Final Fantasy XII Version 2.0?
Star Oceans and Chocobo Dungeons weren't the only things Square Enix announced at its annual media party: also mentioned was Final Fantasy XII International: Zodiac Job System, the latest in Square's history of re-tooling North American versions of its games and then re-releasing them in Japan.
This time around the game in question gets some standard adjustments, like widescreen support and English audio - but it also gets a killer update that will likely have the rest of us drooling green envy: twelve different license boards, each corresponding to a traditional Final Fantasy job class, such as Red Mage or Monk. In other words, drastically increased character customization and development...more or less the secret ingredient that many players felt was lacking this time around.
FF XII International: Zodiac Job System ships in Japan in August, so maybe it isn't totally absurd to hope we'll get one here? Please, Square... Pretty please?
Square Enix unwraps Last Remnant [Gamespot]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 12 May 2007
· Comments (7)
Other stuff like this: final fantasy xii, international zodiac job system, ps2, square enix
The new license board system will almost entirely change the dynamic of the game, and no doubt there will be additional weapons and other such easter eggs added. I actually liked the generic license board for all characters (please don't hit me!) It gave your character team a sort of power ranger feel. Everyone could equip everything in the final stages, and they felt interchangeable and connected together. It has a real dynamic to it in the latter Yiazmat and Omega Weapon battles, switching characters in/out of strategic roles rather than them becoming permanently defined certain character classes. There is something so awesome about having Ashe with the Rod of Faith then suddenly *blam* she has to run in switching to Masamune and Genji Gloves. Awesome versatility. I think the new boards will be really, really interesting -- but I felt there was something to the original set up (whether or not it was intended by Yasumi Matsuo).
If it has english text support as well (which really shouldn't take too much effort), this game is soooo getting imported.
The only other problem other than the job system (which let you make everybody pretty much equal) was the entire battle system.
I hate to say it after playing the game and writing a big old walkthrough on it, but the battle system was pretty lacking. It really boiled down to "Walk from Point A to Point B", and let the system take over for you to do the battles, and every so often "Oh, wait - do this instead".
Compare that to a system like "Contact" on the DS: while it employs the same kind of system (walk about, the character does what it wants while you make suggestions), but you were always engaged, always active, as opposed to FFXII.
Of course, this is all just my opinion - I could be wrong.
I don't know HOW you people are playing FFXII, I always had to be ontop of any battle situation or my party would be dust and yet I hear all kinds of "autobattling/boredom" stories. I don't get it.
I liked the first license board but I hated taking extra licenses cause I couldn't skip around them to get the stuff I wanted. I hope THAT aspect is fixed the most.
Wake me when they make "Final Fantasy XII: Non-sucky Battle System" edition. I could probably hate the battle system in FXII more, but I'm not sure how...
Final fantasy XII is disappointing me due to its storyline and weak characters. It is my least favourite FF which I have played since FF7. Even though the PS1 graphics of FF7 are obviously not up to much The characters where just so involving. I love Red XIII, Aeris etc but the characters in FFXII ? I couldnt care less about. Fran's ok and perhaps Balthazar but Ashe and Penelo and Vaan ???. I also hate its generic star wars storyline. I am so bored of that story being rehashed over and over again. Love the graphics, like the license board, although I thought FF10's sphere grid was better. HATE GAMBITS. Just can't be bothered with all but the basic ones. And lately I feel that sqeenix is just releasing too many variants of FF i've lost track of all the different ones - there seems to be a new FF spin off announced every day! I think this is watering down and cheapening and over milking the franchise. Especially when a lot of the spin off titles are not very good such as dirge of cerberus. dirge indead. I am enjoying Oblivion far more it feels so much more advanced. I think that the western style RPGs such as Oblivion are overtaking the JRPGs which to me are becoming stale. I am looking forward to Lost Odyysee though ( icant spell that word right and I blame Oddworld inhabitants for that.
To poor cow:
Balthazar? Balthazar?!
He's the best gay icon in FF-games ever, and you can't even remember his name? Balthier!
Also, what's so hard about the spelling of Odyssey? ;P
To me, FF XII wasn't such a huge disappointment, since I didn't expect too much of it after reading the reviews. At first the battle system was very addicting, but by the end it started to become quite grueling because there was so little else in the game (seriously, there was almost no interaction between the playable characters that didn't just advance the plot).
What comes to the Zodiac Jobs, I think it's a great addition to those players who really like job systems in their RPGs. From what I hear, there's no way to change the job of a character once it's chosen, so that might be a problem for this version.
After all, how can you know if you like the job (or if it's even any good), if you can't test it first?
The jobs seem interesting enough, though. There are the staple Black, White, Red and Time Mages (no Green Mage, though), Knight, Monk, Warrior, Archer, Engineer and Samurai and the more mysterious "Breaker" (apparently using axes and hammers), "Shikaree" (hunter in Hindi) and "Uhlan" (cavalier or lancer). That's thirteen in total. My source is ff12.gamigo.de.