First impressions...

Cons:
-If I hadn't read the IGN review I wouldn't have a clue as to what was going on.
-Yippee, another androgynous thief for a main character
-And WTF is Vaan wearing? Is that a tattoo or just freakish abs?
-Some of the music is a bit over the top
-The voice acting seems out of place
-ZOMG SPACESHIPS AND FORCEFIELDS AND MACHINE GUNS! (PS: Here, use this sword and bow.)
-How the hell is this Ivalice? Seriously, were they just unable to think of a new name for this new land so they stole the name from FFT?
-That Barney boss from Jedi Outcast? Yeah, he's in here too.
-License system? That's dumb.

Pros:
-Holy crap. This is the first Final Fantasy game I've played where it feels like things are actually happening.
-No prerendered scenery; "field" and "battle" are merged
-The new battle system plays like KotOR, but better. I like it.
-When the voice acting is good, it's good.
-Cutscenes that aren't prerendered are acted out by the new real-time engine, and they look awesome.

Overall, I'm really impressed. I'm gonna go play some more.

Cool. I have to go pick it up sometime.

I got it yesterday but I havent gotten far enough to know if i like it.

I'm still churning my way through 8

beating 7 today

[QUOTE=Vincent Valentine]-How the hell is this Ivalice? Seriously, were they just unable to think of a new name for this new land so they stole the name from FFT?[/QUOTE]More accurately, FFTA. At the start of FFTA the kids are talking about how they wish "Final Fantasy" was real. The Final Fantasy they were talking about was supposed to be FF12.

Nu Mou, Bangaa, Viera; judges. Jagds. I may be mistaken, but the in-game map also looks quite a lot like the FFT map set at an angle. For some reason Square-Enix likes to do that to their worldmaps.

I believe the intention is for the Ivalice to be the "same" as the one in Final Fantasy Tactics, only set very far ahead in the future. The same guy was in charge of FFT, FFTA, VS and FF12 and all of those games are set in the game universe. (Except FFTA is an imaginary version of it). Additionally, all of the countries are supposed to have feudal-style governments which aren't terribly renowned for stability. Take a look at Dalmasca, for instance, and how every single last trace of the Dynast King got sucked up by the Empire in about 2 years.

ASDF. Can't emphasize this strongly enough.

The top right of the license grid is fine. It's very sphere griddy. The bottom left is just stupid. In FF10 all of your advancement was done on the sphere grid. In FF12, to advance your character, you need to grind (and I do mean grind) for three things: Gil, XP and LP. None of these things can be efficiently collected at the same time.

Here's a short run through on how you advance your character. Want to use a new bow? Okay, here's how:

1.) Change your gambits so Vaan uses Steal on everything.
2.) Curse when you realize that Vaan is stuck in a Steal loop.
3.) Change Vaan's gambit to only Steal from foes with 100% health.
4.) Change Penelo's gambits to attack whatever Vaan is stealing from, so he only tries once instead of stealing from creatures that aren't carrying anything.
5.) Try to solo everything with Fran because your other two characters are busy aggroing everything within viewing distance.
6.) Fran is now level 30 while all of your other characters are level 18.
7.) Realize that Steal doesn't help any more than building up a really high Chain, so abandon your ridiculous failure of a gambit set up in favor of something more effective.
8.) You finally have enough money for the bow.
9.) You don't have enough LP to buy the 18 licenses between you and the specific skill you want.
10.) You get to choose between killing challenging creatures that can probably kill you for 1 LP apiece, or grinding on creatures you can kill in one hit for 1 LP apiece.
11.) You grind in the Dalmaca Estersands for 3 hours.
12.) You can now equip your bow.
13.) In order to equip your bow you need to equip ammo. The ammo does nothing but it takes up an accessory slot.
14.) You unequip your accessory. You just wasted the LP you spent unlocking the permission to use your golden hairpin. Super.
15.) This is the worst gameplay mechanic since the Garment Grid.


That said, this is still the best Final Fantasy game.

FF I
FF II
FF III
FF IV
FF V
FF VI
FF VII
FF VIII (on disk 3)
FF IX
FF X
FF X-2
FF XI
FF XII

Lotta FF left for me still.

Not really much left worth playing. You've played all the good ones already (except 9)

FF I - Never plalyed.
FF II - Never plalyed.
FF III - Never plalyed.
FF IV - Never plalyed.
FF V - Never plalyed.
FF VI - Never plalyed.
FF VII - Never plalyed.
FF VIII - Never plalyed.
FF IX - Never plalyed.
FF X - Played for like 45 minutes.
FF X-2 - Never plalyed.
FF XI - Never plalyed.
FF XII - Never plalyed.


More FF left for me to play.

That's the way I feel too. No matter how much crap they throw at you, the rest is so good that it still is awesome.

All of the Final Fantasies i've played have been good, the ones I haven't played are X-2, XI and XII.

The ones I have played include the Legends series on the Gameboy (Legends 3 is awesome) and Mystic Quest (which wasn't amazing but it was still fun enough to play).

Huh? http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/459841.asp

Will I get enjoyment out of 7 days of rental? I only rented 10 and 10-2 this way, and hated them both.

Yeah, but you may want to finish it.

Just so you know, the first few hours are a little slow. It picks up though.

The US version of 10 sucked anyway, it didn't have the Dark Aeons. You yanks got the easy version of the game :p

I know it's gotten good reviews from magazines and such, but I havent heard many raving reviews from the people I know that have played it, and they're hardcore FF fans.

Exactly.

If you like FF, and you like KotOR, you'll like FF12.

The game took me 74 hours to complete and I only did about 60% of the available sidequests/sidemissions. It will take you some 40 hours or more to complete one way or another, so I'm not sure if 7 days are sufficient.

If you didn't like FFX, you might like this game because it's so different. Consider renting or buying some older FF games though (like FF7 for the Playstation).

I've played all the others except 4-6.

if you haven't played 4-6, you haven't played Final Fantasy.

My roommate has a couple buddies over, and they're playing it right now. Just started.

Might as well give FFXII a try then.

Bleh, it'll get here around March anyway.

I'm gonna get it though. I surely hope it doesn't make me dislike it so much that I stop playing it after first few hours like FFX did (mostly due to the voice acting).

The FFX hate is strong here. Once I got over the fact that Tidus was a whiny ***** and Yuna's voice actor was annoying, I really enjoyed the game *shrugs*

FFX was a terrible game. Felt like you never had control. Too many cutscenes. This game is much better and the visuals are awesome. In Final Fantasy 10 I got all the way to the Thunder Plains without saving one time, didnt have a memory card and never turned off my playstation. I turned it off to play FFX.

The fanboys don't like it. Too much fun, not enough menus, not enough giant swords the size of a house.

Basically FF12 is the anti-anime. It's a Star Wars-esque good-against-evil thing, not the Akira video game. It's pure fantasy but it's about as close to realistic as a Final Fantasy has ever gotten. They actually make fun of the giant swords later on in the game, when you get one and nobody can lift it. :p

Pretty much everybody who doesn't think FF7 is the best game ever is loving FF12 to pieces. This should include you. If you haven't played it you should. Then you should play Okami, and then Tales of the Abyss. In that order.

I think FF7 is the best game ever but I still love this game.

FF7 was a good game. Not the greatest ever of FF series (6 is my winner). Therefore, according to posts given, I should enjoy 12 a lot.

i just beat 7 for the first time less than an hour ago.

i'm skeptical about that.

i mean, i'm sure you've masturbated before today.

I MEANT FINAL FANTASY 7

I must be one of the few who enjoyed playing all of the Final Fantasies. With that said, I won't get the opportunity to play FF12 until near Christmas, but if it's really an awesome combination of Final Fantasy and KotR then I'll like it alot.

Is it wrong that I bought Okami first? I'm loving it to pieces :x

I want to give FF12 a try though. I didn't enjoy 7, but I enjoyed the realistic (Well.. more than FF7) ness of FF6 and 4. Sounds like I'd like FF12. I also loved Tactics, and since the same guy did this, should be fun.

spoiler:

Final Fantasy XII is about the Archadian Empire, a capitalist Republic which possesses weapons of mass destruction (Nethecite) and invades small desert countries (Dalmasca) for strategic and energy-related reasons. In the game the Archadian people are portrayed as money-grubbing and stupid, and the government is shown as horrendously corrupt.

Archades, the capitol of the Archadian Empire, looks like New York City.

Am I the only one who thinks Square-Enix is trying to say something?

EDIT: THERE ARE DAWN SHARDS IN DALMASCA VOTE VAYNE HE CAN PROTECT US

EDIT 2:
[QUOTE=Archadian Research's Wife] My good husband works at Draklor Laboratory, and, well, I shouldn't say this, but he works on something so secret that he can't even tell me!
Now, he's not the most giving type, my husband, but just the other day he gave me the most unusual gift... a card.
I've taken to carrying it around with me, and it's quite odd, but I feel the strangest urge to spend my gil at the raffle house, or on stock notes! [/quote]

Fixed.

I'll pick it up when it's released over here. Personally I thought 7 was the best one and I hated KotOR.

Mind you, I don't believe half of what I read here when it comes to taste in games.

I love this game. It just keeps getting better and better.

And Bosch and Balthier are really hot.

I'm still amazed I beat Final Fantasy VII without knowing what magicka is.

I... I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here.

Like.. I beat the game without knowing wtf I was doing. I *think* I used magicka a few times on seph, but then again, maybe not. To this day I still don't have any idea what I was doing. I found this thing called pandora's box on my way down to seph on the floating steps and I just used that on seph a bajillion times.

pandora's box was used from the enemy skill materia. and not using materia throughout the game would make it quite frustrating. the only thing that doesn't make any sense is that THEY GO THROUGH A TUTORIAL ON HOW TO USE MATERIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME.