Classic Final Fantasy (I-X) fans, come post

[Scoobes]

darkknightkryta said:

Kinneas14 said:

What do you guys think about FF XII?

I know that it was/is an abused topic, but I'm doubtful about it.

It's one of the few games that I bought on day1, I remember that I was super excited, but for me it was a let down, in general.

Characters, and the story, were bland, and not deep enough. For example how the heck is Ashe supposed to team up with Basch if she thinks that he killed his father?! And Vaan, somebody said that Square-Enix made him in a way that the player would identify himself....bah, that's not an excuse to make such a soulless main character.

Talking about combat system, it was a good idea, Gambit were something fresh, but at a certain point of the game I was so strong that I defeated King Behemot (yes, King Behemot!!) without touching the controller. So I feel like it was a missed opportunity, it seemed a good strategy system, but it ended up taking to the player the possibility to control the party.

In conclusion, I really like FFXII as a "normal" game, in fact I think that if it wasn't called FF, everybody would have said that it was a masterpiece, but, for me, it was a bad/decent FF (better than XIII, though).

My biggest problem with Final Fantasy XII was actually gameplay/style issues.  Most of the game takes place in these dark, barren dungeons.  And while the combat system wasn't bad, and it was thought out, there just wasn't any strategy.  Mist charges were a BIG mistake, it made me not summon cause I'd rather waste my charges on the quickens.  They gave you so many magicks, yet they were all useless cause melee is a better option.  As far as the story goes, the dialogue itself was well written, but the overall plot was lacking in focus.  We find out that Ashe wants to get revenge on Vayne and get her kingdom back, which is good... until they completely loose focus and start focusing on these elder gods and their war against the fallen god who was helping Vayne.  They didn't build up Vayne at all and the worse I've seen of him was killing his father.  The judges were wasted as most of them died with no build up.  Vaan and Penelo were unfortunately shoehorned into the story, which wouldn't have been so bad had they developed the plot point of Vaan seeing Ashe's husband just to say he never saw him and it was his brother... and that still didn't lead anywhere other than Ashe being controlled by the elder gods vs Vayne being controlled by the fallen god.  You know what would have been a good idea?  Cutting out the "gods" from the story.  Like there's a lot there, the fall of Nabudice (However it's spelled), Cid being Balthier's father, the manufactured nethicite, etc.  It's just all these plot points play second fiddle half way through the game for the god story arc.  Last point on the subject, but I think this game is where Square's problems starting showing.  Their inability to understand their fanbase, I'm sure iMatsuno was forced off the project cause Wada/Kitase/Toriyama don't understand their fanbase and assume the contrived writing in their current games is what is wanted.  I mean Final Fantasy XII could have had the most mature and well written story of them all, but it was never meant to be.

I agree with a lot of what's written above. Whilst XII had some enjoyable moments and although I enjoyed the battle system, there were too many elements that felt out of place. The story was told poorly even though it had some of the most interesting plotlines in the series. I'd also agree that it's where SE started to show problems. Great ideas that weren't entirely fleshed out due to poor business decisions.