Im pretty sure that you would love it. It has the most mature in depth story of all the FF's and although it takes a few hours to get started, you will be hooked. The new system is hard to explain, you could call it turn based but it's diffrent in a hard to explain way. With the new "gambits" you can order your party to fight and not touch any buttons if you get good at it. The voices are wonderful, world, best ever, music, so so, but the same random encounter music is gone. Thats right, it changes from place to place, and about the random encounters, you can see them on the map and screen now. So, get the game, it's about 100 hours of well spent fun.
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I'm with Onrie on this one, FFXII is a great game. The cg, voice acting, fx and overall "feel" of the game is very polished and very professional.
For me, the best way to describe FFXII is with an oxymoron--its a single-player mmorg. It's obvious Square took their experiences with Final Fantasy Online (FFXI) and applied them to this game. If you've ever played EQ or WoW and liked them, you'll like FFXII, if you didn't like them, you may want to find something else.
Most of the battles are non random in that you can see the critter or critters you're going to engage--for me this was a plus as some zones contain critters that are designed to challenge far above the level you first hit the zone(like the entites, aiyee those suckers are tough). However there are many battles that are unexpected--undead will erupt from the ground, creatures will fly in, things in dungeons will drop from the ceiling. The cool thing is that the surprises happen in a matter that's consistent with that type of creature--no sudden "screen freezes", jump to a different screen and start smacking down like previous ffs.
One seemingly minor thing about this game that I like, is odd as it sounds, the weather. Certain zones will change appearance depending upon the weather cycle (The Westersands and the Giza plains being among the more dramatic) and certain monsters will only be able to be found during certain weather conditions. Its a seemingly minor feature, but it really helped with the game's verisimilitude.
As for the game challenge, I will say that once you figure out how to structure the gambits, equipment, and techniques for your party, many of the latter battles beyond the first few levels in the main storyline are moderately challenging. That does not mean there aren't any controller thrower fights ;), it's just that you have the option of engaging in them or no. If you do get the game (and I think you should) do the Clan Centrio quests--if you're looking for tough fights, many of them will fit the bill.
One final aspect of the game (and its a strength or weakness depending upon how you view mmorgs) is that there is a bit of grinding to be done. Your party will enter a zone and sometimes will have their head handed to them, yet if you come back in 3-5 levels the zone will be manageable and 10-15 levels will be quite easy. If you don't like spending some time just running around slaughtering stuff, you may want to find something else. I haven't found it to be all that boring, and since slaughtering creatures is tied to generating money (which is very tight in this game) by the items the creatures drop (the mixing of which is a subgame in itself) to upgrade spells, techniques, and equipment, the grinding has stayed involving.
I gotta disagree with the above posters. Sorry guys! ;D
The plot is boring, reminding me of Star Wars, especially at the beginning, but without the charm. It's like the whole epic story spins all about you, but has very little to do with you. It's like watching it all unfold rather than participating in the unfolding events.
The gambit thing does not work, for me. All of the boards are the same, meaning every character is essentially a blank slate that you fill out. So there is a lot of room for customization, but at the cost of all the characters being identical. The only default difference being the character model. Also, after leveling up and choosing your abilities, you then have to find a shop that can SELL you the right to use the ability you just bought. And that's just silly.
The graphics are nice and the new battle system thing works. Essentially it's like Knights of the Old Republic, but you can make the enemies respawn by running away (usually you have to go quite some distance though). So the battles are still kinda random, just you can see them coming.
All IMHO
:D
Peace,
tfad