Final Fantasy XII Release Date [Archive]

Tentaro

08-05-2005, 07:51 AM

http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/final-fantasy-xii/638123p1.html

Square Enix announced today that the latest in its trademark RPG series, Final Fantasy 12 has received a final release date for Japanese audiences and will ship on March 16, 2006.

So when can we expect our badly translated easy version?

bean19

08-05-2005, 08:04 AM

That sucks. . . we may end up playing the last PS2 FF on PS3.

Can't say we didn't see it coming though.

chronocrash

08-05-2005, 08:06 AM

So as long as I can turn off the voices, but still hear the music, I'll be satisfied.

LilEvilFish

08-05-2005, 08:27 AM

It's the ambiguity surrounding the sex of the lead male which puts me off this one. I mean come on, he looks more like a girl than Tidus did!

Tricky Thumb

08-05-2005, 08:32 AM

What really turns me off on this game is the shade of blue they used for the logo... it's really terribly blue.

Alexious

08-05-2005, 08:34 AM

Am I the only one who thinks that FF has gotten weird? I think they seriously need to go back to their roots. Hell, forget FF for a little while and get to work on a new ChronoTrigger! Now that would be something to get excited about. :D

Xerxes

08-05-2005, 08:36 AM

Ok if these games make so much... Why not get a good cast... I mean the acting in KoToR was leagues better than the last trilogy... :-P

Thunderbrand

08-05-2005, 08:39 AM

What really turns me off on this game is the shade of blue they used for the logo... it's really terribly blue.

Your critisizing the logo? Jeez, its not THAT bad.

chronocrash

08-05-2005, 08:41 AM

Ok if these games make so much... Why not get a good cast... I mean the acting in KoToR was leagues better than the last trilogy... :-P

Agreed. But I can't figure out why the voice acting is better. Hell, the voices in Jade Empire were better acted.

Xerxes

08-05-2005, 08:48 AM

I think instead of wasting time with celebrities all the time they should get folks who do voice acting... Like cartoon folks... Not just people who can read from paper...

mkelehan

08-05-2005, 08:52 AM

So when can we expect our badly translated easy version?[/I]

Sometime in 1992.

automaton

08-05-2005, 09:10 AM

I can't believe someone here is saying that Final Fantasy is too wierd and then goes on to talk about making another Chrono game. I think Chrono Cross was the wierdest story in a game I've ever played. It gives me headaches thinking about it to this day. But I love it all the same.

This is not too suprising. I recall playing Final Fantasy IX on my PS1 when everyone else was in line to buy a PS2.

TrackZero

08-05-2005, 09:18 AM

Well at least it's interesting to see the release date match up with the much speculated PS3 launch (surprised noone's made this comment yet).

Xerxes

08-05-2005, 09:21 AM

ok so square somewhat admits to going multiplatform next go around... is the ps3 such a large factor...

EvilBob46

08-05-2005, 09:39 AM

FF games rule ('cept FFX-2 and FFXI). Looking forward to this one...

Deadend

08-05-2005, 09:43 AM

Square is probably going multiplatform because they realized the cost of asset creation is higher than the cost of porting a game to multiple systems to increase sales, and companies like making money.

TRiLoGY

08-05-2005, 09:49 AM

Didn't someone post this yesterday?

Kefkataran

08-05-2005, 09:55 AM

Don't think this was posted yesterday. Yesterday's Square news was that they were going multi-platform next-gen, not this release date, at least not that I recall.

Yeesh, I'm as excited about FFXII as the next RPG fan, but that's quite a wait. Normally release dates don't bug me, but... oh well.

bean19

08-05-2005, 10:09 AM

It's the ambiguity surrounding the sex of the lead male which puts me off this one. I mean come on, he looks more like a girl than Tidus did!

I like pretty boy avatars in games, although I'd prefer if they let us choose more often. Then again, I'm 5'9" and weigh 130 lbs. . . the guy in High School that the girls called "cute" but never "handsome".

Anyway, I can relate to Tidus a lot better than I can relate to all the clique muscle-bound armored marine types that like to be gruff black men, schauvinist thick-jawed brutes, or handsome Han Solo wannabes as they dominate U.S. video game avatars. . . except for the elves. :)

One of the things that seems like it would be fairly simple to do would be to make games have more middle ground characters that we could all relate to well by being ambiguous (Master Cheif) or average, yet exceptional (Advent Rising's lead - at least in appearance and voice is neither diminutive, childish, gruff, or steroid-driven, but a nice mix of every-man. . . not saying it's a great game, just a good example of a middling character that is relatable to a larger audience).

bean19

08-05-2005, 10:15 AM

I think instead of wasting time with celebrities all the time they should get folks who do voice acting... Like cartoon folks... Not just people who can read from paper...

Did you play Kingdom Heart's?

Haley Joel Osment, the voice actor for the lead character Sora and the child star most famous for the lead roles in "The Sixth Sense" and "A.I.", performed among the best voice-acting I've ever heard.

In fact, I can name a few more examples (that are a bit more ambiguos as voice-acting quality is subjective, but the Osment was so good he is nearly loved universally), but I can't readily come up with examples of terrible voice-acting performed by celebrities.

Edit: spelling

Karmakin

08-05-2005, 10:45 AM

The problem with the FFX voice acting was that it still had to keep in time with the subtitles, and that created the stilted feel. The times where they basically threw that to the side, for one reason or another, the voice acting was really good. (Think Auron's speech before the Yunalesca fight).

In any case, regarding FFXII, the interviews I've read have said that all US localization is done as well, so the assumption is that it's going to be a worldwide simultanious release.

Xerxes

08-05-2005, 10:54 AM

Pfft... Kids should do kids voices... I'm also tired of old ladies doing young male voices... I mean I really don't think I ever sounded like a 30 years old chick...

Borys

08-05-2005, 10:57 AM

Well, fuck that noise.
That means early 2007 PAL release. Fuck you Square-Enix and fuck you Enix for fucking up Squaresoft.

Babbster

08-05-2005, 11:05 AM

Pfft... Kids should do kids voices... I'm also tired of old ladies doing young male voices... I mean I really don't think I ever sounded like a 30 years old chick...

Sadly, I apparently sometimes do. There are times when talking to relatives on the phone that they get me, my mother and my GRANDmother mixed up. My voice can go lower than theirs but there's some vocal pattern that all three of us share. Maybe if I keep chain-smoking another 10 years I can make the separation more evident - lung cancer seems a small price to pay for sounding manly...

Oh, and we have a Final Fantasy release date? For Japan? Whoop-de-doo. You'd think that with the huge US market for those games they could have simultaneous translation going on so that we don't have to wait six months to a year waiting for the regionalization (I'm just not fan enough to learn to speak and read Japanese so that I can play a video game early).

bean19

08-05-2005, 11:06 AM

Pfft... Kids should do kids voices... I'm also tired of old ladies doing young male voices... I mean I really don't think I ever sounded like a 30 years old chick...

Were you replying to me? I gave an example of a kid (Haley Joel Osment) voice-acting the role of a kid (Sora in Kingdom Hearts).

Xerxes

08-05-2005, 11:26 AM

I said pfft as find a exmaple of adults doing a decent job normally... I mean some folks who has done it in movies can bring it over... I just think real voices actors, like in animations can do it better... But I could be wrong, look at dubbed anime.. Worst thing ever...

Kelegacy

08-05-2005, 11:43 AM

This game better effin rock. I've been waiting since ...well it's been so long I forgot.

EvilBob46

08-05-2005, 12:15 PM

Well, fuck that noise.
That means early 2007 PAL release. Fuck you Square-Enix and fuck you Enix for fucking up Squaresoft.

If this game is taking a long time, then so be it. It's not like Square can just pull a game that is very different from anything they've done before (SP wise) and all those visuals (world and FMV) out of its ass.

Draknodred

08-05-2005, 12:29 PM

Hell, forget FF for a little while and get to work on a new ChronoTrigger! Now that would be something to get excited about. :D

AMEN!

I love FF but I would kill for another Chrono Trigger, the only RPG in my mind that stands up to FFVI and FFVII... None of that Chrono Cross BS!

but anyway, let's hope this FFXII is good, I'm interested to see how the battle system shapes up, as long as it still has lots to do and has good music and story =)

bean19

08-05-2005, 12:53 PM

If this game is taking a long time, then so be it. It's not like Square can just pull a game that is very different from anything they've done before (SP wise) and all those visuals (world and FMV) out of its ass.

EvilBob - I agree with the sentiment. However, this is a game that has suffered numerous and frequent delays already, so some booing and fist shaking are almost mandatory.

kurr

08-05-2005, 01:03 PM

What the hell is so hard to understand about chrono cross? Instead of moving back and forth through one time stream, you are moving from one time stream to another. One universe where you lived, and one where you died. What the hell is so hard to follow about that?

Furious Wang

08-05-2005, 01:14 PM

It's the ambiguity surrounding the sex of the lead male which puts me off this one. I mean come on, he looks more like a girl than Tidus did!

I have it from very reliable sources that FFXIII will be a hrpg with shota stylings.

Zeal

08-05-2005, 01:32 PM

The next FF is going to be fucking THIRTEEN. It is time to totally reinvent the series or just retire it.

Kefkataran

08-05-2005, 02:03 PM

The next FF is going to be fucking THIRTEEN. It is time to totally reinvent the series or just retire it.

Well, twelve looks to be something of a reinvention at least. Who knows what they'll do with 13, although I have heard it's already in the early stages of development.

Xerxes

08-05-2005, 02:22 PM

It's not that they are going to 13... The crazy thing ain't none of them related...

Zeal

08-05-2005, 02:35 PM

Furious Wang

08-05-2005, 02:58 PM

I've always believed the biggest flaw of the FF series is its lack continuity. Randomly throwing in Chocobos and Moguri doesn't cut it.

Based on this, you could create any type of game, include a few 'references' to FF and actually call it one.

If anything, Square needs to bring back the legendary Chrono series. Get Masato Kato on story and Yasunori Mitsuda on music. Even FF can't touch it.

No dude. Final Fantasy XX will be the one that ties all previous titles together and the story will BLOW YOUR MIND. Like Cloud is totally Kefka's grandfather and shit. THE CLUES ARE THERE!

Kelegacy

08-05-2005, 03:16 PM

The next FF is going to be fucking THIRTEEN. It is time to totally reinvent the series or just retire it.

Why? Because you dont like the series? If you fuck with something too much, you are liable to ruin it. For me, the games are great. To mess with the design too much would really be a dangerous move. FF12 looks to be a breakout game in the series in terms of innovation. The stories and characters of FF have always intrigued me. The graphics are great and draw in a huge crowd themselves, but they only add to the immersion for me. The random encounters can be painful in some RPG's, but in FF I can handle them because fighting usually isnt too tedious...except for Guardian animations and crap. Also, I dont think that continuity would help the series...a different story and cast each time is really great and refreshing. It is part of FF's charm for me.

Again, the games are great and I have no problem with the series if it stayed the same as it is now, but with new stories, worlds, characters, battle/magic system tweaks and gfx each new incarnation. True, they are no Jade Empire, but then again, Jade Empire was a turd (IMO). I'm afraid FF12's battle system will be like that...and that pessimistic anticipation hurts.

Zeal

08-05-2005, 03:36 PM

Why? Because you dont like the series?
Uh no, because you can only milk something for so long before it becomes tired. I have them all, and consider FFIV, FFVI and FFVIII to be the best. If Square is going to create a FF, they should do it right, and not put out garbage like FFX2. Complete disgrace to the name.

True, they are no Jade Empire, but then again, Jade Empire was a turd (IMO).
Funny, considering more Japanese developers are now adopting KOTOR/Jade's combat system in their games, including FFXII. It would appear that western RPG developers are now leading in terms of innovation.

Oh, and KOTOR and Jade Empire were better than anything Square's put out since 1995.

Kelegacy

08-05-2005, 03:52 PM

Oh, and KOTOR and Jade Empire were better than anything Square's put out since 1995.

I figured you'd say that. Kotor was a good game, but really, Jade Empire was a flawed game through and through. To say that it was better than anything Square has done in the last 10 years is an injustice to the genre...and to Square.

I love Bioware...at least Bioware before their Xbox games. KOTOR was good, but it was a huge downgrade from Baldur's Gate...at least for me.

Kefkataran

08-05-2005, 04:01 PM

Jade Empire seemed pretty boring to me. Pretty strict, run-of-the-mill following of KOTOR's formula, right down to the good/evil endings that were both pretty boring overall.

That said, I'd love Square to shake up the FF series some more, and I'm hoping FFXII will do that. But connecting them in a more firm way? I don't think I'd like that.

Interesting thought though: an FF side game wherein you go back to various worlds in various FF games (through some convenient dimension-spanning story) and get to see what has happened to some of the old characters you loved. Could be amazing if pulled off right -- or complete shit if done wrong, which I guess is more likely.

Rommel

08-06-2005, 03:09 AM

Am I the only one who thinks that FF has gotten weird?

If by wierd you mean the way FFVII evolved the cyberpunk genre into the eldritch and unspeakable horror that their clothing designs have become with each subsequent game, then yes I do. I remember thinking they were pushing it with the jewelry in FFVIII, but at least they had uniforms in their senseless world which entirely lacked sense. Also, I was too enthralled by how awful the story was to notice the clothing.

FFIX was really, really wierd though. "I'm different than everyone else, I have a tail!" he said, staring up at the cieling at he lay on the top bunk. "Umm... dude, we played a card game whose rules we're not allowed to know with an anthropomorphic hippo today. And I do not think our mage has a face." came the reply from below. "Yes, but are they clones of the the genes of the ancients manufactured to inflicit upon the world a second coming of Neon Genesis Evangalion plots?! No! No they aren't mothafucka so shut out! I WILL FUCK YOU 'TILL YOU LOVE ME!"

bean19

08-07-2005, 06:45 AM

Rommel - Hilarious post, and so much of it is very true.

The thing is. . . NOBODY else gives the kind of production values and storyline that the Final Fantasy games give players. . . so we forgive a lot of artistic crap and themes that attempt sci-fi grandeur and philosophic meaning. I still don't know wtf was going on in FFVIII, except that I wanted Squall and Rinoa to hook up, and the bad guys were bad guys. . . I think when I found out they were all brothers and sisters from the same orphanage I just gave up on the overall plot entirely and focused only on those elements I did find interesting.

To some degree, this is just poor translation from Japanese. . . not poor text translation, but poor cultural translation. I wonder if they'd understand translated episodes of "The Twilight Zone" in Japane?

Maybe I am trained to ignore the really bad story elements and focus on the good ones, but even though the games can get extremely convoluted in their plots and sometimes destroy the suspension of disbeleif with ludicrous actions, I remain a devoted fan.

Give me something better and I'll probably STILL be a fan. It's not like we get high production value RPGs every day or even every month.