It isn't as big an extreme as comparing FFX to FFX-2. This DS game is actually a natural extension of the first game, and it never gets too childish or silly despite the cutified designs. It really depends on your taste for characters. Did you like Vaan and Penelo? Because the story focuses squarely on them and their adventures.
Oh, and as for the difficulty, the NA version greatly ramped it up from the Japanese original (it was one of the biggest complaints), and I believe I read that it will get increasingly difficult later on. Also, they added a bonus dungeon of sorts for high level players.
I'm actually thinking of getting a DS for my sister's birthday and either FFXII: RW or Zelda PH to go with it, since both are essentially ARPGs (ok RW has this weird RTS system but essentially it's kind of an ARPG right), I'm more inclined to think that this would appeal to someone who has never really played anything other than Ancient Anguish (text-based MMORPG), Pokemon, and more recently, Locoroco (after watching me play it on my PSP).
I really don't know how someone who isn't much into gaming, let along rpgs would do with this. It's not complicated by any means, but I've been gaming for well over 20 years now so what is defined as "complex" as far as game design and function is pretty hazy to me anymore. Things that just make sense off the bat to me seem like martian to my wife if I try to show her something (I had first typed that as shower her and gave me happy thoughts), so as I was saying I'm so far gone into gaming that virtually everything is just intuitive at this point.
On the other hand there is a healthy amount of active and text tutorials in-game that you can access (the text ones anyway) from the menu any time if you've got questions about things for someone who really doesn't play this sort of game.
Also, and this isn't to start an argument, but RPG's, JRPGs specifically, are among the simplest of games as far as gameplay goes, as they get. Most of the time it's very basic menu driven combat that anyone can figure out, nowadays every single one has ATB which "spices" it up a bit by not letting you twiddle your thumbs for 9 hours, but this can usually be turned off. The most complex part of JRPGs today (and this game is no exception) actually comes outside the normal course of battle and "gameplay" and involves inventory and whatever the chosen skill system is (license board, sphere board, whatever) and micromanaging character progression. Personally, as an OCD king, this pleases me greatly, but I could see how it'd turn off some more casual people. When I tried to show my wife how to play FFX (because it's the most visually and audibly interactive FF up to when I showed her; voice instead of text was a big selling point for her) she had zero interest in bothering with the sphere grid, and just slogged through the battles to get to the next story point. Needless to say she didn't last long in the game before she got bored because the battle sections got increasingly difficult and time consuming and she just didn't care about that.
So anyway, for someone who's only played text-based RPG's or other games that aren't really actively played, I dunno what to say. If whoever you're buying it for got into the collection aspect of Pokemon, the character management and esper management of this game isn't a big stretch, and actually significantly less time consuming than what I understand pokemon to be (I couldn't ever get into pokemon. One would think the collection aspect would totally hook someone like me who is a completion freak and OCD about everything, but even my OCD can't make up for a complete lack of story/gameplay outside the collection aspect, I just can't do pokemon). However the battle system, depending on how you play it, requires far far more micromanagement and constant supervision than most JRPGs and as has been discussed already tends to play more like an active RTS with RPG elements than a normal RPG. Then again, I guess some people are content just bulldozing through the battle segments and strong arming it, but I can't see that working much past like chapter 4, battles start to get pretty difficult.
So in summary, man I don't know. :P The only way you're going to find out is to have your sister or whatever play the game. You can never get into a new genre untill you sit down and immerse yourself in it. You'll never know till you try.
It isn't as big an extreme as comparing FFX to FFX-2. This DS game is actually a natural extension of the first game, and it never gets too childish or silly despite the cutified designs. It really depends on your taste for characters. Did you like Vaan and Penelo? Because the story focuses squarely on them and their adventures.
I actually don't think it is possible to like or dislike Vaan and/or Penelo in FFXII since they get almost 0 character development. That's one of the reasons I've been looking forward to buying the game, a hope to actually learn something about characters whose name isn't Balthier, Cid or Ashe. (Not that I didn't like the first two)
So far... flat people are flat. I don't feel like my general impression of the characters has changed at all since I started playing, of course I didn't get FFXII so it might be different for you.
It's not like they'll get into anyone's life story (I imagine), but the characters definitely have more charm and personality this time around, and interact with each other far more often. It was a sad state of affairs when, say, Ashe and Penelo wouldn't say two words to each other in the first game, so they might as well have been strangers traveling separately to the same location. That's not the case here; Here there's an actual companionship going on. Even Llyud (how the hell do you pronounce that?) mingles often enough, even though he's the token quiet corner guy in the RPG party.
I almost didn't buy this game because it featured Vaan and Penelo. I strongly feel that XII would have been a better game without either of them.
I don't mind them half as much in this one, though every time they pull the 'haggard war veteran' lines it makes me laugh. As for Ba'gamnon, he was an interesting character from XII, much more memorable a bad guy than....heh, you know I've actually forgotten his name... at least Ba'gamnon had a memorable weapon.
I almost didn't buy this game because it featured Vaan and Penelo. I strongly feel that XII would have been a better game without either of them.
I don't mind them half as much in this one, though every time they pull the 'haggard war veteran' lines it makes me laugh. As for Ba'gamnon, he was an interesting character from XII, much more memorable a bad guy than....heh, you know I've actually forgotten his name... at least Ba'gamnon had a memorable weapon.
Vann at least is the bright eyed youth stereotype. Penelo is... nothing. Wait, no, she's annoying.
I just ran the Treasure Hunt mission with a gaggle of level 18 monsters... and a swarm of level 36 ones. Man that was weird. We actually beat the first swarm of level 36s even though it wiped out most of my guys and just avoided the other swarm to get to the treasure.
I almost didn't buy this game because it featured Vaan and Penelo. I strongly feel that XII would have been a better game without either of them.
I don't mind them half as much in this one, though every time they pull the 'haggard war veteran' lines it makes me laugh. As for Ba'gamnon, he was an interesting character from XII, much more memorable a bad guy than....heh, you know I've actually forgotten his name... at least Ba'gamnon had a memorable weapon.
Vann at least is the bright eyed youth stereotype. Penelo is... nothing. Wait, no, she's annoying.
She's cute. Penelo is the optimistic support and love interest of the main character. Do you think she even wants to be a sky pirate? No, but she wants to support Vaan.
Semi spoiler question:
I'm only at Chapter 2, but I wanted to know if you'll ever get to visit locations from Ivalice, or if the whole game takes place in Lumeres. I ask since it was shown that you'll be meeting other characters from the first game (Ashe, Basch, Larsa even), so I'm wondering how they meet up (and hoping it isn't the cliche "Oh we found a second magic airship and decided to join you guys just because) excuse.
I'm only at Chapter 2, but I wanted to know if you'll ever get to visit locations from Ivalice, or if the whole game takes place in Lumeres. I ask since it was shown that you'll be meeting other characters from the first game (Ashe, Basch, Larsa even), so I'm wondering how they meet up (and hoping it isn't the cliche "Oh we found a second magic airship and decided to join you guys just because) excuse.
Considering that there are a bunch of sky pirates from Ivalice in Lumeres I'm going to guess that it isn't actually that hard to get to and that the airship you have isn't actually special, though I'm not that far in the game.
I almost didn't buy this game because it featured Vaan and Penelo. I strongly feel that XII would have been a better game without either of them.
I don't mind them half as much in this one, though every time they pull the 'haggard war veteran' lines it makes me laugh. As for Ba'gamnon, he was an interesting character from XII, much more memorable a bad guy than....heh, you know I've actually forgotten his name... at least Ba'gamnon had a memorable weapon.
Vann at least is the bright eyed youth stereotype. Penelo is... nothing. Wait, no, she's annoying.
I really liked Penelo the few times she said anything Final Fantasy XII.
And I thought it was hilarious how Balthier and Fran would answer her questions and just roll their eyes whenever Vaan would ask something.
Penelo has a personality. She doesn't have many ambitions, except to live happily and peacefully; and she can fulfil that dream by bullying her friends out of anything too mischievous and making sure they don't die in battle.
So far she's been bossing him around, not the other way around. It's not like she's letting him do all the crazy things he wants, she's just keeping him in line. See the Logbook for proof.
I just hope they expand on their relationship (the romantic side), which I've read will definetely occur later on.
I also hope that dancing FMV finally makes a goddamn appearance, as trailers show that scene with her new/current outfit.
Up to 6.1 and still enjoying it. It's starting to get a bit more challenging, so that's good.
I'm still annoyed by the pathing though. If my units didn't spend half the time bumping into each other in tight pathing boxes I might actually bother micro managing more. As it is, it isn't worth the time to do anything but move as a mass, and try to block for your healers.
Also, why on earth do they bother locking and unlocking core characters for various missions in the first half of the game? For a good section you don't even have any back up characters to switch.
The game would have benefited strongly from a reduction in party size. One less character would have enabled some tactical choices and alleviated some of the pathing issues.
I did mention that I'm enjoying it though....right? heh.
Up to 6.1 and still enjoying it. It's starting to get a bit more challenging, so that's good.
I'm still annoyed by the pathing though. If my units didn't spend half the time bumping into each other in tight pathing boxes I might actually bother micro managing more. As it is, it isn't worth the time to do anything but move as a mass, and try to block for your healers.
Also, why on earth do they bother locking and unlocking core characters for various missions in the first half of the game? For a good section you don't even have any back up characters to switch.
The game would have benefited strongly from a reduction in party size. One less character would have enabled some tactical choices and alleviated some of the pathing issues.
I did mention that I'm enjoying it though....right? heh.
This is probably my second biggest complaint with the game. The first might be due to me sucking with the stylus, but I swear its impossible to select individual monsters in a huge meele and given the whole rock paper scissors aspect that really detracts from any strategies you can accomplish.
Up to 6.1 and still enjoying it. It's starting to get a bit more challenging, so that's good.
I'm still annoyed by the pathing though. If my units didn't spend half the time bumping into each other in tight pathing boxes I might actually bother micro managing more. As it is, it isn't worth the time to do anything but move as a mass, and try to block for your healers.
Also, why on earth do they bother locking and unlocking core characters for various missions in the first half of the game? For a good section you don't even have any back up characters to switch.
The game would have benefited strongly from a reduction in party size. One less character would have enabled some tactical choices and alleviated some of the pathing issues.
I did mention that I'm enjoying it though....right? heh.
This is probably my second biggest complaint with the game. The first might be due to me sucking with the stylus, but I swear its impossible to select individual monsters in a huge meele and given the whole rock paper scissors aspect that really detracts from any strategies you can accomplish.
It's true, when there's a huge battle you can forget using individual powers of your monsters. You can still use your leaders powers tho.
The tutorial said something about being able to highlight your leaders all at once, but I haven't figured it out aside from dragging the stylus to highlight everyone. I mainly use the Tabs on top (note: More DS RPGs need tabs, brilliant idea), but it can only move the leaders individually.
I also wish there was an easy way to see which monsters follow which leader. I mainly just spam summon when I'm losing units to refill my army.
The tutorial said something about being able to highlight your leaders all at once, but I haven't figured it out aside from dragging the stylus to highlight everyone. I mainly use the Tabs on top (note: More DS RPGs need tabs, brilliant idea), but it can only move the leaders individually.
I also wish there was an easy way to see which monsters follow which leader. I mainly just spam summon when I'm losing units to refill my army.
Selecting individual enemy units in a mass melee is a pain, yeah, but to select your own, all you have to do is pull down (drag) the leader tab with the monster whose skill you want to use, tap the esper, then use skills just like you do with leaders. The pull-down / push-up mechanic actually works pretty well, and when the tab isn't pulled down, the info is visible on the top screen as well, so the squad info's always visible.
1: The story. It's ok and kind of brutal but the DIALOGUE! It sounds like they stole the lines from Strawberry Shortcake. "Believe in yourself and anything's possible!" Ugh.
:x
Huurgh, sounds too much like FFTA to me, though the combat seems intriguing.
I've really had no problems selecting units, though in a dense melee it can take a few tries.
My complaint really is that once you have them, no matter how well thought out your plans are, they'll spend the majority of their time blocking each other and running in circles heh.
Really what I want is Ogre Battle DS, and this is a poor substitute.
I've really had no problems selecting units, though in a dense melee it can take a few tries.
My complaint really is that once you have them, no matter how well thought out your plans are, they'll spend the majority of their time blocking each other and running in circles heh.
Really what I want is Ogre Battle DS, and this is a poor substitute.
You can target any enemy unit you want in a huge meele? Because if so I want to know how as it would make the games 100 times more strategic rather than rush more to win.
This however doesn't imply that I can actually hit them, considering the number of bodies that are bound to get in the way.
I find charging in a formation works when you have the space. Each melee unit gets its own target, supported by a ranged unit. Once the sides clash you generally can let the AI take over for the melee, but may have to micro the ranged since they'll sit back and watch the fight if not themselves attacked.
So, I had no intention of buying this, but now I own it.
I walked into my local EBStop, and it had the incorrect pricetag on it. It was labelled as $15 - some Brain training crap or something.
So, jokingly, I brought it to the counter and said "I want to buy this."
The guy working there was someone I had worked with before and he was all "Okay. If anyone asks I'll just tell them I had a really bitchy customer."
We both thought it was awesome, and it screwed Gamestop corporate out of a tiny bit of cash, so... awesome.
Also, now I feel like I kinda got back at Square-Enix for making me pay $5 - $10 more on every game they released for handhelds because they think they're so great.
Posts
Oh, and as for the difficulty, the NA version greatly ramped it up from the Japanese original (it was one of the biggest complaints), and I believe I read that it will get increasingly difficult later on. Also, they added a bonus dungeon of sorts for high level players.
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Anyone inclined to think differently?
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Wait what? Is that a typo?
On the other hand there is a healthy amount of active and text tutorials in-game that you can access (the text ones anyway) from the menu any time if you've got questions about things for someone who really doesn't play this sort of game.
Also, and this isn't to start an argument, but RPG's, JRPGs specifically, are among the simplest of games as far as gameplay goes, as they get. Most of the time it's very basic menu driven combat that anyone can figure out, nowadays every single one has ATB which "spices" it up a bit by not letting you twiddle your thumbs for 9 hours, but this can usually be turned off. The most complex part of JRPGs today (and this game is no exception) actually comes outside the normal course of battle and "gameplay" and involves inventory and whatever the chosen skill system is (license board, sphere board, whatever) and micromanaging character progression. Personally, as an OCD king, this pleases me greatly, but I could see how it'd turn off some more casual people. When I tried to show my wife how to play FFX (because it's the most visually and audibly interactive FF up to when I showed her; voice instead of text was a big selling point for her) she had zero interest in bothering with the sphere grid, and just slogged through the battles to get to the next story point. Needless to say she didn't last long in the game before she got bored because the battle sections got increasingly difficult and time consuming and she just didn't care about that.
So anyway, for someone who's only played text-based RPG's or other games that aren't really actively played, I dunno what to say. If whoever you're buying it for got into the collection aspect of Pokemon, the character management and esper management of this game isn't a big stretch, and actually significantly less time consuming than what I understand pokemon to be (I couldn't ever get into pokemon. One would think the collection aspect would totally hook someone like me who is a completion freak and OCD about everything, but even my OCD can't make up for a complete lack of story/gameplay outside the collection aspect, I just can't do pokemon). However the battle system, depending on how you play it, requires far far more micromanagement and constant supervision than most JRPGs and as has been discussed already tends to play more like an active RTS with RPG elements than a normal RPG. Then again, I guess some people are content just bulldozing through the battle segments and strong arming it, but I can't see that working much past like chapter 4, battles start to get pretty difficult.
So in summary, man I don't know. :P The only way you're going to find out is to have your sister or whatever play the game. You can never get into a new genre untill you sit down and immerse yourself in it. You'll never know till you try.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Infinity Mog 21 and over Free Company Sargatanas Server. Recruitment currently closed.
I actually don't think it is possible to like or dislike Vaan and/or Penelo in FFXII since they get almost 0 character development. That's one of the reasons I've been looking forward to buying the game, a hope to actually learn something about characters whose name isn't Balthier, Cid or Ashe. (Not that I didn't like the first two)
I do kind of feel bad for him though.
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I don't mind them half as much in this one, though every time they pull the 'haggard war veteran' lines it makes me laugh. As for Ba'gamnon, he was an interesting character from XII, much more memorable a bad guy than....heh, you know I've actually forgotten his name... at least Ba'gamnon had a memorable weapon.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
No, it's not an ARPG at all in any way. It's 100 percent RTS. It plays very very similar to Warcraft 3.
Vann at least is the bright eyed youth stereotype. Penelo is... nothing. Wait, no, she's annoying.
She's cute.
Semi spoiler question:
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And I thought it was hilarious how Balthier and Fran would answer her questions and just roll their eyes whenever Vaan would ask something.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
I never had a problem with Penelo's character per se, it was more that I'd look at her whenever she spoke and wanted to yell "WHY ARE YOU HERE?"
I mean other than some vague implication that Vaan is of royal descent there really is no plot related reason why he and Penelo are involved at all.
At least in RW it's their goals we're pursuing.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
You mean Vaan? And Filo? And Kytes?
Penelo seems to be following because she has no will of her own.
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She can have a personality and still support him. Mindlessly following The Man is not a positive thing for a woman to do in my book.
She's also the narrator, FWIW.
I just hope they expand on their relationship (the romantic side), which I've read will definetely occur later on.
I also hope that dancing FMV finally makes a goddamn appearance, as trailers show that scene with her new/current outfit.
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I'm still annoyed by the pathing though. If my units didn't spend half the time bumping into each other in tight pathing boxes I might actually bother micro managing more. As it is, it isn't worth the time to do anything but move as a mass, and try to block for your healers.
Also, why on earth do they bother locking and unlocking core characters for various missions in the first half of the game? For a good section you don't even have any back up characters to switch.
The game would have benefited strongly from a reduction in party size. One less character would have enabled some tactical choices and alleviated some of the pathing issues.
I did mention that I'm enjoying it though....right? heh.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
VERY VERY similar. If you didn't like WC3, avoid this.
This is probably my second biggest complaint with the game. The first might be due to me sucking with the stylus, but I swear its impossible to select individual monsters in a huge meele and given the whole rock paper scissors aspect that really detracts from any strategies you can accomplish.
It's true, when there's a huge battle you can forget using individual powers of your monsters. You can still use your leaders powers tho.
I also wish there was an easy way to see which monsters follow which leader. I mainly just spam summon when I'm losing units to refill my army.
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Well, don't spam summons then. :P
Strength in numbers.
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Oh, yeah, no disagreement there. Just make sure they're going to the right leaders and it's all much simpler.
PSN: LucidStar_BC
:x
Huurgh, sounds too much like FFTA to me, though the combat seems intriguing.
My complaint really is that once you have them, no matter how well thought out your plans are, they'll spend the majority of their time blocking each other and running in circles heh.
Really what I want is Ogre Battle DS, and this is a poor substitute.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
You can target any enemy unit you want in a huge meele? Because if so I want to know how as it would make the games 100 times more strategic rather than rush more to win.
This however doesn't imply that I can actually hit them, considering the number of bodies that are bound to get in the way.
I find charging in a formation works when you have the space. Each melee unit gets its own target, supported by a ranged unit. Once the sides clash you generally can let the AI take over for the melee, but may have to micro the ranged since they'll sit back and watch the fight if not themselves attacked.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
I walked into my local EBStop, and it had the incorrect pricetag on it. It was labelled as $15 - some Brain training crap or something.
So, jokingly, I brought it to the counter and said "I want to buy this."
The guy working there was someone I had worked with before and he was all "Okay. If anyone asks I'll just tell them I had a really bitchy customer."
We both thought it was awesome, and it screwed Gamestop corporate out of a tiny bit of cash, so... awesome.
Also, now I feel like I kinda got back at Square-Enix for making me pay $5 - $10 more on every game they released for handhelds because they think they're so great.