twesterm on 26 April 2010
I can't rate FFXIII since I haven't played it and I'm probably more than a year away from playing it, but I can rate FFXII!
I've tried to get into this game a few times and each time I get anywhere from 12 to 20 hours into it and it's just painful. Where do I start?
- Characters/Story -- I've heard that around 20 hours in the characters and story begin to get interesting but that's bullshit. I shouldn't have to sit through 20 hours of bad to get to the good. Most of the characters have little to no reason to be there. The main kid (whose name escapes me at the moment) has no reason what-so-ever to be there and is there only to annoy you. Balthier and Fran are there for, well, fuck if I know. They were bored? Ashe and her buddy knight guy have a reason, but Ashe is a giant bitch and I have no reason to like her. The story is just a mess and I stopped caring long before I quit the game.
- The game has like four beginnings -- First you start off with the parade and then Ashe gets "killed". Then you start off with the random soldier and that other soldier gets "killed". Finally you get Vahn (aha! I remembered his name) and I'm sitting there wondering if he's going to die too. I immediately felt no attachement to this character because I was sure they were going to yank him away from me in 20 minutes.
- Horrible beginning -- along with starting you several different times, you don't actually really do anything for the first 15 or so minutes and it isn't until you're hours into the game that you even do anyything interesting. Look at the first hour of any of the good FFF games and then look at the first hour of FFXII. They did a terrible job at drawing the player into the game.
- Gambit System -- I loved the idea of the gambit system, I just hate how they implemented it. They start you off with such terrible gambits that it isn't worth learning. No, I don't want you to heal me every time I get below 90% health. If they just would have started me off with a better library of gambits or even given me access to a better library of gambits it would be great, but they didn't. They don't even start to give you decent ones until much later in the game and by that points I don't care.
- License Grid - another great idea gone terribly wrong. The first big problem is you can't see what you're working towards. The sphere grid from FFX was cool because I knew where I was going, the license grid I just kind of had to hope the space two away from me was helpful. Additionally, the system encouraged every character to be exactly the same. All my characters except Fran had the same weapon/armor setup and magic because it was simply the best. One was exactly the same as the other (except slightly different stats that really didn't matter much). I only made Fran different just so I didn't go crazy from having a party of cones.
- MMO but not - The one thing the game did right was making the world feel alive. If you've played FFXI you know this game feels like it and just feels alive.
All in all this is just a shitty shitty shitty game. I wish I could rant more about it but it has been 4 or more years since I last played and those are my biggest gripes I remember. All in all, bad game. My biggest problem is just that it apparently takes 20 hours to get good and that's just bullshit. Making a player play through 20 hours of bad and then 80+ hours of padding is a shitty thing to do to the player.
2/10
