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PS2
Final Fantasy XII
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NCS Update
«©NCSX»
A joyous wedding in the principality of Dalmasca is
soon interrupted by the clarion call to war.
Sandwiched between the empires of Archadia and
Rozarria, Dalmasca is a key campaign territory when
Archadia makes a move to invade and mount a new
offensive against Rozarria. After being usurped from
her prospective throne, Princess Ashe of Dalmasca joins up with
an adventurer named Vann and a ragtag rebel force
dead set on redress...
NCS Game Notes &
Spoilers
» In the intro to the game, awfully familiar
music plays followed by a zooming camera which
travels through the clouds and takes in airships and
the splendor of a cityscape followed by a flock of
birds, a celebration of some sort, mountains, and
floating spires. The hero Vann is shown on a beach
followed by the hulking movements of troops on the
march. After relatively serene scenery, the images
turn to those of war as the music picks up tempo and
takes on an ominous tone. Explosions ripple across
the sky and ripple in general. A hangar opens and an
airship spreads its wings and rockets into the
distance. Various characters are shown intonating
words but the music drowns out everything and
monsters & materia are shown in an arena of some
sort before everything swirls together to form the
Final Fantasy XII title screen.
» After the intro, two options are presented:
New Game / Load Game. The music continues to play to
crashing crescendo...
» Start a new game and various options may be
set before embarking on a grand adventure. A second
intro starts with the flutter of a flock of birds.
The Year 706 - Old Valendian - Royal City of
Rabanastre where the citizenry are on their
appointed rounds and living their lives. Two bunnies
walk through the crowd, people are at the market and
the whole scene has a Star Wars look and feel. A
grand procession is going through the city while the
crowd below cheers and petals plummet from the sky.
It's a wedding procession and the happy couple is
paraded before the throngs on a carriage and the
scene eventually shifts to inside a church - they
kiss and birds are shown once again flying through
the sky. Scene shift to the urgent gait of a guy who
joins an assemblage of armored prognosticators who
are learning of the incursion by Archadian forces on
a table length video screen which tracks the
movement of troops on the warpath. Ships are shown
zooming across the screen and converging on Dalmasca.
The groom from earlier is presented with a sword by
the king as his bride looks on and he raises it up
in a call to arms as the masses echo his call.
Airships are shown fluttering off to defend the
kingdom.
Dalmasca - Nabradia border: Star Wars
reminiscing redux
as airships and armies mass for war. The camera pans
from the skies to scenes of ground level carnage as
warring soldiers are shown close up while fires burn
in the background. Riders on Chocobo rush into
battle and charge their foes as materia blows up in the sky.
The camera shifts to a view of magic users in an
elevated area but they're soon carved up by enemy warriors.
Ships course through the sky and the tide is turning
against the defenders. Two archers trade arrows but
one of the arrows hits the groom from earlier while
his handler pulls him up onto his Chocobo. An
Airship blows up overhead and plummets downwards and
handler runs away on his Chocobo as the battle is
lost.
Scene shift:
Back home, the new bride is wearing a black veil as she looks at
her dead groom inside a funeral casket . As if to
signal more death, black birds lunch on the corpses
of the dead and ominous skies cast a grim pallor
over the scene as massive airships fly overhead.
» Another introduction starts afterwards which
explains the situation and why Dalmasca was
targetted for domination. The empire of Archadia is
situated on the red continent in the north of the
map while Rozarria is situated on the southwest
portion of the map. Between the two is the Archadian
city of Nabradia which borders the principality of
Dalmasca. Since it allows for entry into Rozarria,
it is a prime location to mount a massive attack
against Rozarria. Square's spelling of the countries
on the map is as follows:
Archadia
Rozarria
Dalmasca
» A man's voice intonates and a hero wakes up
in a sweat and looks up to see the handler from
earlier. His vision is blurry and wavering but he
gets up and the text that appears is the
Nalbina
Fortress - North Ward. The handler asks the
young man his age and he says 17. They discuss
things and enemy warriors rush in for the kill but
they're sliced down and the Dalmascan soldiers rush
off. After this, a tutorial begins which asks you to
swivel the camera with the R-analog, move around
with the L-analog, backtrack conversations with the
TRIANGLE button, converse with fellows and open
doors by pressing the O button.
» Afterwards, the hero is given the chance to
battle an enemy soldier. A red line arcs from hero
to enemy but you won't get a chance to cut him down
since your action bar is slow to fill. Your fellow
Dalmascan warriors carve him up quickly and move on.
You are not able to attack at will but must wait for
the action bar to fill up before an attack
automatically executes.
» An enemy ship later descends and provides
fodder for your little troupe of freedom fighters.
Other encounters are triggered as the group makes
their way out of the fortress. At one point, you'll
be given the chance to save your progress to memory
card at a blue crystal near some stairs. We noticed
that up until this point, we had spent 22:50 on the
game.
» In the previous encounters, you're not given
much chance to attack anything since your Action
Meter fills slowly and your fellows in arms are
quick to hack and slash. As they make their escape,
there's one scene where you're given the chance to
fight three enemy soldiers in hot pursuit by
yourself to learn a little more about how the
fighting system works. At this point, you're on your
own for a little while - eventually you'll reach a
room where a lot of dead bodies are prone on the
floor. As hero makes his way through the chamber,
his eyes rest on the king who has been killed on his
throne. After the hero collapses to the floor, more
soldiers rush into the room and capture the handler
who they are pushing to the floor. The scene is
viewed from hero's perspective as he wavers and
slips into unconsciousness. After struggling, he
falls to the floor and darkness takes over.
» Scene shift and Vann is battling rats with
fiery red eyes. Two sword smacks does each one in
and he is greeted by a tomboy friend who carries a
big satchel.
» 706 Old Valendian - Two years after the
fall of Dalmasca - things appear to be normal as
soldiers harass a fruit peddler and Vann runs
through the streets. Vann and friend are in the city
and once control is handed over to the player, a
world map is located on the upper right corner with
green dots representing people that may be
interacted with. NPCs who can't be interacted with
won't show up on the map at all. If you walk down
the bridge, there's a horned humanoid creature who
is having a very spirited conversation with a little
lad who chuckles from time to time and jumps up and
down. The creature also holds his belly when
laughing and chuckling. Vann may stand there for an
hour and the two characters will chuckle and repeat
their routine ad infinitum.
» Although many NPCs roams the streets, only
the ones with white smiley faces over them may be
spoken to and interacted with.
» The city is beautifully decorated with big
urns which hold ferns, ornate stonework for the
columns and buildings, and everything has a rich and
substantial look to it. There's also an overwhelming
feeling of enormity to the city as new areas may be
entered which offer massive buildings and more
people to interact with. The floor of the city is
also made of different tiles and stonework with
interesting patterns to them. The city is mottled
with texture and warmth. The costumes and outfits
worn by the creatures in the game are also overly
elaborate and again, the designers appear to have
studied at the Star Wars school. There's a fair
amount of exploration to do in the city and you'll
eventually find a SHOP which contains armor,
shields, and customers milling about. Just
browsing... There's a gal trying out a shield
attached to her left arm, a guy staring at a suit of
armor, people holding conversations, and even an
area that's blocked by chains while a creature and a
human talk behind the red chains.
» When roaming the enclosed areas, the camera
gets a little convoluted. For example, in the shop
if you walk around, the camera follows Vann from a
lower-to-the-ground behind him and that's all well
and good. However, if you head into a corner of the
shop, the camera perspective changes to an overhead
close-up view of Vann's head.
» NCS basically agrees with Famitsu's review
of the game but the camera may get a little wonky
from time to time. So far, that's our only niggle
but we'll post more impressions as we delve ever
deeper into the adventure.
NCS
Sound Bite
After warring for years, the empires of Archadia and Rozarria are at an impasse. Archadia is situated in
the land of Valentia while Rozarria hunkers down in
the realm of Ordalia. Instead of mongering without
movement, Archadia tries another tack by invading the
neighboring principality of Dalmasca which sits in a
strategic location between the two warring kingdoms.
After the king is killed and the kingdom lost, Princess Ashe runs away to fight another day and
joins up with the Dalmascan resistance to eventually
reclaim her throne. In the midst of
abandoning her kingdom, Princess Ashe runs into an adventurer
named Vaan and the two conspire to change the
course of the world.
From the publisher
Youth and princess
fight against the oppressor to rebuild home country!
The military superpowers, Arcadia and Rosarian
empires which control the Valentia and Oredria
continents respectively have been involved in a long
drawn out war. In order to gain the upper hand in
the conflict, Arcadia invaded and took over many
surrounding countries, amongst them, the small
Dalmaska reign. To do her part for the country,
Dalmaska’s Pricess Ashe joined the resistance, and
met with Vaan in the process. The main character
Vaan is a cheerful youth of the Hume race.
Originally a citizen of Dalmaska, in his pursuit of
freedom and to avenge his brother’s death, he became
an air pirate, flying freely in the skies of various
countries. How will the story develop and what is
the future of the world?
Game Features, Recommended Points
The Final Fantasy XII that gamers crave and delayed
many times is about to make its grand debut. This
time, the same world view and race settings used in
GBA’s “Final Fantasy Tactics Advance” are used,
allowing for a seamless transition. With 3 years’
development time, the game’s rich story depicting
the struggles of characters trying to achieve their
aims against the backdrop of superpowers slugging it
out will surely meet gamers’ expectations. Elaborate
adventures are waiting in this most awaited RPG
masterpiece.
Totally no dead spots, instant effective use of all
new combat system!
This game uses the all new “Active Dimension Battle”
system, and not the random encounter system used in
predecessors. This system combines the normal field
and battle screens into one, allowing one to shift
the camera 360 degrees in both situations, allowing
the player to grasp the relative positions of all
and distances, and then use various commands
effectively to conduct the most efficient attacks.
Vivid character portrayals! Epic poem-like music!
The game’s characters have been enhanced to let the
player fully understand their emotions in the real
time rendered plot animated sequences, replicating
the well-acclaimed Matsuno (Ysumi Matsuno) style of
detailed plot enactments. The game also supports
Dolby Pro Logic II surround sound throughout,
allowing the player to enjoy 5.1 audio effects with
the correct sound environment supporting Dolby Pro
Logic II. Music is not to be overlooked with world
famous violinist, Taro Hakase working together with
veteran series’ music composer, Hitoshi Sakimoto on
the theme song, and with Taro Hakase involved in the
presentations itself.
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This document is ©NCSX 2006. All rights reserved. No
reproduction in whole or in part of this document
may be made without express written consent of
National Console Support, Inc.
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