First Gameplay Images of FFXII

[DarkMaster]

In an interview with the Final Fantasy XII developer Yasumi Matsuno, a few new tidbits are revealed about the game:

The game will be in 2 DVDs
Very little love elements in the game
The game style resembles Vagrant Story
Huge world map
Many people will be surprised: "Is this Final Fantasy?"
Tight controls

Official showing tomorrow, whoo.

[Ginkasa]

Originally Posted by DarkMaster

The game will be in 2 DVDs

Great. It'll be long

Very little love elements in the game

I don't really care whether there's a lot of that in there or not. Just as long as its done well if it is in there.

The game style resembles Vagrant Story

Never played.

Huge world map

Many people will be surprised: "Is this Final Fantasy?"

Good be good or bad... Depends...

Tight controls

Okay...

Wait until tomorrow...


*shrugs and walks away*

[DeathsHand]

It looks just like FFX...
I mean uhh IS THIS FINAL FANTASY!?!?!
I'm assuming he was talking about the gameplay mechanics and such (^-^

[Happydude]

but is it goin to be multiplayer or not???

[CrOnO_LiNk]

Originally Posted by happydude666

but is it goin to be multiplayer or not???

I agree with everything Ginkasa said up there.

Oh and... more pics!













I love Final Fantasy!

[Jonbo298]

2 DVD's?! Holy piss that's gonna be a long game.

And nice screens of the game. It looks like a standard FF game so far...nothing screaming "Is this Final Fantasy?!"

[Happydude]

Originally Posted by CrOnO_LiNk

I agree with everything Ginkasa said up there.

Oh and... more pics!


I love Final Fantasy!

lol...she's picking her nose....is this Final Fantasy????

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by happydude666

lol...she's picking her nose....is this Final Fantasy????

Do you really think she's picking her nose or was that a humor-joke? o.O

That first gameplay pic reminds me of the materia reactors in FF7... But it's probably nothing like it

[DarkMaster]

IGN PS2:

Hundreds lined up outside the Virgin Cinemas complex in Tokyo's Roppongi area today in anticipation of Square Enix's unveiling of Final Fantasy XII, the first traditional entry in the FF series since Final Fantasy X some two years back.

Square Enix started off the presentation with a few comments from some big-name gaming biz stars. Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation, praised the series via a pre-taped commentary segment, pointing out its 50,000,000 worldwide sales so far and even calling Final Fantasy XI the PS2's first real Online game.
The big surprise, though, came when Mr. Hironobu Sakaguchi, father of the Final Fantasy series, took to the stage. Sakaguchi commented that while he's been away in Hawaii, he's excited to see what the new team is putting together. He referred to Ogre Battle as one of FFXII producer Yasumi Matsuno's masterpieces, and even said of the producer, "I love Mr. Matsuno, in a way. I love his work and the way that he does his work."

Moving onto the game itself, the company showcased a three minute trailer which included numerous sequences from the game, including events, battles and pre-rendered computer graphics. Visually, it's clear that FFXII has improved considerably over Final Fantasy X, with characters who look more detailed and animate smoothly (no more of the shaky movement of the previous installment). Surprisingly, it was revealed that the game engine uses half as many polygons as that of FFX, suggesting that the good looks are due to better shading and texturing routines.

We were unable to film the trailer, but the comments made by the game's development staff following the video footage were even more revealing than the footage itself.

FFXII takes place in a world called Ivalice. This is actually the same world as featured in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance -- or, at least, the fantasy world into which the characters warp at the beginning of the game (we won't spoil the FF Tactics experience for you by going into more depth).

At the center of the game's story are its hero Vaan (17) and heroine Ashe (19). Vaan lives in the Damaska Kingdom, which has been captured by the Arcadia Empire. Vaan has a personal connection to the conquest of the Kingdom by the Empire in that he lost his family to the Empire. He dreams of becoming an air pirate and one day earning his own ship so that he can escape the empire.

Ashe, meanwhile, is the princess of the Damaska Kingdom. Seeing as how her father the King was killed at the hands of the Empire, she's the only heir to the throne. She's been missing since the end of the war that her Kingdom lost to the Empire. She forms a resistance group in order to take on the empire, meeting Vaan along the way.

Of course, characters from FF games of old will make an appearance in FFXII. According to Matsuno, characters you expect to be in the game will be there. This, of course, includes a Cid character and Moguls, although once agin the Moguls are designed differently from previous titles in the series. Initially, the Moguls apparently looked a bit scary, commented Matsuno.
In addition to taking place in the same world as Tactics, FFXII has one other big feature from that game: Judges. In Tactics, the Judge characters were a special group of Knights who promoted law and order by overseeing battles and penalizing those who disobeyed the rules. In FFXII, the Judge characters form a group of "Knights of Terror" and serve as an adversary to Ashe and Vann. A Judge character can be seen in the logo artwork for the game, pictured to the right.

In some ways, FFXII is the final product of a vision producer Yasumi Matsuno had for a game eight years ago. Back when producing the original FF Tactics, Matsuno had a vision he wanted to achieve but was unable to -- the idea of an immature world, where human rights aren't at the same level as that of our world. You'll be able to see this idea in FFXII through the caste-based society present in the game. Looking the lower picture to the right of this article, you can see various castes of characters walking about.

Visually, art director Hideo Minaba pointed out the colors in that same piece of artwork. The clear blue sky, the large tower which is actually made of earth -- the game is meant to have a Mediteranian look, mixing European and Arabic culture. The development team actually traveled to Turkey to research the game. Incidentally, FFXII was originally envisioned as taking place in a Megapolis type of environment, but Minaba ended up wanting a more middle age look.

Ironically, the image to the right was the first piece of artwork revealed for FFXII months ago. Amazing that that one piece of artwork revealed so much on the game so long ago (not that we blame you for not noticing -- the image was released during the Christmas season, afterall).

Character designer Akihiko Yoshida also had an important say in the final style taken with the game. Whereas previous FF games have focused on character models first to be used in CG movies and then to be used in realtime, this time around things worked in the opposite way, with the team concentrating first on real time, then on CG. Yoshida joked, pointing to Ashe's short skirt, that the characters were designed from the back to the front.

Also discussed at the presentation was a bit on the game's sound component. While famed composer Nobuo Uematsu was present in only pre-recorded video form, his counterpart, Hitoshi Sakimoto, who's contributing greatly to the game, took the stage and gave out a few comments. It was revealed that FFXII will feature a theme-song-like-thing at the end of the game, although the team is actually trying to do something different this time around. Apparently, what comes at the end of FFXII won't be just a theme song with lyrics, but something beyond that -- something new. No, specifics weren't revealed.

While little in the way of solid details concerning battle system and so-forth were revealed, today's early preview hinted at something great to come. A Japanese release for Final Fantasy XII is planned for Summer of 2004.

[One Winged Angel]

Originally Posted by DarkMaster

The game style resembles Vagrant Story

Vagrant Story is easily the most underrated RPG ever.

[Hero2]

thats true when I first played vagrant story it was meh. I wish i kept it though because i really want to play it agian.

[bobcat]

lol i thought it was FFX-2 for some reason. I just saw FF and ran to the video. Was thinking "Where's Yuna" until the end said FFXII.

Is it online?

[Canyarion]

It's not a MMORPG if that's what you mean... I think it's supposed to have online features like downloadable items and stuff...