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This will be my shortest newspost ever, but I didn't want any punk wannabe newsposters beating me to the info this time.

Square-Enix recently revealed that Balthier (also known as Balflear), the loveable air pirate from Final Fantasy XII, will have a storyline role in the PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. It is unconfirmed if he will be playable or not, but he will have a storyline role.

In the same announcement, Square-Enix revealed one of the new job classes for the remake: Dark Knight. Let the moveset speculation run wild.

Source: RPGFan

This post has been edited by laszlow on 18th January 2007 02:22

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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Quote (laszlow @ 18th January 2007 02:22)

Square-Enix recently revealed that Balthier (also known as Balflear), the loveable air pirate from Final Fantasy XII, will have a storyline role in the PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. It is unconfirmed if he will be playable or not, but he will have a storyline role.

I think I speak for at least myself when I say "Lame." It's not exaclty the most inspired special guest star they could have, is it. "Hey, let's throw the breakout character from our latest moneyspinner into it."

Dark Knight is Dark Knight.

Still, they had Cloud in the original. And if it makes it way to the UK on PSP, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.


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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

Why mess with an already sound story line by introducing a new character who would undoubtedly need his own arc? If it's in the same context of Cloud, then it's fine as it can be missed and it's an influential part of the game, but if stated that he will be a story-line character, that leads me to worry that they've tampered with my favorite Final Fantasy to date.

The inclusion of Dark Knight is interesting, however I'm not overly excited. Still, I'll probably end up buying it.

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Okay, but there was a goat!

Just as long as he doesn't start off at level 1, I'd say it's awesome!

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

Quote (laszlow @ 18th January 2007 02:22)

In the same announcement, Square-Enix revealed one of the new job classes for the remake: Dark Knight.

"One" of the new classes? Sounds like Square-Enix are doing it right and making it a bigger game, hope it turns out well!

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

I heard that the Onion Knights from Final Fantasy III are going to make an appearance in this game also.

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We, who cannot see into tomorrow, have no way of knowing... But... But... If you don't find dreams yourself... if you don't capture your ambitions... happiness won't just come to you.

Square Enix is once again messing with my mind and my money...altough Balthier isn't reason enough to buy this game, the new Dark Knight class seems like an interesting addition. I just hope Balthier's role is interesting enough to justify his appearance

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x_X

Sadly, the Dark knight will be an overpowered generic job and they look like Black mages with purple/brown armor. I Haven't seen worse sprites that were already in FFT.

I'm getting worried... REALLY worried as how this remake will come out.

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Sayonara

Quote (Zodiac @ 18th January 2007 09:16)

Sadly, the Dark knight will be an overpowered generic job and they look like Black mages with purple/brown armor. I Haven't seen worse sprites that were already in FFT.

Since you seem to be privy to information that is not in the links above, how about sharing so others can judge?

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Here's a link.

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With the lights out
It's less dangerous

Quote (Del S @ 17th January 2007 21:28)

I think I speak for at least myself when I say "Lame." It's not exaclty the most inspired special guest star they could have, is it. "Hey, let's throw the breakout character from our latest moneyspinner into it."

But Balthier is possibly the coolest character Square has ever come up with.

I think the change that really needs to be made in a remake is to allow a certain number of extra characters to be stored outside of the party, like in the Suikoden series...though perhaps not with a castle (and especially not with a giant boat).

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Wtf, PSP remake? That's news to me. I need to get my rear in gear and get the internet at my appartment, or I may very well sleep through some really awesome stuff.

Just... Balflear? What the heck? You don't have to know about japanese phoenetics to understand why this is the stupidest thing ever. >"<;

Onion knights FTW.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

/cries

Messing with the storyline in FFT is akin to rewriting a Charles Dickens classic.

I'm all for new classes, though. Gaff Gafgarion would be proud to see that his class finally made the big time.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

Quote (Hamedo @ 18th January 2007 13:24)

/cries

Messing with the storyline in FFT is akin to rewriting a Charles Dickens classic.

I never got why people made such a big fuss of this stuff. I mean, who's to say the changes won't make it even better? NOTHING is perfect. There isn't a single thing that cannot be improved on - unless you're a die-hard stubborn fanboy who has it in their heads that their chosen game is so special it will never be beaten by anything else.

To boot, it's being remade by Square. It's not like, say, Capcom decided to make a remake of FFT and change the storyline - we're talking about the original authors.

Personally I hope they made huge changes, possibly even a branching new path in the storyline. I'd rather have some new material other than a new character or 2-3 new classes if I'm going to shell out money to buy a game I already own. FFIVa scored hard in this respect by giving you two new dungeons and an alterable party at the end. Something like that in FFT would be great.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (A_True_Stigma @ 18th January 2007 10:34)

Here's a link.

Thanks. I quite like the Dark Knight look, actually. It is a bit derivative of Black Mage, but it makes sense.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

I am pleased with the some of the changes. I'm not too sure about Balthier's inclusion, but overall, a new branch of the story would make it more worth the purchase than just the same game with cinematic cut-scenes.

IMO, fear of something new in one of my favorite games is non-existent. As long as they don't cut anything from the original, that is.

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"You broke my f***ing sitar, mother f***er."
-Anton A. Newcombe

"Yet another 'use your sword to magically deliver death from above' character comes in somewhere between the Living Cabbage and Milkmaid character options." -red_beard_neo

Quote (laszlow @ 17th January 2007 21:22)

This will be my shortest newspost ever, but I didn't want any punk wannabe newsposters beating me to the info this time.

I see that it really was a huge deal that I posted some news I was excited about. I know my doing so must've rendered it completely impossible to make a seperate newspost.

You guys win, I'm done with this forum.

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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

There's something I don't like about the Dark Knight job design. I think it's because of the face. The Black Mage face really doesn't fit the description that well. Don't know why, I just think they should have kept the human faces.

Now I'm a bit concerned on how they're gonna have to deal with Gafgarion's face too.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on with the look of the job. It seems a bit strange. It kinda cheapens Gafgarion - I wonder if it will be a class that can only be unlocked after

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

You kill him at the gate to Queklain's castle and he turns into a crystal.

That would be a nice twist on it.

Edit: Trying to see the battle sprites as well as I can, I think they actually look pretty cool. I'm just not a big fan of the concept art.

This post has been edited by Neal on 18th January 2007 22:16

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

I dunno, the look is a bit conflicting to me with the concept art. One hand, the black mage influence is intresting and makes the dark knight class look that bit more inhuman, on the other, there's just an strange... aura of oddness with them that makes something feel not quite right.

Maybe it's the pigtails on the female and the ponytail on the guy...

This post has been edited by Del S on 18th January 2007 22:17

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

Quote (The Ancient @ 18th January 2007 16:05)

I see that it really was a huge deal that I posted some news I was excited about. I know my doing so must've rendered it completely impossible to make a seperate newspost.

You guys win, I'm done with this forum.

I'm pretty sure that was meant with some humor, actually, and though I can't speak for laszlow I doubt it was directed at you or solely at you. But under our current setup, it is quite hard to repost news because we can't usually merge the topics and we don't really want redundant threads either.

Anyway, let's everyone else keep this on topic, since it actually is pretty cool news about the first FF thing that at least makes me perk up in quite some time.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (The Ancient @ 18th January 2007 16:05)

I see that it really was a huge deal that I posted some news I was excited about.  I know my doing so must've rendered it completely impossible to make a seperate newspost.

You guys win, I'm done with this forum.

It wasn't the fact that you posted it that got my goat, it was the way you said it:

Quote (The Ancient)

Some newshound would probably have posted this but I thought I'd share it anyway

Quote (The Ancient)

Come to think of it, there are a couple newsposters here who can post the news as more than just a blurb followed by 4 paragraphs of heavily biased editorial! Now I know.

Personally, I felt that those comments came across as demeaning. The first sentence of this newspost was just me returning your potshot. Sorry if I offended you.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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I'm kinda getting tired of the way Square is handling their series. I understand that there are many awesome characters in almost all their games and people want to see more of them, but why do they have to go in games where they don't belong? Balthier is probably my favorite character from FFXII...which is where he should stay. Unless they remake FFT in FFXII time period, this will not make any more sense than having Cloud in the original FFT.

Also, woot for Dark Knight. Never understodd why we couldn't go down that road in the original.



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"My impersonation of an ordinary person was flawless." - Neal

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." - Dr. Seuss

It always brings a twinge of pain to me when squenix use characters from other games in new storylines set on new worlds/ in new times , not only because it raises the question of how that character got to be in the other world/time, but because they never use the right characters, for instance say you finish tactics once, why not then unlock a "Deadeye" "Shinra trooper"or "SOLDIER" job class(which would make any blonde male character look like cloud) to play through the game again with, adding replay value as well as fan service.

If it does actually come out in the UK it might be the deciding factor is whether I buy a PSP or DS.

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Failure is not an option. its an art form

Well, to be honest, when I read this news I didn't really think about it at first, but now I see it as a tie-in to other Ivalice games if nothing else; Balthier supposedly has a storyline role, but I suspect that it isn't a main storyline role.

Work with me - the nature of FF Tactics' plot in general has little to do with airships, and in the game there is even evidence supporting the idea that airship travel doesn't exist in the FFT world (avoiding spoilers here, but think of the last mission).

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

My theory is that Final Fantasy XII takes place many many years BEFORE FF Tactics, but in the time of the Lion War airships are a relics from a forgotten civilization. Remember the mysterious airship ruins as the final battlefield? My guess is that there's a Balthier-themed major sidequest in the fourth chapter not unlike the Beowulf/Reis major sidequest, with Balthier somehow getting teleported into the FF Tactics timeline. The absence of airships (and thus air piracy) makes his existence in the main storyline of FF Tactics too difficult to explain. Thus, I suspect that he might even have a major sidequest dedicated to him (hence his "storyline role"), but on the level of Reis and Beowulf rather than Orlandu or Mustadio.

Edit

Quote (Cazboab)

If it does actually come out in the UK it might be the deciding factor is whether I buy a PSP or DS.

Keep in mind that both the DS and the PSP are region-free for games (UMD movies are region-coded and games aren't), so in the event that Europe never gets it but North America does, you could always import.

This post has been edited by laszlow on 18th January 2007 22:34

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Dark Knight looks neat. Are there any other confirmed job classes as of yet other than the Onion Knights and them?

Balthier also looks pretty awesome, noseless Yoshida design and all.

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

I like the look of the dark night. The Vivi-with-a-sword thing is kinda cute And I don't mind Balthier's addition to the game either. Since he's an Ivalician (I guess that would b the term. ha ha) his presence is at least more appropriate than was Cloud's appearace in the original. But then world hopping and time travel are both themes Square has tackled before, so I'm really not concerned about it. If it doesn't suck I'll be happy.

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Do you think we're forever?

Quote (Del S @ 18th January 2007 17:16)

I dunno, the look is a bit conflicting to me with the concept art. One hand, the black mage influence is intresting and makes the dark knight class look that bit more inhuman, on the other, there's just an strange... aura of oddness with them that makes something feel not quite right.

Maybe it's the pigtails on the female and the ponytail on the guy...

They look cartoonish, in a way even the wizard concept art didn't. They don't look menacing at all, they're almost comical. Like they'd fit in with 8-Bit Theater's take on Garland.

Of course the concept art isn't in the game, but from what I can tell of those blurry little screenshots, the battle sprites don't seem to look much better.

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Wasabi Viniagrette: Mix 1/3 C rice vinegar, 2 Tbsp sesame oil, and 2 tsp powdered wasabi. Excellent over cold udon noodles and shiitake mushrooms for a Japanese pasta salad.

FFXII and FFT take place in the same world apparently, which I can deal with despite all the messed-up expansiveness and whatnot. FFTA and Vagrant Story are supposed to be thrown in there as well, so I've no idea how this will turn out. Vagrant Story had grimoires that sealed magicks in them, and FFTA had a magicked grimoire and...yeah. 'Nuff about that.

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I rather like Balthier in FFXII, and he's one of the characters who's got more purpose than a few tagalongs I know. Plus, if he's in the Tactics remake, not only will we get another gunner (high-five Hamedo!) but it'll look awesome in cel-shaded effulgence. Ever since Wild ARMs 3 I've been in love with that style, and although I won't get a PSP unless one falls out of the sky, it's lookin' up from what I'd originally hoped. The Black Knight job sprite is iffy, but since it's a mishmash of Wizard + Knight, it's easily tolerable -- everyone always bemoans that they'd wish there were more classes in the FFT forum, and now we've got 'em! Night Sword looks awesome as ever, 'though I'm glad Gaffy escapes the sprite change.

I'll have a stroke if news of class ascension leaks, though.

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

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Plus, if he's in the Tactics remake, not only will we get another gunner (high-five Hamedo!)

I know nothing of Balthier, man, but if you would be willing to vouch for him, then he can't be all bad.

He's seriously a gunner? *drool* If he's able to duel wield, I might wet myself.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978