'Her Name... Eorzea'

WARNING: THIS IS A LONG BLOG POST. Your time and attention are infinitely appreciated.

Before I say anything else, you all remember this?

PWND.

Anyway:

On a forgotten page of eternity
There lies a land embraced by mighty gods.
Her name... Eorzea.
As fates cross, swords will clash
Under the eldritch veil of a crimson shadow.
Heroes of the realm, take up your blades!
To answer the call of destiny
You must join hands... once again

Criticisms

Let's start off with the fact that this teaser trailer reveals preciously little. Lots of flashy graphics to get us all freaking out and jumping up and down, just like FFXI did like, what is it now, 9 years ago? And look how jaded we've become with XI! Before we jump to conclusions watching cutscenes of Galkas slaying assaults of aquans on pirate ships, don't forget the HUD, if any, is curiously absent here. So much for gameplay details.

The flavor text couldn't have put me off more if they tried. You shouldn't have to put blocks of text through Ye Olde Thesaurus, nor should the prospective player have to filter said blocks of texts through Ye Olde Dictionary just to find out that you're not actually revealing any information at all. Instead, all too easily, we see big words and think "... Epic."

The only piece of information we get is that the world is called Eorzea. The rest essentially means, "People will fight. Play our game. You have to. Also, other people will be playing too."

In other words, there is no story yet.

Furthermore, if this project is in the hands of the FF12 people, jobs will more than likely be a hell of a lot more fluid and versatile than in XI. Don't expect RDMs to wear pimp-hats or BLUs to wear Keffiyehs.

:(...

Praise

Have any of you ever wondered why THIS was in FFXII?

Mandies and humes are the mysterious link between Vana'diel and Ivalice.

Seeing the marriage of FFXI and FFXII is absolutely fabulous news. If you see the vast improvements of the gambit system over the FFXI internal mechanic (which has many of its own merits as well), I have very high hopes for the next stage of evolution in gameplay.

I think something like Atonement is testament to the fact that SE has realized that it needs to make fulfilling each unique party function a game in of itself - something fun in its own right. Damage dealing is its own thing; people will always like big numbers as proxies of self-worth. The more subtle rewards that come from healing, tanking, and support need, desperately, to be expanded upon. They have the potential to be fun in their own right, but not within the internal logic of damage dealing.

I have no official confirmation of this, and don't get me wrong, I love ol' Nobuo, but the music sounds distinctly Sakimoto (who did the music for FFXII). That too, is absolutely wonderful news, because, unfortunately, I really am not a huge fan of Hamauzu (Final Fantasy X and now XIII), who pretty much displaced Uematsu in the first place.

Based on the artwork on the website, I'm going to take a stab at it and say we're looking at Yoshida (FF12, FF3 DS, Tactics Advance, Tactics A2) for concept art - another wonderful choice. I think we all need an escape from the grip of Nomura's (FF7, 8, 10, 13) ever-encroaching dominion (Nomura is going to take over Square-Enix, I'm telling you). Let's just hope Yoshida doesn't commit any more fashion faux pas such as this or, worse, this. As shrewdly noted elsewhere, having a tea cozy die on your man-chest, or wearing Megaman boots and leather wing-lets is not exactly "in" this season...

Even though Larsa is my lovechild, I cannot, with a clear conscience, deny that he is wearing cherry-colored Prom Queen pumps, which is all kinds of messed up.

But, enough of my ranting.

The Chinese character for "Chaos" is comprised of two parts: "Danger" and "Opportunity."

Refrigerator. That is all.