Topic: Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age

[Xessive]

Final Fantasy XII is one of my favourite FF games, despite having a difficulty that ramps up radically sometimes. It was developed by the same team who made Vagrant Story, and that shows in the art style. It's set in Ivalice, which is in the same universe and continuity as Final Fantasy Tactics series (Vagrant Story was later retconned to be in the same world as well just on a different continent).

The FF12 remaster is well under way and has been announced for PS4 back in June 2016. It's expected to release in North America and Europe.

Here's some recent gameplay footage which shows up the remaster:

It looks gorgeous as far as remasters go and I'm pretty excited.

There's no official word on a PC version yet but if if FFX & FFX-2 Remaster is any indication, the PC version was announced only a week before its release. Here's hoping

[Cobra951]

I could not get into any FFs after VI (III US), until Que gifted me a copy of XII.  I loved it.  I thought it would define the direction of future games in the series, but then they went back to a style of gameplay that I just couldn't get into.  This latest one coming out now (XV?) looks promising.  At least the demo showed promise.

This remaster of XII has to be more than just retexturing, I'm sure.  The game is too old for that.  I'll have to check out the video on the Xbox.  I've given up trying to watch demo videos for new stuff on this old PC.

[Quemaqua]

I'm super, super excited. Heard about this a while ago and this remains one of my all-time favorite games. I've been wanting an excuse to go back to it for years and years now, and will more than likely buy the English version on release for PS4, then probably again in Japanese later or on PC if it comes out (hoping for a multi-language PC release). It's not the "best" game ever for a variety of reasons, but just the believability of the characters and world, the texture of it all, the music ... I got so wrapped up in this game in a way I have rarely otherwise experienced. It's also my favorite localization of a game, with fantastic writing (and an abundance of it) in English from the Japanese. It made me want to be a localizer, and lives up to the already extremely high bar set by both the prior games in the "series", Vagrant Story and the re-release of Final Fantasy Tactics, both of which feature very strong scripts.

[idolminds]

Will buy if it comes to PC.

[gpw11]

This remaster of XII has to be more than just retexturing, I'm sure.  The game is too old for that.  I'll have to check out the video on the Xbox.  I've given up trying to watch demo videos for new stuff on this old PC.

It's astonishing how good the original version of FFXII looks in PCSX2.  Like it may very well be more than just texture work in the remaster, but it's really fucking close.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, the first time I booted it up in the emu, I thought man, you know what, this basically looks like an early PS3/360 game. It was kind of surprising.

[Xessive]

I think the game's original resources were great to start and the PS2 rendering capacity scaled it down a bit.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Cobra951]

I watched the video, and it really is just a reskin with better rendering.  I guess the original looks good enough to get away with it, though the age shows in the faces, simple geometry and area transitions through dotted lines.  Not that I expected them to rework everything from scratch.  I guess i didn't know what to expect.  The result isn't bad at all, and watching the gameplay reminded me of how good it is.

[Xessive]

I watched the video, and it really is just a reskin with better rendering.  I guess the original looks good enough to get away with it, though the age shows in the faces, simple geometry and area transitions through dotted lines.  Not that I expected them to rework everything from scratch.  I guess i didn't know what to expect.  The result isn't bad at all, and watching the gameplay reminded me of how good it is.

Yeah, it's not full remake or anything. It's up-rezzed and fitted for 16:9 ratio, with reworked special effects rendering and overall smoother animations. I expect it will be locked at 30 fps I won't worry about that, it's not a game that absolutely demands 60 fps (or higher) but I hope they'll give the option to select a variable framerate.

I'm pretty happy with what I've seen so far and I'm really looking forward to going back to Ivalice!

[Xessive]

Some more gameplay footage, courtesy of GameSpot.

[Quemaqua]

Completely forgot all about this, and now it comes out when I have no time and am about to start a semester in which I will have literally no free time almost at all.   

Belmont, you said you grabbed it? How is it?

I'm going to lose so many hours to this again ...

[TheOtherBelmont]

Completely forgot all about this, and now it comes out when I have no time and am about to start a semester in which I will have literally no free time almost at all.   

Belmont, you said you grabbed it? How is it?

I'm going to lose so many hours to this again ...

It's been great.  I am about 65 hours in and loving every bit of it again.  The HD work done to the game makes it look nice.  To me it looks like a PS3 game now.  The game has aged a lot better than I thought it would and the small additions that were made to this version are very helpful.  The 2x and 4x speed increase with one button press is great for grinding or walking around big areas you have been through before.  The game also auto saves frequently, so if you get wiped out from a unexpected boss or hunt mark you can almost always find a save that is closer to where you were than your manual save to help save yourself some time.  The limit to two license boards per character led to a bit of decision anxiety for me but after doing a bit of reading on the Final Fantasy wiki and the Gamefaqs message boards I found a party that suits my playing style. As much as I know you like FFXII, I can easily recommend you pick it up.

....Kupo 

[Quemaqua]

Great to hear. I'll probably wait since I know I can't play it now, but maybe pick it up before an upcoming break and dive in. I love the world of that game so much. Wandering around the cities was such a joy. There was such a sense of place to that game, everything felt so memorable. Textured in a way a lot of games never manage.

[MysterD]

I so hope this comes to the PC.

[MysterD]

PC Gamer - FFXII: The Zodiac Age PC version coming to Steam on Feb. 1st, 2018.

FFXII: The Zodiac Age PC version will have:
60 FPS support.
21:9 ultra-wide monitor support.
48:9 three-monitor support (with three 16:9 monitors).
New Game Plus and New Game Minus Modes are unlocked from the start.
Three soundtrack options—original, re-orchestrated, and soundtrack—will be accessible from the start.
'Maximise License Points and Gil' feature grants players access to maximum points from the configuration screen.
Speed and Trial modes.
Fast forward function. 
Prettier visuals.

[Quemaqua]

20% discount on day one ... have they said what regular price will be? If it's $40, I'll probably grab it.

[gpw11]

Yeah, I'll probably go for this over the PS4 version

[MysterD]

FF XII: TZA Steam Page.

For those who didn't see it - yep, this game ships w/ Denuvo.
No surprise, given that this is from Square Enix published game.

[idolminds]

Hope its a good port. Looking forward to it. I tried emulating the PS2 release but it has strange bugs with shadows unless you use software rendering.