Final Fantasy XII: Daily Entries

First Impressions:

It’s been many years since I’ve been hyped about a game this much only to have the first two hours completely live up to everything I imagined. Typically there are one or two little things that get caught in my gullet, and irritate like a grain of sand in an oyster. Eventually all the good things about said game will gloss over the irritant making it a positive and shiny experience, yet the faults are still buried deep within and I know it. Final Fantasy XII didn’t start out that way. During the jaw dropping introduction video, my brain actually made the leap out of it’s subconscious bliss into the real world to inquire why my jaw was on the floor.

When it was time to actually play the game, I felt a small lull in enthusiasm going through the obligatory tutorial level. Thankfully learning to use the action button and camera controls was short lived and I moved into battle quickly. The pacing was even spot on, with a crew of 6 NPC’s helping me out in my first battles and then later allowing me to act on my own to learn the system better. After another wonderful video, I was finally put into the game proper to accomplish tasks, explore the city, and get more time with the battle system.

I’ll admit that I watched some gameplay videos of the combat months ago, and from what I observed, I equated the battle system to that of World of Warcraft. Something akin to real-time combat but each enemy/ally attack needs time to charge before it will connect. This means you can either stand there and wait for Vaan to swing his sword again, or you can actually run around in an attempt to avoid enemy attacks. In a one-on-one battle, trying to avoid attacks is largely useless. I’ve tried running away from a slow enemy, but when their attack is ready they will suddenly get a burst of speed and easily chase you down. When another party member is added it’s easier to do hit and run attacks from behind because the enemy will focus on your other party member(s).

-wileee