Alpha First Look: Video 2 - Gridania

[Davy]

"Old Gridania"?

I would say that Old Gridnia is just as the name suggest. Old Gridania. . .

We are about to enter a War. In war things are destroyed and moved. There might be parts of the city that could not be remade after the war, thus the citizens were forced to develop the undeveloped parts of the forest and make New Gridania. Just like in real like if a war was to happen.

A hint of this would be look at the Conj Guild. There was a stream on the right that is no longer there and been replaced by a rock.

[Lemmiwinks]

maybe I just expect too much from SE but this video and the one before it are just a bucketload of meh to me. Nothing in either of them yet to get me excited. Nothing bad either, so I am still looking forward to ARR, but nothing in them that makes me 'excited'

[Davy]

Some aspects were a bit on the noisy side.. all those banners and all were very JUST IN CASE YOU FORGOT YOU'RE IN GRIDANIA. But that aside, some of the new elements, like that dock, really were lovely..

Sad to see the character animations are still suffering a fair bit though .. bleh.

Also good lord that aetherite was a bit.. o.o And the change in music I'm not completely sure I'm comfortable with either..

Still, not so uncomfortable as I feared it'd be I admit. But why on earth does the UI feel compelled to constantly make sure we know we're playing solo? And I hope there'll be a free camera option.. 's bad enough with mouse and keyboard but that'll be horrid as a gamepad user.

But why on earth does the UI feel compelled to constantly make sure we know we're playing solo?

People would complain about a cure for cancer.

Judging were we came from, going to and the future, this is a MAJOR upgrade.

[Davorok]

I love the boat docks! Makes me curious to find out what exactly we'll be seeing with it! Maybe our own boats?

My guess is the boat dock leads to our Personal Housing.

Looks great SE. Keep up the good work. I am very anxious to Rejoin this Reborn Realm.

[Babydoll]

I also like the zone lines...it took me a while to think of where that was from then it hit me..lol FF12 =D Looks really nice!

[Seyra]

In the Live Letter you can see a little step that makes the camera turn by itself and a little after Yoshida changes his Gear Set you can see him rotating the camera without making the character pan.

I think it's included in different control options, you may not have to worry.

[Kagato]

Looks better than it used to be. But I'm stoked to see how Limsa Lominsa is going to look. Everyone hated it's original design so I look forward to seeing the improvements.

I'm predicting a multi-layered area again, but less branch-offs... like FFXI's Jeuno.

[Sounsyy]

Gridania looks absolutely amazing! It really feels like a city reborn and not a whole new city, which is what I hoped for. The zone itself is gorgeous. There were parts that reminded me of Windurst Waters zone, the residential section that people never went to lol. I do have to agree with an earlier poster that Gridania looked a little dry in some places while lush in others. Maybe it's the lighting(which is beautiful and very foresty).

cons: I miss inertia. =/

[JGwinters]

Looks pretty good, I like the detail! ...then again, I don't like how dry and washed out it all looks. That seems to be more of a stylistic choice and thus something they're not likely to change, judging by how just about every screenshot they've given out suffers from the same thing, other than the really dark ones. It's too bad...
Also not fan of how they still haven't fixed the animations. Not to mention the way the character moves when the camera rotates. Should definitely be two different things.

Other than for those two (a major issue of gameplay and a minor issue of stylistic choice) I'm all for it. Bring it on already.

[Vilhem]

So does this mean they won't be using Uematsu's music? I kinda liked the old Grid music better =/ Not that this one's bad it's just not... Grid D:

Visually its stunning though. The devs have done an amazing job