Halloween the U.S. Release Date for FFXII

Along with trick or treat candy, gamers can look forward to Final Fantasy XII finally launching here in the states on October 31st. 1up has the story: "What better way to enjoy left over Halloween candy than by digging into an epic RPG adventure? Additionally, Square Enix will be releasing a Collector's Edition for $59.99 via EB Games and GameStop websites and retail stores featuring special packaging and a bonus DVD with Japanese and American trailers, developer interviews, an art gallery and featurettes on the Final Fantasy series. "

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[heinousjay]

I liked playing the games, but when they turned into movies with occasional interludes of random encounter action I stopped buying them.

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[brkello]

Ha! Don't touch Xenosaga then. The game has come a long way from the first one. I enjoy getting to the movies as it continues the story and plot. While the last few have been a bit weaker, they are still decent and fun. Oh yeah, I forgot, it's cool on here to pretend you hate anything popular.

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[7Prime]

Not half as bad as Xenogears though, where you literally go from "Do you want to Save?" to "Do you want to Save?" without ever being in control of the game!

God I wanted to like that game, but the story becomes ludicrus, you realize that the only "character developments" are sudden and unrealistic, and the second disk mostly consists of 6 hours of watching characters sitting in an arm chair TELLING YOU THE STORY: "And then we went through this cool dungeon, and then we fought the boss, and then we went to this town, and then we were betrayed by X, and then we fought him." I know it was a rush job, but I wanted to throw the game at the wall. Xenosaga (the first one) and FFX don't even begin to compare, and I thought those games were cutscene heavy.

My favorite story revolving around the game is that my friend (who had already played the game) was watching me go through it. There's a scene where the main character and the romantic lead are in the main character's room, talking. This extremely sappy, cringingly over-the-top dialog goes on FOREVER, so after a while, my friend starts saying, "just press the 'fuck button'", "just keep pressing the 'fuck button'" (refering to the action button), at the end of the scene, the screen fades to black, and then fades back in again, and it's the next morning, and you see the female lead in his bed with obviously no clothes on, and the male lead in his boxers. I suddenly yell, "holy shit, you really did mean the 'fuck button'!", and we just started laughing at how rediculusly bad it was. Oooh, sex in a video game, that must make it, ya know, all "adult like". Pleeeease...

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[drinkypoo]

I suddenly yell, "holy shit, you really did mean the 'fuck button'!", and we just started laughing at how rediculusly bad it was. Oooh, sex in a video game, that must make it, ya know, all "adult like". Pleeeease...

I first saw that in Golgo 13 on NES.

When I finally saw a Golgo anime (years later) I laughed my ass off, it's got enough sex to qualify as hentai :P

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[PhoenixFlare]

If you don't like them, don't play them. I don't think anybody at Square will lose sleep over it.

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[frosty_tsm]

They thought it was going to be the Final one back when they almost went out of business.

Turned out people loved it, and it became not so final.

Re:It's not really the Final Fantasy, is it?

[ReverendLoki]

There have been 11 other ones

I see a comment like this in just about every FF thread anymore. It's the stock response for someone who doesn't care for the FF series and wants to make a witty remark on /. I'll repeat what I said in the last one:

Like most things, there's actually a reason and a story why they name a seemingly unending series "Final". Wikipedia has a nice summation, which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_fantasy#Overvie w [wikipedia.org]

Or, for those who don't feel like following a link:

Square Co., Ltd. first entered the Japanese video game industry in the mid 1980s, developing a variety of simple RPGs for Nintendo's Famicom Disk System (FDS), a disk-based peripheral for the Family Computer (also known as the "Famicom," and known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System). By 1987, declining interest in the FDS had placed Square on the verge of bankruptcy. At approximately the same time, Square designer Hironobu Sakaguchi began work on an ambitious new fantasy role playing game for the cartridge-based Famicom, inspired in part by Enix's popular Dragon Quest (known to some in the United States as Dragon Warrior). (At the time, Enix and Square were separate companies; they did not merge until about 17 years later.) Sakaguchi had plans to retire after the completion of the project so he named it Final Fantasy because it was his final game, although it was also going to be Square's final game. In fact, it's commonly believed that the game was named Final Fantasy because of Square and not Sakaguchi, although Sakaguchi himself has confirmed it was named because of his plans for retirement. Either way, Final Fantasy turned out to be far from being Square's or Sakaguchi's last game. Final Fantasy reversed Square's lagging fortunes, and became their flagship franchise.

It should come with some older ones too

[192939495969798999]

When you're talking about a special edition, why not include some of the older versions running on the (available) emulators? I guess it's hard to get the PS2 to do emulation, but at least including some of the low-selling older PS1 FF versions would be a nice gesture to long time fans of the series.

Re:It should come with some older ones too

[oahazmatt]

Personally, I think one of the better bonuses could have been the inclusion of FF7, now on one single DVD. Advent Children sold quite a few copies, so I'm sure there are some people who would enjoy playing the game for the first time and not need to cycle through numerous discs.

But, back on topic, yeah, I'll get this.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Imagine the box art...

[Doches]

_______________
/...............\
| Final Fantasy |
| I, II, III,.. |
| IV, V, VI,... |
| VII, VIII,... |
| IX, X, XI,... |
| ..And........ |
| XII!......... |
\_______________/
No wonder they won't do it, the ink alone would drive them bankrupt!

Re:It should come with some older ones too

[KDR_11k]

Considering it seems to be a trend lately to throw in the first few games (emulated) from a series with a new release that would sound appropriate but S-E is remaking the old FFs game by game so they might not consider that profitable. I have a hunch we'll see a FF7 remake within a few years because it's a guaranteed moneymaker. They're currently working on FF3 (DS) and 5 (GBA) remakes IIRC and 1, 2 and 4 already saw remakes (GBA) so 6 and 7 will probably be next. Perhaps a simultaneous release of FF7 remak

Re:It should come with some older ones too

[SuperMog2002]

6 for GBA has already been announced and is due out by the end of this year. No word on 7, yet.

Can't happen...

[7Prime]

1-6 will be completely out of the question by that point. When the Wii hits, Square will probably release 1, 4, and 6 on the virtual console. Nintendo will most likely want exclusive rights back for those games. Not to mention, IV was just re-released on GBA, and V and VI are soon to follow, not to mention the remake of III... that leaves I and II, which were just re-released 2 years ago for GBA, and then 2 years before that for PS1.

With all of this, there's even a good chance that Nintendo won't release

I might actually get this one

[ClamIAm]

The thing that's usually turned me off from FF games (and other series, like Dragon Quest) is all the random battles. The new battle system in FF 12 certainly has its detractors, but I think it's a good thing. Maybe I'll rent it first...

Re:I might actually get this one

[aichpvee]

Have you played it? If it plays like the demo they shipped with Dragon Quest 8 it's going to be one of the worst games ever released. Maybe I'm just biased because I don't like the boring gameplay of most MMORPGs even when there are other people playing and the thought of spending 40 hours playing one by myself isn't very appealing. But I couldn't even get through the second demo (the first one lasts like 2 minutes) because after about 7 minutes I was falling asleep.

Sure Square's ATB (and FFX regression)

Re:I might actually get this one

[ClamIAm]

Yeah, I also heard that the demo was pretty crappy, but others claim that the demo is not representative of the game at all. So that gets me back to "I'll rent it first".

there's not a lot of hype about this

[cascino]

but trust me, it's a GREAT game. i've played through the japanese import, and it's brilliant. combat, storyline, pacing, environments, battles... all well done. it's not dumbed-down like many of the recent games have been either. if you have liked any of the previous ff games (especially those prior to the playstation era) it's worth checking this out. i personally loved it.

Re:there's not a lot of hype about this

[cascino]

Okay I realize you have already made up your mind at this point, but I hope you can read my comments below and see why things may not be exactly as they seem.

There's a reason there's not a lot of hype about this. They released a demo with DragonQuest 8.
We've played it. It sucked.

Yes the demo is a piece of shit. I should've prefaced my comments by saying that I too hated the demo. I came into FFXII with very low expectations for playability. Trust me there's simply no comparison between that and the final version.

About the only thing worse than being placed on the strict rails that Final Fantasy games always enforce is having the battles stuck on rails too. The characters play the game for you - there was an article on Slashdot a while back about that when the Japanese version was released.

But what you're overlooking is that the battle system has been redesigned to fit a paradigm completely different from the traditional FF battle system. In old games, your characters would line up on one side and the enemies on the other and you would choose the commands they'd execute. This is no longer: the player is now completely responsible for every action and movement of all characters during battle. FFXII plays like an MMORPG - without the online component. Each character requires the same amount of attention and thought and interaction as a single character does in a traditional MMORPG. The amount of control added to the battle system means that there needs to be some way to step back and not micromanage every character's actions, especially when they often are repetitive.

What Square did was to invent a system of "if...then" statements that are extensively customizeable to allow the player complete control over the party. These rules can be changed on the fly and take the tedium out of playing a game with as much control as FFXII. I would think the addition of a "programming language" of sorts into which battles can be streamlined would appeal to the average /.'er and FF fan.

Give the final game a shot... rent it or something... because I know that your concerns will be alleviated. FFXII is one of the most foreward-thinking FF games released, and it's mostly in part due to its battle system which is as innovative as it is fun to play. There's a reason Famitsu gave it a perfect score, and most industry magazines/websites have given it high scores as well. I say from experience that it's among my 2 or 3 favorite FF titles (FFVI will always remain highest on my list, but that's another story...).

Re:there's not a lot of hype about this

[KDR_11k]

But what you're overlooking is that the battle system has been redesigned to fit a paradigm completely different from the traditional FF battle system. In old games, your characters would line up on one side and the enemies on the other and you would choose the commands they'd execute. This is no longer: the player is now completely responsible for every action and movement of all characters during battle. FFXII plays like an MMORPG - without the online component. Each character requires the same amount of

Re:there's not a lot of hype about this

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, sorry, I read the previous Slashdot article, "in defense of FFXII" and I've already heard the arguments for it. They weren't convincing then and they're not convincing now.

The game plays itself for you. I've seen the type of stories Square-Enix creates (thanks to the Final Fantasy movie and Advent Children), and "playing" a 40-hour long movie of that quality would almost be physically painful.

FFXII plays like an MMORPG

That, right there, is more than enough reason never to touch it. I played WoW bri

Too bad

[HalAtWork]

This is no longer: the player is now completely responsible for every action and movement of all characters during battle. FFXII plays like an MMORPG - without the online component. Each character requires the same amount of attention and thought and interaction as a single character does in a traditional MMORPG. The amount of control added to the battle system means that there needs to be some way to step back and not micromanage every character's actions, especially when they often are repetitive. What S

Re:Too bad

[Gnostic Ronin]

I agree -- if the battle system of the olde games was so bad that you don't think players want to play them --FIX THE BATTLES. Don't throw an autobattle system in there. Make them strategic, make them use a different magic/skill system. Give the enemy an ability to adapt. Have a new battle machanic. Be creative. Just. don't. fix. bad. battles. by. making. me. sit. and. watch.

It's really the cheap and easy way out. You don't have to figure out WHY you think the battles suck (CF Matsuno interview),

Re:there's not a lot of hype about this

[Fallingcow]

Hell, X was pretty popular but its battles were completely mindless. If there had been an "auto calculate" option, I'd have used it 90% of the time and been fine with that. Beats smacking the "x" button 30 times in a row to get the same damn result.

XII's handling of this is exactly the same most of the FFs, just with a slightly less-insulting battle system, as they assume that auto-fighting is preferable to hitting the same button a bunch (true). This is an improvement... kind of.

To make it not be insult

Re:there's not a lot of hype about this

[KDR_11k]

Is the main character whiny or does he have a tendency to act without thinking?

Re:better way?

[WreathOfBarbs]

The phrase "left over Halloween candy" clearly implies post halloween enjoyment of the game. So you would obviously have done one or more of the above in order to have left overs. Time to take Reading Comprehension 101 again.

Re:better way?

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

well actually, the course is Reading Comprehension 1023.

but you're implying that said person hasn't gone to the mall and waited in line the entire night to get his copy.

Re:better way?

[WreathOfBarbs]

Touche!

Re:better way?

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

to be fair you got me pretty good with that one.

on another note is it just me or is my first post missing?

Re:better way?

[WreathOfBarbs]

If I climb up the Parent links I can get to it still. It's at a -1 though so perhaps your threshold is too high?

Re:Final Fantasy 12 Collector's edition Special Bo

[entmike]

Funny how this release is by Square/Enix, and it has nothing to do with SONY except that the platform it's being released on is PlayStation 2. Even then, even if your statement made any sense, it's still unfunny.

Oh, great...

[Xaroth]

They're just giving the FF cosplayers an excuse to go out and stand in line in full pseudo-FF regalia.

EU Release Soon I hope.

[assassingod]

I'm glad the release date has been announced. However I am focusing on the EU launch, as i'm fearful we won't receive it until mid-2007 considering FFX took 1 full year to be released from Japan launch to EU launch. We did get a crapload of extra featuers, Dark Aeons. Hoping we'll get the same treatment, but it's still along time to wait.

Pfft...

[TheNoxx]

Still waiting for those guys over at Square to stop dicking around and get the Vagrant Story team back together and make the bloody sequel. Enough of this rinse and repeat crap.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Pfft...

[TheNoxx]

Not really; I'm asking for more in line of an RPG that was remarkably different in plot, execution, content, maturity, art direction, and gameplay. The reason they call it Final Fantasy XII is because they've already made eleven others of the same kind.

While I haven't, of course, had a chance to play it, the art direction does lean toward that of VS, but I'm unsure about the everything else. The characters seem to have the same structure as the last few in the FF series; and while those characters have been

CG looks good

[strider2k]

Watching the opening CG animation on my 52" TV looks good (measurements are + - 10" since I don't remember the exact size of the TV).

After watching the imported FFXII, I can't wait to hook up a PS3's HDMI port and put in FFXIII. Probably some wonderful [eye] candy even snickers can't even satisfy.

They's have to offer a whole lot more...

[wilgibson]

They's have to offer a whole lot more than a special DVD and packaging for me to buy FFXII. I wasn't impressed with the demo packaged with DQ8, and even though finished game was a whole lot better than that demo ever was I don't see myself buying this game. I got to play it for a while when I was in Tokyo at the end of March(I actually got there the day after it was released) and it just didn't seem fun. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy FFXII, but unfortunately I won't be purchasing it. Quite sad giv

My feelings on this..

[Mr.Madsen]

Anyone share my feelings when it comes to FF?
http://little-gamers.com/index.php?comicID=1385 [little-gamers.com] [Depend on where you work, NSFW]
(Since FFX it's been getting more and more like Xenogears)

Head to head with the Revolution?

[Daetrin]

There's a pretty much totally unsubstantiated story [theinquirer.net] that the release date for the Nintendo Revolution has been leaked and it's coming out at the same time. If true that will be a bad week for many gamers' pocketbooks :)