panzerfaust
CAGiversary!
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I can now properly emulate FFXII International which I've been wanting to play for years. I'm ~6 hours in and at the Valley of the Dead, currently running:
Ashe: Uhlan (spear)
Basch: Red Mage (1h Mace)
Balthier: Machinist (gun)
I was considering using more than 3 characters but I remembered that character swapping is cumbersome. This version doesn't alleviate that so I abandoned the thought.
Really I'm not all that taken with the new Job system. They merely cut up the main board and rearranged its pieces into classes. Feels a bit amateur, like a mod you'd download or something. Progression on the new boards doesn't make better sense, either. I had to grab useless tiles of high level weaponry and accessories in order to reach +HP, +Physical dmg, and faster ATB licensees. These are still highly desirable at any point in the game compared to situational Techniks and unnecessary spells.
One of best changes I've noticed is that 'Cure' is now a default level 1 spell for many classes, and is now a party-wide heal instead of single target. It's like starting the game with Cura, and this has made progression less tedious in the field, especially in those tougher dungeons early on.
Magic in general though still feels unneeded or poorly implemented. MP pools are much larger (smart improvement as everyone was always scraping by in the original version), but buff timers are still comically short. So my Red Mage casts Protect on 3 members and then a few packs of wolves later we are in need of a complete recast of the buff. Annoying as ever. And in the same vein of pointless interruptions, my characters still automatically sheathe weapons in between packs of mobs, and so must draw weapons again and again.
They have a working solution to this, if completely primitive: You can now fast forward the game with L1. Of course, speeding through unnecessary animations and rebuffs quickly extends to the temptation of fast forwarding everything. It cheapens the experience, though it is nifty for players who just want to tinker with the game and its new job roles.
Overall I'm disappointed and already regret some Job selections, which are irreversible, by the way.
Ashe: Uhlan (spear)
Basch: Red Mage (1h Mace)
Balthier: Machinist (gun)
I was considering using more than 3 characters but I remembered that character swapping is cumbersome. This version doesn't alleviate that so I abandoned the thought.
Really I'm not all that taken with the new Job system. They merely cut up the main board and rearranged its pieces into classes. Feels a bit amateur, like a mod you'd download or something. Progression on the new boards doesn't make better sense, either. I had to grab useless tiles of high level weaponry and accessories in order to reach +HP, +Physical dmg, and faster ATB licensees. These are still highly desirable at any point in the game compared to situational Techniks and unnecessary spells.
One of best changes I've noticed is that 'Cure' is now a default level 1 spell for many classes, and is now a party-wide heal instead of single target. It's like starting the game with Cura, and this has made progression less tedious in the field, especially in those tougher dungeons early on.
Magic in general though still feels unneeded or poorly implemented. MP pools are much larger (smart improvement as everyone was always scraping by in the original version), but buff timers are still comically short. So my Red Mage casts Protect on 3 members and then a few packs of wolves later we are in need of a complete recast of the buff. Annoying as ever. And in the same vein of pointless interruptions, my characters still automatically sheathe weapons in between packs of mobs, and so must draw weapons again and again.
They have a working solution to this, if completely primitive: You can now fast forward the game with L1. Of course, speeding through unnecessary animations and rebuffs quickly extends to the temptation of fast forwarding everything. It cheapens the experience, though it is nifty for players who just want to tinker with the game and its new job roles.
Overall I'm disappointed and already regret some Job selections, which are irreversible, by the way.
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