Final Fantasy XII's Speed Mode

I started digging into the remastered Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age this week. One of the coolest, and freshest, changes in this remaster is the addition of speed mode: with the press of a button you can speed up the game by 2x or 4x! This makes traversing the vast landscapes and grinding much, much more pleasant. This feature also pairs really well with the game’s Gambit system which effectively lets you program how each character should act when faced with different circumstances. Set up all your characters and let it rip at 4x as you run across a field full of enemies.

This system addresses a few of the chief complaints about JRPGs: grinding is annoying and fighting trash mobs is tedious. I’m a big fan of these quality-of-life improvements in JRPGs and previously wrote about how Bravely Default added some options to make battles more manageable. Features like speed mode (and auto-battling in Bravely Default) will allow more traditional JRPGs to have more staying power.