FF XII was maybe horrible as a Final Fantasy game, but as a ''game'', I think it's an excellent one! I've spent almost over 200 hours in that game, it was THAT good in my book.

I just don't understand the hate for FF XII. The change in the battle system was much needed.

What do you mean by "modified FFXII"?

It does not have the same battle system does it?

XII hate on these forums is horrible. XII was a great game. It at least tried (and did a good job) of changing the status-quo formula of the Final Fantasy series - which I have hated since VIII.

Eup - I think the issue (as you could call it) is that the locations and travel system feel like XII.

The hate comes from JRPG gamers like me who are very old school and do not want our pre-FFXI style turn based battle system touched.

This is why I found Lost Odyssey refreshing. I absolutely hated FFXII battle system, I also thought the story was a snooze fest. Oh my, how SE has fallen.

I just hope TLR does not use a FFXII-esque battle system, although that does not seem to be the case. SaGa Team couldn't possibly do that to me... COULD THEY?

The game was made with UE3...SE is not completely familiar with the engine and has no real intention of continuing to use it (see: Crystal Tools) so I can give them somewhat of a pass on aspects like framerate drops and the likes, especially with other developers complaining about UE3.

Of course I enjoyed FF12 so any similarities (which I dont see) wouldn't put me off.

Then no issues for me.

I do not expect an old school FF feel from TLR anyways, SaGa Team always seems to provide (for me anyways) a great battle system, so regardless of review scores I will most likely praise and worship this game.

Oh, I've played all the old school SNES, Genesis and PS1 RPGs, and trust me, I grew tired of the ''press action button, select move/spell/item, wait for the animation to finish'' tactic. At the very least, why can't there be more games like Xenogears (dynamic turn-based battle system) or Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (turn-based quick-time moves mechanic)?

Lost Odyssey was traditional, yeah, it didn't refresh the old turn-based RPG battle system, but you must not forget that the game was actually challenging from start to finish, not only at the end (where you're mostly underleveled in other easy RPGs that wants you to suddenly spam healing potions and magics for no apparent reason during the final dungeons/battles... =/= fun in my book).

Oh no. The similarities between TLR and XII almost entirely end at the "look" and "feel" aspect. The actual gameplay is quite different.

TLR uses an advanced AI built off of XII nicknamed "Gambit 1.5" - You select the general tactics of each union (your 5 player party), and the AI then selects the optimal attack pattern.

Once you select the battle strategy (which I'd also call akin to what Ogre Battle for SNES had) - you will be asked to input context-sensitive buttons ala Lost Odyssey's ring system to get critical damage on your opponents.

The battles are entirely turn based, but still a definate step in a different direction. I haven't played TLR, so I can't be entirely certain, but from what I read, it seems very reminicent of Ogre Battle - When you tell your union to "aggressively attack" - you know your Union is going to slam the enemy with every attack, and elemental skill possible, even down to which ones are used. But you aren't manually inputting the given commands. Why? Because you have up to 20-25 individual party members at one time. Battles contain up to 50 combatants. Could you imagine a Final Fantasy with 20 party members? TLR is like that.

@SHMUP

Agreed, Xenogears style gameplay now a days would be superb! For some reason though I don't tire of the ''press action button, select move/spell/item, wait for the animation to finish''. Maybe because I like to be able to just stop what I am doing every once in a while and I can just leave it sitting there mid battle.

@Mr. Stickball

I am sure what you wrote was some amazing gameplay info on TLR, but I did not read it. I refuse to read, watch, etc... on anything to do with this game. I want to just pop the game in and play, not knowing what to fully expect.

I love the SaGa Team too much (FanArt Asellus avatar) to spoil anything before playing.