Final Fantasy 12

[benos]

http://www.ffnet.org/images/ff12logo.jpg[/IMG]

Let's talk about FF12 again, since the last topic was a year ago. ^_^

http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=459841&topic=35419289

Guide to your questions and answers. But of course you don't to be spoiled

I just started again, and possible hoping that i beat the game around level 80-90 this time. ':|

Longest Fantasy ever, if you don't do a speed run.

 

[bojjenclon]

Ok. How bout the obvious. Is it any good?

 

[Calibre]

I thought it was boring, at least until where I played up to. Ever since FF hit the PS2 it started to totally change and lose all the features I liked. I guess those that saw the transition to PS1 may feel the same. It changed even more so with the 12th incarnation.

I couldn't care less about the characters, the towns were boring, the dungeons even more so. I think I played about 12 hours in and didn't even encounter a puzzle. I stopped when you just run across some sort of rig in the desert for ages (which looks the same throughout).

I'm hoping FF13 revisits it's routes a little but I doubt it will. It will play out like a fullblown adventure game by the 14th.

I don't know why but I really am beginning to miss the fixed camera views in rpgs too...

 

[bojjenclon]

I feel the sam way. Thats why I asked. FF7 was my favorite.

 

[Mist]

There was too little character development and too much fighting. It didn't have anything of the old FF-spirit, except for some creature names or something. The Occuria were kind of a stupid addition. Why just introduce and not develop them further? Anyway, the game was a big disappointment story-wise, but the gameplay was pretty amusing at least.

 

[benos]

If Vaan and Penelo did not exist, then the game will be much better. I actually like Balthier and Fran to be the main lead. Basch kicks ass. Ashe is okay, but still lacks character in areas.

Vaan and Penelo should of been just minor characters that get caught up in Balthier and Fran's castle break in.

I guess you guys were rushing though the game, just boringly level up. You don't have to fill up all the licence board though.

I have to say i give it a 8/10, it was good. But not as great in areas where you might have to get to level 40 just to not get owned by Gilmore Jungle monsters, and such. But it's FTAA homage, and your bound to meet high level characters deathing all your creatures. I rather over level. :yes:

I guess the storyline was less important with character dev, but more in depth with fighting, gambits, etc. Vaan sucks, Penelo is okayish but still sucks. Ashe is great. Basch, nothing wrong with him. Fran and Balthier are cool.

 

[Diedrupo]

It's the best FF game I've played. There, I said it.

I loved the characters, the political story, and especially the gameplay. FF12 was definately a game meant for hardcore RPG gamers and not the casual crowd that prefers their cinematics be spoonfed and their stories be light on intelligence and heavy on action/anime crap.

FF12 rocks. One of the few FF games worth playing through to the end.

 

[darkace77450]

Im a big FFXI player, so FFXII just didn't deliver in the control system. The board idea was pretty boring since we already did basically the same thing in FFX. The story was decent though. The starting town was too empty for how big it was (NPCs walking around that you cant even talk to does not make the town seem full, busy, nor bustling).

I feel FFXIII is going to be so far from what the FF series is that it will be FF in name only. Im not looking foward to it sadly.

darkace77450

 

[Rye]

I thought the game was nice, nothing too "omg" for me though. The Final Fantasy have all been fun to play, but not the "omg" feel they once had when I was younger.

The only thing that possible bothered me about FFXII was the amount of sidequests you basically had to do to have your levels high enough to go for the next area (in my opinion anyway) and I really felt Vann and Penelo didn't get enough characterization.

But, it was fun, and I enjoyed it.

---
Oh, edit:
Another reason I like the gameplay better than the other Final Fantasies is that I could go into a really high level area and not be killed if I plan it right. (I can get the strongest weapon in the middle of the game, which helped so much! :>) I like the battles because random encounters were just so lame and I could never get any random encounters when I wanted to level up, only when I was trying to avoid them. Here, if I wanted to level up, I could go find the monsters, and if I wanted to avoid them, I could also do that. Much nicer than the original system.

 

[Reaper*]

Don't forget ff12 is vagrant story and final fantasy tactics together so that's why it's not the same as the other final fantasies.

The only thing i want to say is why all you people say that ff7 is great apart the story it didn't have a great gameplay. Sephiroth is the last boss and i killed him with one hit totally sucks.

The weapons are stronger then him apart the flying one that's the weakest one. The one under the sea when you damage him high he makes an attack that deals 1111 for every material equiped and the one in the sand has an impenetrable defense if you don't get a black chocobo and fly to an island to get a summon that's good against him.

The only thing i liked in ff7 is the story, the limit and the materials.

Now back to ff12 for me that i prefer the game this way i like it very much except the part some people said.

I didn't liked the movie when you start new game when they kill the husband of ashe and then the brother of vaan they were alot cooler as a main character then vaan mostly the husband of ashe (he had a really cool armour and one of the ones that had white clear hair not yellowish.)

Then you start with vaan as a bandit and meet with balthier and fran and as other people said these two look good in the game although it would make the game bad if the main character was balthier.
He's a sky pirate so he came with them for money although didn't got anything at last hehe.

Basch is not a bad character either but the part he had a twin brother if you didn't looked well in the cutscene you wouldn't have noticed that when the brother of vaan get's hit it was basch's brother rather then basch himself.

The empire had some strange looking armour looked like star wars some of them but apart from that i like the stroy.

And for those that say about the hunts i like it if you want to make it you need to train and there are many places to try at and you can visit the map in certian areas after you visit the shrine were ashe an vaan see the spirit of ashe husband(forgot his name)

I'll stop here.

This game rocks and i will never say anything different from that.

 

[ccoa]

I loved the characters, the political story, and especially the gameplay. FF12 was definately a game meant for hardcore RPG gamers and not the casual crowd that prefers their cinematics be spoonfed and their stories be light on intelligence and heavy on action/anime crap.

I'm a hardcore RPG gamer, and I thought it was total crap.

I liked the story.

What there was of it. The story wasn't well developed and would have suited a much shorter (gameplay wise) game. The politics were incredibly simplistic, and the villains weren't all that hateable or sympathetic.

Spoiler

About the time that the empire attacked Bur-Omisace for no apparent reason or gain, I groaned in disgust. Not only did I have no reason to care about these people, but now the villains are acting like stereotypes just to make me hate them more. Yay.

The level and money grinding was incredibly tedious. Essentially, it had all the drawbacks of an MMORPG, without any of the perks.

The AI was faster and smarter (the gambits can see stats that you can't!) at the battle system than any player could be, so you would play better by setting up more gambits, but that reduced the fun factor in that the game was essentially playing itself. So... Your choices are: play yourself and need more levels because you're not as fast as the AI (fun, more level grinding!), or let the game play itself and sit back and watch...

The dungeons were simply awful - long paths with one or two routes, no real puzzles, no really interesting terrain or areas. The random treasure thing definately didn't work for me. I did not walk all that way and fight all those amazingly tedious battles just to get 8 gil.

The characters were as deep as rain puddles, with almost no character development and no significant changes. Penelo is especially guilty of this, but all of the characters are to some degree. I wasn't able to get attached to any of them, and really couldn't have cared less if all of them had up and died.

The game was full of fantasy killers (walk from hot steaming jungle to freezing blizzard-y mountain! You can't wear a hat unless you have a license for it!). If you're not going to have a world map, at least have some transition between environments.

The last boss battle was pathetic. I got up to get a soda, came back, and he was dead for me.

And if felt like a rip-off of Skies of Arcadia.

Yeah. That about sums it up. Huge disappointment for me.

 

[Calibre]

Seriously, I think the main thing for me was the dungeon areas. It was just the same thing over and over again... someone tell me it gets a bit more variety later into the game and perhaps I'll boot it back up. They no longer feel like exciting areas to explore but just labyrinths of corridors where everywhere looks the same. Usually I'd just be staring at the minimap whilst running around. The towns didn't feel distinguished enough either.

...And Diedrupo, I don't think there is any need to suggest that if you didn't like 12 but like other mainstream RPG's then you are not a hardcore RPG gamer and prefer your stories spoon-fed. Perhaps some of us didn't like it quite simply because we found it dull.

EDIT: was Posting same time as ccoa.

 

[Sirc]

I agree with Ccoa and some of the previous opinions here. I've played every Final Fantasy game that hit the shores of America. Final Fantasy 12 does not do justice to it's name. I honestly quit playing about half way through because I thought it was terrible, I wasn't having fun, I wasn't immersed in the world.

One of the main things it failed to do was kick off with a bang. I'm not talking about some obscure well-done cinematic, because that's exactly what Final Fantasy XII has. I'm talking about an intriguing plot. Final Fantasy VII throws you in the midst of a rebellion in the slums of a metropolis. You don't know what exactly you're doing, but you slowly figure it out, it's intriguing.
Final Fantasy IX has you kidnapping a princess with your band of thieves. You don't exactly know how or why. You're in this populated city with all these events going on at once and that all come together for a grand explosion into the world of Gaia.

Those are just some examples. Now Final Fantasy XII puts you in a city whose structure you know all too well. I feel like I've seen this before, it's bland. You're a thief and you're doing dirty work. There's a war going on (who would've guessed?) and chances are you're going to be a part of it.

All in all, it lacked mystery. Everything was explained to me, and it gave me no motivation to move onward because it wasn't essentially that interesting.

Plus I hated the battle system. I like being in complete control of my characters, and if you turn off the AI patterns you're at a disadvantage.

 

[Diedrupo]

Seriously, I think the main thing for me was the dungeon areas. It was just the same thing over and over again... someone tell me it gets a bit more variety later into the game and perhaps I'll boot it back up. They no longer feel like exciting areas to explore but just labyrinths of corridors where everywhere looks the same. Usually I'd just be staring at the minimap whilst running around. The towns didn't feel distinguished enough either.

...And Diedrupo, I don't think there is any need to suggest that if you didn't like 12 but like other mainstream RPG's then you are not a hardcore RPG gamer and prefer your stories spoon-fed. Perhaps some of us didn't like it quite simply because we found it dull.

EDIT: was Posting same time as ccoa.

I read Ccoa's opinion and I can understand how she feels that way about the game. I would respect her opinion even though I don't agree with it or feel that any of the elements she pointed out were bad or flawed (I in fact, enjoyed most of them, especially the grinding - which is an essential element of all previous FF games anyway).

However, I don't see how you can say FF12's dungeons were bland and unexciting when they were essentially no different than the dungeons in FFX. Everyone in this thread who did not like FF12, stated they did not like it for reasons ranging from boring characters to not liking the heavily political story, to not liking the hardcore grinding gameplay. To me, those are signs of people who dislike RPGs that focus on hardcore RPGing elements and highly intelligent stories, because you're complaining about the very things that us hardcore gamers enjoy in RPGs.

 

[Sirc]

My primary focus also is that you have to expect a lot from Square-enix's Final Fantasy franchise, it isn't supposed to suffice as the ordinary RPG. They were always ahead of their time in story-telling elements, or innovative features, or graphics. Nothing in Final Fantasy XII gives it that original feel. And that isn't because I wasn't expecting it to, because I was. I was expecting it to be as grand as it's predecessors, even if FFX-2 threw me off.
If anything it seemed to me a bit late.

 

[astrin24]

I personally think that Final Fantasy XII is the best Final Fantasy video game of all time. There's just so much to do apart from continuing the main story like completing hunts, doing tasks for certain people and finding hidden treasures. They've obviously taken inspiration from Online RPGs like Kal Online and Silkroad (both I found a bit boring, but that's just my opinion) and made it a thousand times better. I must complain that there ain't as many plot twists as previous games but all in all the introduction of a fully 3D environment instead of a pre-rendered one (sorry, I ahven't played FF11 lol!) and great graphics and characters and a great new battle system adds up to be the greatest FF of all time.

Phew! Did anyone feel a sense of a great adventure when they were traveling and exploring? I sure did!

I loved the towns especially! So huge and full of life! This game creates incredible atmosphere.

 

[Mega Flare]

FF12 Had a great story imo, but the game was lacking in the gameplay... worst FF battle system EVER

 

[LightAndMagic]

Quick post before work:

It was meh. A truly meh game. Had absolutely beautiful graphics, and had a pretty amazing battle system, but other than that...

The story had absolutely no plot twists or interesting events. Pretty much what you read in the manual is what you get, which I didn't like. The only somewhat plot twist revealed near the end of the game felt incredibly tacked on, and I don't think really served a purpose.

While I liked the character's designs and personality (except for Vaan, but I don't think anyone liked him) they had absolutely no development, or very little. Which wasn't great.

The dungeons were kinda boring. They looked nice. But there were no puzzles, so it was just running through. Luckily, I enjoyed the battle system so it wasn't too bad.

But yeah. It was alright. But in terms of story, it was very dismal and boring.

 

[Marcus]

It was a good story wrapped in a pretty average game which kind of equaled out to be only slightly above average.

I loved the story. While I hated the obvious Japanese influenced nuances (bunny girls, half naked ambiguously gay pirates, mysterious villains with large helmets) I'm a sucker for political intrigue where the focus isn't so much on saving the world as much as it is keeping the world from coming down on you. The story was very personal and the characters, despite the the odd design decision (I WANT TO KILL WHOEVER THE RAPED THE MOOGLES DESIGN) the story and atmosphere were top notch.

Then you get to the actual game...

I loved the battle system. Hands down, one of the favorites in Final Fantasy except for FFX. The thing was, outside of combat there was absolutely nothing to do. The combat and skills also fluctuated; things started off super slow at the early levels, picked up midway through, slowed down again, and then picked up as you got close to the end and spellcasters actually became pretty powerful. They tried to incorporate some puzzles... THROUGH COMBAT but it all boiled down to "kill monster A until monster B appears" or "don't cast spells near monster C or else you'll get your ass whooped." It was nice seeing neutral monsters way past your level early on and monsters that attacked each other, but it didn't save the game.

Basically, mediocre gameplay killed this. This game was pure number crunching and the good story only helped me crunch my way through it.

 

[Prexus]

I agree entirely with ccoa except for one thing;

I loved the game.

Every Final Fantasy, and RPG in general, requires level grinding just like any MMORPG. The benefit in FF12 is that the Gambits are there to take care of the difficult work for you.

The game can't be won without player involvement, that is to say, you at least need to decide what gambits you want to use.

There is -no- information that a Gambit can know that you can't. You simply need to keep Libra up and properly target the monsters to see their vitals. Yes, the Gambits know this without all that, but it is not impossible to know it by yourself.

The only gripe I have with the game is that there is no reason, whatsoever, to specialize your characters. White Magic and High-Damage weaponry is all you need. Black Magic is situational, Time/Green even more so, accessories are OPTIONAL in every sense of the word, and the Techniques DEFINE the word Situational. Quickenings are too powerful, as once you have 3 you rarely run out of mana except on boss fights, and they are particularly easy to access especially if you aren't bothered with powering up all three of your characters in the beginning.

The License Board stuff is -thankfully- being fixed in the FF12: International Zodiac Job System edition, but we will never see it.

Also, summons are quite boring. I really don't think I ever used one except when the guide told me to use the fire guy against one of the Hunt marks... which I could easily have done without.

But I -still- like the game. Because it offers a lot. There are tons of side quests, plenty of optional content, ultimate weapons to gather and the Zodiac Spear is ridiculous to get without a Guide at an almost Phylomortic proportion.

Every boss fight was fun, and interesting. Coming up with strategies to beat them was more fun than any dungeon puzzle or deep character development to me. Thinking to use Sleep on any boss, then switching all my Gambits to sleep+magic if they were effected by Sleep just made my heart pitterpatter with love for the game. Lindwyrm, eat your heart out BIZNATCH. And who can argue that the Yiazmat fight wasn't one of the most epic fights they've ever been in?

I have nothing but love for FF12, despite all of its flaws, because it is still enjoyable.

Super Mario Bros 3 didn't have an epic battle system, or a complex story, or good graphics. But we can all agree that despite all that, it was fun to play. Gameplay wins out over any flaw if it's good.