Galvanizer said:
LOL! You are seriously trying to compare the open map design of FFXII to the linear pathways of FFX? Seriously? You couldn't be more wrong, bro. FFX doesn't come close to the openess of the world of FFXII. It's not even in the same league. Also, I've played through FFXII over 11 times (currently on my 12th playthrough) and I can comfortably tell you that you can get to certain areas long, long, long before the story dictates you should go there. The game is very unrestricted in terms of exploration. It only restricts a few locations, while everywhere else is possible to be reached. FFX just gave you an airship to revist locations right before you faced the last boss. That's nothing like the freedom that FFXII offered. Also, the story was not slowly paced. Stop riding on preconceptions on what the ideal pacing of a story should be. That's you downfall when critcising FFXII. As a video game, there's no rule on how fast or slow a story should be portrayed. What's most important is the gameplay and how that's paced. FFXII has fantastic gameplay pacing. You will travel to loads of areas and have long stretches of gameplay between story. As a video game, that's a good thing. Wanting more cinematics for the sake of story is simply you desiring FFXII to have been an interactive movie. As I said before, they did not design eveything to be obtainable. They deliberately made it so it would be almost impossible to get 100% completion. For example, the only way to get the Zodiac Spear is by using a RNG exploit. If you don't use the RNG method and try and get the weapon in a legit way, there's a crazy low rate of getting it. It's a 1/100 chance of the chest that holds it appearing, and then a 1/1000 chance of it actually being in the chest. Good luck trying to get the weapon legitametly. Lastly, what makes a character interesting to me? Not much. The most important aspects are their dialogue, beliefs, and goals. I don't give a shit about extensive backstory and extensive character development. This is not a novel. Just give me a character that has great dialogue, an intriguing belief, and a goal they want to achieve by the end of the game. That's enough for me to be engaged by them during our journey through the game. After all, Link is my fave video game character and he has very little back story or character development in any of the Zelda games he's been in. Heck, he doesn't even talk! LOL! |
I hate it when I don't get noticed if I'm not the first person you quote. Makes it harder to response in time.
I'm not comparing map designs, I'm comparing openness in practice. The first thing I tried to do when I played FFXII was to explore areas I wasn't supposed to go to. I got owned, totally. Whenever I tried to go that wasn't where the story tried to make me go, the enemies were far too powerful. Maybe I had bad luck but I certainly couldn't go anywhere. Open in theory, not in practice. No fun going somewhere you get owned so quickly.
Are you trying to argue I should ignore the pacing because it doesn't matter as long as gameplay pacing is good? Because that's exactly what it feels like you're trying to say. I don't care what an ideal pacing is, the pacing in FFXII felt wrong and that's what matters to me. As for gameplay pacing, it wasn't very good either. Gameplay in FFXII is fun but not quite great, which in turn means I didn't find it interesting to grind through dozens of enemies for an hour or two before having a proper break. And that was the majority of gameplay in the game.
As far as I know, it's not a RNG problem. It was even mentioned in the official guidebook if I recall correctly. Too bad I missed that piece when I was playing the game. And every other item in the game is somewhat easily obtainable, so I don't really see why you're still trying to argue they didn't mean the player to get everything if he wanted to. If they didn't mean it that way, they failed.
Your definition of an interesting character is something I can somewhat agree with. However, in FFXII's case, IIRC most characters didn't really get much dialogue and as foor Vaan and Penelo, I don't even remember their goals. I think it was along the lines "our situation sucks, we demand justice" and then they went with the flow. Either way, they were totally forgottable characters and especially with Vaan being pretty much the main character, that's a problem. The rest were somewhat interesting but with the story pacing of the game, didn't really stand out. As for Link, I can't really say because I haven't played a Zelda game ever. If I had to guess, if he's an interesting character, it's because of what he does, his personality, and the fact that he's on the screen pretty much all the time so you get to know him (and no one's stealing the attention from him).
Overall, I get the impression that because we're talking about games, you want the story to be as minimalistic as possible at the expense of gameplay. Nothing wrong with that opinion but you might want to consider the fact that other people may not think the same way as you do. Personally, everything from pure gameplay to something that's practically an interactive movie is fine as long as it's a fun experience. When I play games, I don't think "I play games, I want this kind of an experience". I don't care if it's a game-like experience as long as it's fun. FFXII was fun but certainly not something that was "ahead of its time" or anything. It got the critique it got because it had flaws, it didn't appeal to all the people it tried to appeal to. Some people could live with the flaws and perhaps not even see them as flaws, while others could not, and the latter group was (and is) pretty big too.
