Played the FFXII demo - I just hope the real version is an improvement.
Impressions
After the opening trailer complete with movie voice over that cried out Star Wars, you can pick two scenarios.
First Scenario
You play as Vaan, Penelo and Basch on the Pron Coast.
Anyway, you are on this FFX-styled beach with FFVIII styled enemies. The graphics itself is only slighter better than FFX and looks more in common with older Final Fantasy games. The battle system which people rave on about is like pseudo-MMORPG, except offline. I noticed that your team mates follow behind you like .hack, infact it's a lot .hack!
You can switch team leader using the d-pad and the system itself is .hack but with the ATB from FFVII. Magic wise, you get white (healing) black (attack) green (support) and time (status ailments) - the demo is biased - the women have cure spells!
There is also something called 'Gambit' in the menu. Think of it as the AI. Apparently you can customize it in the full version. I left it switched on as I'm lazy.
No more random battles too! Most people would see this as a good thing, but I like battle music even if I do hear it 1000's of times. It's better than listening dreary dungeon music.
Back on track - the point of this mission is to beat the T-rex (last seen in FFVIII) with Vaan and co. The first thing I did was switch my character to Panelo - after I figured out how to. Panelo uses a bow and arrow so she can hit enemies before anyone else does. After a few more battles I noticed than Vaan's mp bar turned dark blue to red - now he can use an Esper.
You can pick a summon from the Esper menu and like FFX, your fellow comrades run away as the summon appears. An esper only has a certain amount of time on the field and you can't control what attack they do.
I finally got to the T-rex at the top of hill and now the bosses have a big red health bar at the top screen instead of having actual HP stats. After it gets defeated, the demo ends without a hint of story. meh!
Second Scenario
Play as Ashe, Fran and Baltheir in the Stilshrine of Miriam.
w00t! Main heroine Ashe has a sword? Similar to the first scenario except different characters and scenery. I was disappointed with the magic spells, I want big explosions and fancy graphix..it delivered none in true MMORPG style. I really can't see how the battle system is a step forward -I want to play a RPG - not a pseudo-MMORPG that isn't internets!
The mission was to defeat the big boss at the end, I died to see what the game over screen looked like. Not worth the effort.
Thoughts
It's only a demo - but I felt really disappointed with the gameplay aspects. The story looks interesting (from the trailer) although it has none in the demo. I'll probably change my mind once I play the full game. I know the first thing I'll do though when I get FFXII (if possible) change all their names! :wink: