For whatever reason, Burger King decided to release a handful of XBox/XBox 360 games. I put the slash there since they managed to put native versions for both consoles on a single disc. Anyway, the three games are Sneak King, Mini Bike Racer, and Big Bumpin'. For $3.99 with a value meal each, I couldn't really resist. Worst comes to worst, I'm out less than breakfast. At Burger King.
SNEAK KING
Sneak King is the best of the bunch in my opinion. The basic premise is that you play as the Burger King, sneak up on people, and give them food. That's it. But you know what? It's a lot of fun. To be sure, the people have sight cones that make Metal Gear Solid guards seem realistic, but that's okay. When you surprise someone to give them food, a meter pops up on-screen, similar to in a golf game, and the higher you get, the better the surprise and the more points you get. You get combos which increase the points for the goals you get as long as you're not seen. Additionally, there's hiding spots which you can go in to jump out at the people which increases the points even more. And that's all it is. A points game. The graphics are good enough. Not state of the art, but they suffice. The sound works perfectly for the game, and has no faults. For $4, you can't really lose here.
MINI BIKE RACER
Mini Bike Racer is basically an average kart racing game. Only instead of gokarts, the characters drive minibikes (as the title would suggest). It really offers nothing new that hasn't been done, and better, by any of a dozen kart racers. Still, for $4, I can't really complain. There's a pretty big cast of playable characters ranging from the Burger King to a Whopper Jr. to...Brooke Burke. Yeah, her. There's a handful of bikes to choose from, but only two to start. It's pretty tough. The AI is good, without cheating.
BIG BUMPIN'
Big Bumping is the worst of the lot. It's a bumper car game. You drive bumper cars and have a life meter that seems to go down on its own. The controls are kind of silly in that it's an overhead view and you move in the direction you press. I was expecting something like Rock n Roll Racing (as far as controls go). The gameplay's shallow, and the cars are kind of small, which makes seeing things a bit rough. The $4 is almost too much for it, really. It may be better in multiplayer, but I don't really know.
In other news
It took roughly 15 hours, but I'm finally enjoying Final Fantasy XII. I finally stopped resisting the battle system, and set gambits for everyone, including the party leader. It basically lets you just walk towards some enemies, then put down the controller. I also started differentiating the characters, so they're all a bit different now. I'm trying to get some set roles for them, which I think I'm doing okay with. Well, three pairs of roles, at any rate. Once I got past all that, it became a lot more fun.
Showing posts with label Final Fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Final Fantasy. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Final Fantasy XII
I've played most of the games in the FF series to at least SOME extent. I've only finished a few, and watched another couple get played by others. I've played lots of other RPGs, as well, which has led me to desire more than Square has been giving us in the previous few installments. From what I can tell, an FF game can be split into three main componants: story, battle system, and levelling/ability system. I'm putting levelling and abilities together because in a most cases they're in separable. So let's look at FFXII.
STORY
I haven't really gotten too far along in the narrative, so it's hard for me to make that great an assessment, but from what I've seen so far, it rivals FFVI in complexity and scale. It seems to be a story of various kingdoms fighting over the world they all inhabit. It's actually very similar to FFT in that regards, which makes sense. It needs a glossary and summary page like FFT had, though. The characters seem okay, if a bit generic. None of them are terribly annoying.
BATTLE SYSTEM
FFXII is the first single-player Final Fantasy where battle take place on the main screen. Presumably FFXI Online is the same, but I haven't played it, nor do I intend to. It doesn't take you off to another battle screen with differently rendered characters. You run around and start wacking away at anything you see. Or you can fairly easily run from them. The system allows (well, requires) you to set up "Gambits" for all the characters which are basically if...then statements telling your party what to do. in a given situation. For example, you can set it such that Fran will cast Cure any time anyone gets below 70% HP. I haven't purchased many Gambits, yet, but I can already see how this could be a very handy tool. Each character has a time bar, similar to an ATB bar from previous games, that shows you what they're doing and when they'll do it. Pretty much everything has a charge-up time before it can be performed. Items are nearly instant, and spells usually take a few seconds, as do attacks. You can switch members in and out of your party at any time, as long as they're not being targeted, which is a nice feature borrowed from FFX. It's fun and fast paced, and definitely a step up from what we've seen before.
Up till this point, the ATB system was the most innovative the series has gotten. Admittedly, the ATB in FFX-2 was so fast, it was almost real-time, but it was still essentially the same ATB we've been using since FFIV. I'm not knocking it, mind you, but variety is the spice of life, after all. At least it's not Dragon Quest VIII, which uses basically the same turn-based combat system Enix has been using since the first Dragon Quest. There's a series that doesn't move forward. I don't know, I think I've just been spoiled by more active combat systems like in the Tales and Star Ocean series.
Anyway, I'm enjoying the combat. It brings back from selecting options to feeling like you're taking a part in the battle. Of course, with a good Gambit setup, you can basically set the controller down and do something else while it plays itself.
LEVELLING/ABILITY SYSTEM
As far as levelling goes, FFXII returns to the standard XP system. Gain enough XP, and you gain a level, with some increased stats. Where it diverges is in the abilities. The new License system is kind of like FFX's Sphere Grid on speed. Every enemy gives you LP, which you spend on the License Grid, to buy the ability to use spells, techniques, weapons, armor, and accessories. This thing is, you only buy the ability to use them. You still have to buy the actual spells and weapons with actual Gil, which is exceedingly scarce in the game. Enemies don't drop it, for the most part. Human enemies do, but not creatures. They drop loot which can be sold for Gil. Anyway, every character starts at almost the same places on the board. They're not really more than a few spots apart. Naturally, this makes it pretty simple to create a bunch of identical characters, something I've never really liked. At least with the Sphere Grid, the characters started at different areas that didn't really converge for a long time. The grid is pretty big, and I doubt I'll fill it out for anyone. I think I need to start specializing characters, but the problem is that even if I give someone a bunch of spell types, I still need to BUY the actual spells. Grind, grind, grind.
The graphics are amazing, all around. It seriously looks better than some of the next-gen stuff I've seen. The music is prety good, but nothing too memorable yet. The voice acting is acceptable, however, the sound quality of it is pretty poor. Basically, the whole game sounds like it's being spoken through a walk-talkie. Overall it's a neat game, but I still haven't decided if I like it, which kind of scares me.
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STORY
I haven't really gotten too far along in the narrative, so it's hard for me to make that great an assessment, but from what I've seen so far, it rivals FFVI in complexity and scale. It seems to be a story of various kingdoms fighting over the world they all inhabit. It's actually very similar to FFT in that regards, which makes sense. It needs a glossary and summary page like FFT had, though. The characters seem okay, if a bit generic. None of them are terribly annoying.
BATTLE SYSTEM
FFXII is the first single-player Final Fantasy where battle take place on the main screen. Presumably FFXI Online is the same, but I haven't played it, nor do I intend to. It doesn't take you off to another battle screen with differently rendered characters. You run around and start wacking away at anything you see. Or you can fairly easily run from them. The system allows (well, requires) you to set up "Gambits" for all the characters which are basically if...then statements telling your party what to do. in a given situation. For example, you can set it such that Fran will cast Cure any time anyone gets below 70% HP. I haven't purchased many Gambits, yet, but I can already see how this could be a very handy tool. Each character has a time bar, similar to an ATB bar from previous games, that shows you what they're doing and when they'll do it. Pretty much everything has a charge-up time before it can be performed. Items are nearly instant, and spells usually take a few seconds, as do attacks. You can switch members in and out of your party at any time, as long as they're not being targeted, which is a nice feature borrowed from FFX. It's fun and fast paced, and definitely a step up from what we've seen before.
Up till this point, the ATB system was the most innovative the series has gotten. Admittedly, the ATB in FFX-2 was so fast, it was almost real-time, but it was still essentially the same ATB we've been using since FFIV. I'm not knocking it, mind you, but variety is the spice of life, after all. At least it's not Dragon Quest VIII, which uses basically the same turn-based combat system Enix has been using since the first Dragon Quest. There's a series that doesn't move forward. I don't know, I think I've just been spoiled by more active combat systems like in the Tales and Star Ocean series.
Anyway, I'm enjoying the combat. It brings back from selecting options to feeling like you're taking a part in the battle. Of course, with a good Gambit setup, you can basically set the controller down and do something else while it plays itself.
LEVELLING/ABILITY SYSTEM
As far as levelling goes, FFXII returns to the standard XP system. Gain enough XP, and you gain a level, with some increased stats. Where it diverges is in the abilities. The new License system is kind of like FFX's Sphere Grid on speed. Every enemy gives you LP, which you spend on the License Grid, to buy the ability to use spells, techniques, weapons, armor, and accessories. This thing is, you only buy the ability to use them. You still have to buy the actual spells and weapons with actual Gil, which is exceedingly scarce in the game. Enemies don't drop it, for the most part. Human enemies do, but not creatures. They drop loot which can be sold for Gil. Anyway, every character starts at almost the same places on the board. They're not really more than a few spots apart. Naturally, this makes it pretty simple to create a bunch of identical characters, something I've never really liked. At least with the Sphere Grid, the characters started at different areas that didn't really converge for a long time. The grid is pretty big, and I doubt I'll fill it out for anyone. I think I need to start specializing characters, but the problem is that even if I give someone a bunch of spell types, I still need to BUY the actual spells. Grind, grind, grind.
The graphics are amazing, all around. It seriously looks better than some of the next-gen stuff I've seen. The music is prety good, but nothing too memorable yet. The voice acting is acceptable, however, the sound quality of it is pretty poor. Basically, the whole game sounds like it's being spoken through a walk-talkie. Overall it's a neat game, but I still haven't decided if I like it, which kind of scares me.
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God Hand
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