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I'm a Final Fantasy Addict
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Monday, November 20, 2006
12:44:00 PM EST
Hi, my name is Stephanie ("Hi Stephanie"), and I'm a Final Fantasy addict.
I started playing Final Fantasy XII yesterday and, well, I can't stop. I opened the box at 2pm, and, minus a break for the Amazing Race and dinner, I didn't stop playing until 2am.
As for how the game is - I fully believe a game reviewer cannot do a true review until they've finished the game - but my first impressions are below (and anyone who doesn't care about the game can skip the rest of this entry).
First off. I love cut scenes, I do. Squaresoft creates beautiful cut scenes. But I feel like they've gone WAY overboard with them this time. I think a good third of the time I spent playing yesterday was me simply watching the game. I like to PLAY, not watch.
Fighting. Square screws with the way they handle fighting and leveling up every single game, and this time it's just plain weird. Buying licenses to get new abilities is ok and fairly similar to the Sphere Grid in FFX (which I liked). My problem is with the Gambit thing. Gambits let you queue up actions for each character before a battle, so when a battle actually starts all you do is sit back and watch. In theory, it's neat. In actuality, it's a little boring to just watch your characters fight.
The whole fighting system also has taken some of the panic out of the game, which I don't like. It's fun to be in a battle, realize you're losing, and start pulling out all the stops to win (start throwing spells and potions around, change fighting order, stuff like that). Now I don't know who's doing what, and it's a royal pain to jump in manually to bring people back to life or heal poisons. I probably I just haven't gotten the hang of it yet (and this is why games can't be reviewed until they're finished), but right now it's driving me bonkers.
And I don't have my Aeons yet - which aren't called Aeons anymore. Those are the big monster things you can summon that will battle for you. Really fun, and goofy exciting to use (especially when you get a new one). I don't have any yet. (me pouting now) Hopefully I'll see them soon.
The storyline isn't bad, although I really, really liked FFX's whole "is Tidus alive" thing. No big mysteries like that so far, but the whole 'freeing the land from occupation' story is still pretty compelling. The game also has the usual cutesy goofy moments that Final Fantasy games are well known for - my first big quest was killing a "Rogue Tomato" that looked kinda like a red version of Pumpkinhead.
So overall, I do love the game, obviously, how else could I have played it for twelve hours straight. And I think all of my gripes are pretty similar to what reviewers have said. Annoying, but still not enough to stop this game from stealing my entire life for a few weeks.
It's been nice knowing you - I'm off to save the world.
Technorati tags: StephanieBamBam, BamBam, Final Fantasy XII, games, Squaresoft
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12:44:00 PM EST
I'm a Final Fantasy Addict
I started playing Final Fantasy XII yesterday and, well, I can't stop. I opened the box at 2pm, and, minus a break for the Amazing Race and dinner, I didn't stop playing until 2am.
As for how the game is - I fully believe a game reviewer cannot do a true review until they've finished the game - but my first impressions are below (and anyone who doesn't care about the game can skip the rest of this entry).
First off. I love cut scenes, I do. Squaresoft creates beautiful cut scenes. But I feel like they've gone WAY overboard with them this time. I think a good third of the time I spent playing yesterday was me simply watching the game. I like to PLAY, not watch.
Fighting. Square screws with the way they handle fighting and leveling up every single game, and this time it's just plain weird. Buying licenses to get new abilities is ok and fairly similar to the Sphere Grid in FFX (which I liked). My problem is with the Gambit thing. Gambits let you queue up actions for each character before a battle, so when a battle actually starts all you do is sit back and watch. In theory, it's neat. In actuality, it's a little boring to just watch your characters fight.
The whole fighting system also has taken some of the panic out of the game, which I don't like. It's fun to be in a battle, realize you're losing, and start pulling out all the stops to win (start throwing spells and potions around, change fighting order, stuff like that). Now I don't know who's doing what, and it's a royal pain to jump in manually to bring people back to life or heal poisons. I probably I just haven't gotten the hang of it yet (and this is why games can't be reviewed until they're finished), but right now it's driving me bonkers.
And I don't have my Aeons yet - which aren't called Aeons anymore. Those are the big monster things you can summon that will battle for you. Really fun, and goofy exciting to use (especially when you get a new one). I don't have any yet. (me pouting now) Hopefully I'll see them soon.
The storyline isn't bad, although I really, really liked FFX's whole "is Tidus alive" thing. No big mysteries like that so far, but the whole 'freeing the land from occupation' story is still pretty compelling. The game also has the usual cutesy goofy moments that Final Fantasy games are well known for - my first big quest was killing a "Rogue Tomato" that looked kinda like a red version of Pumpkinhead.
So overall, I do love the game, obviously, how else could I have played it for twelve hours straight. And I think all of my gripes are pretty similar to what reviewers have said. Annoying, but still not enough to stop this game from stealing my entire life for a few weeks.
It's been nice knowing you - I'm off to save the world.
Technorati tags: StephanieBamBam, BamBam, Final Fantasy XII, games, Squaresoft
Written by stephaniebambam Blog about this entry |
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This entry has 4 comments: (Add your own)
-
C'mon! A few weeks?!? You'll have this game wrapped up by lunch on Wednesday. And then you'll sit around thinking "Oh Gee... I guess I could always go back and try and finish up Resident Evil 4."
My niece and I used to play Final Fantasy ages ago. We'd order pizza and disappear for days. Always fun.
-Dan
http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/ -
Hi Jeann -
(I'll e-mail you about this as well, in case you don't see the comment)
I don't know much of anything about file manager, but I'll definately look into the issue...see what's going on.
Also - can you give me the URL of the journal that isn't working? We're not having any systemwide problems at the moment, so I'd like to look into what's happening there.
Thanks!
Stephanie -
Journals again!! This is the third week and is now way beyond a joke. I had an alert in from an American journaller who asked what was going on with journals as they are taking ages to load and pictures are not appearing just boxes. I went to her journal to comment only to find that it would not load. I tried a few others and they loaded but took ages. Also I am still having problems with File Manager. I could not use it all today it just kept taking me to the web. Like I said, this is beyond a joke now. I am getting tired of paying top money for a service like this. When is aol going to get something done???????????
http://journals.aol.co.uk/jeanno43/JeannettesJottings/
11/29/06 10:30 PM
Pam