Final Fantasy 12 demo - R.I.P.

[Dracos]

I know, it's kind of late.  I'd been putting it off.  I didn't want to be disappointed again really.  I heard the bad stuff.  I knew what was at E3.  I knew what was in the demo.  I just kept hoping it'd magically change if I didn't look at it long enough.  I did though, and in a way I almost regret it.

The demo, in a word, was soulless.  It was taking MMO mechanics and sticking them in a non-MMO world.  It, more than anything I've ever seen, accented the complete stupidity of the ATB system.  It provided the most bastardized 'action' combat I've ever seen.  The rest of this impression of it will go on in this vein, only in detail on why.  The simple end of it is Final Fantasy 12 is dead.  It would require such massive reworkings to make it live that I cannot comprehend it happening.

Storywise, the game takes place in Ivalice.  That ugly little world from FFT that's been beaten a little too much by them.  I'm in the 'don't give a damn either way' on that, but it might be of interest to you.  To me, the only issue with it was I saw lots of guns in the CG.  Like, hundreds complete with flying battleships of all shapes and sizes.  It might just be me but I kind of thing the whole fantasy deal works poorly when everyone and their cousin has a sub machinegun.  I look at the main party, all but one of which wielded swords and then I look at the CG and I wonder what the hell is going on.  How do you get armored knights going about in a world where you got small manuevable flying ships with rapid fire machine guns?  So, strike one for coherency of the whole game, because if the demo is any hint, we're not seeing a coherent fantasy world, and instead seeing an attempt to appeal to both sci-fi fans and fantasy fans at once in some odd bastardization of a world.

Convienence wise?  The demo lacked a pause button.  Hiding in the corner resulted in monsters hunting you down.  Maybe I'm unique in this aspect, but I usually can't guarentee myself several hours unbothered for gaming.  Folks call, people knock on my door, or I just feel like saying hi to someone online.  The existance of a pause button is pretty darn crucial in my mind.  Not having a way to halt the action at the drop of a pin is very much meh.  The game also uses AI to automate a lot.  How much?  Well, you can put your controller down and have a good chance of seeing your party kill off all the enemies around you.  Heck, go make a sandwich.  You'll have time really.  Don't worry, they'll cast cure, use potions, whatnot as needed!  Yeah, it's so convienent you aren't even really needed to play the game!  ...  Personally, I view this as another negative.  Especially as I saw no way to dictate strategy with these guys.  In order to counteract it, you've got to do this awkward staggered command bit which just was meh.  The demo provided no real threats, so I don't know how well this all encompassing AI will work when the enemies can actually kill you.  I suspect it'd be more annoying than anything.

Battlewise we've got the bastard son of atb, turn based, mmo, and free action.  The redheaded bastard son you'd like to beat the crap out of.  The one with the lame right leg.  Yeah, personification aside, it was very not good.  What we had here was controlling three characters in a wide expansive world with monsters wandering around the map that you could attack.  You controlled all of these characters in an action battle environment that would normally be a problem (too much to control) save for the ai doing everything for you (too little to bother with) and the fact that the action plods very muchly.  You've got this action meter that is almost never full, even if you ambush an enemy from behind or whatnot.  Which results in you waiting to see your action performed for really most the gameplay.  A friend called it turn based walking.  That kind of fits in a way.  You can't really dodge.  I tried.  Running straight away from the enemies and even having things between you and them doesn't change the fact that they'll magically connect unless, of course, you randomly defend against it.  And I do mean randomly because the whole standard turn based randomization system is underlying all of this, so attacks will be randomly blocked, parried, or do two or three hits.  What you do has little to nothing to do with this.  If the enemy rolls a hit, it rolls a hit, even if you've wandered to put a hill between you and it.  These bars aren't even very fast as you'll find that the vast majority of each combat is filled with standing there.  Active didn't change crap as far as I could tell.  Maybe it was because the main had no magic worth casting in the wait experience.  Maybe it was because it really didn't do crap.  Bringing in from MMOs, they have dozens of fancy rings, pointers, lines, whatnot to 'help you out'.  This filled the screen with lots of lines that didn't need to be there.  Battle at no point was chaotic enough to merit this, with the rare exception of when they reorganized what monster was on top (usually ending with whoever was farthest away from the fight).  This meant that rapid clicking attack just ended up changing your target.  Instead, the idea bit for attacking was to select a target, attack, and then put down your controller.  Maybe drink that latte that's not going to get a chance to get cold because you'll be doing this so damned often.  Anyhow, no matter how much it looks like an action system, it is entirely too plodding for one.  No matter how much it plays like a turn based system, it is too ai controlled and awkward looking(your characters are just standing there looking stupid half the time) in the display to really be one.  No matter how much it seems like an ATB system, you're not really controlling more than one character at a time really anyway.  And despite it having MMO traits, there really is no one to talk to between the long pauses of your actions.  It effectively combines the worst traits of all of them while minimizing their better traits through the mixture.

The graphics..well.  Okay, in context I've recently played DQ8 and SH:C, two games that while on opposite sides of the spectrum are beautiful on the PS2.  This...was not such.  The characters were well detailed and all, but they lacked any sense of brightness and stood out poorly against the dull textured environment they interacted in.  They were neither cartoony nor particularly thriving with realism.  They were in this sort of middle of the roads environment that didn't work for me.  The monsters were neat and all...but bored me to death and died quickly, so I didn't really look at them that closely.

I just finished it 20 minutes ago and I don't even remember if music was playing during it.  I suppose it must've been, but it really left no impression on me.  I'd say it is irrelevant by this point.

The demo environment, btw, really accented MMO heritage, being such glorious quests as 'go kill this monster 3 times, then kill this monster'.  I was beside myself with fun.  Really...no wait, that's bile.  I was beside myself with bile and throwing up.

This is a game that is below half baked.  I am told that this is how it was years ago at the last E3 it showed at and its improved from this point.  In which case, they released a truly shitty demo.  I am told that they weren't happy with the demo.  They've got good reason to be if that's the case...though I doubt they realize it.  In effect, they've convinced me not to buy their next FF product.  It'd take some sort of miracle to get a turn around here.  PA was being kind.  This was a truly shitty demo experience that left me completely apathetic to the characters (no I can't name them because aside from little bars at the bottom, their names were never used in the demo), with no feeling for anything but a cruddy combat system and a few wretched dungeons.  For something that's been in production 5 years, this demo of it is pathetic.  If the real game is anything like this...it's not worth 20 bucks, much less the 50 they'll ask for.

Dracos

[Anastasia]

While I normally dislike hyperbole on this level, it's apt and fitting for FF12. I've never been so totally dissapointed in a game than I was with this - it's FF11 offline. Fuck that noise, if I wanted that, I'd play FF11.

Storywise, the game takes place in Ivalice. That ugly little world from FFT...

HEY! Ivalice is awesome, at least as far as FFT goes.[/quote]

[Dracos]

As I said, might be of interest to you.  I think they beat on it a bit too much.  It'd be one thing if there was a bit more consistancy, but it seems like they change what 'ivalice' is every time or do gigantic time leaps.  It feels weird.

Personally though, I think FFT, FFTA, FFXI, and FFXII should be their own 'IVALICE' product line and leave the rest of the FF stuff alone.  Yes, it'd make less money...but it'd also alienate less customers than sticking stuff that is clearly not even remotely in the concept ballpark of the earlier games into a series which has made itself on single concise games in unique worlds.

Dracos

[Anastasia]

As I said, might be of interest to you.  I think they beat on it a bit too much.  It'd be one thing if there was a bit more consistancy, but it seems like they change what 'ivalice' is every time or do gigantic time leaps.  It feels weird.

Personally though, I think FFT, FFTA, FFXI, and FFXII should be their own 'IVALICE' product line and leave the rest of the FF stuff alone.  Yes, it'd make less money...but it'd also alienate less customers than sticking stuff that is clearly not even remotely in the concept ballpark of the earlier games into a series which has made itself on single concise games in unique worlds.

Dracos

I don't disagree with the above, but I also hold that Ivalice in FFT shouldn't be considered the same as the Ivalice in the other games so listed. Since, you know, Final Fantasy Tactics doesn't totally suck.

[Karlinn]

Son of a bitch.  They're really gonna kill Final Fantasy, aren't they?  I mean, people have been saying "this is the end" since 7 and onward, but still.

Son of a bitch.

[Rift120]

To be fair to your ocmplaint about Knights vs Guns Draco... its not really that new.

FFVI had several random enemies who used rifles and such to attack you (Not to mention the ones who use mini-mechs, but those were esper powered so they may be a exception.)

FFVII- well Shinra goons had a LOT of guns as well... Heck Barret had his whole gun Hand thing going for him.

FFVIII- I forget..did they ever use the Gunblades to shoot things or just decided the word sounded cool?


FFIX- didn't they fall back to blunderbuss's?

FFX-2 - Actually wasn't that game centered around Yuna's 'laracroft gunplay' imitation :P

Eh just my two cents. As for the demo, I'll take your word for it at he moment..which is just fine.. as I have WAY to many RPG's I want to pick up next year as it is.

[thepanda]

The difference between what Drac is pointing out and what you are pointing out is the scale. Basically the FF12 demo shows a hi-tech war being faught with ARMIES flying arounf with air ships and machine guns while wearing what amounts to leathers and chainmail. It doesn't make any sense.

"Hey guys, lets arm our tank drivers with rapiers!" sort of thinking.

[Dracos]

To be fair to your ocmplaint about Knights vs Guns Draco... its not really that new.

To be fair...you're very strongly mistaken about the nature of the complaint.  I think it'll become evident if I just note how the others don't apply.

FFVI had several random enemies who used rifles and such to attack you (Not to mention the ones who use mini-mechs, but those were esper powered so they may be a exception.)

Except in FFVI they were both rare and magically powered, as well as providing an overwhelming world changing force.  They were something that changed the nature of the game.  They weren't co-existing in any sense with powerful knights but representing a single city/country that vastly outstripped the rest of the world in technology.  This isn't the kind of picture being given here in FFXII, where we're seeing armies of these things fighting each other and one of the PCs happily have one.

FFVII- well Shinra goons had a LOT of guns as well... Heck Barret had his whole gun Hand thing going for him.

This wasn't fantasy though for the most part.  There was not a huge conflict.  You saw the heroes using guns too.  The environment for most of the first part of the game was entirely sci-fi.  You weren't seeing folks dressed in medieval armor, talking about princesses, and discussing the nature of judges.  The party largely looked like they fit into a sci-fi/modern environment, no matter what weapons they used.  This isn't the case here.  We're seeing bunnygirls in medieval armor placed next to flying high tech motorbikes.  It doesn't mesh nearly as well as Cloud did.

FFVIII- I forget..did they ever use the Gunblades to shoot things or just decided the word sounded cool?

This was very minimally fantasy.  You had assassins, flying ships, and swords attached to guns.  The dissonance wasn't there.[/quote]

Dracos

[Karlinn]

There is a slight difference between having quirky fantasy guns and weapons sprinkled throughout, which simply allow for combat by other means, and having make-melee-obsolete-for-all-practical-concerns automatic weapons thrown absolutely everywhere.  A talented swordsman at a few paces can take on a guy with a single-shot rifle; give the shooter a pistol or SMG and the swordsman's odds drop sharply.  Similarly, once everybody on the battlefield has a gun the tactics change considerably.

In any case, the guns of FF - and of most fantasy worlds that incorporate them - are usually designed just so that they don't drastically change the rules of engagement.  Often they're put parallel with magic as just something else for the players to contend with - something else that'll take HP off, which comes right back when you down enough potions.  When only a handful of people have it, it's tolerable; when it's everywhere, or widely distributed, then the system starts to look a little silly.

That's my take on it, anyway.