Vaan, an energetic youth of Dalmasca whose brother, a Dalmascan soldier, was murdered during the assassination on the King. Feeling spiteful, Vaan decides he will take down the empire one theft at a time. He decides to break in to the palace during a banquet event for the arrival of the city’s new rule. Coincidentally, he breaks in the same time as a Dalmascan resistance force attacks the palace and a couple of sky pirates trying looting the palace as well. You acquire something the sky pirates want, so they help you escape the palace. It gets more complicated from here on it, unraveling a roller coaster of ups and downs and surprise turns aplenty, but I’ll just let you play it to find out what happens.
What makes this Final Fantasy different is that there is no single character driving the story. It’s an ensemble of characters whose story’s interweave and create a tale of love, hatred, loss, fortune, treacherous betrayal, unlikely alliances, and more. It’s elegantly crafted to keep you constantly engaged as you explore the story and world before you. Before long the game will hook you and take you ever deeper, getting you more involved in this epic of stories. This is no standard storytelling fare; it’s a prime example of what story telling should be like.
<O:p</O:p 10
Gameplay I’ll get right to it, the battle system is awesome. Yes, it’s different but not as much as you think. I’ve come to think of it as active time battle system 2.0. It’s just like the battle system in previous Final Fantasy games, save for the entirely turn-based Final Fantasy X, but it’s uninterrupted. Yes, the real major difference here is that you can see your enemies now. It was a much needed overhaul and it absolutely works. The new Gambit system lets you, in essence, have automatic reactions. One could set this up to automatically cast Haste, attack, cure any enemy induced ailments, and move on with you only moving in the direction. If you prefer to be more hands-on, and at times you have to be, you can take control quite easily by simply pressing X and choosing the actions yourself. One could turn the gambits off entirely, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do that.
So the battle system does everything for you, great. That is not to say the game is easy…it’s not. In fact, I would say this is among the most challenging RPGs I’ve played through. The enemies can be tough, and the bosses are even tougher. There were instances in the game when I had to level grind in order to defeat a boss, or other times when I simply wanted to go to a new area. Fortunately the new cruise control like battle system makes it easy to level up and move on, but you’ll spend a significant amount of time over the course of the game doing so.
To increase your character stats and abilities is the new license system. It’s similar to Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid in that you get to customize your characters as you see fit, but different in that you can go in any direction you want. Instead of following a path like the sphere grid, you start in a spot and build out as you acquire more licenses. You acquire license points as you defeat enemies. You will acquire thousands of license points over the duration of your journey, but it won’t likely be enough to fill up the whole board (unless you are in it for a long haul). This in turn makes you a bit more decisive on how you want to customize a certain character. However, seeing as how there is little strategy to defeating enemies, there is not an incentive to make anything other than heavy hitters.
There are some downsides. This Final Fantasy has an incredible amount of emphasis on physical strength and defense. You can hack your way through the entire game, relying little on offensive magick. Every enemy, every boss, same strategy- hit them as hard and often as you can while keeping your defense up. Sure, you’ll cast dispel on your enemies quite often, but there really isn’t much strategy to battles. You’ll need the latest weapons and armor to move through the next area, but you’re going to need to earn them. The game is very tight with money, the enemies hardly giving any at all, instead dropping loot to sell to the shops. Fortunately, you’ll accrue a significant amount of loot while you’re out necessarily level grinding. You’ll hardly ever have gil (Final Fantasy currency) to spare though.
EDIT: It was pointed out to me that I need to pay a bit more lip service to magick. I managed to hack my way through the game using a magick routine- dispel the boss's positive attributes, cast haste, protect, shell on your party, and go to work. It really felt like a rinse, wash, repeat ordeal. It works with every boss. However, it was brought to my attention that there were times when offensive magicks (those that inflict damage on the enemy) helped out even more. In other words, don't skimp on building out your magick. It can be useful to incorporate it in to your strategy. It depends on how you want to play.
Despite the nuisances, the game still works incredibly well. It’s a challenge, but one that gives a great sense of accomplishment. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close. If you’re a skeptic of SquareEnix’s shift in game play, I dare you to spend just a few minutes with it.
9
Graphics Gorgeous. It pushes the Playstation 2 to new boundaries. The game is awash in beautiful colors, complex but elegant architecture, varied and vast vistas, and inhabited with bustling populations. Every area in the game is distinguishable with special touches all its own. You will likely be astounded at the amount of detail, care, and high production values that very obviously went in to this game.
10
Audio The voice acting is superb. The sound effects are surreal, especially on a surround sound system. The soundtrack is of a European flavor, different from previous Final Fantasy games, but it’s a welcome change and very accomplished.
10
Longevity Ivalice is huge, and there’s enough to do to keep you busy for dozens of hours past the main quest. There are several areas that are completely optional, and most will put up quite the challenge just to explore. There are optional espers (XII’s summons) to obtain, most requiring small side quests simply to gain access, never mind they certainly pose a considerable challenge themselves. There are also marks to take on, special monster hunts posted by Ivalice inhabitants, usually with nice payoffs. Then there are the rare monster hunts which have you seeking out 80 or so monsters that show up in specific parts of Ivalice with given conditions (cloudy, rainy, sunny, time sensitive, etc). There’s a lot to do, and from reports I’ve read, it’s taken many people upwards of 150 hours to complete it all. A game that offers a big bang for your buck whether you’re in it for the main quest or in it for everything.
10
Final Fantasy XII is an epic of a game that reinvents the long running series. It sets new standards in RPG story telling. The battle system and enemy-on-screen overhaul makes for a much needed new feel. It gorgeous, and sounds wonderful, and will keep you entertained for as much as you can likely stand.
I'm going to buy a new game in a few days. I have so many that I want to play so I'm having a hard time deciding what to spend my xmas gift cards on. Here's what my play-list looks like...
Prince of Persia Warrior Within
Prince of Persia Two Thrones
Jak X Combat Racing
Grandia 3
Zelda Twilight Princess
Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door
God of War
I just finished a two month venture (about 63 hours) with Final Fantasy XII so I'm not too sure I want another game that's going to require so much time right now, but I'd give in for a really good game (like Twilight Princess). It's either Zelda TP or two of the other titles.
This was posted at a forum I subcribe to where people go to dicuss their dreams:
I Tortured A Dream Character Into Talking
Dec 24<SUP>th</SUP>, 2006, 10:18pm
I've finally done what I've been trying to do for five months or so. (I got the idea from someone else in this forum.) However, I'm not sure of the importance or significance of it. During a lucid dream I've been trying to challenge dream characters to find out if they had self awareness.
I've been asking them if they knew that they were dream characters, and the usual result was they would do one of three things:
1. They would squirm, look away, and not answer the question.
2. They would run away.
3. They would disappear.
Last night I finally got one of them to answer me. He did give me a kind of strange answer.
The dream began as a non-lucid dream, and it wasn't a very pleasant dream, either.
At the point the dream became lucid, I asked the character if he was aware that he was a dream character. He didn't want to answer, but I was in control of the dream at this point. I said he was going to answer and I was going to help him, so I gave him an electric shock and sparks were circling his body. After I did that, I asked him if he was ready to talk, and he said he was.
I asked him if he knew he was a dream character, and he said "Yes, I'm aware that I'm a dream character." Then he went on to say "You are god to us dream characters. Some of us love you and some of us hate you, and some dream characters want to be left alone." Then he paused and he said "When you are awake, you are a dream character to God. You and everyone else are what God sees when he sleeps."
Yeah, seriously, it's an amazing movie and a very good example of futuristic dystopian police-state scifi. Far better than V for Vendetta in that regard [and just about every other one as well].
Quote:LOS ANGELES - Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of
Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th president and the only one never elected to nationwide office, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
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"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."
The statement did not say where or when Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments — including an angioplasty and a pacemaker implant — in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
"The American people will always admire Gerald Ford's devotion to duty, his personal character and the honorable conduct of his administration,"
President Bush said in a statement Tuesday night. "We mourn the loss of such a leader, and our 38th president will always have a special place in our nation's memory."
Ford was the longest living president, followed by
Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.
"I was deeply saddened this evening when I heard of Jerry Ford's death," former first lady Nancy Reagan said in a statement. "Ronnie and I always considered him a dear friend and close political ally.
"His accomplishments and devotion to our country are vast, and even long after he left the presidency he made it a point to speak out on issues important to us all," she said.
Ford was an accidental president, Nixon's hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket. He was as open and straightforward as Nixon was tightly controlled and conspiratorial.
Minutes after Nixon resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and flew into exile, Ford took office and famously declared: "Our long national nightmare is over."
But he revived the debate over Watergate a month later by granting Nixon a pardon for all crimes he committed as president. That single act, it was widely believed, cost Ford election to a term of his own in 1976, but it won praise in later years as a courageous act that allowed the nation to move on.
The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the U.S. during his presidency with the fall of Saigon in April 1975. In a speech as the end neared, Ford said: "Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned." Evoking Abraham Lincoln, he said it was time to "look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the nation's wounds."
Ford also earned a place in the history books as the first unelected vice president, chosen by Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew who also was forced from office by scandal.
He was in the White House only 895 days, but changed it more than it changed him.
Even after two women tried separately to kill him, the presidency of Jerry Ford remained open and plain.
Not imperial. Not reclusive. And, of greatest satisfaction to a nation numbed by Watergate, not dishonest.
Even to millions of Americans who had voted two years earlier for Richard Nixon, the transition to Ford's leadership was one of the most welcomed in the history of the democratic process — despite the fact that it occurred without an election.
After the Watergate ordeal, Americans liked their new president — and first lady Betty, whose candor charmed the country.
They liked her for speaking openly about problems of young people, including her own daughter; they admired her for not hiding that she had a mastectomy — in fact, her example caused thousands of women to seek breast examinations.
And she remained one of the country's most admired women even after the Fords left the White House when she was hospitalized in 1978 and said she had become addicted to drugs and alcohol she took for painful arthritis and a pinched nerve in her neck. Four years later she founded the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, a substance abuse facility next to Eisenhower Medical Center.
Ford slowed down in recent years. He had been hospitalized in August 2000 when he suffered one or more small strokes while attending the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
The following year, he joined former presidents Carter, Bush and Clinton at a memorial service in Washington three days after the Sept. 11 attacks. In June 2004, the four men and their wives joined again at a funeral service in Washington for former President Reagan. But in November 2004, Ford was unable to join the other former presidents at the dedication of the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.
In January, Ford was hospitalized with pneumonia for 12 days. He wasn't seen in public until April 23, when President Bush was in town and paid a visit to the Ford home. Bush, Ford and Betty posed for photographers outside the residence before going inside for a private get-together.
The intensely private couple declined reporter interview requests and were rarely seen outside their home in Rancho Mirage's gated Thunderbird Estates, other than to attend worship services at the nearby St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert.
In a long congressional career in which he rose to be House Republican leader, Ford lit few fires. In the words of Congressional Quarterly, he "built a reputation for being solid, dependable and loyal — a man more comfortable carrying out the programs of others than in initiating things on his own."
When Agnew resigned in a bribery scandal in October 1973, Ford was one of four finalists to succeed him: Texan John Connally, New York's Nelson Rockefeller and California's Ronald Reagan.
"Personal factors enter into such a decision," Nixon recalled for a Ford biographer in 1991. I knew all of the final four personally and had great respect for each one of then, but I had known Jerry Ford longer and better than any of the rest.
"We had served in Congress together. I had often campaigned for him in his district," Nixon continued. But Ford had something the others didn't, he would be easily confirmed by Congress, something that could not be said of Rockefeller, Reagan and Connally.
So Ford it was. He became the first vice president appointed under the 25th amendment to the Constitution.
On Aug. 9, 1974, after seeing Nixon off to exile, Ford assumed the office. The next morning, he still made his own breakfast and padded to the front door in his pajamas to get the newspaper.
Said a ranking Democratic congressman: "Maybe he is a plodder, but right now the advantages of having a plodder in the presidency are enormous."
It was rare that Ford was ever as eloquent as he was for those dramatic moments of his swearing-in at the White House.
"My fellow Americans," he said, "our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule."
And, true to his reputation as unassuming Jerry, he added: "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me with your prayers."
For Ford, a full term was not to be. He survived an intraparty challenge from Ronald Reagan only to lose to Democrat Jimmy Carter in November. In the campaign, he ignored Carter's record as governor of Georgia and concentrated on his own achievements as president.
Carter won 297 electoral votes to his 240. After Reagan came back to defeat Carter in 1980, the two former presidents became collaborators, working together on joint projects.
Even as president, Ford often talked with reporters several times a day. He averaged 200 outside speeches a year as House Republican leader, a pace he kept up as vice president and diminished, seemingly, only slightly as chief executive. He kept speaking after leaving the White House, generally for fees of $15,000 to $20,000.
Ford was never asked to the White House for a social event during Reagan's eight years as president.
In office, Ford's living tastes were modest. When he became vice president, he chose to remain in the same Alexandria, Va., home — unpretentious except for a swimming pool — that he shared with his family as a congressman.
After leaving the White House, however, he took up residence in the desert resort area of Rancho Mirage, picked up $1 million for his memoir and another $1 million in a five-year NBC television contract, and served on a number of corporate boards. By 1987, he was on eight such boards, at fees up to $30,000 a year, and was consulting for others, at fees up to $100,000. After criticism, he cut back on such activity.
At a joint session after becoming president, Ford addressed members of Congress as "my former colleagues" and promised "communication, conciliation, compromise and cooperation." But his relations with Congress did not always run smoothly.
He vetoed 66 bills in his barely two years as president. Congress overturned 12 Ford vetoes, more than for any president since Andrew Johnson.
In his memoir, "A Time to Heal," Ford wrote, "When I was in the Congress myself, I thought it fulfilled its constitutional obligations in a very responsible way, but after I became president, my perspective changed."
Some suggested the pardon was prearranged before Nixon resigned, but Ford, in an unusual appearance before a congressional committee in October 1974, said, "There was no deal, period, under no circumstances." The committee dropped its investigation.
Ford's standing in the polls dropped dramatically when he pardoned Nixon unconditionally. But an ABC News poll taken in 2002 in connection with the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in found that six in 10 said the pardon was the right thing to do.
The late Democrat Clark Clifford spoke for many when he wrote in his memoirs, "The nation would not have benefited from having a former chief executive in the dock for years after his departure from office. His disgrace was enough."
The decision to pardon Nixon won Ford a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2001, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), acknowledging he had criticized Ford at the time, called the pardon "an extraordinary act of courage that historians recognize was truly in the national interest."
While Ford had not sought the job, he came to relish it. He had once told Congress that even if he succeeded Nixon he would not run for president in 1976. Within weeks of taking the oath, he changed his mind.
He was undaunted even after the two attempts on his life in September 1975. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a 26-year-old follower of Charles Manson, was arrested after she aimed a semiautomatic pistol at Ford on Sept. 5 in Sacramento, Calif. A
Secret Service agent grabbed her and Ford was unhurt.
Seventeen days later, Sara Jane Moore, a 45-year-old political activist, was arrested in San Francisco after she fired a gun at the president. Again, Ford was unhurt.
Both women are serving life terms in federal prison.
Asked at a news conference to recite his accomplishments, Ford replied: "We have restored public confidence in the White House and in the executive branch of government."
As to his failings, he responded, "I will leave that to my opponents. I don't think there have been many."
Ford spent most of his boyhood in Grand Rapids, Mich.
He was born Leslie King on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Neb. His parents were divorced when he was less than a year old, and his mother returned to her parents in Grand Rapids, where she later married Gerald R. Ford Sr. He adopted the boy and renamed him.
Ford was a high school senior when he met his real father. He was working in a Greek restaurant, he recalled, when a man came in and stood watching.
"Finally, he walked over and said, `I'm your father,'" Ford said. "Well, that was quite a shock." But he wrote in his memoir that he broke down and cried that night and he was left with the image of "a carefree, well-to-do man who didn't really give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his firstborn son."
Ford played center on the University of Michigan's 1932 and 1933 national champion football teams. He got professional offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but chose to study law at Yale, working his way through as an assistant varsity football coach and freshman boxing coach.
Ford got his first exposure to national politics at Yale, working as a volunteer in Wendell L. Willkie's 1940 Republican campaign for president. After World War II service with the Navy in the Pacific, he went back to practicing law in Grand Rapids and became active in Republican reform politics.
His stepfather was the local Republican chairman, and Michigan Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg was looking for a fresh young internationalist to replace the area's isolationist congressman.
Ford beat Rep. Bartel Jonkman by a 2-to-1 margin in the Republican primary and then went on to win the election with 60.5 percent of the vote, the lowest margin he ever got.
He had proposed to Elizabeth Bloomer, a dancer and fashion coordinator, earlier that year, 1948. She became one of his hardest-working campaigners and they were married shortly before the election. They had three sons, Michael, John and Steven, and a daughter, Susan.
Ford was the last surviving member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin.
Clifford, an adviser to presidents since Harry Truman, summed up his legacy: "About his brief presidency there is little that can be said. In almost every way, it was a caretaker government trying to bind up the wounds of Watergate and get through the most traumatic act of the Indochina drama.
"Ford ... was a likable person who deserves credit for accomplishing the one goal that was most important, to reunite the nation after the trauma of Watergate and give us a breathing spell before we picked a new president."
Quote:Online services that track online retailers say that the supply of the PlayStation 3 game console seems to be sufficient to satisfy the demand and from that point of view is better than the Xbox 360 supply a year ago.
Specialists from online track service NotifyWire.com, which tracks online retailers and sends “in stock” alerts to members via email and cell phone text messages, have been surprised at the amount of Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles available online.
“I wasn’t expecting this much volume before Christmas. I think we’re already at the point where many people won’t pay a premium for the console or be forced into buying bundles,” said Ian Drake, the chief of NotifyWire.com.
Usually retailers and online stores bundle game consoles and games to force anxious buyers into higher margin items. However, with the relatively expensive PlayStation 3 system this does not seem to work well. Compared to last year’s Xbox360 release, the PlayStation 3 has been available at more retailers, more often, and for longer periods of time.
“Last year, at NotifyWire.com, we tracked several one thousand dollar Xbox 360 bundles which would sell out in less than two minutes after becoming available. Just today, a one thousand dollar PS3 bundle was in stock at eToys.com for over 12 hours. This sort of thing didn’t happen with the Xbox 360 until well after Christmas,” said Mr. Drake.
While the PlayStation 3 is not readily available from retailers online or off, it looks like level of enthusiasm for the console is moving closer inline with the supply and this is clearly not what the industry was expecting, the online tracking firm believes, noting that this may be an alarming sign for Sony, for whom it is crucial to sell as many PS3 game consoles as possible.
Meanwhile, the sales numbers of the PlayStation 3 are yet to be released for December. Back in November the company sold 195 thousand of the game console in the USA, which is much lower amount than the firm anticipated to supply for the launch day.
Sony PlayStation 3 console is based on the Cell processor developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the RSX graphics chip by Nvidia Corp. and will be equipped with Blu-ray optical disk drive. There are two versions of the PlayStation console available: one is equipped with 20GB hard disk drive and priced at $499, another features 60GB hard drive, card reader and some other improvements and is offered for $599.
So what did you guys get? Post your haul right here!
Harakiri [Criterion Collection]
$20
Youth of the Beast [Criterion Collection]
Batman: The Animated Series volume 1
Animaniacs volume 1
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - 2nd Gig volume 3,4
Brian Eno - Music for Airports
Steve Roach - Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces
Wired Xbox360 Controller
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn
Dark Hertiage: The Final Descendant
Time Tunnel season 1
Set of Star Wars stamps from 1997
Star Wars comic by Marvel from 1977
Blade Runner movie poster
Me and My Katamari
A bunch of candy
Some clothes
This right after Sega announced Virtua Fighter 5 for the 360...
Quote:We're as sober as the Pope. Watch and see how other Japanese publishers react. Mark our words here: Other publishers, other big-name Japanese publishers aside from Capcom (how we love thee, Capcom), will begin putting their once Sony exclusives on Xbox 360. And, in some cases, they'll put them on Xbox 360 first. Don't believe us? Watch for Namco and Konami in 2007. We're still not certain whether Metal Gear Solid 4 will hit Xbox 360, but if numbers (of units sold) do the talking, count on its arrival to Xbox 360 sometime after the PS3 version. What about Namco? We're sworn to secrecy, but the tide is changing here too. Prepare for some real Namco hardcore gaming love in 2007. Overall, Sony has reacted with alarm, anger, confusion, and is now realizing it must deal with this new situation: It isn't the console leader anymore. Oh yeah, almost forgot. Then there are Mistwalker's Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, two highly anticipated Japanese RPGS exclusive to the console. And, oh yes, did somebody say something about Resident Evil 5?
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/749/749547p7.html
Silent Hill, Metal Gear, Castlevania, and Soul Calibur have all been on the Xbox before, so the only other Sony exclusives he could be talking about are the 'Tales of ...' RPGs and/or Tekken, no? Tekken has been noticeably absent since 2005; I wonder what's going on there. Playstation 2 exclusive Soul Calibur 3 had underwhelming sales, so it's a no brainer it will go multiplatform for the fourth iteration.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Playstation HQ.
Oh, and I'm still praying that SquareEnix commit a good project to the 360. The next Chrono game would be nice...
