Xebek\’s Blog

The battle system in Final Fantasy XII is defiantly different. In mostly all of the Final Fantasies excluding things like Crystal Chronicles and XI the battle system was very similar. Although there were slight variations, such as in FF I – III and in X it was completely turn based, if you were in a battle and didn’t’ pause it or anything and left for an hour, you’d be back where you started. Although in some of them it is a time based system, however it is still very similar as it contained random battles and you individually choose each action for each person. In all of the previous systems, again excluding a couple of examples like Final Fantasy Adventure as well as the aforementioned ones, in all of theses systems they involved random battles and having more or less a turn based focus even if it used an ATB where you did have time gauges, you basically would choose party member’s actions individually, each action every time.

FFXII is very different. For the most part, it still technically has a turn based systems although it is only shown in the mechanics of how the game works. For the most part just watching a battle you see party members attacking at the same time with no command given, and bosses attacking at the same time. Basically, the entire battles for the most part are automated. Sure you can turn off “gambits” which are what makes auto scripts for things, but if you do that for everyone you will be inputting commands every single second. The gambits do offer some bit of tactics, although you can only get into the big complicated stuff later on but that’s kid of normal in RPGs. If you set up the gambits correctly they can be very interesting. Such as putting top priority casing Cura to allies with less then 30 percent health, then second priority putting casting Esuna on anyone who needs, and then attacking the party leader’s target. Basically that gambit set up will make sure that that character does absolutely nothing else except heal until everyone is above 30 percent. Then, once everyone is above that it will cure anyone with Esuna (status effect remover) and then once everyone is above 30 percent and status effect free they will attack. Now, that is one example of one character, so you can defiantly see the possibility for many many combinations, and different priorities for different people, etc, etc.

Right now, it’s kind of hard to say which I prefer. It was defiantly a shock and at the beginning I definitely didn’t like the new system. However later on in the game when I got more gambit slots and gambits to use, as well as skills and magic and so forth, it did become more interesting as the gambits were really what made things interesting. Right now I’m defiantly not saying I hate the new system, as I said the gambits are really interesting, but as far as battle systems go right now I prefer the old.

Ok, now a little about the License system. Although this isn’t technically the battle system, it kind of fits here. I have mixed feelings about this. On the positive side this system allows for complete customization. Basically you gain abilities, magic, and hp bonuses by purchasing them much like FFX’s Sphere Grid. However there are also levels in XII. Now, the thing that is different is that everyone starts out in the same place. The negative part is this makes it easy, and very likely to make everyone very similar. Sure you will probably have one or two people a bit more magic centered, but even without trying you will give everyone at least some basic during magic and so forth. In other words, it’s very easy, and even if you don’t’ mean to, to make everyone completely interchangeable. Your party can easily consist of any three out of six. Previously, you would always need at least one of a certain two people for healing or so on, however that’s not the case. In my opinion, a system that combines FFX and FFXII would be good. They need to make people a bit more specified, however allow for a bit more freedom then FFX did. In 10 you had to follow a certain path until you got to the very end where you could choose a bit how to go. If they would only make something like the sphere grid but with branches a bit earlier it would be better. Anyways, back on track the license system defiantly has it flaws as it makes individual characters less important; however there are possibilities for some good specific customization. If only they could combine this system with some others it would have turned out better.