The Video Game Revue

Final Fantasy XII - Demo

Today's been a big day so far, and it just keeps getting better. I was pretty burnt out this morning from working just a little bit too hard the last couple of weeks, and since I couldn't pry myself out of bed at a reasonable hour, I decided to call in sick. The local EB Games finally got Dragon Quest VIII in, so I went to pick that up. It's unseasonably warm outside today, so it was a good afternoon for a walkabout. While at EB Games, I had a chance to quickly scout out Call of Duty 2 on the XBox 360, which is the first time that I've actually seen an XBox 360 in person. As soon as I got home, naturally I spent an hour playing around with the Final Fantasy XII demo that comes with Dragon Quest VIII. And to top it all off (easily the biggest event of the day), I'm going to see a Nine Inch Nails concert tonight with Sunny.

About the XBox 360 demo: it certainly looked slick. What definitely caught my eye right off the bat were the hi-res graphics and the silky smooth framerate. It was basically like watching a demo of a game on a pretty good gaming PC. No big surprise there, I guess. I'm not really all that excited about the XBox 360 hardware anyway, or any of the hardware for any of the next gen consoles for that matter. I know that each of them will kick the crap out of my PS2 in that department. What I care about are the game titles that will be available, and so far the only XBox 360 title to have caught my attention is Elder Scrolls IV, which I'd probably rather have the PC version of anyway.

To be completely candid, my plan for the next several months is to save up a nice chunk of change for some solid PC gaming hardware (something with at least a gig of dual-channel RAM and a GeForce 6800 or better; I'm not a big fan paying twice as much to have the absolute leading-edge hardware) and maybe a drop dead gorgeous monitor like the DELL UltraSharp 2405FPW 24-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD Monitor (yes, I've done a bit of research.) That way I get hot new hardware in the same league as the XBox 360 (or better), and I'll already have a lineup of great games like Half-Life 2, Age of Empires III, and Battlefield 2 that I can replay in their full glory. My current PC gaming setup of an old Athlon 2500 with a gig of RAM and a Radeon 9600 is sufficient for me to keep up on PC gaming (and more than sufficient for World of WarCraft and lesser demanding titles of years past like Unreal Tournament 2004, Neverwinter Nights, and WarCraft III), but it has definitely fallen behind the curve--and besides, with a new computer, I'll be able to play other PC games while Sunny plays World of WarCraft.

Anyway, if the XBox 360 suddenly starts getting all kinds of awesome exclusive titles, it's certainly possible that I could be swayed. For now I'm planning on saving my pennies for the new PC and probably the PlayStation 3 and/or Nintendo Revolution.

The Final Fantasy XII demo is quite entertaining, although certainly limited in scope: there weren't any characters to talk to, nor any story scenes aside from the substantial opening movie sequence. The new battle system that involves fighting enemies right on the area map is better than I expected. It felt a little bit chaotic at first, but it's actually less disorienting than a separate battle system overall since you don't lose your bearings quite as easily just because you got into a fight. The only thing about it that started to annoy me were the red and blue lines that pop up to show you who is attacking whom during combat. They have a tendancy to distract from the beautiful setting, monsters, and character models. Other than that, I feel that the battle system could be very fun, although it's impossible to say for certain just from a playable demo version. Overall, the demo did get me even more stoked about Final Fantasy XII.

Now I face the second half of my dilemma over Dragon Quest VIII. I'd really like to start playing it, but I'm making good progress in Digital Devil Saga so far, and if I start a serious game of DQ VIII, that will certainly interfere. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I can wait until I'm done with either Digital Devil Saga or Xenogears to make time for DQ. A sane course of action might be to concentrate on finishing Disgaea for now and then start DQ, although I have my doubts even that continuing this habit of playing four RPGs all at once (as well as various other action and quest games) is really working for me. I might be willing to drop Lunar: Dragon Song from the menu outright, but the fact that it's a portable game makes it easy to play in bed just before turning out the light, so it fits a niche that the other console RPGs don't. I was thinking about replacing Lunar: Dragon Song with Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow though ("Castlevania: DS", hehehe.)

Anyway, I'm sure I'll work something out, even if by "work something out" what I really mean is "start playing DQ VIII anyway and end up driving myself nuts."

posted by Parappa @ 3:34 PM