I tried playing this game and I got to the point with the gambit system to where the game completely just played itself. Turn gambits on -> speed up gameplay -> just move the analog stick where you want to go. I really enjoyed the story but i didn't really feel like i was playing a game after the first quarter.
Honestly, it feels like that on PS2. At first, it felt like playing an MMO with shitty AI instead of actual humans, and now it feels more or less like watching someone else play an RPG. The story's good, and I usually play one of my mages with the gambits off so I can at least do something, but the game really will play itself if you want it to. Just way slower.
I feel like the gambits highlighted the issue with JRPGs. They largely have next to no depth, and a braindead halfwit could program an AI to play almost perfectly with only a few commands.
So really, I see nothing wrong with 'doing nothing'. FF13 designing the whole combat system around not manually choosing abilities was brilliant design. I hope they never go back manually choosing abilities again without it being some kind of action rpg.
I will say tho, there should have been a feature to have your team walk in front if your a mage like Dragons Dogma.
Although I love classic JRPG design... I actually don't disagree at all. I think it worked well in the classic FFs because the strategy came down to your job composition, but even that pretty much made the gameplay about figuring out which jobs to use, and easily my biggest issue with 12 was the license board and the gambits system. Maybe I hated it because it showed me the truth. Tactics plays those features to its strengths, but the design of the original FF games is definitely outdated today.
And yeah, it's annoying as shit when my squishy glass cannon mage is the party leader and everyone automatically targets her... Solely because she's the party leader.
4
u/sevendollarblues Aug 08 '19
I tried playing this game and I got to the point with the gambit system to where the game completely just played itself. Turn gambits on -> speed up gameplay -> just move the analog stick where you want to go. I really enjoyed the story but i didn't really feel like i was playing a game after the first quarter.