Who's got the Gambits playing the game for you?

[Zargabaath]

You are forcing yourself to play within the "box" so to speak. You could play Final Fantasy XII like I do, fully control one character. With Gambits on the other two characters and one character fully controlled it would be no different from: Star Ocean, Tales of, Persona 3, or any other RPG that has an AI.


You are still playing the game even by using Gambits. Gambits are changed area to area, bosses, and certain monsters. That requires the player to set them up, without the player's input characters would just have their basic gambit set-up from when they first joined the party. The game does not decide what gambits to choose, it is the player, making the Gambits an advanced AI system akin to programming. The Gambits take away from the monotony that are prevalent in JRPGs of mostly pressing "confirm" for attack; Gambits streamline the process. People still find pressing "confirm" to be important and as playing the game though it gets repetitive. Originally, the party leader would not have been able to use Gambits but the developers decided to include them for when the player was griding/farming.

This is a somewhat old but the comic strip reveals a truth of RPGs - from a certain point of view. Final Fantasy Ueber Alles. Scrolling down the page you'll come across a comic strip about when Dragon Quest first came out and the fellow's friend having him try out the game while explaining the gameplay. The guy asks how to move the hero and strike the enemy. His friend replies, " Simple, pick the fight command & then your guy automatically attacks the enemy." To which the player is taken aback that all he has to do is tell the game to attack and the game does it for him and he only gets to read about (or see the action in other/later JRPGs).

So are we really playing any turn-based RPG(regarding combat)? As shown in the comic, we, the players, are not truly controlling the character(s) to move up and then attacking with the corresponding button. We are observers. Now games like Star Ocean, Tales of, & any other Action-RPG the player does control movement and when to attack, guard, etc therefore are not included. With that what makes Final Fantasy XII's combat all that different?

[Linus Li Lelouch]

I wouldn't call that a problem honestly, the gambits have been playing the game for me, for quite a while lol. It's only when I find one of the hidden Espers that I get my azz royally kicked.

I mean so far, i think every boss fight I got into, the gambits took over and I pretty much walked away to the bathroom, get something to eat, drinks, and when I came back the fight was over lol.

I love the gambit system.

[Confession]

When it came to playing just running around, I'd control one char and have the others full gambits. Cept when I was on the phone and I'd switch my mains gambits on

As for long ass bosses thouhg, like Yiazmat. I but my gambits on, went to bed woke up and he was dead. But those gambits took me a long time to master