Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Squeenix Final Fantasy XII remaster

Jinn

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
4,930
I started with new game-, only 1 job per character, enemy damage and healing x2 and hero damage and healing x0.5. I'll report later, after completing a few zones to see if it's feasible or retarded.

Thanks man. Though I probably won't go for new game-, as there isn't any leveling up.
 
Last edited:

Arthandas

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Messages
1,368
Thanks man. Though I probably won't go for new game-, as there isn't any leveling up.
Yes but it's not like you're missing anything gameplay-wise. Level ups just bump the numbers, you can still play normally and gain LPs.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
I tried to do an elite hunt last night at level 10 (the one with the golden bird and her chicks) and got fucked.

I had to level up to level 14 and even then it was a slog. Had to use all my status remedy potions, my healer ran out of MP, and I finished the fight with one party member left standing.

At that level, so early in the game, you only have two black magic spells - fire and thunder, and you won’t have gained enough LP to unlock more powerful abilities.

Easy this game is not.
 

Hyperion

Arcane
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,120
All you need for Cluckatrice is a few Dark Motes once it gets Enraged. Or wait 'till your Red Mage has Dark, but that's no fun.
 

Jinn

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
4,930
I tried to do an elite hunt last night at level 10 (the one with the golden bird and her chicks) and got fucked.

I had to level up to level 14 and even then it was a slog. Had to use all my status remedy potions, my healer ran out of MP, and I finished the fight with one party member left standing.

At that level, so early in the game, you only have two black magic spells - fire and thunder, and you won’t have gained enough LP to unlock more powerful abilities.

Easy this game is not.

I have been noticing the challenge going up a bit around lvls 10-14, but I've also been avoiding a lot of encounters to make sure I don't get too crazy overpowered. We'll see how it goes for the next couple hours. A slight increase in monster damage, etc would really even things out for me it seems.
 

tet666

Augur
Joined
Apr 13, 2012
Messages
396
So your idea of fun is gameplay where more than 80% of the time in combat is spent paused and scrolling through menus and submenus to achieve things that would take a single mouse click to do in any other RTwP RPG, despite the game already being extremely simplified compared to something like the Infinity Engine. Why on earth would anyone want to play the game this way?

Ok well but that's how these games always played unless you actually liked watching the atb bars fill slowly in the older games bevor you could do another action.
Comparing it to pc games like that might also be a bit unfair since we are still talking about a menu driven console game here with all the limitations that brings with it.
 
Last edited:

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
So your idea of fun is gameplay where more than 80% of the time in combat is spent paused and scrolling through menus and submenus to achieve things that would take a single mouse click to do in any other RTwP RPG, despite the game already being extremely simplified compared to something like the Infinity Engine. Why on earth would anyone want to play the game this way?

Ok well but that's how these games always played unless you actually liked watching the atb bars fill slowly in the older games bevor you could do another action.
Comparing it to pc games like that might also be a bit unfair since we are still talking about a menu driven console game here with all the limitations that brings with it.

Be fair now.

-In the old ones, you didn't have to focus on moving as well as menu scrolling.
-In the old ones, you didn't have to manually switch between characters between each action confirmation, and the ATB kept the cycling through characters that did actually happen easily manageable.
-ATB never took long to fill (except FF9).

But, I am not going to outright knock your method of play without having tried it...does sound super tedious though, and the gambit system is fun and can be manually overridden anyways.

Edit: so I checked out the video and non-player controlled party members are auto-spamming attack. I guess it's not so bad given that there is actually a form of "gambit" in play (that I am assuming cannot be disabled) as attack is the most basic and frequently used move. All it means is party members won't do advanced actions in response and you have to manually execute those yourself...makes the game more challenging and demanding, as the player has to mentally process more strategy and actions/reactions at any given time. Still not sure if it's worth it though. I remember the gambit system being hella interesting, and I can imagine a shitton of menu scrolling (more than that of older FF).
 
Last edited:

tet666

Augur
Joined
Apr 13, 2012
Messages
396
Be fair now.

-In the old ones, you didn't have to focus on moving as well as menu scrolling.
-In the old ones, you didn't have to manually switch between characters between each action confirmation, and the ATB kept the cycling through characters that did actually happen easily manageable.
-ATB never took long to fill (except FF9).

But, I am not going to outright knock your method of play without having tried it...does sound super tedious though, and the gambit system is fun and can be manually overridden anyways.

Edit: so I checked out the video and non-player controlled party members are auto-spamming attack. I guess it's not so bad given that there is actually a form of "gambit" in play (that I am assuming cannot be disabled) as attack is the most basic and frequently used move. All it means is party members won't do advanced actions in response and you have to manually execute those yourself...makes the game more challenging and demanding, as the player has to process more strategy and actions/reactions at any given time. Still not sure if it's worth it though. I remember the gambit system being hella interesting, and I can imagine a shitton of menu scrolling (more than that of older FF).


Well yeah as i said that's the beauty of it you can use Gambits how much you like, i also use them sometimes its just another option.
 
Last edited:

Jinn

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
4,930
I forgot how HUGE the sandsea is. Have been enjoying some genuinely challenging encounters here, as well as some good instances of resource conservation and requirement of premeditation of destination. A few nice side quests too!
 
Joined
May 1, 2013
Messages
4,499
Location
The border of the imaginary
Oh man, two job boards per class. I am going to spend several dozen hours optimizing that shit. Good Times ahead, at least until the prosperous combat hits me.
OK so i used a very detailed excel sheet made by some Autist Lord and the projected several dozen hours changed to just a couple of hours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...KvC5yipu9Yfh0IZ6YE-mh_e59g/edit#gid=260709202

quickening = reduced action time.

Ended up with:
Vaan: Knight / Bushido (Samurai)
Knight gets good str, but shit magic stat some decent white magic. Bushido gets good magic and Katana's which do damage based on both str and magic. Also 3xquickening without Espers. Decent Tanker, huge melee damage with genji, decent healer
Espers: Mateus, Hashmal for white magic unlocks of knight; Exodus for nice hp unlocks

Balthier: Shikari (Hunter) / Whitemage
This combo gets you High HP, shields, all white magic, 3xquickening. Also Hunter Specific Dagger gives huge Evasion boost. Also use Drain to deal damage and Heal self. Ultimate Tanker/Healer. Also adds genji Gloves so option for huge melee damage there.
Espers: Zalera

Basch: Uhlan / Time Battlemage
Basch is very fast with spear; time mage gives 3xquickening + time magic. Not the most OP combo, but I wanted the party to be made of all 12 classes so...
Espers: Adrammelech, Zeromus mainly for the Break unlocks.

Ashe: Monk / Blackmage
huge hp for squishy mage; 3xquickening, gets holy spell from ultima esper. Also high str for initial days when uber spells aren't unlocked.
Espers: Ultima for quickenings; Famfrit, Chaos for some white magic. Can add Zodiarc too, but then Fran is without any Esper.

Panelo: Archer/Red Battlemage
best red Mage spell is Fire damage; Archer gets Fire damage boosting Bow. Also 3xswiftness and many item lores.
Espers: Shemhazai, Cuchulain for some of the unlocks

Fran: Machinist / Breaker
Fran is subpar statwise, so ranged weapon goes here. Breaker adds Genji gloves as well.
Even without Genji glove, machinist/breaker gives all ranged breaks.

Now to wait for a mod which increases party limit to six.
 
Last edited:

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
I think Vaan had about ten lines in the entire game. M
FF XII would have been a lot more bearable if this were actually true. Although Vaan and Penelo do little more than follow the other characters after the first half third of the game, they unfortunately occupy a lot of narrative space in the earlier stages. By the time that duo fades into the background, the plot has slowed down to a crawl, with the game requiring the player to traverse multiple tedious areas to reach a destination where the player is rewarded with a small amount of plot development, then repeating until the end of the game.
 

Max Stats

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 26, 2016
Messages
1,091
I really dislike the "job system" in the zodiac versions (including the PS4 "remaster"). It's not a real job system, those let you change to available jobs at any time, this locks you in to what you first choose. Decide after 10 hrs you don't like Vaan as a red battlemage you chose with little to nothing but knowing you liked that job in older games? Tough, you maybe can choose another job later. Oh BTW for some reason, no cure spell for the red mage? What the fuck? Okay curaga's on the license board I'll work towards that.. oh fuck where do you buy the damn curaga spell to make the license even worth spending LP on? Worst "job system" ever. Game's still okayish, but gambits still take too long to go off, making it easier to just manually issue everyone commands so they don't just stand around picking their butts while enemies hammer on the designated leader...
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
It feels like I'm half way through the game (just killed King Bomb) and the game is paradoxically worsened by the addition of fast forward button.

Without it I'd maybe spend some time changing my gambits when I come to a new location. Add constant Shell on people if there are magic hazards, remove specific status effects from specific characters and so on. But with fast forward button I can just use basic set of rules (heal when weak, steal from full HP enemies, poach weaklings etc) and ran around. Without this button optimization would mean that I explore everything in 10 minutes instead of 20 after spending 3 minutes on gambits, with fast forward it means I chose between 2.5 minutes + 3 minutes thinking about gambits and 5 minutes + rare interrupts with manual cleansing of statuses or casting some attack magic.

And I see why they added this button. Bosses and optional hunts take forever. I got what this boss is about, I configure gambits so it's always under some specific status and my guys are shielded from whatever he throws at them. But the fight goes on and on. Other FF games had long battles, but those were hard end game encounters and you felt constantly on edge. Here I put the fight on fastforward and stare at the screen waiting for the enemy to maybe start doing something new when he's damaged enough.

I hoped that this seemingly mechanically-focused game would be interesting for 100% solution. Doesn't look like it.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Rule of principle: don't touch anything Square Enix releases, especially not Final Fantasy. Scummy Jap company with no integrity, talent or honour. Their idea of "remastering" those classics is adding super casual anti-game features (fast forward, cheats in the options menus, save anywhere) or turning FF6 sprites into shit. Their idea of adding to the series is FF13 and beyond. Well, even FFXII was a Square Enix game, and a sign of the decline to come. At least it seemed like they were TRYING back then though. I enjoyed FFX-2 and XII for what they were. I wouldn't bother revisiting XII though. Game was indeed grindy as fuck, and the solution is to play not-so-grindy, better designed games, not play it with a fast forward button.
If you want to revisit that series with an upgrade, look into ROM hacks and Mods of those that got a PC release.
And don't even get me started (again) on their Western IPs. Thief, Tomb Raider et al.
 
Last edited:

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,944
Rule of principle: don't touch anything Square Enix releases, especially not Final Fantasy. Scummy Jap company with no integrity, talent or honour. Their idea of "remastering" those classics is adding super casual anti-game features (fast forward, cheats in the options menus, save anywhere) or turning FF6 sprites into shit. Their idea of adding to the series is FF13 and beyond. Well, even FFXII was a Square Enix game, and a sign of the decline to come. At least it seemed like they were TRYING back then though. I enjoyed FFX-2 and XII for what they were. I wouldn't bother revisiting XII though. Game was indeed grindy as fuck, and the solution is to play not-so-grindy, better designed games, not play it with a fast forward button.
If you want to revisit that series with an upgrade, look into ROM hacks and Mods of those that got a PC release.
And don't even get me started (again) on their Western IPs. Thief, Tomb Raider et al.
You complain about grind yet don't want a fast forward feature in games?
I know it won't make the games better but a fast forward makes jrpg tolerable considering they are the grind genre.

Also save anywhere is not a problem if you just limit it instead of loosing progress and minutes to hours because of a crash.
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
If you want something fast-forwarded then you don't want it in the game.

I got FF12 because ot was the only FF game I hadn't tried and it was supposed to be the last good one. And I even liked FF15 somewhat. FF12 started strong, had a promise of depth. And people say it's more challenging. In the end it challenges me into sleep. Now I'll go play some of aweigh's dungeon crawlers where they murder you in tutorials.
 

Cruel Beans

Arbiter
Joined
May 25, 2017
Messages
348
Also save anywhere is not a problem if you just limit it instead of loosing progress and minutes to hours because of a crash.

I would say this sort of save system becomes a problem when the point of the game is survival on a long journey like Breath of the Wild. Why even bother wasting any of the pounds of food I collected or invest in heart containers when I can die at any time and immediately get brought back to an auto-save point that happened a minute ago? This is a failure of game design.
 

Doktor Best

Arcane
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,849
So what are good arguments for me to go and throw 20 bucks at Square Enix instead of downloading the rom and playing it with epcsx2?
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
The developers are people of integrity who truly love the medium! If you don't buy this corporation's product, they'll go bust! Square Enix has lots of love for its IPs and always treats them with utmost respect, never dumbs anything down making the play experience utterly mindless, they're honorable artists with integrity. Same with their customers and IP fanbases; so much respect for them. Square Enix are one of the better publishers in this day and age. There's never any cash cow schemes, games compromised with soulless mass market design. They even augment your pre-orders for you! So thoughtful of them.

Of course, this is all horseshit and the opposite in every instance is true. Go pirate that shit. Though, I'd recommend not playing at all. The game is alright, but there's better games in this and many, many other series.
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
So what are good arguments for me to go and throw 20 bucks at Square Enix instead of downloading the rom and playing it with epcsx2?

UI and graphics look really crisp and sharp in the remaster. It's fine. PS2 emulation would feel inferior. I also heard that it had numerous balance issues fixed in the remaster.

But I'd argue against playing the game at all. If you're interested in gameplay itself then you're into a world of boding grinding. Devs themselves acknowledge this by giving you a speed up button. It's boring grind specifically. Nothing like that existed in previous games. In FFX you grind to get special Arena monsters, so there's some thinking involved, and you want to get overkill with capture weapons - there's at least some tactics. In FF8 you draw stuff from enemies and turn them into cards and steal stuff. Stealing and rotating equipment is present in most other games.

But here you just set up one character to heal and others to attack and you run around locations. There are very few enemies you should avoid in some locations - but even they don't kill you quickly so you can run away. Some enemies are flyers so not everyone in your team can hit them, but it doesn't matter that much. People restore mana when they run around so there's no resource management. Only rarely you get some irritating status effect so you have to switch to a person who has a spell against it or you can use an item.

Then there are special optional hunts/bosses. You may even feel excited by them, but after a minute of manual combat you realize what to do and set up new script. And then you sit there and watch the fight for up to 20 minutes. I'm not joking, this happened to me, I totally killed monsters like that. It wasn't some sort of exploit - no, I had everything to kill the boss, it's just that dev think that true hardcore is all about patience. Here's some pro doing an optional boss for eternity. Note that he is using that speed up button.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom