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Final Fantasy XII, does it get better?
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Most people love the Ring system, though.
Zetetic: The problem with going in and manually doing it yourself every battle is that the ATB bar has to load every single attack so when you want a character to do something you still have to wait, no matter what you do.
Honestly, is it so hard to understand that people just simply dislike the Gambit system? I guess it is. I can't understand why this fellow dislikes the Ring system, the best RPG mechanic ever.
Who wants to play Spot the Irony?
Exactly like Final Fantasies 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10-2 before it.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
I just lawl'd. Hardcore, yo. Both systems grate on my nerves.
There's a difference, this topic is about a "minority"(or whatever the hell you want to call it) disliking the Gambit system..then someone decided to derail it into a ragging on SH:C's Ring system.
There's far more ragging on the Gambit system than the Ring system overall, considering over the course of the three SH games the system has not changed much overall in idea or execution. The Gambit system IS a change, whereas the Ring system hasn't changed. It's a new idea that has been dragged out into 3 games.
There is hardly a similarity.
That might have something to do with the fact that one series has a player base that is huge, while the other one...doesn't.
Honestly, the Ring System is just as repetitive as any other turn based battle system. The only difference is how many times I have to push X.
And this is from someone that likes both the Shadow Hearts series and the battle system.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Explain to me where the Ring system dramatically changed in the Shadow Hearts series and people complained about it.
If anything, the gameplay improved over the course of the series.
There hasn't been a backlash the size of FFXII's boring battle system in the Shadow Hearts fanbase(unless you're talking about story, and that's a different matter).
I think Zephyr_Fate is talking about the wait between entering a command and it being executed which, for the most part, didn't exist in the old games.
Some of the abilities in X-2 worked like that. I liked that system better, since you had more of a choice about the timing of your attacks.
Actually FFIV worked this way too, it just didnt tell you the wait time. More powerful spells took longer to cast.
I am a freaking nerd.
FF12's gambits actually helped in fighting boss battles since your allies will try to heal by themselves instead of you having to babysit them everytime.
XBL Gametag: mailarde
Screen Digest LOL3RZZ
It really didn't feel different from turn based (at least for me).
If you don't see the irony and the parallel through your own statements, nothing we say will bring you into the light.
You know how I got around the ATB in FFXII? Faster weapons. And Berserk. And Haste, then Hastega. And I set up Gambits to keep those spells cast, at all times! Thank you, Gambit system; I love you.
It seems that FFXII's battle system was labeled as "active" mainly because you don't enter a wholly separate screen and playstyle for combat; in previous FF's battle and exploration were wholly different, whereas in XII, they're merged. The Gambit system is merely a way of coping with that merge, so that you don't have to individually enter commands every time you stumble across an enemy on the field. And why do you stumble across enemies on the field? Possibly because random battles bite.
And why not a full-time active battle system, like KHII or (more apt, considering the MMO-ish fields), .hack//G.U.? If I had to guess, I'd say that Squenix wanted to straddle the fence and combine older elements from the series with the new. And it did work. A simple combination of Gambits can flatten most random encounters, just like a single series of attacks, a good knock of Bolt3-All or a few turns with any one of Yuri's demon transformations could paste random encounters in other games. It's when you get to the harder bosses when you have to change up your strategy, just like with all games, and FFXII makes sure to throw the occasional curveball strategy-wise as well. The Death Esper can get bent.
It's pretty clear that you dislike the Gambit system, Zephyr, but you're still catching flak because you're delivering incredibly shortsighted and, let's admit it, dumb defenses for that dislike. The elements of combat you're ragging on have been standard issue for all RPG's; FFXII just lifted some of the tedium that those standards tend to bring about.
Apart from waiting for turns to become available you have perfect choice over when characters perform actons in every version of ATB I've ever seen, it's entirely possible to leave your healer character's turn ready untill you need it or whatever. It just happens that Chrono Trigger was the only game with a UI that actualy handled this sort of thing well. Why oh why did the PlayStation FFs not adopt the character's menus next to each other approach rather than sticking with the clunky and badly signposted face button to cycle?
The problem is when people have shitty reasons for liking or disliking stuff.
That's the issue, Zephyr. It's not that you dislike the Gambit system, it's that you have really awful reasons for it.
The biggest problem with the gambit system was that all the available gambits weren't in the store from the moment you got the system (or that they had to be bought at all). Other than that I think it did its job perfectly. There was no boss fight in the game I wasn't constantly telling someone to take some kind of action. I was definitly in the driver's seat, the auto-attacks and simple gambits were the engine I was driving. The fact I didn't have to mess with the trash much made the game better, not worse, in my opinion.
The biggest problem was in the game's engine. The magic spells at the end had long animations and stopped other spells from resolving (probably due to graphics concerns for the aging PS2), but auto attacks from my characters and the mobs (especially bosses) continued. This prevented me from be able to heal when I should have been able to, and unable to save my characters from a boss's strong physical attacks because Flare or Holy wasn't done yet (even if the boss casted it). I actually abused it myself vs the final boss, delaying one of his super moves from resolving while I had a Flare going and I got more big hits from Basch in. If all attacks and bars and movement stopped when these long animations happened, that would have been ok, because then those spells would have purpose in the relative time.
Another problem I had, and partially due to the above, is that auto-attack was the best move in the game. Ardor, Flare, Scathe, summons, all crap. Because I could attack for far more in the time it would take these things to do their jobs. Doing a quickening chain that didn't kill the boss was a death sentence, because you now had 0 mp. By the end of the game, doing one was only a last ditch effort to pull out a win on a mob that went into high defense mode (a trick that was played a bit too often). This wasn't at lvl 99 either... best I got was mid 60's average. After I beat the boss I didn't play it again (though I enjoyed the ending and the final encounters).
Summons were beyond weak, and only the first one you get had any use, which ended early in the game. Losing 2 party members and spending Mist charges for their uncontrollable and defenseless nature, in the hopes of doing their super attack which is weaker than most spells, is not useful. In no way did summons scale to the end, or even to the middle.
The game was fun in many ways. I enjoyed the battle system overall (even with the spell animation resolution issue). The bosses were cool, cutscenes were good, no characters were annoying (though a few had little purpose). Finding a new store with upgrades or spell or piece of equipment was fun and rewarding. Killing the hunts was fun (and more difficult than the bosses usually), and the rewards were often worth it. The bazaar system was interesting, but too opaque. There were tons of sidequests and other things to do besides the main quest. Its not the worst game in the series, but not one of the best either. The long grind of it (if you tried to keep all 6 characters up), the problems with the engine, and just the MMO feeling of it will keep me from replaying it, but I did enjoy my time within it.
Biggest headache for me were the items. Randomly generating chest content was a dumb, nay, insane idea, especially when applied to the secret rewarding hey-you-just-knocked-out-a-Demon-Wall-take-this chests. 10 Gil? Bah. Holy Mote? Shit. DEATHBRINGER? Glee!
Yeah. You could go through the game with a team of paladins too and still have very little trouble.
I was going to rush out and buy a PS3 just to get FFXIII but now after the foul taste i have had from the last 2 releases ive bought and from what ive heard about the MMO version i think im going to hold off and bide my time.
I had the opposite reaction. I got it out of habit. Expecting it to be much like FFX. Somewhat fun in small doses with major design flaws (Those temple puzzles suck) and annoying characters. I was pleasantly surprised by a fairly deep and fun game. All the annoying EMOness had been excised almost and it let me munchkin much earlier. I prefer the new battle system over the old one and although the random chests make my munchkin life a bit harder it still beats getting 99 dark matters or racing those down syndrome chocobos in FFX.
On the plus side, with about 30 min worth of reloads you can get yourself 8 deathbringers.
In what Final Fantasy is Magic usefull in the end? I can only remember VI still having magic usefull in the end. VII had KOR, but black magic was useless by the end. VIII discouraged you from ever casting anything but aura, magic was useless in IX about half way through, and similiarly X crippled magic about the same time. In XII the optimal set up is 1 guy heals and buffs 1 guy decoys and tanks and 1 guy goes nuts with a high combo weapon and high STR and a good weapon. Late games spells might be a nice opener or for air Bosses but otherwise stick to high combo weapons.
In VII Ultima was good at the end, well if you couldn't use KoR it was. Magic was actually good in VII the only problem being that if you had it equipped you slightly weakened yourself each time you used it. IX I don't really remeber using magic, but in X it was decent. I don't think however that FFXII's problem is thta magic sucks, its that magic, summons and, quickenings(essentially limits) all suck. The game eventually boils down to auto attack + buffs and heals.
I don't really understand Cabba, the only real difference between XII and X is the gambit system and of course the story line. I do have to say that random chests suck, walking in and out of a room trying to get the right item is not my idea of fun.
That's not really the issue, though - there's actually a bug in the game that means no two high-end spells can resolve at once. It means your mage (if you decided to have one) would sit there waiting while the enemy's Thundaga slowly hits one, two, three targets, even after your time meter has filled up. It's really frustrating when you want to charge in with a couple of spellcasters and hit an enemy with Darkga twice at once but by the time the second guy's casting the enemy's already killed you (or dead from melee hits).
I definitely agree that the engine has pretty big flaws.
Also, I'd like to add that IMO elitists are the worst thing about the Final Fantasy series. There are far too many "omg FFX sucks! FFVI rulz!", "omg FFXII sucks! FFVII rulz!", etc. Sure every Final Fantasy has its flaws (FFVII's translation, FFVIII's end boss, FFIX's slow pacing, FFX's voice acting, FFX-2's lack of story and FFXII's story) but I really don't try to focus on them and try to focus on the unique things each game brings to the series. For instance, I loved FFX's ending and FFX-2's battle system (which makes me happy that FFXIII's battle system will be similar).
Are you kidding me? John DiMaggio!
FFX's ending dissapointed.
HIGH FIVE!
Man, I have no idea what I'm doing with the liscence board.
is it a bad idea to grind low level mobs for LP?
WiiU: jooncole (Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate)
3DS: 2122-5983-8919
Not at all, unless you have some objection to having your characters all wind up being completely identical at the end.
6 tanks. It's the only way to play. I never bother with magic - to the extent that I very nearly didn't finish FFVIII. I..... I... didn't get junctioning. I played the entire game without junctioning anything.
How.... how is that possible.
It almost isn't. The final fight with Edea took me 3 and a half hours. I only managed to win it because I bought 99 Elixirs and used almost all of them. Finished with only Squall left standing.
I blame my hate of that game entirely on my assumption it'd work identically to every other RPG I'd played up to that point and I spent hours levelling up right at the beginning. Big mistake.
Oh, and the whole 'I can't believe we knew each other all along but just forgot!' plot.
And Squall.
Still, FFXII, superb game. Although I almost stopped playing it at one point.
In fact, I'm levelling my party in the deadlands as we speak.
So... picking builds and stuff?
It seems that daggers have a HUGE advantage over swords at this point (just got out of nalbina), same damage but faster speed.
and what's the big deal about guns?
finally: is there an armor/weapon set that each character excels with? like Vaan with daggers/light armor, etc?
WiiU: jooncole (Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate)
3DS: 2122-5983-8919
They're also slow as heck.
Balthier (my gun user) always has Haste on him. Always.
Does that mean that Battle Lore is useless for gun wielding characters?
Where Madness and the Fantasical Come to Play
No.
Increased damage is increased damage.