PS3 is going to be a grand in Australia. I can wait.

Mm, Canadian.

PS2 slim is 129$, normal PS2 is 200$, a new Wii 280$. A PS3 is 689$.

None of this includes taxes...With taxes...

PS2 slim 144$, PS2 230$, Wii 322$, PS3 837$.

So, I'm waiting for the PS3 to drastically drop in price before I buy one.

They charge you $70 more for an outdated PS2 with less features, than they do for a new PS2 with more? WTF?

I forgot I was still borrowing this game. When the revolt ends I can play! Because no doubt I'll be talking to someone on something or other.

(Have to be leveling up if I remember correctly. *twiddle*)

Outdated PS2 can house the harddrive and probably comes with it already installed if I had to make a guess as to the reason for the price.

Hey, I don't care about FF, but I have to wait months for new Doctor Who and Life of Mars Episodes, so ya Brits have some advantages!

I realized that it wasn't the battle system that I hated; in fact, it's pretty much what they used in the Mana series. At least as far as non-transition battles go. Thinking back to Secret of mana, and how annoying it was to get my NPC party members to do what I wanted them to do, I'd like to believe that it helped bring about the gambit system. "If ya don't like our pre-programmed NPCs, do it yourself ya bluchers," Or something along those lines.

At first, the liscense board is rather tedious... but after awhile, I've found that I've more LP then I know what to do with. As of right now, all six are at level 40 and have learnt their entire augmentation section along with everybody having learnt the entire Magic section, excluding Basch who I had get all the far and out of the way quickinings. Which everbody has as well.

Though, I did make it a habit to run from place to place, avoiding the teleport stones altogether because I was having trouble gaining levels. Then I realized that the experience you gain is split by how many party members you have fighting at the time the monster dies. Meaning, it's better to have one person fight at a time a full party of three. (assuming your in a place that they can handle)

Which brings me to what I dislike about this game and free-form games altogether. That everybody eventually becomes exactly the same. Sure the animation is different, sure one may have slightly less attack power or health then the other, but there's no uniqueness about the characters outside of which one you'd rather look at.

While yes, FFX was free-form in it's own way... you pretty much had to stick to that character's specific class untill they had reached the end of their growth.

I'd noticed it had the potential to become that way and hoped something would turn up to pull people away from it. Ahhhh.

You were right that FFX had the perfect balance of free-form to character separation though. I was impressed by that one.

It still ended up being the same. I had to purposely gimp myself, or have them all turn into clones, and neither was a very pleasing option. This is why I vastly prefer IX of all of the recent games.

IX was far too inflexible. And I didn't gimp myself in FFX and my characters were still varied...

Inflexible how? People had different skills. If you wanted that skill, you used that character.

So how does the license board work? After looking into the gambit system more, I think I actually like it, and that was my biggest problem with the game. If I can stomach the license board, I might pick it up.

When you defeat an enemy, you get license points in addition to experience points. These can be used to purchase licenses on the license board. You must have a license to do anything beyond attack with your bare hands or use an item: magic, technicks, armor, weapons, and trinkets all require licenses. This basically allows for you to create your own class over time. There is a restriction on the licenses you can get, however: you may only buy a license that is next to a license that you already own. If you want to get Swords 2, you generally have to have Swords 1 or another nearby license. This is to prevent the player from jumping around and randomly grabbing the awesome technicks, magics, and augments.

Augments are also tied to the license board. Augments increase the number of gambits a character can have (each character starts with 3) and messes with their stats. Augments are special in that they do not cost money to use (you must buy spells for your party in addition to obtaining the license). Augments include increases to HP, bonuses to blocking with shields, and decreased action time. They are incredibly useful, but do not pursue them to the exclusion of all else: I have found myself with a character with extremely weak weapons and far too many augments doing quite poorly in battle.

You get liscense points for killing things (most creatures are worth 1LP). Skills, augments, spells, weapons, armour...everything needs a liscense to be used. You use liscense points to buy liscenses. Character development can actually be crucial at the beginning of the game, since you only have a bit of LP to use, and you want to assign tasks to certain people (my Vaan was a thief for example, had him learn shields, leather armor, accessories, daggers, and had him steal most of the time. His prime augment was 10% plus speed, and his new skill poach. He was my money maker.) I made Fran my healer (bows,leather armor,white and arcana magic) and so on... Eventually you can get an item that doubles LP earned and that really makes getting everything pretty easy. At level 50, all of my characters have everything, though I still keep them in their roles. Sure Vaan COULD wear plate mail, but it makes him hellish slow, so I keep him in leather to make sure he keeps his speed and so on.

There's values to each armour and weapon which makes you think about how you want to equip people.

I think my favorite system is still FF7.

And hey, anything is better than FF3 (the actual one). I'm playing through it right now, and the game is terrible. I'm only beating it to say I beat another Final Fantasy game.

How about FF 2? The actual one of course.

Never played through 1 and 2. I bought FF origins, but before I ever played them, someone made off with my full, four paneled CD case full of music, games, and DVDs.

It would have worked a lot better if you had the switch party members command like in FFX. It was inflexible in that unlike (say) FFX, while there was variety between characters, you had no real control over how your characters developed. There was nothing interesting you could do with it.

If I want control over how my characters develop, I'll play a tabletop RPG. I'm getting into a V:tM game next month. If I want to play a kickass character someone else came up with, and whose flavor is well developed in the gameplay, I'll play a CRPG.

Cloud was an interesting character in the story, but as far as gameplay was concerned, he was just a bunch of different animations. Even the limit breaks that set a character apart all just did damage. End game, they all hit for 9999 anyway, unless you maybe used a rank one for something different.

I like having some control. I like feeling that my choices and strategy matter. So when the characters turn out exactly as they would if it was someone else playing and I have no impact on it, it's not as fun for me.

I like playing games for their story, and in that sense, I've always like watching the people grow along with the story, using their unique abilities together for a common goal. When I end up in a free-form game such as this, I can't help but feel that it didn't have to be these people. That it could've been anybody. While Ashe and her delima is pretty much the focus the story so far... Basch, Balthizar, Fran, Vahn, and Penelo seem like they could all be replaced by random people, Assuming everybody in the world of Ivalice uses a liscense grid. (which is pretty much implied since random NPCs tell you how to use it)

That thought alone keeps me from connecting with the characters more so then other games like Lunar, Growlanser, and Chrono Cross where people had one profession, they stuck to that profession, and they had to learn to get along and pool their individual strengths. As opposed to all the characters having the ability to learn everything, and learning everything, and then pushing others out of the picture. As is the case in FF:XII where I can have six white/black/green/red mage/warrior/thief/gunners and only use the three I like to look at the most. (Unless one dies on me of course)

On a completely unrelated note. Is the PS3's emulation of PS2 games really as crappy as I've heard people claim it to be? That it makes PS2 games look like they were made for the PS1?