There is also the introduction of the Gambit system. Gambits are accrued throughout gameplay, and when equipped they have different functions. If you equip Penelo with a particular Gambit, she will keep attacking chosen baddie until a character’s health falls below 40%, where she will then start healing them. Gambits are interesting to manage and can enhance battles if used effectively. The only major pain of this battle system is that if you don’t attack bad guys who are chasing you, a big group of them could gang up on you. Pick and choose your battles wisely…..
The leveling up system is a little like Final Fantasy 10, except everyone is on the same board. For those of you who are not familiar with FFX (do you live in a cave!?!), characters level up by choosing which attributes to “buy”. You receive points based on how many battles you’ve won, and you use those points to level up your character. Players could play FFXII over and over again, changing the abilities that each character has. Although not as linear as the traditional leveling up system, I think this chessboard-method allows players to make their characters more individualistic.
One of my biggest gripes about FFXII is save points. (Yes I know I always gripe about these.) I just hate that you have to wait until a certain point in the game to save, or have to continue running back to the closest save point whenever something big happens. Yes, I am obsessive compulsive about saving, but it’s a result of always getting a Game Over when I could’ve saved just a few seconds earlier. Plus, if you’re any kind of Final Fantasy veteran, you should know that save points are offered right before something big happens like an important scene or boss battle. Take the hint! I suppose the nice thing about the save point is that it automatically replenishes your characters’ HP and MP, which can be convenient (you know, right before a battle, hint hint…). But I quickly tire of running back and forth between save points.
Another gripe is that the life of the Playstation 2 needs to be over. Now. Stop producing games for it; its graphics suck. The graphics of FFXII may have been acceptable three years ago (Drr… when FFX came out) but with the next-gen systems raising graphic expectations, needless to say I was sorely disappointed. The disparity between the beautiful pre-rendered cut scenes and the crappy real-time graphics is HUGE. Wait, let me express that in another way: HHUUUUUGGGGEEEEE. The cut scenes look like they came from Advent Children. Yes, they are that good. However, characters represented first in cut scenes and then using real-time graphics look almost nothing alike. Frankly, I am quite disgusted. Move on Square-Enix… it’s time to move on….
Okay promise, last gripe. FFXII does feature voice acting, but only in the cut scenes! Yes, I too thought we were past the days of reading our video games, but evidently not. The cycle goes like this: play, read, play, read, play play play, read read read. Get the picture yet? Games are so much better when the voice actually conveys the emotions going through the character’s minds. Are they sad? Happy? Tired? Disgusted? Your guess is as good as mine. Microsoft, you spoil me too much…
