"What up, people?". Yeah, right. Spent the early part of the day getting a 3-keyboard setup set up properly, and judging by the number of bouncers who had to intervene before we left it was a good evening.
I just got a chance to watch Izumi play FF12 earlier this week. Just about what I expected. I don't exactly dislike the series, but frankly the various Final Fantasies don't really do it for me. Most other RPGs have lots of other things to do in them; cooking, fishing, stealing, item creation, etc. Final Fantasies on the other hand have continuity (read: recycled stuff like Chocobos, Cid, and Phoenix Downs), good-better-best linear item / equipment progression, and pretty FMVs.
No, seriously - what does FF7 do that, say, Star Ocean 2 doesn't? The battle system, where you spend a lot of time grinding in RPGs, is for the most part the same in almost all FFs.Say what you want, most other classic series like Grandia, Legaia, the "Tales of" games, and Star Ocean have different combat and item systems. FF for the most part is the same ol' traditional party-vs-party "fastest guy moves" traditional combat. And I place heavy emphasis on this since you spend more than 75% of your time in RPGs in combat. It is a major component of the genre. In short, RPG = grinding. If you don't like fighting you want adventures, or entirely different genres altogether.
Having said that... I don't dislike the series either. They look nice, for one, and although I'm the last person to judge anything based on mere looks (e.g. I hate FPSes no matter how pretty), at the very least this has forced other publishers to polish up their own offerings; failing that, to develop in other directions. Polished-up 16-bit lookalikes won't survive in today's climate.
So what brings me to today's rant? Why, a 3/10 review on GameFAQs over Final Fantasy 12, of course. I understand going against mainstream opinion (hell, my own inclination IRL), but his complaints are ridiculous.
To wit: camera and unmarked map. An annoyance, to be sure, but "one of the worst systems"? Is this guy smoking goat dung? It's no bad than the mapping in quite a few RPGs, and in fact in FF12 destinations are pointed out to you - people find it entirely too easy. Read the featured reviews (2 of 'em). The camera doesn't swing around like in other crap games like in Conan or Mage Knight Apocalypse, in fact it's a pretty docile camera. This guy is clearly looking to use all the nasty adjectives available. "Inefficient", or "mildly annoying" perhaps, but not "worst". Meh. When reviews indulge in hyperbole it's normally a sure sign the "reviewer" is shooting blanks or indulging in spin.
Next: the battle system. "Unintuitive targeting and movement". Hello? Try comparing this to the traditional combat system. The few paces a character takes in FF12 has no bearing, and substitutes exactly for the standing in place of the latter. In battle means in range. If you force your lead character to move away and into range of another hostile, of course you're going to pick it up... duh? I wouldn't call the system innovative either (I can see, and agree, that it's just a clever working around of existing systems - I read up on FSMs as well), but it's hardly "artificial realism". A different approach was required - no combat zooming in, loading times - and FF12 IMO delivers. Wtf is up this guy's ass? I wouldn't want the same rehashed crap traditional combat system delivered via conveyor belt yet again. And he wants more of that overused bunk? Gawd.
The nitpicky comment on 'k's isn't even worthy of a snort of derision. What, other games don't do this? Puh-lease. I can see the point with voice-acting (a pet peeve of mine too), but the complaint about the story has no merit either. If you skip all the cutscenes of course you're not going to understand the story. This comment of his deserves a huge 12' wtf banner painted in red. It's like someone watching a movie in fast forward and then grouch about not getting it. This is so stupid I'm not even going to comment on it. Oh wait, I already did.
Finally he reveals his true colours, in the paragraph stating "would much rather see a return to the Final Fantasy games like the first in the series, with characters defined chiefly by your imagination, named by you, professions chosen by you, thrust into an adventure that occurs around you." News flash: this is an RPG, you play a role in the story. It can be centered around you, but it doesn't necessarily have to. Wow, so you can't go around doing your own thang? Boo-de-frickin-woo. This is Final Fantasy, not a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Name me any "classic" RPG series where the hero is "named by you, job chosen by you, adventure around you". And no, the option to rename the hero at the start doesn't count (that's missing the point, like this diptard did).
In all honesty I wouldn't review the game yet since I only saw a couple hours of it (although I know a lot of lamers who "review" based on as little as 10 minutes of play, check any of the GameSpot reviews (they're not filtered, that's why)). Yet, even with my own biases, my tiredness of the recycled cliches and non-improvements in most everything (compared to other RPGs) I wouldn't stoop to giving a Final Fantasy game a score of 3 - I think my score would be close to "nice-facelift-but-done-to-death", like say 6+ (or more likely 7).
Right.
The Megami All Stars are joining us tomorrow, so I expect the crowd will be larger and more uncontrollable than today's. Ugh. Remind me again why I do this - oh yes, to stoke my bottomless ego. HEE HEE.
Seriously, always moving as a kid meant I was always fresh meat in each new school / college / neighborhood. I'm tired of always not fitting in, and the endless fruitless attempts trying to. Now I don't try anymore. I have it, I flaunt it, and if people still don't like it they can choke on a choice of any one of the 17 instruments of which I can play.