I figured out why FF12 sucked!

[Kasz216]

AkibaFan said:

Aftr doing lots of research I summarized in pargrph below:

It stems from Squenix dumbing down Yasumi Matsuno's dark fantasy, realistic medieval world. Final Fantasy Tactics (although the ending turned into generic Final Fantasy KILL GOD! drivel) and Vagrant Story were masterpieces in story telling and didn't fall under the trap of the average JRPG where it must star a plucky teenager who fights against fallen deities while discovering the meaning of friendship or whatever. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance wasn't meant to be canon but Squenix realized the sudden appeal and monetary grab bag of a colorful world full of lizard-men and cat-girls and immediately set about to raping Matsuno's universe.

The biggest crime of Final Fantasy XII is Squenix's meddling. They wanted to remove Basch and Ashe as main characters and add Vaan and Penelo because Japanese gamers apparently don't like anyone who's older than 20 in the lead role. Matsuno said "You know what? Fuck you guys!" and left the company. When questioned he stated that he was "annoyed" by Squenix, their meddling, and the way the game was being handled. Indeed the game's biggest delay was because, while 3/4 finished, they had to add in two new characters to please the shitty test audiences.

What could have been a gripping story in the same vein as Tactics and Vagrant story was ruined by corporate meddling. The end result felt incredibly childish. Faint glimmers of hope poked through but ultimately the game has a terrible story to gameplay ratio. You'll receive this massive chunk of exposition followed by 20 hours of walking through huge fields filled with a gauntlet of monsters. Every area feels like a massive filler and the game could have been completely cut in half and still have the story remain intact.

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it is corprate meddling tht killed its potential. companies shud let game makers do wht they wnt to do, not force them to do sumthing they dnt want to do like wht hppnd with Infinity Ward.

You should check out Tactics Ogre.  Which was a Matsuno game... it was about... a plucky teenager, fighting against monsters and fallen deities.

I doubt that was the exact reason.

 

Matsuno himself has been dumbing down his work since the Ogre Battle series to better fit consumers.  He's said as much.  He definitly had problems with square... but he wasn't beyond "dumbing down" his work... as he'd been consiously doing it for a while.

 

Storywise FF Tactics is a dumbed down Tactics Ogre.

With the Advanced series even further simplyfying the plots... though without "dumbing" it down and just shifting targets.