The Collegian

Issue date: 11/21/06 Section: Detour

PlayStation 3 came out last Friday. Sony only released oh, cfghabout six or seven of the systems on the U.S. market, so whoever camped out long enough outside of Best Buy in the freezing cold for a week to get their grubby hands on one is probably enjoying the bounty he or she made on eBay by now. For the rest of us, we are stuck with our lowly PlayStation 2's.

Not that my friend cares, though. He got a copy of Final Fantasy: XII last week, and I watched him start the game. I have never played a Final Fantasy game, but I have seen enough of them to know that they require an amazing amount of patience in order to "beat." I also see why people get so immersed and obsessed with these types of games. You cannot just sit down and play for a half hour or so; the game is too demanding.

I present you now with a rundown of what I witnessed in the early stages of Final Fantasy XII.

Upon loading up the game and navigating around a bunch of menu and setup screens, my friend (let's call him "Tim") was finally allowed to begin playing...after the 15 minute cut scene that sets the plot of the game. Some king was killed, someone else died, and a blonde guy was a jerk to someone. The saga begins.

After the cinematic part is finished, the game cuts to another movie scene with an effeminate blonde-haired kid named Vaan fighting some frog-like things in a pool. Vaan looks like onathan Brandis, the dude from Sidekicks who idolized Chuck Norris. After some wandering around, and characters with little talk symbols above their heads telling Vaan how to talk to people and find stuff out, it's time for Vaan to go talk to Migelo, a man in a bar who then proceeds to present him with a menu screen describing the acquisition of items and weapons that seems like it was designed with the intent of making the most confusing menu screen ever. A little hand flies around a Ouija board-looking thing, and Migelo lectures on how you have to equip potions and get licenses to use weapons and all that.

Migelo tells Vaan that he has to go fight a "Rogue Tomato" outside of town. After running around a bit and getting to this terrible, vile creature's hideout, Vaan squashes a thing that looks like Piglet with a big tomato on his head and some big chompin' teeth. There are also little catcuses running around looking stoned that Vaan has to vanquish. After trying and failing to slay a giant T-Rex with a lowly Level 1 Vaan, Tim restarts the battle, and wins, steering clear of the dino and the weird dog/wolf things roaming around.

Continued...

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