The Japanese version is out now.

Some impressions from an hour of playing the game:

• Despite of the gameplay changes, this game feels like a true Final Fantasy game. You can even hear a vocalized version of the 'Prelude' and a remastered 'Final Fantasy Theme' in the opening introduction movies.
• The game has about 10 minutes worth of Full Motion Videos when you start the game, and a tutorial sequence (suffice it to say, it involves storming a palce and has some interesting plot developements).
• The cities you can visit are massive, with probably a hundred people to talk to in Ramasca (?) alone. Areas are large but loading times pop up quite a bit, ranging from 5-20 seconds depending on the size of the area you're entering and whether it has a cutscene or not. It's not all that disruptive though.
• Enemies surprisingly don't drop gil (money). You can only get it for selling items or completing certain quests.
• The menu system has been improved a lot over previous games. There is now a quest dialogue to highlight all the missions you're doing. There are maps available from any region that you can access at any time that mark, among other things, save points and note where you should be going. There are even descriptions and images for all the monsters you've fought. Sadly, you can not inverse the controls in the System menu (rather, the controls are inverted to begin with and there is no way to turn them back). Major bummer for me, because I don't like inverted controls for the camera.
• The new skill developement system reminds me a lot of FFX's. You move a character around on a chess-like board to unlock abilities, spells and other stuff. Most likely, whether you liked FFX's sphere system or not will determine if you like this.
• Graphics are pretty good, although textures are a bit blurry here and there. This is noticeable only in some cutscenes though, and forgivable, considering the PS2's aging hardware and the massive amount of textures in the game.
• I have not heard enough of the music to pass judgement yet, although it does its job.
• You probably know about the new combat engine already. One thing I noticed is that enemies do respawn eventually. And the first battle as the main character involves...killing giant rats. RPG Cliche +1.

In conclusion: Thumbs up. This could've been a disaster with all the delays, but it seems like the developers came through in the end.

EDIT: By the way, while you wait for FFXII, may I suggest playing Dragon Quest VIII. It's an excellent RPG that I personally invested some 80 hours into. Highly recommended.

Ew... Sphere Grid....

I liked Ivalice alot though... I think I'll pick it up along with a cheap PS2 this summer.

I heard bad things about the combat system back from an early demo of the game. Is it true?

If it's better than X and IX I'll be happy to play it, even though I wasn't overly keen on the sphere grid.

I felt the sphere system was fine. Better than that crappy learn from items stuff.

How's the combat system?

VII was amazing. They haven't really come close to VII since its release.

But they did have one or two better before it.

Whoops, mistake on my bit. That was supposed to be IX. :p

VII is me favourite.

[QUOTE=Glyde Bane]How's the combat system?[/QUOTE]

The combat system is fine. It reminds me of how the combat works in World of Warcraft for some reason, although it is slower as characters only get a hit on the enemy every 5 seconds or so.

The only thing I don't like about it are the weird colored lines that come out of your character and form an arch to your target, because they are kind of disruptive. You can turn those of in the System menu though. Also, be sure to turn off any settings that automatically pause the combat because those unnecessarily slow down the pace of the game IMO.

So which of these "Final Fantasies" is actually going to be "final"?

Yes, the name of the franchise is a little ironic.

For Square back in the day it was fairly literal however. If the game didn't sell, it would be their final game. Thus the moniker Final Fantasy.

Interesting bit of trivia there.

I genuenly liked FFX. It wasn't the best but it was good. I won't know about XII till I play it but does it have a good story or is it just going on quests? I don't like SP games that play like MMO's i.e: .Hack

[QUOTE=Numenor King]does it have a good story or is it just going on quests?[/QUOTE]

It's both. There is a central storyline that you follow, but there are a lot of additional missions to tackle, most of which are optional.

[QUOTE=Numenor King]I genuenly liked FFX. It wasn't the best but it was good. I won't know about XII till I play it but does it have a good story or is it just going on quests? I don't like SP games that play like MMO's i.e: .Hack[/QUOTE]

+1

[QUOTE=Numenor King]I genuenly liked FFX. It wasn't the best but it was good. I won't know about XII till I play it but does it have a good story or is it just going on quests? I don't like SP games that play like MMO's i.e: .Hack[/QUOTE]


.hack is the greatest thing to grace mankind, and you will die for your heretic thoughts!

Satan! Ready the Nazgul Nightmare! And today... it's running in reverse .